To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
The word “holy” is where we get the word sanctified, and saints, therefor Paul is talking about holiness in that verse above. He says that each of us share a common calling and that calling is a lifestyle of holiness, or Christlikeness (Romans 8:29). The thing I love about this particular verse is that just before the Holy Spirit says that we are saints by calling, He says that we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. Think about that; we are called to holiness, and yet we are already holy in Christ. As a matter fact, the word “sanctified” is a verb that is both in the passive voice, and in the perfect tense. Passive voice means that we were the passive recipient of an action performed by another on our behalf, and the perfect tense in the original language means, some action that was fully completed in the past but with continual now time results. Sometimes it can feel like the call to holiness is a daunting burden that is overwhelmingly impossible to accomplish. Here is the cool thing; it has already been accomplished by Christ on your behalf, and all you have to do is take it out for a spin on a daily basis, manifesting that which is already been done in you because you are in Christ. Holiness is a person, and that person is Jesus, and you have been placed into his life, and therefor you are in union with his holy lie and lifestyle, and that has been true about you since the first moment you were born again. Our calling is to, by faith, manifest the holiness that is already ours because of our union with Jesus. It is a spiritual law that Christ is to us practically what he is to our faith. Remember, Faith doesn’t believe that something can be; faith believes that something is. It does not believe that He can, but it trusts that He is. The call to a holy life is not a daunting burden, and it was never meant to be something that we try to accomplish. It has already been accomplished in us, and step-by-step, we are simply called to thank Him for manifesting His holiness in and through us. The just shall live by faith, and just as you received Christ initially by faith, you continually by faith claim Him as your holiness, and as you do, that which is already true about you will be manifested.