Sanctification

The word and usage:

Sanctification is the separation from the secular into the sacred. Along with sanctify, it is used 11 times in the New Testament and the derived words, below, are used extensively in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament it refers to things belonging to God: The first born, a sacred place, the temple, the alter. In the New Testament it refers to the Christian believer who is freed from sin by Christ to realize the true will of God.

The words "holy," "hallow," "hallowed," "holiness," "consecrate," "saint," "sanctify," "sanctification" are all derived from the same root. The Hebrew verb qadhash - appoint, bid, consecrate, dedicate, defile, hallow, (be, keep) holy (-er, place), keep, prepare, proclaim, purify, sanctify (-ied oneself), wholly.

From the Greek: Hagiasmos (hag-ee-as-mos'); properly, purification, i.e. (the state) purity; concretely (by Hebraism) a purifier. (Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

Acts 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

1 Cor 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

2 Thess 2:13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Sanctification in the material sense is the establishment of God’s ownership. It is in the ethical sense the separation of man from the secular to the divine. We are sanctified by leaving the things of the earth and taking on the things of God through Christ. We “…put on the new man after which God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” (From Eph 4:24). We also “put on the new man” who “above all these things put (s) on charity which is the bond of perfectness.” (From Col 3:10,14)

Sanctification is then the complete realization of Christ in you and the hope of glory.

Amen