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The term, ἐκκλήσια (church), formed of the two words "out of" and "to call," denotes in ordinary Greek language an assembly of citizens called out of their dwellings by an official summons (cf. Acts 19:41). Applied to the religious domain in the New Testament, the word preserves essentially the same meaning. Here, too, there is a summoner — God, who calls sinners to salvation by the preaching of the gospel (Galatians 1:6). There are the summoned — sinners, called to faith thenceforth to form the new society of which Christ is the Head. The complement "of God" indicates at once Him who has summoned the assembly, and Him to whom it belongs. The term, "the Church of God," thus corresponds to the Old Testament phrase, "the congregation of the Lord"; but there is this difference, that the latter was recruited by way of filiation, while in the new covenant the Church is formed and recruited by the personal adherence of faith.

(Prof. Godet.)

Threefold sanctification (Jude 1, text, and 1 Peter 1:2): — Mark the union of the three Divine Persons in all their gracious acts. How unwise all those who make preferences in the Persons of the Trinity. In their love, and in the actions which flow from it, they are one. Specially is this in the case of sanctification. This being the case, what value God must set upon holiness! God could as soon cease to be as cease to be holy, and sooner renounce the sovereignty of the world than tolerate anything unholy. Sanctification means —

I. SETTING APART — the taking of something which might legitimately have been put to ordinary uses for God's service alone.

1. E.g., in Exodus 13:2 God claimed the firstborn of men and cattle. The tribe of Levi was set apart to be the representatives of the firstborn. In Genesis 2:3, God set apart for His own service what had been an ordinary portion of time before. So Leviticus 27:14 was meant as a direction to devout Jews, who intended that the produce of the field or the occupation of the house should be wholly given to God. So in Exodus 29:44 we read that God said, "I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar." To the same effect are the sanctification of the altar, instruments, and vessels (Numbers 7:1), the setting apart of Eleazer to keep the ark (1 Samuel 7:1), and the establishment of cities of refuge (Joshua 20:7). This Old Testament use of the word explains John 10:26. Immaculately conceived and preserved from all stain of evil, Christ needed no sanctifying work within Him. All that is here intended is that He was set apart (John 17:19). You understand now the text in Jude. God the Father has specially set apart His people.

2. What suggestive and solemn thoughts are here.

(1) If we are sanctified by God we ought never to be used for any purpose but for Him. Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price. "But must we not work and earn our own bread?" Yes! but still as "serving the Lord." If any man say, "I have an occupation in which I cannot serve the Lord," leave it, you have no right in it; but there is no lawful calling in which you will not be able to say, "I do all to the glory of God." The Christian is no more a common man than was the altar a common place. It is as great a sacrilege for Christians to live to the world as it would have been for the Jews to use the holy fire for their own kitchen.

(2) It was a crime which brought destruction upon Babylon when Belshazzar had brought forth the cups of the Lord, the goodly spoil of the temple at Jerusalem." Just as the sacred vessel touched the sacrilegious lip, a hand was seen mysteriously writing out his doom. Oh, take heed, ye that profess to be sanctified by the blood of the covenant, that you reckon it not to be an unholy thing. See to it that ye make not your bodies which ye profess to be set apart to God's service, slaves of sin. If you and I are tempted to sin, we must reply, "No, let another man do that, but I cannot; I am God's man." When Antiochus Epiphanes offered a sow on the altar, his awful death might have been easily foretold. Oh! how many there are who make a high profession, who have offered unclean flesh upon the altars of God; have made religion a stalking-horse to their own emolument.

II. That the thing set apart for holy uses is TO BE REGARDED, TREATED, AND DECLARED HOLY.

1. E.g., in Isaiah 8:13, it is said, "Sanctify the Lord of Hosts, Himself." Now the Lord does not need to be set apart for holy uses, nor to be purified, for He is holiness itself. When Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10.) put strange fire on the altar, and the fire of the Lord consumed them, the reason was — "I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me"; by which He meant that He would be treated as a most Holy Being with whom such liberties were not to be taken (see also Numbers 10:12, and "hallowed be Thy name" in the Lord's Prayer).

2. Have we not some light here concerning our second text — "Sanctified in Christ Jesus" ? In Christ Jesus the saints are regarded by God as being holy, and treated as such, i.e., are justified. A holy God cannot have dealings with unholy men; but He views us, not in ourselves, but in our federal Head, the Second Adam. We may boldly enter into the Holiest, where no unholy thing may come, because God views us as holy in Christ Jesus. We now come to —

III. ACTUALLY TO PURIFY OR MAKE HOLY.

1. In Exodus 19:10-12 sanctification consisted in certain outward deeds by which they were put into a cleanly state and their souls were brought into reverential awe. In Joshua 3., when Israel were about to pass the Jordan, they were to prepare themselves to be beholders of a scene so august. Men in the old times were sprinkled with blood, and thus sanctified from defilement and considered to be pure in the sight of God. This is the sense in which we view our third text, "Sanctification through the Spirit," the sense in which it is generally understood.

2. Sanctification begins in regeneration, and is carried on in two ways — by mortification, whereby the lusts of the flesh are subdued, and vivification, by which the life which God has put within us is made to spring up into everlasting life. This is carried on every day in what we call perseverance, and it comes to perfection in "glory." Now this work, though we commonly speak of it as being the work of the Spirit, is quite as much the work of Christ. There are two agents: one is the worker who works this sanctification effectually — that is the Spirit; and the other, the agent, the efficacious means by which the Spirit works this sanctification is — Jesus Christ and His most precious blood. There is a garment which needs to be washed. Here is a person to wash it, and there is a bath in which it is to be washed — the Person is the Holy Spirit, but the bath is the precious blood of Christ.

3. The Spirit of God as the Author of sanctification employs a visible agent. "Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth." How important then that the truth should be preached.

4. In another sense we are sanctified through Christ Jesus, because it is His blood and the water which flowed from His side in which the Spirit washes our heart from the defilement and propensity of sin (Ephesians 5:25). There is no being sanctified by the law; the Spirit does not use legal precepts to sanctify us. No; just as when Marah's waters were bitter, Moses had a tree cast in, and they were sweet, so the Spirit of God, finding our natures bitter, takes the tree of Calvary, casts it into the stream, and everything is made pure. He finds us lepers, and to make us clean He dips the hyssop of faith in the precious blood, and sprinkles it upon us and we are clean. The blood of Christ not merely makes satisfaction for sin, but works the death of sin. The blood appears before God and He is well pleased; it falls on us — lusts wither, and old corruptions feel the death-stroke.

5. Just as the Spirit only works through the truth, so the blood of Christ only works through faith. Our faith lays hold on the atonement, sees Jesus suffering on the tree, and says, "I vow revenge against the sins which nailed Him there"; and thus His precious blood works in us a detestation of all sin.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,

WEB: Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,