One question I hear a lot is whether “sinner” is an appropriate term to describe a Christian? After all, didn’t Paul refer to Christians as saints? Once God saves us, aren’t we new creatures? The old (sinner) is gone, and the new (saint) has come?” These are important questions.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) is a great help to us in answering these questions. He is the one who first described Christians as being “simul justus et peccator” (simultaneously justified and sinner). Luther was saying that we are at the same time, but in different senses, righteous and sinful. From one perspective, and in one sense, we are “just.” From another perspective, and in another sense, we are “sinners.”

The confusion with regards to the Christian being both saint and sinner at the same time (but in different senses) seems to revolve around the question of identity. To be clear, the designation of “sinner” does NOT describe the Christian’s core identity. Before God, identity is not a both/and (sinner and saint); it is an either/or (sinner or saint).

Something that identifies you (in this case, “sinner”) is not synonymous with your identity. For example, I am a father, a husband, an adulterer, a male, an author, a moral failure, a son, a preacher, a natural-born rebel, a fast driver, a Dallas Cowboys fan, and so on and so forth. The list could go on and on. And while those things identify certain truths about me and my life, they do not define who I am.

When we call Christian’s “sinners,” therefore, we are identifying something true about us all. We all sin. We all fall short of God’s glory. Under the scrutiny of God’s law, we are all judged guilty. In fact, 1 John 1:8 makes it clear that “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” But for the Christian, the term “sinner” is not a description of our definitive identity. Who we are in Christ (and that phrase “in Christ” is so crucial!) is where our ultimate identity lies. But as long as we are in our own bodies, on this side of the resurrection, we are still sinners. While it is gloriously true that there is nowhere in your life that the Spirit has not infiltrated, it is equally true that there is no part of any Christian in this life that is free of sin. So if it feels like you are caught in the middle of an internal civil war—it’s because you are! Pulled this way by sin, that way by the Spirit (see Romans 7). “Simul justus et peccator,” therefore, is not a description of who we are before God. However, it is a description of the both/and that characterizes the Christian life here and now—the way life actually is. 

Furthermore, Luther’s point was not that everyone is a little of each: 50% justified and 50% sinful. “Just” and “sinner” are total, rather than partial, realities. On the one hand, the Christian (positionally speaking) is totally righteous before God. The perfection of Christ has been imputed to us and we are therefore fully justified on the basis of his finished work. Nothing—NOTHING—can separate us from God’s love because God’s love for us is in no way dependant on what we do or don’t do. It is entirely dependent on what Jesus has done for us. We are saints.

On the other hand, the Christian (practically speaking) is totally sinner in himself. We all fall short of God’s demand for perfection on a daily basis. Even our best works have something in them that needs God’s pardon. As William Beveridge put it:

“I cannot pray but I sin. I cannot hear or preach a sermon but I sin. I cannot give alms or receive the sacrament but I sin. I can’t so much as confess my sins, but my confessions are further aggravations of them. My repentance needs to be repented of, my tears need washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer.”

In other words, Christians are fully human—non-theoretical sinners with real problems, real pain, real secrets, real faults, and real failures. We are, therefore, simultaneously “saint AND sinner.”

It is with this paradigm in mind that the Apostle Paul was able to refer to himself as a “saint” while at the same time calling himself the “chief of sinners.” Simul justus et peccator was Luther’s way of describing this reality.

Knowing this allows us to affirm (without crossing our fingers) that in Christ—at the level of identity—the Christian is 100% righteous before God, while at the same time recognizing the persistence of sin. If we don’t speak in terms of simul justus et peccator, then the undeniable reality of ongoing sin leads to the qualification of our identity in Christ: some sin must mean not totally righteous. This pours acid on the very foundation of the unalterable peace we have with God on the other side of justification.

So, if you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your past, your family background, your education, your looks, your spiritual prowess (or lack thereof), and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity—who you ultimately are—is steadfastly established in his substitution, not your sin.

I know all of this might seem a bit technical, but it has been absolutely crucial for me. The distinction between who I truly am before God (a beloved child and saint) and what my life really is here and now (a failing sinner) gives me both the assurance that I am loved and accepted by God, as well as the courage to be honest about my ongoing struggles. In other words, knowing I am a “saint” really—unable to tempt God into leaving or forsaking me—sets me free to admit that I’m a sinner functionally. Knowing that I am positionally clothed in an irremovable suit of righteousness (saint) sets me free to admit that I am practically unrighteous (sinner).

Understanding that I am simultaneously “saint AND sinner” liberates me to live my life with hope and without hiding. I am now free to tell the truth about myself—the ugly, hard truth that I desperately try to conceal from myself and others—without fear of Divine rejection. I can admit that I am bad because God is good. I can admit that I fail because failures are the only ones God saves. The guilt and shame that accompanies sin is not beat by convincing ourselves that we aren’t sinners. But rather, by believing that Christ saves sinners. As Martin Luther said (my paraphrase), “When the devil tells me I’m a sinner, he does me a favor because Jesus DIED for sinners.”   

The late Brennan Manning (1934-2013) put this better than I ever could when he wrote:

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side, and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means… My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”  

Amen!

Photo Credit: Sasha Yudaev on Unsplash