To sanctify
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hagiazo means to sanctify, make holy, hallow, set apart, or consecrate according to context. The verb can speak of God's name being honored as holy, the Father setting apart and sending the Son, Jesus consecrating Himself for His people, the truth sanctifying disciples, and believers being sanctified through Christ's sacrifice and by the Spirit.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἁγιάζω (G37) · Open the biblical lexicon
hagiazo means to sanctify, make holy, hallow, set apart, or consecrate according to context. The verb can speak of God's name being honored as holy, the Father setting apart and sending the Son, Jesus consecrating Himself for His people, the truth sanctifying disciples, and believers being sanctified through Christ's sacrifice and by the Spirit.
The BSB source-word alignment has 28 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Sanctify (6), sanctified (5), are sanctified (2), hallowed be (2), is sanctified (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 6:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Hebrews (7), 1 Corinthians (4), John (4), Matthew (3).
This entry includes 2 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
Hagiazo means to sanctify, make holy, hallow, set apart, or consecrate according to context. The verb can speak of God's name being honored as holy, the Father setting apart and sending the Son, Jesus consecrating Himself for His people, the truth sanctifying disciples, and believers being sanctified through Christ's sacrifice and by the Spirit. The word does not mean that human effort makes something holy apart from God, nor does it make sanctification a vague mood of seriousness.
In the New Testament, holiness is rooted in God's own character, secured by Christ's work, applied by the Spirit, and expressed in lives set apart for God's purpose. For teaching, hagiazo keeps worship, atonement, truth, identity, and obedience together without confusing them.
The selected passages move from hallowing the Father's name, to the Son set apart and sent, to disciples sanctified by truth and Christ's self-consecration, to believers made holy through Christ and the Spirit.
So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
Jesus teaches disciples to pray that the Father's name be hallowed. Here hagiazo means to regard, honor, and confess God's name as holy rather than to improve God in any way.
Then what about the One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world? How then can you accuse Me of blasphemy for stating that I am the Son of God?
Jesus describes Himself as the One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world. The verb marks divine appointment and consecration for mission, not moral improvement in the Son.
Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.
Jesus asks the Father to sanctify His people by the truth, explicitly naming the Father's word as truth. Sanctification is tied to God's revealed word rather than to religious atmosphere.
For them I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth.
Jesus sanctifies Himself for His people so that they may be sanctified by the truth. His consecrated obedience grounds and serves their holiness.
And that is what some of you were. 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.
Paul tells former sinners that they were washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ's name and by the Spirit. Sanctification is part of the saving change God has worked, not a badge of self-made purity.
And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews roots believers' sanctification in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus' body. The passage gives hagiazo an atonement-centered anchor that keeps holiness tied to Christ's completed offering.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. to sanctify
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 29 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
Read verseI make holy, sanctify
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
How this verb appears across 26 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 28 lexical occurrence verses.
ἁγιάζω is built from this root:
Describes the Father's setting apart of the Son.1 Peter 3:13-22
Set apart through divine truth.John 17:6–19
Describes consecration for holy mission.
Directs believers to treat Christ as supreme Lord amid hostility.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Hagiazo teaches that holiness is first God's reality before it becomes the believer's calling. Disciples pray for the Father's name to be hallowed because God must be honored as He truly is. Jesus is sanctified and sent by the Father, not because He lacks holiness, but because He is consecrated for His saving mission. In John 17 He asks that His people be sanctified by the truth, and He sanctifies Himself for them, tying their holiness to His obedient self-giving.
First Corinthians 6 shows sanctification as part of the saving break from former sins, while Hebrews 10 grounds it in the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. The word therefore resists both pride and despair: holiness is not self-manufactured, but neither is it optional. God sets apart His people by Christ, truth, and the Spirit so they may belong to Him in worship and life.
John.17.17
Hagiazo does not always mean the same action in every context. When God's name is hallowed, the issue is reverent recognition. When the Son is sanctified and sent, the issue is consecrated mission. When believers are sanctified, the issue is God's setting them apart through Christ, truth, and the Spirit.
Old Testament consecration language sets priests, vessels, days, and the people apart for the Lord. The New Testament does not abandon that holiness logic, but centers it on the Son who is sent, the sacrifice that sanctifies, and the truth that forms disciples under the Father's name.