The Saints

     What would qualify someone to be a saint? Does God's word have the complete answer? There is a quantity of verses in the Old Testament which uses Strong's #2623, #6918 and #6922, all list "saint" as a definition, leaving it was up to the translator to use either "saint" or "holy one" but none give a direction description, but you can get a sense by looking at the other words listed, for example: godly man, holy, merciful, angel and pious. The New Testament does provides a description of "saint" (Strong's #40) in Revelation 14, "Here is the patience of the saints; here are the ones keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:12). The saints will be the ones being saved, "And they went up over the breath of the land and encircled the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. And fire from God came down out of Heaven and burned them down." (Revelation 20:9). According to the description given in Revelation 14, one needs to keep (perform) all the commandments of God to qualify one as a "saint" and going by the Bible's master list of commandments, that would be the ten given by God's voice and written by His finger on two stone tablets, recorded in the Old Testament named "The Ten Commandments" and these are the same commands that Christ accomplished (fulfilled) while on earth, to qualify Himself as the "Lamb of God", and we are called to follow Jesus, "Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and let him bear his cross and let him follow Me." (Matthew 16:24), Christ gave this instruction several times, as He was following His Fathers instructions and we are to follow Christ, and His words are from God Almighty, Jehovah, His Father, "Jesus answered them and said, My teaching is not Mine, but the One who sent Me." (John 7:16). This reveals a perplexing question, since a few of the Ten Commandments are being universally ignored by a large segment of the Christian community, therefore, who would be the saints of today? This is completely up to Jehovah God, the One who we are called to fear, "For Jehovah is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods." (Psalm 96:4), and, "but in every nation the one fearing Him and working righteousness is acceptable to Him." (Acts 10:35), and there are many more verses. We can only correctly determine whom God considers a "saint" by examining God's word; keeping in mind, our opinions do not matter.

      These are the few of God's commands that seems to have been set aside by most Christians churches, and I will attempt to share them with you: The most obvious command being transgressed is the fourth Commandment, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy; six days you shall labor and do all your work, and the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God; you shall do no work, you and your son, and your daughter, your male slave and your girl-slave, and your livestock and your stranger who is in you gates. For in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all which are in them, and He rested on the seventh day, on account of this Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and sanctified it." (Exodus 20:8-11). The seventh day is Saturday, as the English and American calendars show; Sunday is the first day of the week; this day is incidentally the same day the pagan religions worship their god, the sun. You are probably wondering how did this obvious disregard get its start? There is a correct answer, and it is searchable and understandable, but it would be best for you to acquire this important information for yourself, by searching the history books, Sunday worship is not presented in scripture, however, any and every day is a good time to worship Jehovah our God. Those who attend church for worship on the first day of the week are not sinning, but those that gather on Sunday do not keep the seventh day Sabbath as God has described for us in His fourth command, to spend this day for rest from work, and to spend this day apart from our earthly endeavors. Caution: by asking your pastor or other Christian leaders, you may not acquire the pure truth. There are no answers why Sunday is considered to be the Christian day of rest or worship presented in all of God's word, especially since most Christians do not rest on Sunday after services but work on or do the things they couldn't attend to during their work week.

     The next commandment not properly observed is the First Commandment, "I am Jehovah your God, who has brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. You shall not have any other gods beside Me." (Exodus 20:2,3). The error in not keeping this command is more difficult to expose, because it is so deeply routed in the current Christian teaching that it has become a long-standing tradition. "Jehovah" is God Almighty, as it is clearly stated in the original Hebrew text well over a hundred times, and over a third of these verses present His name "Jehovah". God's personal name is clearly represented as a singular being, "...and there is no other God except One." (I Corinthians 8:4), who possesses a spirit within Him, “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is on Me, because Jehovah has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the meek…” (Isaiah 61:1), and Jehovah's only-begotten Son also has a spirit within Him, “For I know that this will result in salvation to me through your petition, and supply the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:19), just as we have a spirit within us, but the spirit of God and His Son are exceedingly much broader in application and ability then ours, just as Jehovah's abilities are far beyond our comprehension, even beyond our limited awareness of abilities. Are we not the work of His hands? He created the earth from nothing, and the very dust that we walk on is what we are made from, "And Jehovah God formed the man out of the dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7), can we even begin to comprehend His depths? We certainly cannot. God's powers and His authorities are sovereign because Jehovah is the one and only God, "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." (Deuteronomy 6:4), and "And let them know, Your name is Jehovah, that You alone are the Most High over all the earth." (Psalm 83:18); there are many other verses that declare God as one; now consider the words of Jesus and other New Testament writers, "The one hearing you also hears Me, and the one rejecting Me also rejects the One having sent Me." (Luke 10:16), "And this is everlasting life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3) and, "For God is one, also there is one Mediator of God and of man, the man Jesus Christ." (1 Timothy 2:5). "But to us is one God, the Father, to who are all things, and we to Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we by Him." (1 Corinthians 8:6). Christ tells us directly and through inspiration to others many times in the Old and New Testaments that God is "one" and never is it stated that God is more then one, man is the only one that has promoted this concept of God being triune or more them one, which is correctly labels as a "mystery", the Trinity doctrine, introduced in the fourth century, along with Sunday worship, and both are incorrectly considered by most Christians as sound Biblical doctrine, but both have no scriptural soundness. It is often stated that Strong's #430 elohiym is plural, which it can be but it can also be used as a superlative. Since this a Hebrew word and the Hebrews then and now consider God to be one, then the word by the Hebrew speaking nation's intention would be used as a superlative, not plural. Both doctrines, Sunday worship and the Trinity, were carried with the reformation churches when they split from the mother church during the 14th and 15th centuries, because they found other errors that were then taught and seemingly looked no further.

