Recently, one of our Church members went through the painful grief of her father’s death. Hospice did an excellent job of providing a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere for the family to be with him and say their goodbyes. While at his bedside, she had a conversation with someone on the subject of angels. This was prompted by a note they had seen on a bulletin board in the facility. A grieving daughter wrote that her mother who had just died, was now an “angel in heaven.”

This is a nice sentiment, surely meant to honor her mother in a time of grief. But this is not an uncommon notion—that humans become angels. We, like angels, are beautiful creatures who serve God by doing wonderful things. However, people do not become angels when they die. I’m not sure how and when this common misconception came about, but I’ve heard and seen it repeated many, many times.

Angels are spiritual beings created by God (Psalm 148:1-5), at or before the creation of the heavens and the earth (Job 38:4-7). Therefore, unlike us, they have existed since the creation of the world. Besides the Cherubim and Seraphim who minister in the throne room of God, the primary role of angels is to be “ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). In other words, their mission is to minister to Christians.

Though I love the story of Clarence getting his angel’s wings in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” angelic beings and human beings are two separate races of creatures created by God, and we should not confuse the two!

Unfortunately, a similar misconception exists regarding Christians and Saints. This misconception is that saints are a special breed of Christians who outperform the rest of us. They do miraculous and wonderful things and live on a plane of holiness out of this world. They are rewarded with sainthood in heaven for their fantastic achievements on earth. The idea is that all saints are Christians, but not all Christians are saints.

In this case, the word saint is reserved for those who excel at saintly things. For some, a saint is the person who lived a long time ago, did miracles, and was in no way your average Christian. These are the saints of which statues are made. Then there’s Aunt Matilda, she was a saint for living all those years with Uncle Jim. Now that woman was a saint! The misconception is that people become saints by some merit of their own.

This is not so. The Bible is clear that all believers in Jesus Christ are saints, each and every one of us. There are dozens of references to saints in the New Testament, and none of them refer to someone who was deified or canonized as a saint. The simple truth is that saint is how the Scriptures refer to all Christians.

For instance, “Now as Peter was traveling through all those regions, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda” (Acts 9:32). The saints in Lydda were the Christians there. Additionally, the Apostle Paul addressed the believers in Rome, “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7).

And, from our study in 1 Corinthians, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2). 

The entire church at Corinth is described as saints who have been sanctified in Christ. No one is left out. He is not addressing a subset of the congregation, as those who met a certain level of holiness, but all those who by the work of Jesus Christ have been sanctified. In fact, there are many in the church in Corinth, as there are in every church, who are not entirely living up to the name saint. That’s why it’s so important to remember that God is the one who makes us saints at our salvation. Just as we do not merit salvation, neither do we merit the call to be saints; it is the work of God.

We are all saints, as believers in Christ. We are now positionally made and accepted by God as holy. We are not as we will be, but we are called to be holy, to live lives that are continually and consistently becoming less bound by this world and the power of sin—continually and consistently becoming more and more holy as God is holy.

Just as there is confusion about angels and humans, there is also confusion about Christians and saints. We do not become angels, but we have been called as saints through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We often sing a song in our worship service entitled “The Love of God.” One of the stanzas looks forward to the return of Christ and our worshiping God in Heaven:

The saints and angels will never stop singing
To tell your perfect love
Oh can you hear, our anthem is ringing
We can’t get loud enough

Angels are called to sing praise to God in Psalm 148 along with all of creation (for the Psalms were to be sung), and indeed we will join the chorus of angels in singing the praises of God. But saints and angels are two different kinds of beings. Sure, you may at times be “angelic” in your behavior, but don’t confuse the two. Be assured, as saints we share one purpose with the angels in praising God: His work in making sinners into saints unto His glory.