Holiness
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ἁγιασμός names sanctification or holiness, especially a consecrated life shaped by belonging to God. The related verb ἁγιάζω means to sanctify or set apart, but the noun's force must be learned from each sentence rather than assigned from its ending alone.
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Full entry for ἁγιασμός (G38) · Open the biblical lexicon
ἁγιασμός names sanctification or holiness, especially a consecrated life shaped by belonging to God. The related verb ἁγιάζω means to sanctify or set apart, but the noun's force must be learned from each sentence rather than assigned from its ending alone.
The BSB source-word alignment has 10 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include holiness (7), [and] sanctified (1), [the] sanctification (1), should be holy (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 6:19. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Thessalonians (3), Romans (2), 1 Corinthians (1), 1 Peter (1).
ἁγιασμός names sanctification or holiness, especially a consecrated life shaped by belonging to God. The related verb ἁγιάζω means to sanctify or set apart, but the noun's force must be learned from each sentence rather than assigned from its ending alone. The local index records about ten uses across Paul, Hebrews, and 1 Peter.
First Thessalonians 4:3-8 states that God's will includes the believers' sanctification and immediately applies it to abstaining from sexual immorality, learning to control the body in holiness and honor, and refusing to wrong another person. Paul grounds the command in God's call and gift of the Holy Spirit. The passage gives concrete moral content to sanctification without making sexual ethics its whole canonical meaning.
Romans 6:19-22 presents sanctification as the fruit and direction of liberation from sin and service to God. First Corinthians 1:30 says that Christ has become sanctification for believers, locating holiness in God's provision rather than human boasting. Hebrews 12:14 commands the church to pursue peace and holiness while its surrounding exhortations warn against refusing grace. These passages hold together gift, identity, pursuit, embodied obedience, and hope. They do not turn holiness into a score by which anxious believers earn acceptance.
The local index records about ten uses of ἁγιασμός. The noun appears in statements about Christ as believers' sanctification, the Spirit's sanctifying work, embodied holiness, the fruit of serving God, and the pursuit without which no one will see the Lord. Its contexts hold divine provision and human obedience together.
For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality;
Paul identifies sanctification as God's will and applies it to sexual conduct, honorable bodily life, and refusal to wrong another person. The passage itself grounds the command in God's holy call and His gift of the Holy Spirit.
Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
The congregation must pursue peace and holiness. The warning about seeing the Lord gives the pursuit eternal seriousness, while the surrounding chapter joins discipline, grace, community responsibility, and endurance. Teachers should preserve both urgency and the letter's grace-governed context.
It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God: our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
Paul says that believers are in Christ because of God and that Christ has become wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption for them. The verse excludes boasting and makes sanctification part of God's provision in Christ.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life.
Freedom from sin and service to God yield fruit leading to sanctification, with eternal life as the outcome. The sequence grounds holy fruit in a changed allegiance rather than presenting it as a purchase price for life.
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Peter's greeting joins the Father's foreknowledge, the Spirit's sanctifying work, obedience to Jesus Christ, and sprinkling by His blood. Sanctification belongs inside God's saving action and summons believers into obedience.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. The process of becoming holy through sanctification, not merely the state of holiness itself.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
10 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
sanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read versesanctification, holiness
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 10 lexical occurrence verses.
ἁγιασμός is built from this root:
Describes the fruit and direction of the believer’s new life in Christ. Hebrews 12:12-17
Indicates necessary evidence of covenant life. Romans 6:15-23
ἁγιασμός gathers several dimensions of holy belonging without making them interchangeable. In 1 Corinthians 1, Christ is sanctification for a people who have no ground for boasting. In 1 Thessalonians 4, sanctification takes visible shape in sexual integrity, honorable treatment of the body, and refusal to exploit another person. In Romans 6, it is fruit produced under a new allegiance to God.
In Hebrews 12, the church must actively pursue holiness together with peace. A faithful teaching frame therefore begins with God's action in Christ and by the Spirit, then gives the biblical commands their full weight. It also protects wounded or scrupulous believers from treating holiness as a private achievement score. Sanctification is neither permission to remain unchanged nor a wage that purchases God's acceptance.
It is God's holy claim upon His people, His gracious work among them, and the life of obedience to which He calls them.
1Thess.4.3
ἁγιασμός belongs to the ἅγιος and ἁγιάζω word family. English translations may render it sanctification or holiness according to context. The noun ending does not by itself prove a fixed distinction between process and result, nor does it settle later theological categories. Its sentences do show varied but related uses: Christ as sanctification, sanctification by the Spirit, conduct directed toward holiness, fruit leading to holiness, and the pursuit of holiness.
Israel's call to be holy rests on the holiness of the Lord and on His act of setting apart a people for Himself. Exodus 19 and Leviticus 19 join identity, worship, justice, bodily life, and neighbor love. First Peter carries that call into a community redeemed by Christ and summoned to holy conduct. The continuity is God's holy character and His claim upon His people; the New Testament centers their sanctification in Christ, the Spirit, the gospel, and obedient hope.
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