ἅγιος

Read the opening of any of Paul’s epistles and pay attention to whom they are addressed.

“To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.” (Romans 1:7, ESV)

“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.” (1 Corinthians 1:2, ESV)

“To the saints who are at Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 1:1, ESV)

“To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi.” (Philippians 1:1, ESV)

“To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae.” (Colossians 1:2, ESV)

Paul addresses his letters to the saints. Not to a special class of advanced Christians within the congregations. Not to canonized heroes recognized by the broader church. To the saints — meaning all the believers in that city, in that congregation, in that ordinary church meeting in someone’s house. The widow attending services. The new convert from pagan idolatry. The longtime believer who served as a deacon. The slave girl who came on Sunday. The merchant. The household servants. All of them — collectively, by virtue of being in Christ — saints.

The Greek word is hagioi, the plural of hagios — holy. To be a saint in the New Testament is simply to be a hagios — a holy one — one who has been set apart for God through Christ. There is no second category of Christians who are “extra saints” as distinguished from regular church members. The hagioi are the church. The church is the hagioi. To be in Christ is to be a saint.

This is the chapter on hagios, and it sits in Part V on the Spirit and the Christian life because the Spirit who has been given to the church is the same Spirit who makes the church holy — applies Christ’s righteousness to the believer, sets the believer apart for God, sanctifies the believer gradually through the means of grace. The Christian is hagios because God has made him so. The category is gift, not achievement.

The Word

ἅγιος (hagios), pronounced HAH-gee-os. An adjective, used with both substantive and predicate force. The family is large and theologically loaded. It includes hagiazō (ἁγιάζω, “to make holy, to sanctify, to consecrate”), hagiasmos (ἁγιασμός, “sanctification, the process of being made holy”), hagiosynē (ἁγιωσύνη, “holiness, the state of being holy”), hagiotēs (ἁγιότης, “holiness, holy character”), and the adverb hagiōs (ἁγίως, “in a holy manner”). The plural noun-use hagioi (ἅγιοι, “holy ones, saints”) is the standard New Testament term for believers in Christ.

The Latin equivalent of hagios was sanctus, from which the English word “saint” descends through Norman French. The semantic root in both languages is the same: set apart, consecrated, dedicated to God. The English word “sanctify,” the English word “saint,” and the English word “sanctimonious” all descend from the same Latin root that translates the same Greek root. The lexical reality is that “saint” in English is etymologically just “holy one” — the same word, two languages, no division of categories.

The lexical background is Hebrew. The Greek hagios in the Septuagint translates the Hebrew qadosh (קָדוֹשׁ), the standard Old Testament word for holy. Qadosh names a fundamental theological reality: God is holy in His transcendence, His moral purity, His radical otherness from the creation; things and people belonging to God are holy by association with Him. The Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and Temple was the most-set-apart place. The Sabbath was a holy day. The priestly garments were holy. Israel was a holy nation, called to be holy because God is holy (Lev 11:44, 19:2, 20:7). Holiness in the Old Testament theology has two dimensions running through it: separation (set apart from common use, dedicated to God) and moral conformity (corresponding to God’s own character). The two cannot finally be pulled apart, though specific contexts emphasize one or the other.

The New Testament’s hagios inherits this entire Hebrew theological structure and applies it to the new-covenant realities. The Holy Spirit (to pneuma to hagion) is the holy person of the Godhead. Christ is the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24, John 6:69, Acts 3:14). The church is the holy nation, a holy temple, a holy priesthood. And the individual believers are hagioi — saints — set apart for God in Christ, made holy by Christ’s righteousness imputed and the Spirit’s work begun.

Range of Meaning

In its New Testament usage, hagios covers:

• The holiness of God Himself. The transcendent, morally pure, radically other character of the One who is “holy, holy, holy” (Isa 6:3, Rev 4:8).
• The holiness of Christ — the Holy One of God.
• The Holy Spirit specifically — the pneuma hagion, the third person of the Trinity.
• The holiness of believers — hagioi, saints, those set apart for God in Christ.
• The holiness of the church — collectively, as a holy nation, holy temple, holy priesthood.
• The holiness of objects, places, and practices — the holy Scriptures, the holy kiss (1 Cor 16:20), the holy calling (2 Tim 1:9), the holy mountain (2 Pet 1:18).

The senses overlap because they all derive from the one fundamental reality: God is holy, and what He claims becomes holy by His claiming. The believer’s holiness is derivative — given by association with the God who is holy in Himself. This is the structural pattern that runs through the entire biblical theology of holiness, Old Testament and New together.

Where You’ll Meet It

“And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Isaiah 6:3, ESV)

The foundational text. The seraphim sing the triple holiness of God. This is the theological floor on which everything else stands. God’s holiness is the source from which all derivative holiness flows. When Christians sing the Sanctus in the Communion liturgy — “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts” — they are joining a song that the seraphim began and the heavenly worship continues.

“But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:15–16, ESV)

Peter quoting Leviticus. The Old Testament command applies to the New Testament church. Believers are called to be holy because the God who called them is holy. The basis of the command is God’s character; the requirement is conformity to that character; the structure is the same Hebrew theology of qadosh that runs through Leviticus 19. The new-covenant gift does not abolish the old-covenant call to holiness; it grounds it in Christ and applies it through the Spirit.

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality…” (1 Thessalonians 4:3, ESV)

Sanctification — hagiasmos, the noun built directly from hagios — is God’s will for the believer. Paul connects sanctification to specific moral content (the next verses spell out what sanctification looks like in sexual ethics). Holiness is not an abstract spiritual state; it is conformity to God’s character in concrete daily life. The Lutheran tradition has held that sanctification involves both the believer’s standing (set apart in Christ, alien righteousness) and the believer’s actual life (real growth in conformity to God’s will, the Spirit’s ongoing work).

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11, ESV)

Paul’s compressed statement of what has been done to the believer. Three aorist passive verbs: washed (baptized — connecting to Chapter 29), sanctified (hēgiasthēte, made holy), justified (declared righteous — Chapter 19). All passive. All accomplished. All in the name of Christ and by the Spirit. The “you were sanctified” here names the accomplished sanctification — the setting-apart that happened decisively at baptism. The believer remains hagios on the basis of this accomplished work, even while growing in actual conformity to God’s character through the Spirit’s continuing work.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9, ESV)

The ecclesiological dimension. The church is a holy nation — ethnos hagion. The plural hagioi (saints) is gathered into one corporate holy people. The structure parallels Israel’s calling in Exodus 19:5–6 — Israel was to be God’s “treasured possession,” “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Peter applies the same language to the church, made up of Jews and Gentiles together, sanctified in Christ, called to proclaim God’s excellencies in the world.

“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14, ESV)

The eschatological dimension. The author of Hebrews names holiness — hagiasmon — as necessary for seeing the Lord. The holiness here is real. It is grown, pursued, struggled for. The believer is called to strive for it. This is one of the verses that Lutheran theology has held against antinomianism — the view that sanctification is optional because justification is complete. The Lutheran response: justification is complete in Christ, and sanctification follows from it as the Spirit’s real and necessary work in the justified believer. The faith that justifies is the faith that produces growth in holiness. Both are real. Neither cancels the other.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV)

The verse Paul places immediately after the famous by grace you have been saved through faith of Ephesians 2:8–9. Good works do not save; saved believers do good works. The structure is the same as the hagios structure: holiness does not earn standing; standing in Christ produces the holiness that the hagioi are called to live out. Paul refuses to let his readers separate justification from sanctification; he refuses equally to let them collapse one into the other. Both are real. Both are God’s work in the believer.