The New Catholic Encyclopedia reads, “any act short of solemn canonization by the Roman pontiff is not an infallible declaration of sanctity.”  That is a saint is not a saint until the Pope says a saint is a saint.  Add to this that a saint is not a saint until he is dead, and you have a very unbiblical doctrine.  These qualifications are interesting considering that a saint according to the Bible can be alive, and is actually a faithful Christian.  To be a saint, and you can look up the word Hagios, means to be sacred, or holy, that is sanctified.  Hebrews 10:10 says, “By the which will we are sanctified (Hagiadzo-made holy).”  If all saved are not saints then that means you have saved people who are unsanctified, unholy, unclean.  Conversely, if you are unsanctified, unholy, and unclean, you are unsaved!  By the way, the four times “saints” is used in the book of Acts those people are alive! (Acts 9:13,32,41; 26:10).  Just for fun in those verses replace the word saint with dead.  In fact try that in other places like Romans 16:15, I Corinthians 16:1; II Corinthians 9:1; Ephesians 3:8; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:2; I Timothy 5:10; Philemon 1:7.  My list could go on but these will suffice to demonstrate that a saint is a saint when GOD says a saint is a saint!
    See again how Bible teaching differs from the Catholic Encyclopedia which says, “The canonization (declaring a deceased person a saint-DFC) of confessors or martyrs may be taken up as soon as two miracles are reported to have been worked at their intercession . . . It may be easily conjectured that considerable time must elapse before any cause of beatification or canonization can be conducted.”  Interestingly at one point canonization is called an “Apostolic process.”  I challenge anyone to find that one in the New Testament.
    I know that I am a saint.  I do not have to wait until two miracles are worked in my intercession (thankfully since the age of miracles has ceased), and I do not have to have someone pay (in 1913 prices) $42,816.87 for me to be canonized.  All that I had to do was obey God’s simple plan of salvation, and there, by the blood of Christ, be made holy.  Doesn’t that sound a whole lot more like the Bible?