None Righteous, No Not One

I really dislike it when people publicly refer to so-and-so as "a holy priest" or so and so is "holy" or "a saint," for a couple reasons.

First, I hold to the scriptures that "Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Ps 53:3; cf Rom 3:10-12). I also think that true sanctity proceeds from the inside out, not the outside in, as our Lord says, "But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person" (Mt 15:18-20). 

And who can know the heart? The Lord alone. For “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." (Jer 17:9-10)

There is a kind of "spiritual flattery" in this kind of "holiness" speech, whoever it is directed towards. It is not the flattery of the world, but akin to it. It elevates a person above where he should rise. At the spiritual banquet table, one assumes the state of the host and says, "Sit here." But our Lord says, "When you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests" (Lk 14:10). In saying, "this is our holy guest," he puts the man of God on the spot and in an awkward spot. He treats it as a compliment, but should the guest be truly holy he will feel the heat of his sins in his heart, and seek to shirk from view.

When we ascribe "holiness" to someone from our judgement seat, we despoil his hiding place, expose his spiritual pearls to swine, plunder his sanctuary, rob him of his beggar's cloak.“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever" (Deut 29:29) Truly holy people do not concern themselves with such tags. They desire their holiness to be hidden, and should it need to be revealed, that it is done so for the good of man, not their own elevation or vindication. 

Not only that, a man's holiness point-in-time is not his state in eternity, for it has not yet been secured. Like the iconography of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, saints on the last rung of the heavenly ladder are still liable to be picked off by demons by way of spiritual pride. Why would you, man of earth, speak heavenly praise to the servant of God and tickle his ears such temptation? Have you no charity? For he may echo your praise in his own mouth, "I am holy, for so-and-so attests to my holiness" and that is his end, his demise.

We do not think with the mind of God. Instead we are like Peter, blind to the heavenly trajectory. "But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" (Mt 16:23). Even Christ when lauded as "good" deflects the flattery, saying "Why do you call me good? None is good but God alone" (Lk 18:19).

If a man be truly holy, save your tweets and spiritual judgments, for the truly holy know they are nothing but worms (Ps 22:6), and do not benefit from your flattery, for it impedes their progress and lays traps from them unnecessarily. For the true  man of God relishes in his low stature, his hidden state; he offers his beard to be plucked. His enemies become his way to sanctification, and his disgrace his badge of honor in the heavenly court. If they are holy, God will know it, and that is the only thing that matters. If they are not, then why would you speak as if you know a man's heart, casting his spiritual state in question for the world to see? It becomes like an oath, words that cannot be taken back, promised while retaining the risk of betrayal. Leave the state of a man's soul to God, and at the very least, reserve your judgments to the posthumous state. Instead, simply let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no (Mt 5:37). Anything beyond that is from the devil.