      Anther Commandment that is being transgressed continually is the third, "You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain; for Jehovah will not leave unpunished the one who takes His name in vain." (Exodus 20:7). Again the name "Jehovah" is presented in this command in the Hebrew text, as it was presented throughout the Old Testament, actually "Jehovah" appeared 6746 times, including 8 times in the Ten Commandments. The third command presents the term, "vain": Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary describes vain as: 1) having no real value: IDLE, WORTHLESS. 2) marked by futility or ineffectualness. By discarding the personal name of God from His word and replacing it with a common title, this not only changes God's word, "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, to keep the commandments of Jehovah your God which I command you." (Deuteronomy 4:2), but more disturbingly it makes God's name worthless, since it is doesn't exist in this command pertaining directly to His name, and an obvious acknowledgment of this effect is: the general Christian community has little knowledge of our God's personal name, since few Christian speakers and writers use His personal name; but especially because the many translations of the Bible, having replaced it with "Lord" or "God" contaminates the congregations, making it valueless by repressing it from the minds of most Christians, and robbing God Almighty of the glory and praises God deserves. Taking "Jehovah" out of appearance in God's word is definitely a transgression, but I question, is leaving it out after knowing that it was replaced by man, would not that also qualify as a sin against our God? This would be willingly supporting an error for the sake of a tradition. A name is used to identify and clarify whom one is referring to, and this is necessary in other important matters, for example, when writing a check, you couldn't address it to "my lawyer" instead of his name. I'm not sure how Jehovah will judge on this error, of course addressing Jehovah by "God" or "Lord" is acceptable, since they are His titles, but replacing His Holy name is not. Christ used His Father's (and our Father's) name 6746 times in the Old Testament for a good reason, judging by the quantity He presented it throughout the Old Testament. Considering the New Testament text, God's personal name (or a Greek equivalent) does not appear at all, even when Christ quotes from the Old Testament Hebrew scrolls, especially when responding to Satan. All three verses Christ used contained "Jehovah", which Christ Himself inspired to all the Bible writers and He would have quoted it exactly as He inspired it. Not only would this offend Jehovah Himself, but this also would offend Christ, the Bible inspirer.

      The second Commandment is also being transgressed, most noticeably by a certain group of Christians who have literally taken this command out of their church Bibles, this certainly a transgression of God's word, stated in Deuteronomy 4:2. Daniel also predicted this to happen, "And he shall speak words against the Most High. And he intends to change times and law..." (Daniel 7:25). The "he", used here is the "beast", who is mentioned in Revelation. The law that the "beast" changed is the second command, which was removed, and then the tenth command was split into two commands to maintain Ten Commandments. The times that were changed was the forth command, changing the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week. The second command is translated as worshipping "graven images" but looking at Strong's #6459, it is translated as, an idol and graven image is just one example of an idol. It is everyone's personal decision and responsibility on how you address these deviations from God's word. The first four commands address our relationship with our God "Jehovah", so they should be considered important to everyone; we are to fear Jehovah God because He has set the standard of righteousness and His judgments are just, fair and final.

      The second part of the Bibles description of a saint is, "...the ones...keeping the faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:12), this speaks of the faith Christ used during His first advent. Why did Christ need faith, being the begotten Son God and having all the same powers as His Father has by inheritance? The Son of God needed to exercise faith in His Father because He accepted to be lowered in His nature, just below His Father's angels, in order to accept a death sentence, for the purpose of establishing His Father's plan of salvation, expressly for our benefit "but we do see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, who on account of suffering of death was made a little less then the angels, so that by the grace of God He might taste of death for every son." (Hebrews 2:9). This wasn't just a symbol of death but a death, just as we will experience death, to be separated from thought, feeling, memory and all reality, including a separation from our Father Jehovah and possessing control of nothing. Christ also performed all His miracles by faith, during His first advent, since He was void of most of His godly abilities, performing His healing and His other miracles by faith, just as His disciples performed similar miracles, as he gave them authority to do so, "Heal sick ones, cleanse lepers, raise dead ones, cast out demons. You have freely received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8). Christ's faith in His Father was greater then ours could ever be, because Christ personally knew His Father, His sovereign authority and His powers. Can we know this kind of faith? Faith for us starts small and develops and the more faith we exercise the more we can see God's work in our personal experiences, as we gather in our heart each of God's blessings and becomes more aware of Jehovah's presence in our life. Faith starts with our desire to know God, and the only way to accomplish this is to read God's word, presented in the Book Christ assembled for us, studying all His messages and then we start to see what He has already done in our lives and in the lives of other, once we know what to look for. Jehovah's word reveals His way, and we will certainly see that His way is just and fair, righteous and forgiving, but also stern and dependable, as we keep His laws. Our faith is built from reliable stability, and our Father is Christ's Father, the designer of everything we know, a multitude of intricate systems interwoven to work in unison, all having been imagined, developed, created and sustained by Jehovah, Almighty God.

      To be a "saint" is not just a casual thought or decision, this would be only the start, it is a personal commitment and a responsibility to ones self; an education, a passion and an unaltered love for the truth, found only by consuming God's word. The saints are the ones to be accepted into God's kingdom, those who are faithful in keep the commandments of God, by doing them, and have the faith of Jesus, who is our example of faith.