The theme of consecration in the Bible leads to a lot of question marks. In this article, we will discover the nature of consecrated things in the Bible. We will look at Bible verses that describe the meaning of consecration in more detail. Near the end of the article, we will explore the effect that the cross of Christ has on the topic of consecration for modern believers.
Definition of consecration in the Bible
Photo by Freddy Castro
The verb ‘to consecrate’ usually applies to a person, not a thing. Consecration means to declare someone sacred or to set them apart.
Some synonyms for consecration are:
Quick Assessment
Why does your prayer life keep falling flat?
It's usually one of four things — and each one needs a completely different strategy to break through. This 2-minute assessment tells you exactly which pattern is blocking you.
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.”
Consecration in the Bible & being set apart for God’s purposes
Consecration means that someone is made clean and set apart to dedicate themselves to the things of God.
Free Resource
Get Your FREE Prayer Guide Now
and join the Daily Way Devotional: Join 25,000+ Subscribers
Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.
Psalm 4:3
But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him.
One of the most popular Bible verses on the word consecration is found in the New Testament.
Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 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.
Romans 1:1
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.
In these verses above, we see that the Bible often talks about people being kept clean and set apart in order to serve God.
Identity as a key piece of consecration
Consecration in the Bible speaks about those who live in the Kingdom of God. Being consecrated as God’s person is kind of like putting a sticker on someone that reads Property Of…
If you are consecrated to God, you are His.
Let’s see what the Bible says about the identity of those who are consecrated to God:
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.
1 Corinthians 6:20
For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Jeremiah 31:33
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
What does consecration say about God?
The idea of someone being consecrated to God says more about God than it does about a person.
God loves you so much that He desires your undivided attention. He created your innermost parts and He wove you together in your mother’s womb. He has called you by name and you are His very precious belonging.
Matthew 22:37
And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Exodus 34:14
For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
A God who desires consecration is a God who desires your undivided attention. He is not wishy-washy or interested in lukewarm commitment. He wants to be your everything!
The meaning of consecration in the Old Testament
Photo by Diana Polekhina
The Old Testament is very clear about the idea of consecration as being set apart, cleansed, and prepared in order to come face to face with God. Mosaic law was clear that the evil way of the world corrupted people. They had to uphold the laws of a sin offering, not touch an unclean thing, keep the seventh day holy, and many others too.
Genesis 2:3
So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
Joshua 3:5
Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
Isaiah 1:16-20
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Leviticus 7:37
This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering.
Nobody could see God face-to-face in the Old Testament. When He came near, they had to cover their face and hide away. There were lots of things that people had to do in order to prepare themselves to come before God.
Special vows, separation, fasting, abstinence and consecration in the Bible
Numbers 6:1-5
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy.”
The consecrated life of Christ followers
Some modern believers say that consecration is just an Old Testament way of believing. “It is not necessary for us!” However, this same Old Covenant view of consecration is found in the New Testament as well. Albeit, a bit differently. In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul writes about the consecrated life of those who gather in the house of the Lord.
Romans 6:13
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
2 Corinthians 6:19
Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.
New Testament verses like these make it clear that God still expects His people to be consecrated to Him and Him alone. Jesus taught that followers of the Way should know Christ and Him alone – they should not get distracted by the world, but they need to become a people of singular focus.
Matthew 6:24
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
What kind of consecration is it that the Bible talks about?
The kind of consecration that is described in the Bible is not only about thinking oneself into right standing before God – it is a whole life change.
2 Timothy 2:20-21
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 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.
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
The heart desire that leads to Biblical consecration
The kind of heart desire that the Bible speaks about is a very sincere, open, and vulnerable stance of realizing: “I am not Lord of my own life after all. I need to surrender and get right before God. I need to give over control and trust Him. My life is safer in His hands!”
Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Matthew 13:44-46
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
What leads to the kind of consecration in the Bible?
Photo by Yannick Pulver
Ironically, in the Kingdom of God, things are often upside-down. If we want to receive, we give. If we want justice, we surrender. And, in the same way, consecration does not mean doing lots of “right” things in order to win God’s approval. It means resting in God’s work (finished work!) on the cross. The Lord’s love was made clear for us in this. He sent His one and only Son to die for the sins of all humanity. Then He conquered death and rose again to offer a new life for all who believe in Him.
1 Peter 2:24
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
1 Corinthians 6:11
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
A consecrated person holds the cross and resurrection of Christ close to their heart. Why? We’ve discovered a lot about the meaning of consecration in this post. It became clear that people had to cleanse themselves in order to be made right with God.
Well, that wasn’t working very well, was it? That is why God promised a Messiah who would wash away all of our iniquities. Jesus came to restore our relationship with the Father.
Consecration can be seen as the very reason why Jesus Christ came to Earth.
What does it look like to live a consecrated life?
The idea of living as a consecrated person can seem lofty – too big to understand. But the Bible is pretty clear about what it means to live a consecrated life before the Father.
Colossians 3:5-11
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old selfwith its practicesand have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,free; but Christ is all, and in all.
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.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
How to make consecration in the Bible part of your life
Consecration is not about good works or jumping through certain hoops in order to obtain God’s love and affection. Most of us are not a high priest by profession, yet God still desires to walk closely with us. The holy place that God calls you to might not be a temple or a church. It might very well be your home dinner table.
This is what it means to be consecrated for God. It looks like being open to His sacred use of every ordinary area of your life.
Consider the Scriptures below and meditate on what it looks like to live a life of consecration:
Hebrews 10:19-22
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Romans 6:16
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Romans 6:19
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Eljoh Hartzer is combining theology and art to nurture faith journeys across generations. She is a Masters-level Practical Theologian with the University of Stellenbosch. She is also a writer and editor in the niche of Christianity and children's content and she illustrates children's books. Eljoh resides in the Swartland area in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
You can follow Eljoh on LinkedIn or Instagram.
