Sinners Wanted

All Christians are saints by virtue of Christ’s perfect righteousness. The problem arises when Christians begin to think and act like they are somehow better or holier or less sinful than others. That’s hypocrisy and it has no place in Christ’s Church.

Martin Luther sums this up beautifully in his sermons on the Gospel of Saint John:

May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the faint-hearted, the feeble, and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sin, and who suffer persecution for the sake of the Word, which they confess and teach purely and without adulteration.

Luther’s Works XXII 55

Christ’s Church is for sinners. Period. No exceptions. May our merciful God preserve us from a Christian Church in which anyone believes he is a saint apart from Christ’s mercy. Come to God’s house each Lord’s Day a sinner, be fed with Word and Sacrament, and then return home in His forgiveness—i.e. a saint!