19 Bible Verses About Being Set Apart

Leviticus 20:26

“You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”

Reflection: The verse comes near the end of a chapter of statutes, and the verses just before it tie Israel’s separation to its table. Because the Lord “has separated you from the peoples” (20:24), Israel is to “separate the clean beast from the unclean” (20:25); the ESV uses the same verb for both. The last clause gives the reason for the separation: “that you should be mine.”

Exodus 19:5-6

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Reflection: God gives Moses these words on the mountain for “the house of Jacob,” and they begin with what he has already done: “I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (19:4). The promise is conditional on keeping the covenant. The title “kingdom of priests” is given to the whole people, and the choice of one nation is made “among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.”

Deuteronomy 7:6

“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Reflection: Moses speaks as Israel is about to enter the land, and the verses before this one forbid covenants and marriages with its nations and order their altars broken down (7:2-5). The verses after it rule out Israel’s size as the reason for the choice: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people… for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you” (7:7-8). Deuteronomy 9:4-6 rules out Israel’s righteousness as well: “for you are a stubborn people.”

Jeremiah 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Reflection: The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah at his call, and the three verbs run in order: knew, consecrated, appointed. Jeremiah answers, “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth” (1:6), and the Lord does not withdraw the appointment but touches his mouth: “I have put my words in your mouth” (1:9).

Galatians 1:15

“But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,”

Reflection: Paul has just described his “former life in Judaism,” when he “persecuted the church of God violently” (1:13). He places his setting apart before his birth, in words close to God’s words to Jeremiah, and the purpose follows in the next verse: “in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (1:16).

Romans 1:1

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,”

Reflection: Paul opens the letter with three descriptions of himself: a servant, called to be an apostle, and set apart, here aphorizo, for the gospel. The next verse says what that gospel is: the one God “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (1:2).

Acts 13:2

“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’”

Reflection: The prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch are named in the verse before, Barnabas and Saul among them. The call came from the Spirit first (“the work to which I have called them”), and the prophets and teachers named in 13:1 set the two men apart by fasting, praying and laying hands on them before sending them off (13:3).

1 Corinthians 1:2

“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:”

Reflection: Paul calls the Corinthians “sanctified in Christ Jesus” in the letter’s greeting, before he has said anything about how they live. Later in the same chapter he takes up what Chloe’s people reported: “there is quarreling among you” (1:11).

Hebrews 10:10

“And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Reflection: “That will” is the will of God that Christ came to do: “Behold, I have come to do your will” (10:9). The contrast in the next verses is between priests who stand “daily” offering sacrifices “which can never take away sins” (10:11) and Christ’s “single offering” (10:14). Verse 14 holds both tenses together: he “has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Titus 2:14

“who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

Reflection: “A people for his own possession” is close to Deuteronomy 7:6, where Israel is chosen “to be a people for his treasured possession”; here it is said of those Christ redeemed. The verses before say the grace of God is “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” (2:12), and this verse names the mark of the purified people: they are “zealous for good works.”

1 Peter 2:9

“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.”

Reflection: Peter writes to “elect exiles of the Dispersion” in five provinces of Asia Minor (1:1) and gives them the titles God gave Israel at Sinai in Exodus 19:6: priesthood and holy nation. The verse states the purpose of being chosen, “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you,” and the next adds, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (2:10).

1 Peter 1:15-16

“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.’”

Reflection: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” is the refrain of Leviticus (11:44-45, 19:2, 20:26). The verse before gives the other side of the command: “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1:14). Holiness is measured by God’s own character and reaches “all your conduct.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.”

Reflection: Paul defines the will of God as “your sanctification” and gives it a concrete first meaning: abstaining from sexual immorality. The verses after it say why the instruction carries weight: “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness,” and whoever disregards it “disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (4:7-8).

Hebrews 12:14

“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

Reflection: The verse follows a passage on God’s discipline, which he gives “that we may share his holiness” (12:10). Peace and holiness are paired as things to pursue, and the next verse turns the pursuit into a shared watch: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God” (12:15).

Romans 12:2

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Reflection: Verse 1 asks the Roman Christians to present their bodies “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,” the language of an offering set apart for the altar. This verse describes the same change from the inside, by the renewal of the mind, and gives its result: being able to “discern what is the will of God.”

2 Timothy 2:21

“Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”

Reflection: The picture is a great house holding vessels “for honorable use” and “for dishonorable” (2:20). “Set apart as holy” translates hagiazo, the same verb Jesus uses in John 17:17. The cleansing is spelled out in the next verse: “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2:22).

2 Corinthians 6:17

“Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.”

Reflection: Paul builds the verse from Isaiah 52:11, a command to “go out from the midst of her” and “purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the Lord.” It follows “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (6:14) and “we are the temple of the living God” (6:16), and “be separate” is aphorizo again. The first verse of the next chapter gives the conclusion Paul draws: “let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (7:1).

John 17:16-18

“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

Reflection: Jesus is praying to the Father for his disciples, and the next chapter opens with his arrest in the garden. He has just said, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (17:15). The disciples are sanctified “in the truth” and sent into the world, not removed from it, and Jesus uses the same verb of himself: “for their sake I consecrate myself” (17:19).

1 Thessalonians 5:23

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Reflection: Paul closes the letter by asking the God of peace to do what chapter 4 described as the readers’ task. “Completely” is spelled out as “your whole spirit and soul and body,” and the next verse says who finishes it: “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (5:24).