Sinner AND Saint

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

So why is there still so much trouble in our personal lives and the lives of other Christians? Why are Christians almost just as likely to have failed marriages, commit fraud, lie or steal as non-Christians?

A Christian is both a sinner AND a saint, that’s why. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says we have the treasure of the Gospel (which makes us saints) in clay jars (our sinful lives). In Romans 5, he writes about the Old Adam that lives side by side in us with the New Adam, Christ. To Jesus, a man begging for his child’s life says, “I believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Holding the two things in our minds simultaneously can be difficult. When we are feeling good about ourselves, we forget we are sinners (which is one reason why Christians can do terrible things when they think they are right; see, for example, the Spanish Inquisition). When we are feeling bad about ourselves, we can forget that Christ makes us saints. In both situations, it is Christ’s death and resurrection that makes us right with God, not our feelings about how we are living.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, it is possible to recognize we are simultaneously sinner AND saint. In fact, I would argue not just possible, but necessary to think this way in order to understand our struggles and history!

We really can’t separate the saint from the sinner, but let me oversimplify with a couple examples. This year, 2025, we are celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. (Just think about that: how many times do we celebrate 1700 year anniversaries?!). The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE was a brilliant work of the Holy Spirit through leaders to explain how Jesus was fully human and fully divine in terms of Greek philosophy (e.g., “begotten not made”, “of one being with the Father”). But at the same time, it was also instigated by Constantine’s need for political unity in a fractious empire. The church was used for political purposes. Christians can and should admit the arrogant manipulation of the faith and criticize it.

But this is an oversimplification: God works hidden through sinful humanity to bring grace and life. God redeems the sinner in Christ. We can’t point at this or that event or person as purely sinner or saint. Instead we have to be humble about our claims to righteousness or knowledge. Only Christ forgives sin and makes saints!

Keeping the saint/sinner in mind helps us in our moment in history to receive criticism with humility AND to criticize human arrogance. Some require ideological purity that falls into the trap of self-righteousness. For example, there are some who say we can’t criticize Israel’s war on Gaza because criticism is “antisemitic.” They claim that Israel has the right to protect itself as if that means Israel is above criticism. Hamas has committed evil, don’t get me wrong. I wrote about this after Oct 7. But it is hard to see how bombing hospitals and schools or multiple forced relocations of families is protecting Israel’s right to exist. If we fail to criticize such abuses of power, we enable a fiction of righteousness to kill and destroy. It is possible, even necessary, to say that Israel has a right to exist AND that Israel is acting immorally in this war. With humility that comes from awareness we are still sinners, Christians can and should do this.

Similarly, it should be possible, even necessary, for Christians to criticize the US Government for its policies that are lawless or immoral. How can a Christian stay silent when people who are legally in the United States and have never been convicted of a crime are arrested and deported without due process guaranteed by law? How can we remain silent when threats to cut Medicaid will harm the weakest and most vulnerable? There is a difference between trying to make government more efficient and throwing government into chaos. As sinners, we know that human beings will try to justify the means by the ends (e.g., taking a chainsaw to government to make a smaller and more efficient government). As sinners, we should criticize our own tendencies to lawlessness and ask the Holy Spirit to help us change. As saints, we are free in Christ to speak out against abuses of power, knowing we are justified by Christ not that we are right on every issue.

The living Jesus Christ is the only hope we have. Being sinners, our every thought and action is tainted by the inclination to rebel against God. As saints saved by Jesus’s death and resurrection, our every thought and action may be used by Christ for his glory. If sin is inescapable, I’ll sin to help the powerless rather than the powerful and trust Christ to work somehow through it.

Living Christ, please guide us!

Pastor Peter