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SINNER

 ‘I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’  (Luke 5:32)

Challenged as to why Jesus associates with sinners, Jesus’ reply no doubt stunned the Pharisees who studiously upheld the Law of Moses and thought themselves ‘righteous’, that is, in a place of right standing with God.

The word that translates ‘sinners’ is the Greek adjective (substantival – acting as a noun) ἁμαρτωλός hamartólos, literally ‘falling well-wide of the target’, but here stands for the most blatant and inveterate of transgressors.

Who is Jesus speaking about?  Every single human being that ever lived apart from himself.

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STRONGHOLD

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.  (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)

Paul identifies ‘strongholds’ – the Greek is ὀχύρωμα ochuróma, literally ‘fortress’ –  which means conceptually and in context, ‘a place of refuge from reality’; in other words, Paul is speaking about inner desires, wishes, dreams and fantasies, alongside any other idolatrous and rebellious notions to which the follower of Christ may cleave.  These are inner and personal fastnesses that resist the Holy Spirit, and he says that the individual is to seek them out in themselves and tear them down.  

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SANCTIFICATION

 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.  (John 17:15-19)

In his final, extended prayer for his disciples, Jesus asks his Heavenly Father to sanctify them.  The complexity of this prayer is revealed by understanding that ‘sanctify’ translates the Greek verb ἁγιάζω (hagiazó), which means ‘to make holy’ but also has the plainer meaning ‘to set apart’.

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