Hagios #77

Hagios describes what is set apart from ordinary use and consecrated for a sacred purpose — the same core sense carried by the Hebrew qadosh, which the Septuagint regularly translates with this word. As an adjective it is applied to God himself, to the Spirit (“Holy Ghost” or “Holy Spirit”), to places and objects devoted to worship, and, in its plural substantive form, directly to believers.

Biblical Usage

Peter grounds the church’s call to holy living in God’s own character, quoting the Old Testament command almost verbatim: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Paul routinely addresses his letters to believers using the plural of this same word, greeting “the saints [hagiois] which are at Ephesus” (Ephesians 1:1) and those in Rome “called to be saints” (Romans 1:7) — not a small class of especially virtuous Christians, but the ordinary designation for every believer, set apart by God’s call rather than by their own achievement. Paul also applies the word to the believer’s own body, since it houses “the Holy Ghost which is in you” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Theological Significance

Later Christian usage narrowed “saint” toward a title for the exceptionally holy dead, but the New Testament’s own use of hagios as a plural noun for living believers is much broader: every Christian is a hagios, set apart in status by union with Christ, whatever the state of their present character. That gap between a believer’s holy standing and their still-imperfect conduct is the ground of the New Testament’s repeated calls to become in practice what hagios already declares them to be.