Before we can move very far into 1 Corinthians, we have to slow down over the way Paul opens the letter.
He writes, “to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2 NET).
Those words, “sanctified” and “saints,” are part of the problem. Not because they are complicated words, but because they are not words most people use in everyday life. When modern Christians hear them, they usually hear church language. They hear theology. They hear moral progress, personal holiness, or some special religious status.
But that is already part of the difficulty. We live with a strong divide between sacred and secular. Religion goes in one category. Normal life goes in another. Worship, church, prayer, and doctrine belong to the sacred side. Work, meals, bodies, politics, associations, and public life belong to the ordinary side.
That is not how the first century world worked.
In Corinth, these words did not float around as private Christian vocabulary. They belonged to a world where gods, temples, meals, bodies, cities, days, tables, cups, festivals, and associations could all carry sacred meaning. “Saints” and “sanctified” were not words invented by Christians for Christians. They were words that made sense in the religious and social world of the city itself.
So before we decide what Paul means by calling the Corinthians sanctified and saints, we have to recover what it meant for anything, or anyone, to be set apart in their world.
In the ancient world, to be “set apart” meant to be designated for the exclusive use or service of a deity. It was not mainly an inward feeling or a private spiritual status. It was a real world category. A place, an object, a day, a priest, an offering, a meal, a cup, a table, or a person could be removed from common use and assigned to a god.
But the contrast is not simply between being “set apart” and not being “set apart.” In a world full of gods and lords, all kinds of things could be set apart. The question was not merely, “Are you set apart?” The question was, “To whom are you set apart?”
That is the part we can easily miss. Paul is not speaking into a world where Israel’s God has sacred things and everyone else lives in some neutral, ordinary, unsacred space. Other deities had things set apart to them too. Apollo could have days, places, songs, offerings, rituals, and people devoted to his service. Dionysus could have meals, cups, festivals, processions, associations, and tables marked out in his honor. A table could belong to one god. A cup could belong to another. A body could be used in the service of a deity. A group could gather under the name, protection, and honor of a god.
So when Paul says the Corinthians are “sanctified in Christ Jesus” and “called to be saints,” he is not saying, “You are set apart, unlike the rest of the world where nothing is set apart.” That would not have been the world they knew. The issue is not sacred people over against a world with no sacred claims. The issue is which sacred claim now owns them.
That is the picture we need in our mind when Paul opens 1 Corinthians: “to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2 NET).
Paul is not merely talking about their personal moral progress. He is naming their status, their belonging, and their allegiance. In a city like Corinth, this would not have sounded like vague religious language. Corinth was full of temples, shrines, sacred meals, civic cults, gods, lords, patrons, festivals, and associations. People knew what it meant for a place to belong to a god, for a meal to belong to a god, for a body to be used in the service of a god, or for a group to gather under the honor of a god.
So when Paul calls them sanctified and saints, he is saying they have been claimed for the exclusive use and service of a particular God, the God of Israel, through Jesus Christ. They are not common property. They are not religiously available to every sacred claim around them. They are not free to move between temples, tables, bodies, gods, and lords as if nothing has changed. They have been marked off as belonging to the Lord.
You can see that belonging language unfold throughout the letter.
In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, “The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13 NET). Their bodies are not neutral territory. Then he says, “You do not belong to yourselves,” because “you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19 and 20 NET). That is ownership language. Belonging language. The body now belongs to the Lord.
In 1 Corinthians 10, the cup is not just a cup. Paul calls it “the cup of the Lord.” The table is not just a table. He calls it “the table of the Lord.” Then he sets those beside “the cup of demons” and “the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21 NET). That is the ancient world in full view. Meals belonged somewhere and to someone. Tables belonged somewhere and to someone. Cups belonged somewhere and to someone. Participation was not empty symbolism. To sit at a sacred table was to share in the sacred claim of the power honored there.
In 1 Corinthians 11, the meal itself is called “the Lord’s supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20 NET). It is not merely the Corinthians’ meal to arrange according to their own habits, status games, or social customs. It belongs to the Lord. That is why their behavior at that meal cannot be separated from the one to whom the meal belongs.
This means the Corinthians could not simply relabel their previous associations and call them good. They could not keep the same sacred habits, the same temple meals, the same bodily practices, the same loyalties, and then attach Christ’s name to them. If a meal belonged to another deity, it was already claimed. If a table belonged to another divine power, it was already set apart. If bodily practices belonged to the service of another god, then the body was being used in another sacred world.
That is why Paul’s language has force. To be sanctified in Christ Jesus meant the Corinthians had been set apart to the God of Israel through the Lord Jesus Christ. Their bodies, their cup, their table, their meal, their assembly, and their worship now belonged to him.
So “saints” does not mean religious elite. “Sanctified” does not mean morally flawless. These words are not first asking us to imagine private spiritual improvement. They are asking us to imagine a people claimed by a God, removed from rival sacred claims, and designated for his exclusive service.
So if we flatten sanctification into the way we usually talk about it, we can miss the force of Paul’s language. We often begin with ourselves. I do not do this anymore. I walked away from that. I have decided this thing is not good for me. I can mark my progress by what I no longer practice.
There is truth in that, but it can also become very subjective. If sanctification is mainly measured by what I think I have been sanctified from, then I can quietly become the one setting the standard. I decide what counts as progress. I decide what belongs on the list. I decide which parts of my life prove that I am becoming more sanctified. The whole thing can collapse into a private record of personal improvement, measured by the things I have chosen to leave behind.
Paul’s language pushes deeper than that. The first question is not simply, “What have I been sanctified from?” The first question is, “Who have I been sanctified to?”
That question makes sanctification concrete. It moves the standard outside of myself. If the Corinthians have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, then they have been claimed by the God of Israel. Now they have to ask what belongs to him. What is his cup? What is his table? What is his meal? What is his assembly? What are his days, his ways, his worship, his service?
That is where sanctification becomes more than personal self improvement. The Corinthians are not simply leaving behind things they personally decided were bad. They are learning to live in exclusive service to the God who has claimed them. Other deities had their own sacred things. They had their own tables, cups, meals, days, rituals, associations, and bodily claims. But the Corinthians have been set apart to God in Christ, so their participation now has to be found where he has placed his name, his claim, and his service.
That is what gives sanctification its weight. The “from” only makes sense because of the “to.” They turn away from rival sacred claims because they now belong to the Lord. So “saints” is not a decorative title, and “sanctified” is not a private spiritual mood. Paul is telling the Corinthians who they are by telling them whose they are. They are set apart to God in Christ, and every part of their life has to answer to the one to whom they now belong.
