Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

to the saints who are in Ephesus

Why “saints”? What does that term mean?
The easiest thing to do is to say that a saint is a “holy one” and just assume we all know what holiness is and let it go at that. I don’t think that really explains anything, so I’m going to go a different route. Yes, a saint is a Latin derivative that translates the Hebrew and Greek terms for “holy one.” But what does that mean?

The first time we find the word holy used as a noun it is used in Exodus 3.5 when Moses meets God in the burning bush. God tells him to remove his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. Normally the ground is cursed because of sin but when God draws near his presence makes the cursed ground holy so that it is an insult to wear shoes as if one needed protection from it.
So that’s one story. God drew near to a particular place at a particular time and that meant that the ground that he touched down upon was holy and had to be treated accordingly.

Another story is the story of Passover with the resulting law set down for Israel in Exodus 13.3 that every first born animal was to be “sanctified”—made holy. How does one sanctify a firstborn? Well in the case of an animal that is acceptable on the altar, sanctifying the firstborn meant bringing it to the central sanctuary and offering it up into God’s presence from the sanctuary altar.

That leads us to another story, the story of when God came down on Mount Sinai, once again that piece of geography had to be treated as “holy”—as special due to God’s special presence there. On that Mountain, God instructed the Israelites to build him a tent in which to live. That tent had different sections: the outer section was called “the holy place” and the interior section where God’s footstool dwelt was called “the holy of holies.” And that whole structure, that Tabernacle, was known as God’s “holiness” or “holy thing” or “holy place.” But it is translated the first time it is mentioned in Exodus 25.8 this way: “And let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.” Sanctuary, like saint, is an English terms we have derived from our Latin roots. Santus—“holy”—is the root of both saint and sanctuary, holy one and holy place.

In fact, it is in remembering Sinai that we first have a reference to people as “holy ones” or saints. Moses gives a blessing that recounts what happened:

The Lord came from Sinai,
And dawned on them from Seir;
He shone forth from Mount Paran,
And He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones; [angels]
At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them.
Indeed, He loves the people;
All Your holy ones are in Your hand,
And they followed in Your steps;
Everyone receives of Your words.
Moses charged us with a law,
A possession for the assembly of Jacob [33.2-4].

When God is enthroned at Sinai, it is appropriate to refer to his angels as “holy ones”; and when at the same time God is enthroned among his people, it is appropriate to refer to them as “holy ones,” saints, as well.

We typically think of holiness as a certain kind of moral quality. Someone is holy if he is righteous or godly. That’s true but it is a secondary development.

The primary meaning of holy is simply near to God’s special presence (in the case of God Himself holiness probably refers to His own independent integrity which also reminds us of his transcendence and separation from creation). Some things come near to God and they have no business being there so God expels them by destroying them or banishing them. They are not holy and therefore may not get that close. Other things belong near to God so that they can be called holy even if they are separated from God’s presence—they are meant to be brought to Him. The idea there is that they shouldn’t be so separated.

Related to this concept of holiness is the fact that those who are brought near to God need to behave in a way that is appropriate for being in God’s presence. But the moral quality is secondary.

So saints are saints because they have been given access to God’s sanctuary. Saints have sanctuary privileges. They belong in God’s presence and are part of his inner sanctum. The fact that both words in English come from the same Latin word is actually convenient. Remember the meaning of the word saint by hearing the first syllable of the word sanctuary.

