Our verse tells us that Jesus has sanctified His people by His own blood. Sanctification is a subject in Scripture that is often misunderstood. To be sanctified means to be set apart; it is related to the word “holy.” There is a positional once-for-all sanctification, which our verse speaks about, and there is the practical sanctification in which we are learning more every day what pleases our Father and the Lord Jesus.

In this verse, we read that we have been sanctified “once for all” by His own blood. Both objects and people in the Old Testament were, in type, sanctified through the blood of animals. The children of Israel in Egypt were set apart to God and from Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb. They were separated from the judgment that fell upon Egypt with the death of the firstborn. We also have been set apart to God and from this world and its judgment through the blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 1:4). For us to truly be sanctified to God, it required the blood of the Son of God, the true Lamb of God.

We have been set apart to God for Himself and His use. The vessels in the tabernacle were sanctified (Lev. 8:10), but they were not just set apart to sit on a shelf. They were meant to be used. So our God and Father has set us apart to Himself in order to use us. Dear fellow believer, you have been set apart to God. Now He wants to use you in His service. Every believer has a gift and a service for the Lord. He does not want us to sit on a shelf, as it were, collecting dust. He desires to use us for His own glory and the blessing of others, whether in the gospel, or in teaching, or in shepherd care of His flock, or in helping in the many behind-the-scenes ways that are so needed. May we be found “abounding always in the work of the Lord” when He comes.