SINNERS MAY BECOME SAINTS
Jesus said, “I have not come to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). Sinners who repent and believe in the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ are sanctified or justified by his atoning death on the cross (Hebrews 10:10). It is “not by works” that anyone is justified before God. It is by the love and grace of God that he sanctifies and saves sinners who put their faith in his Son Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2:8-9; John 3:16).
The Bible shows us cases for our learning, concerning how God regards people who come to him seeing themselves as sinner and those who see themselves as righteous.
CASE 1: A SINNER AND RIGHTEOUS PERSON SEEKING SANCTIFICATION OR JUSTIFICATION
In speaking concerning sinners and self-righteous people, Jesus tells us about a Pharisee and a sinful woman” Jesus was invited to eat at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. A sinful woman in the town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house. She brought a jar of costly perfume and knelt behind Jesus at his feet, and with her tears she washed his feet, dried then with her hair, kissed them many times, and rubbed them with the perfume.
Simon, the Pharisee, thought to himself, if Jesus was a prophet, he would know the woman touching him was a sinner.
Jesus told Simon about two people who owed the same lender money. One owed him 500 coins; the other owed him 50. Because they had no money to pay, the lender forgave them both. He then asked Simon, which person would love the lender more? The Pharisee replied, “the one who owed him the most money.” Jesus told him he was right.
Jesus went on to tell the Simon about all the sinful woman had done for him while he was at his house. In comparison, he told Pharisee, “you did not wash my head; but she poured perfume on my feet.” Then he said, her many sins are forgiven, for she showed great love in recognizing her sins. But he said the person who sees themselves as having been forgiven for only s little, loves only a little. (Luke 7:36-48).
CASE 2: A SINNER AND RIGHTEOUS PERSON SEEKING SANCTIFICATION OR JUSTIFICATION
Jesus tells us about two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee prayed; “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” (The scriptures say no one can love God whom they have not seen, without loving people made in the image of God whom they have seen–1 John 4:20; Genesis 1:27).
However, the tax collector, not believing himself worthy to lift his eyes to heaven, prayed: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus said the collector, who saw himself as a sinner was justified in the eyes of God, rather than the self-righteous Pharisee who boasted of his good works. (Luke 18:9-14).
COMING TO JESUS MAY CHANGE US FROM SINNERS TO SAINTS
When we come to God viewing ourselves as sinners the way God sees us (Romans 3:23); we learn that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23); “ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
We realize our need to repent and believe in the sacrificial and atoning blood of God’s Son (Hebrews 10:10).
As a saints being conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29), we are willing to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind…”(Luke 10:27). And, “Love each other as [Jesus] have loved you” (John 15:12).
When we come to Jesus and love and obey him, he sanctifies and changes us from sinners to his saints; and we will live with him in heaven (1 Corinthians 6:11; John 14:2-3).
