What does the Bible say about sanctification?

Key Bible verses about sanctification

1. 1 Thessalonians 4:3

   For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,

2. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

   May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who will also do it.

3. John 17:17

   Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

4. Romans 6:11-13

   Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

5. Romans 8:13

   For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

6. Romans 12:1-2

   Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

7. 2 Corinthians 3:18

   But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.

8. Galatians 5:16-17

   But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.

9. Philippians 1:6

   being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

10. Philippians 2:12-13

    So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

11. Hebrews 12:14

    Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,

12. 1 Peter 1:15-16

    but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior, because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Scripture: World English Bible (public domain). Short quotations in the introduction are from the ESV. Read each passage in its chapter for the full context.