Delivered To The Saints

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:3

Who are ‘the saints’ who have become the recipients of ‘the faith?’  Are they the super-spiritual, well-above-average individuals who stand head-and-shoulders above others because of their remarkable character and near miraculous deeds?  The Scripture reflects saints as being something quite different from this characterization.  Rather, the Scripture indicates that saints are those who, having no righteousness of their own, God has redeemed by free and Sovereign grace through the work of Christ.  Paul describes the foundational group from whom God has made saints.   He says, ‘For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty, not many noble, are called.  But, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.’ God has reached down to the lowest depths to make saints.  To those people, who are eternally grateful, He has delivered ‘the faith.’  Their proclamation of it has spread over the whole earth, in every generation.  They have preached it, lived it, and often died for it.  We are the spiritual inheritors of all who have gone before us in ‘the faith.’  We have the privilege to proclaim Christ, and the opportunity to serve our generation.  What God delivered to them He has delivered to us.  Therefore, we preached Christ, and Him crucified, the Gospel of ‘the faith.’

Our Good and Wise God,
we rejoice that You have made saints out of the lowest of the low.
We praise You that You have elevated your people
to sit with Christ in heavenly places.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning