SANCTIFICATION, HOLINESS, AND THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 

My method of analyzing both English and Hebrew words is to look at the ancient Hebrew translated into English. For instance, regardless of time, setting apart in God should be the same process. With that understanding, I will now attempt to analyze what sanctification literally means using the ancient Hebrew pictographs.

God told Moses to sanctify the things about the altar and Aaron was one of them to be sanctified, “He (Moses) poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him” (Lev 8:12). Like the furniture of the tabernacle, Aaron was sanctified to be made holy (Exod 30:29).

Hence, there is commonality between sanctification and made holy. Note that nothing was holy, but God made them holy, and that included Aaron.  Like the things of the tabernacle, Aaron was just “furniture” until God sanctified him in holiness.

Now let’s take a critical look at sanctification. To “sanctify” is “qadas” in the Hebrew. Likewise, “holy is “qadas.” Hence, “sanctification” is a state of holiness after once being merely common.

Qadas itself is spelled qof – dalet – shin. The letter dalet represents the pathway, or “The Way” (Yeshua) to salvation (Yesua; יְשׁוּעָה).

The spelling of Yeshua is יֵשׁוּעַ Note that Yesua is Yeshua with the added “h” (hey) at the end. Hence, Yeshua is The Way to salvation whereas the dalet is the famous “door” which Jesus knocks for salvation (Rev 3:20).

The “door” on which Yeshua knocks to Yesua is literally a window (hey) through which the saving Breath of God provides the pathway through the door. Hence, hey is verbal; it represents the opening of the dalet (or “door”) for God to pass through and for those who are sanctified to pass through as well. That takes care of the dalet in qadas. It is essentially going from one spiritual state to another.

(I explained quantum tunneling in an earlier commentary; it is just going through a firmament from an unholy state to a holy state. Hence, “quantum tunneling” very well describes sanctification with the quantum coming from the Power of the Almighty God.)

Entering the tunnel is the Hebrew letter qof. Its pictograph is a circle with a line through it. Qof implies separation from the pictograph, The biblical Hebrew version of the letter qof follows:

 

 

It is the eye of God (ayin) with the letter vav passing through it. Qof can be represented by ayin, divine vision and vav, the connection between heaven and Earth; thusly the needle that knits together in love (Col 2:2).

 

That was the metaphor of Jesus when He said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mat 19:24).

The vav can pass easily through the ayin for it is just a needle (some manner of connection.) However, a camel is the metaphor for the letter gimmel, shown next:

 

 

Note that the vav (in the box) is a gimmel without the legs. The legs in the gimmel represent a man walking. The “needle” is without legs and, its closed version represented which is often written without the top (the letter yod). Hence, the closed vav is the “thread” and the ayin the eye of the needle.

However, Jesus said that it was possible, for the gimmel to go through the ayin. Remembering that vav represents both mankind and the Messiah as well; the letter vav is a firm thing. On the other hand, the letter gimmel is just the footprint of a camel, with the camel revealing its passage through by its effects on things that are seen (Rom 1:20). A rich man (vav) cannot get through but a Holy Ghost which the gimmel symbolizes can because it is not a material Thing.

First off, mankind (Adam) had the phantom Image (Strong 2006) of God breathed unto him (Gen 1:27). That Image could be characterized by the gimmel, a picture of a camel no longer there — a “ghost.” Adam was sanctified at his creation because the Holy Ghost was in him. That explains the letter qof at the door (dalet) in qadas, leaving only the letter shin at the end.

If qof represents the beginning of separation, as it does, the letter shin would represent completion of separation — “entire sanctification,” or glorification.

The letter shin represents release, indubitably to freedom from the things of the world by the consuming power of God. The letter shin also represents completeness consisting of three parts. Shin perhaps reveals the three substances of the divine Man, Jesus: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as members of the whole.

Shin also represents fire, or holocaust. Luke wrote in the Acts of the Holy Ghost, “There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” (Acts 2:3) revealing the Power of the Holy Ghost of the Man, Jesus. Hence, the letter shin may also be the wholeness of God and the sinner made whole again (Mat 9:22).

So, if qadas (holiness, sanctification) is examined literally (and critically), the qof represents potentiality, the dalet The Way or passage, and the shin his three substances as in the beginning with Adam. Shin is holiness (set apartness) and qof includes the “whosoever” in John 3:16 and the means of setting whosoever apart via the gateway:

 

Enter in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is The Way (dalet), which leads unto life, and few there be that find it... Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many, I say unto you, “Will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” (Mat 7:13-14, 24)

 

With that said, shin is holiness in the manner of God, Be you holy because God is holy (1 Pet 1:16). When the Holy Ghost came, the Christians there were set apart as holy. In other words, they were sanctified by the Holy Ghost taking them through the eye of the needle.

Peter was telling them to be sanctified, or set apart, from the whosoever’s.

Note that you can’t be holy without God. That gateway is where The Way of God comes in. You can get through the eye of the needle only in phantom, or as Peter wrote about, “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation (Yesua) of your souls (phantoms)” (1 Pet 1:9).

It is not just anybody that is set apart, albeit anybody has potential. (Is it just coincidence that the qof,  the Greek letter phi represents gravitational potential?)

Qadas seems to represent the process of becoming holy wherein it is Jesus who sets apart as the letter shin suggests, for He is the “godhead” Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Perhaps now you understand the process of sanctification better, or it could confuse you even more.

 

picture credit: foyr neo