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“Holy Ones” and “Saints” in the LSB


Transcript

Josiah Y asked this very good question. What is the LSB's rationale in sometimes using saints and sometimes holy one or holy ones? It's actually the same Greek word. Well, I think if you trace through there, the times that we use saints, it refers to God's people. The times we use holy one or holy ones, it refers to the Lord himself as the holy one or angels as holy ones.

It's the same Greek word, but to distinguish between them, when it's hagioi is the word, when it's believers, we call them saints. When it's I am the holy one, God says, we refer to him as the holy one. And when the angels are referred to as holy ones, we kept that translation, But when it refers to believers, we used saints.