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Brass Pans Pulled Out of the Ashes
Two hundred and fifty men walked up to the tabernacle carrying brass fire pans full of incense. They had come to prove a point to Moses and Aaron: “all the congregation are holy, every one of them” (Numbers 16:3). Fire came out and consumed them.
Then came a strange order. Pick the pans out of the burning. Hammer them into broad plates. Use them to cover the altar. The reason given is one short line: “for they offered them before the LORD, therefore they are hallowed” (Numbers 16:38).
The men were rebels. The metal was holy. That one verse says more about what sanctification means than most definitions do.
What Does Sanctification Mean? Set Apart Before Anything Else
So what does sanctification mean? The Hebrew verb behind it is qadash, and the Greek is hagiazo. The King James Version translates the Hebrew verb as sanctify, hallow, consecrate, dedicate and even prepare. The shared idea is something marked off for God’s use. Scholars still argue about the root’s oldest sense. One classic Hebrew dictionary leaned toward “separation,” while others pointed to cleanness. But how the Bible actually uses the word is clear enough. (Our word study on qadosh, the Hebrew word for holy traces the family.)
Our Short points to the tabernacle’s shovels and bowls, and the detail holds up. Exodus 27:3 lists the altar’s “shovels, and his basons, and his fleshhooks, and his firepans,” all made “of brass.” Then Moses is told to anoint the tabernacle “and all the vessels thereof: and it shall be holy” (Exodus 40:9). Nothing about the brass changed. Its purpose did.
Here is where it gets harder. If sanctification just means being claimed, why does anyone have to grow?
Paul tells the church in Corinth, “ye are sanctified” (1 Corinthians 6:11). The Greek verb there is in the aorist tense, which usually describes something that has already happened. This is the same church he says has “envying, and strife, and divisions” (1 Corinthians 3:3). Then Hebrews 10:14 says: “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” The word for “them that are sanctified” is a present participle, which is why many modern translations read “those who are being sanctified.”
Perfected for ever. Still being sanctified. One sentence.
Scripture does not pick one. You are claimed, and you are still growing into the claim, and neither cancels the other.
What Most People Miss: Jesus Sanctified Himself
If sanctification mainly meant becoming less sinful, three verses would make no sense at all:
- An unbelieving spouse is called sanctified. “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife” (1 Corinthians 7:14). People have argued over this verse for centuries. Whatever it means, it cannot mean the husband became personally holy, because he still does not believe.
- Jesus is sanctified and then sent. He speaks of himself as the one “whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world” (John 10:36). Sanctified, then sent. The word points to a purpose.
- Jesus sanctifies himself. On the night before the cross, He prays: “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:19).
That last one settles it. Jesus had nothing to clean up. In that prayer He is setting himself apart for what the next day would ask of Him, and He does it “for their sakes.”
Jewish tradition kept this sense of the root alive in an unexpected place. At a traditional Jewish wedding, the groom gives the ring and says harei at mekudeshet li, “behold, you are consecrated to me.” That is not a Bible verse, but it shows the word’s everyday meaning. It sounds like a promise, not a report card. Nobody puts on a wedding ring to earn the marriage. You wear it because the marriage is already real, and over the years it changes how you live.
That is the order Paul prays in: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” And then, so nobody misses who is doing the work: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). Paul also calls sanctification God’s will for you in plain words, which we unpack in what is God’s will for my life.
Actions to Take This Week
Choose one ordinary thing you will use today, like a kettle, a phone or a work bag, and each time you pick it up, say quietly that it and you belong to God.
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 out loud tonight and underline the words that say who “will do it.”
Pray today about the one thing you have been trying to fix before you feel good enough to pray, exactly as it is right now.
A Prayer for Sanctification When You Feel Unfinished
God, I keep acting as though I have to get myself sorted before I can really be yours. I am tired of that. Thank you that you claimed me first, the same way you claimed plain brass bowls that did nothing to deserve it. I cannot make myself holy. Set me apart for what you made me for, in my kitchen, at my work, and in the habits I am ashamed of too. Keep changing me, slowly if that is what it takes. I trust that you are faithful, and that you will finish what you started. Amen.
Journal Prompts
Where have you been waiting to feel “together enough” before you let yourself belong to God?
If your ordinary week were a set of tabernacle tools, which part of it have you never thought of as claimed for anything?
What would change about how you handle one hard relationship if you saw yourself as already set apart, rather than trying to qualify?
Is there something you are trying to do on your own that 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says God will do?
Share This
Sanctified doesn’t mean I finally got my life together. It means I’ve been claimed. Even the shovels in the tabernacle were holy.
#Sanctification #BibleStudy #HebrewWords #FaithEveryday #WalkingWithJesus
Q&A: What Does Sanctification Mean? Even the Shovels Were Holy
What does sanctification mean in simple terms?
Sanctification means being set apart for God. The Hebrew verb qadash and the Greek verb hagiazo are used for people, days and even tabernacle tools marked off for God’s use, such as the brass shovels and basins in Exodus 27:3. In the New Testament it also describes the slow change in a person who belongs to God.
Is sanctification a one-time event or a process?
The Bible describes sanctification as both. Paul tells the Corinthians “ye are sanctified” (1 Corinthians 6:11) as something already done, while Hebrews 10:14 uses a present participle often translated “those who are being sanctified.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 describes believers being “changed into the same image from glory to glory,” which is ongoing.
What is the difference between justification and sanctification?
1 Corinthians 6:11 names both side by side: “ye are sanctified, but ye are justified.” Justification is about being declared right with God, while sanctification is about being set apart as God’s own and growing into that. Christian traditions explain how the two relate in different ways, but scripture treats them as belonging together.
What is the Hebrew word for sanctify?
The Hebrew word for sanctify is qadash (Strong’s H6942), from the same root as qadosh, “holy.” The King James Version translates it as sanctify, hallow, consecrate, dedicate and prepare. Genesis 2:3 uses it when God “blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.”
Who does the work of sanctification, God or me?
Scripture holds both together. Leviticus 20:8 says “I am the LORD which sanctify you,” and 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” Yet people are also told “Sanctify yourselves” (Joshua 3:5), so the Bible pictures God doing the claiming and changing while people respond by living out what they already are.
Back to the Brass, and the Kitchen Pots
Those fire pans ended up as a covering on the altar. They were a warning, yes. They were also holy metal that had once belonged to men who got almost everything wrong.
Zechariah looks ahead to a day when the line between temple and home disappears: “Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 14:21). Not just the altar bowls. The soup pots.
Your ordinary life is the pot. It does not have to be special to be claimed.
What is the most ordinary part of your week that you have never thought of as belonging to God? Tell us in the comments.
Watch the original short: What Does Sanctification Mean? Even the Shovels Were Holy on YouTube.
