I hope you were able to find time to reflect on His sacrifice for us during this holy week! Tonight, we'll be talking about the results of the events of almost 2,000 years ago and what it means to us: sanctification. His blood, given to us by His death on the cross, sanctifies us.
This topic "happened" to fall into my lap this week as I continued to read the book I mentioned last week. In it, one of the things Derek Prince discusses is the cleansing of God's Word and the sanctification we receive through five different agents, one of which being the blood of Christ. But what is sanctification?
Sanctification is quite an interesting word. The dictionary's first definition of this word is "an act of sanctifying," which is a singular event. However, what's more interesting is the second definition, "the state of being sanctified," which, being a state, is something that is continuous until you leave that state. For example, a light switch in the "ON" state, will continue to provide power to a light until that state is changed to "OFF." Remember this as you read on!
Now, let's take a look at the word sanctified. For this we go to the root word of sanctify and find more multiple definitions. The first is "to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use : consecrate," and the second is "to free from sin: purify." Amazing, right?
So, if we put these two thoughts together we find that one definition of sanctification is "the state of being set apart to a sacred purpose and simultaneously being freed from sin, or purified." Hallelujah!
But where can we find this word, sanctification? It only occurs in 5 verses in the KJV, but the Greek word it is translated from, hagiasmos, occurs 10 times. We're going to take a look at 1 Peter 1:2, where sanctification is connected to the blood of Jesus, but we're going to jump back to the first instance of hagiasmos to help us.
In Romans 6:19, we find hagiasmos translated to "holiness," in the KJV. However, when you look at the context of this word and the previous word, eis, they are more accurately translated to "through sanctification." When we make this slight change, we see Paul is talking about giving our "members servants," or our limbs' devotion, to righteousness through sanctification. Meaning before sanctification you used your body parts for iniquity, but now use them for the righteousness you're receiving through continuously being sanctified.
Moving forward to the other bookend use of hagiasmos in 1 Peter 1:2, we apply what we see in Romans 6:19. But before we do that we'll more accurately translate the Greek en to "in," as this is the translation made for this Greek word a total of 1,902 times out of the 2,800 times it occurs. Also, as a side note, remember what I said about "spirit" capitalization. In this case, the Greek is pneuma with no hagios, so we can remove the capitalization and know it's a reference to our spirit, not the Holy Spirit. When we apply these, we see that Peter is talking to people "in sanctification of the spirit through obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."
This means through obedience to Him and His blood, we are continuously being set apart for a sacred purpose and freed from sin. We remain in this state of being set apart and purified as long as we are obedient. So keep this in mind as you listen for that still, small voice and feel His movement. Remember His sacrifice and His blood. By listening and obeying, His blood sets us apart and purifies us. Praise Yehovah!
Shabbat Shalom and God bless you!
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