Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

– Ephesians 1:1

So Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians, and to our modern ears this would seem like a polite introduction before launching into the masterpiece that is this epistle. Yet there is something hidden (to us) in this introduction that was a blessing and a scandal to those who read it.

Paul uses the word “saints” to describe the Ephesians. For many of us, this word poses a problem due to modern baggage that has been applied to the word “saint”. For many of us, the word conjures up a whiff of incense, or perhaps robes, martyrdom, cathedrals, or visions of medieval times. But to Paul’s readers, be they Jewish or Gentile, this word communicated something entirely different, and far more revolutionary.

R. Kent Hughes, in his book Ephesians – The Mystery of the Body of Christ, puts it this way:

[I]n the Greek translation of the Old Testament the people of Israel, and sometimes even the angels, were given the honored title “saints.” Therefore, as Marcus Barth explains, “By using the same designation . . . the author of Ephesians bestows upon all his pagan-born hearers a privilege formerly reserved for Israel, for special (especially priestly) servants of God, or for angels.” Applying the privileged word “saints” to pagan Greeks was mind-boggling to those with a Jewish background. Hebrew detractors considered it a rape of sacred vocabulary. But from the Christian perspective it was a fitting word to celebrate the miracle of God’s grace.

The word is hagios in the Greek, and it means “holy and called out ones”. And here Paul is using this high word, in the past reserved only for God’s chosen people, the people of Israel, to address formerly pagan Gentiles! As Hughes states above, to many Jewish people of the time, this was “mind-boggling”.

The Gospel does this: it boggles the mind. We think of ourselves as being more tolerant than God, don’t we? I know I do at times. And yet there He goes, welcoming into the Kingdom those that I would never have given a chance! And He doesn’t distinguish levels of sainthood; He calls them saints too! Holy and called out ones, indeed, having been made holy by Christ’s atonement and called out to a life of service to the King.

Saints. This word, if you take the time to look at how it is used in Scripture, will kill “Us and Them” Christianity.

If you’ve been rescued by Jesus, there is no “Them” when it comes to your fellow rescue-ees, regardless of background, ethnicity, political beliefs, denomination, class, social status, sin-background, family dysfunction, or any other division you can come up with.

In Christ, it’s all “Us”.