“Sinners” Who Are Forgiven or “Saints” Who Sin? -- By: Robert L. Saucy

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 152:608 (Oct 1995)
Article: “Sinners” Who Are Forgiven or “Saints” Who Sin?
Author: Robert L. Saucy


“Sinners” Who Are Forgiven or “Saints” Who Sin?

Robert L. Saucy

[Robert L. Saucy is Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology, Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, California.]

The question of the true identity of the Christian has been the topic of discussion for some time. Although not directly framed as a question of identity, the issues of self-love, self-esteem, and self-worth all relate in some way to the question, “Who am I?” This question has been posed more sharply in the alternatives, “Am I as a Christian basically a sinner who is forgiven, or a saint who sins?”

The first of these alternatives may be associated with what Warfield favorably termed “miserable-sinner Christianity.”1 He referred to it this way because similar terminology runs through Protestant confessional formulas and catechisms.2 Luther’s Short Catechism, for example, teaches the believer to say, “I, miserable sinner, confess myself before God guilty of all manner of sins.” A Lutheran Confession of Sin reads:

I, poor sinful man, confess to God, the Almighty, my Creator and Redeemer, that I not only have sinned in thoughts, words and deeds, but also was conceived and born in sin, and so all my nature and being is deserving of punishment and condemnation before His righteousness. Therefore I flee to His gratuitous mercy and seek and beseech His grace. Lord, be merciful to me, miserable sinner.

A similar expression is found in the prayers of the Church of England. After acknowledging sinfulness and declaring that

“there is no health in us,” the prayer closes with the petition, “But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.” One of the most rhetorical expressions of the concept of “miserable-sinner Christianity” is given by the Scottish minister, Alexander Whyte, in his work Bunyan Characters.

Our guilt is so great that we dare not think of it…. It crushes our minds with a perfect stupor of horror, when for a moment we try to imagine a day of judgment when we shall be judged for all the deeds that we have done in the body. Heart-beat after heart-beat, breath after breath, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, and all full of sin; all nothing but sin from our mother’s womb to our grave.3

It would be wrong to take such a statement as necessarily signifying “miserable Christianity” rather than “miserable-sinner Christianity.” Many of those who confessed their situation in this way knew how to flee to t...

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