The sanctuary, remember, is where God is enthroned. Beyond the holy place in the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant overshadowed by two golden Cherubim. The Bible declares that God was enthroned above those Cherubim so that the Ark was his footstool (First Chronicles 28.2; Psalm 99.5; 132.7). As the Psalmist declares in Psalm 98—a Psalm all about God’s ruler over the world from his throne—“Holiness befits your house, O LORD.”
This is the legal position of all Christians! We are all given authorized access to God’s throne room. The amazing privilege this involves can be seen from another story from Second Chronicles 26: When King Azariah tried to force his way into the holy place, leprosy broke out on his forehead so that he was expelled not only from the Tabernacle but also from his own thrown in Jerusalem. But Paul, in calling us saints is ascribing to us free access to where kings were once barred.
You don’t see this with your eyes but the Gospel tells you that it is true. Jesus is now the one sitting on the throne at the right hand of God. He is not only God Himself ruling both the heavens and the earth, but he is a man like us to whom we are united by the Spirit through faith. We are throne room counselors in Christ, we are servants in the sanctuary, we are kings and queens under our Lord the High King.
So you and I have an obligation—to recognize who we are and to act like it! As I said, Holiness is not first and foremost an ethical quality but it entails that we behave as those who are in front of God’s face. Do we act like kings and queens in our everyday life? Or do we act like impoverished peasants squabbling with one another over paltry matters that should not concern those of our high rank? If we are saints, then as the Apostle writes in verse 1 we should be faithful to that calling.
Saints have sanctuary access. We are part of God’s inner court.
How does the Gospel especially reveal this to us? Paul always greets his churches as saints, but in Ephesians, we get the most direct explanation about why he does so. Ephesians emphasizes the ascension and exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father. In other words, Ephesians is all about Jesus, as our representative, being granted sanctuary access in the true throne room in heaven, of which Moses’ Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple were only copies.
The Gospel is about the life, death, resurrection and enthronement of Jesus. If the people were called saints when Jesus was enthroned on Mount Sinai, how much more so when he has been incarnated as a man like us and has gone through death to resurrection life—being exalted at God’s right hand?
The Gospel is that Jesus is Lord, having been raised up to be enthroned at God’s right hand. Thus, the Gospel states that those who believe in Jesus have, through him, sanctuary access. They are throne room people. They are saints.
Incidentally, this term, saints, fits with what Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascas. He told him he was sending them to the Gentiles to preach “that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Those already “sanctified by faith” are believing Jews. The convicted Saul of Tarsus would have thought of Jews as having rights to the Land wherein God had placed his Sanctuary. As he understood what the person and work of Jesus meant Saul or Paul would come to understand that Jewish believers were drawn close to God in a new way. But he would have grasped at once from Jesus’ words that Gentiles were now allowed identical privileges, being also “sanctified by faith,” just as the Jews were.
This was also Peter’s conclusion from his experience preaching the Gospel to the Gentile believer Cornelius (Acts 11). He said that God “made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.” Cleansing is what one had to do under the Mosaic covenant when one lost sanctuary access due to ritual impurity. Cleansing ceremonies restored access. They granted the person the right, once again, to approach the holy place.

Some of us might be used to thinking of the language of “sanctification” and “cleansing their hearts” as denoting some sort of ethical transformation in a believer’s character. But that is not the meaning in these passages. It refers to being granted full access to God. We see an example of this in First John 1.9 where “cleanse” refers to the bestowal of complete pardon: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Given the background and meaning of the term “saints,” and the frequency and uniformity of Paul’s use of the word in addressing Christians, it is really odd that Protestant Church have so highly preferred the term “justification by faith alone” rather than “sanctification by faith alone.” We tend to (1) assume that “justification” has more importance to Paul because it comes up for a great deal of discussion in two of his lectures, and (2) think of sanctification almost exclusively in terms of transformation of character.

Regarding (1), while Paul uses the term a lot in Galatians and Romans and mentions it elsewhere, he refers to Christians as saints every time he addresses churches. Furthermore, her in Ephesians—quite certainly a generic letter written to more than one church—Paul manages to set out the person and work of Christ and His salvation of sinners without ever referring to “justification” at all. If the term, saints, is tied to “sanctification by faith” then it should arguably be seen as having priority in Paul’s thought. Of course, with the popularity of courtroom dramas, one could argue that the language of justification or vindication is more easily understood in today’s culture.

But this brings us to the second problem (2), which is that we simply think of sanctification wrongly most of the time. While sanctification has behavioral consequences (we who are given access to God ought to live as those who know they are before His face, and in His presence we find his Spirit gives us the power to do so), it refers first of all to a legal status. We are granted access to God’s sanctuary and throne room. Just as being expelled from the sanctuary in Eden was a legal penalty for sin, so being brought near again is forgiveness and a new standing in God’s sight. Those whom God loves he embraces and calls to himself.

Justification became central to the Church’s thinking about salvation for a variety of healthy reasons, but they were not necessarily reasons that always led us to understand Paul in his own vocabulary. Likewise, the Church’s use of the term “sanctification” as a word referring primarily to behavioral transformation is also something that may require more Biblical reflection. For Paul, the sanctification of Christians—their status as saints—has everything to do with their judicial standing in God’s sight and their salvation by grace through faith.