Saints by Editor | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 22, 1882

"Saints."

By Editor

The action of the New Testament Revision Committee, in giving the prefix "Saint" to the authors of the four Gospels, and withholding it from the writers of the epistles, has caused much comment as to the authority for giving any of them any such prefix. With many it is considered little less than blasphemy to speak of the evangelists or apostles without calling them saints. Now while we firmly believe that they were saints, we do not believe that their reputation will suffer if they are spoken of by their own names simply, just as they are in the Bible; neither do we believe that they were the only saints that ever lived. We have the best of authority for saying that Abraham, Moses, Enoch, Noah, Elijah, Job, Samuel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and a host of others, were good men, and irreproachable in their lives; that some "walked with God," and that others "walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless;" and yet we never see the word "saint" prefixed to their names. Why not be consistent? We have no objection to the use of the word "saint," unless it is overdone; but if it is used, let it be understood that it is not done because of any obligation, but as a concession to a practice which has nothing stronger than custom for its support.