Sanctify Them in the Truth
John 17:14-19
14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
In John 17 Jesus is praying to God the Father. This takes place just before Jesus and His disciples arrive in the garden of Gethsemane where He will later be arrested. John records four chapters (John 13-17) of Jesus teaching His disciples as He prepares them for His death and departure. In this chapter Jesus prays for: Himself, that God would glorify Him (John 17:1-5); He prays for His disciples, that God would keep them and sanctify them (John 17:6-19); and He prays for His church that God would unify us in love as a testimony to the world for His glory (John 17:20-26).
Today we focus on the second request of Jesus for His disciples. His first request for them was “Father keep them,” that is—that the Father would keep them eternally spiritually secure in this evil world. The second request is “Sanctify them” (John 17:17), “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
1. What is sanctification?
The first question we really need to ask is: “What does the word “sanctify” mean?” In Greek, sanctify is the word, ἁγιάζω (hagiazw), which is related to the term ἅγιος (hagios), meaning “holy” or “set apart for sacred use.” Sanctify (ἁγιάζω, hagiazw) is used to translate the Hebrew term שׁדַקָ (qâdash), meaning “to set apart, consecrate, sanctify, dedicate, be holy, be separate.” In the Old Testament sanctification was a mostly an outward cleansing through a ritual process, but the external ceremony was intended to symbolize an internal reality. God sets apart His people (Lev. 19:2, 20:26), His priests (Lev. 21:8), His holy place (Lev. 16:16) and implements or items of worship (Lev. 27:30,32) as “Holy to the Lord.” So to sanctify means the process by which God sets apart, dedicates, and purifies the people and the things that are His.
In the New Testament sanctification is a work of God that is internal and spiritual. For the believer it has three phases: a) positional sanctification; b) progressive sanctification; c) perfected sanctification.
a. Positional sanctification is when God sets us apart as His own at conversion. This is a one-time consecration to God. Hebrews 10:10 says, “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” For believers, this sanctification is past tense and complete. God has set us apart from the world and dedicated us for His purposes. Paul writes (1 Cor. 6:11), “… But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” We have been sanctified, separated from the penalty of sin. This is positional sanctification.
b. Progressive sanctification is the process where God continually makes us more holy, more like Christ, through the power of His Holy Spirit by His word. It is growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18). It is God’s process of purifying His bride as Paul writes in Ephesians 5:26, “that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” Here in John 17 Jesus prays for His disciples who are already clean (John 13:10), “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” We are being sanctified, separated from the power of sin. This is progressive sanctification.
c. Perfected sanctification is when we will be like our Lord Jesus Christ in glory (1 John 3:2). Paul prays for this in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In glory we will be sanctified, separated forever from the presence of sin.
So sanctification is being set apart by God. Separated from sin to holiness; from being in the world to being in Christ. This means we belong to God, are dedicated to His purposes, are being transformed into His image, and will be glorified with Him.
That brings us to the question,
2. How does God sanctify us?
If sanctification is being set apart, separated, dedicated and purified, you might think that most straight forward way for God to do that is to remove us from this evil world and this body of flesh. But that is not God’s method, at least not immediately. No, sanctification is,
a. Not by removal from the world (John 17:14-16)
Look at John 17:14-16,
14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
Jesus makes the point of saying that He is not asking the Father to take His disciples out of the world. He wants them to remain in the world even as they are not of the world. We are not sanctified by physical separation from the world but by spiritual separation from the world; not by being taken out of the world, but by not allowing the world to be in us. Jesus wants us to be in the world but not of the world.
Os Guinness writes about how Christians tend to live out this tension of “in the world, not of it”: “Some are neither of the world nor in it, and are therefore isolated. Others are both in the world and of it, and are therefore compromised.” Even worse Guinness points out that although we are called to be in the world, not of it many Christians have reversed the formula becoming “of the world while still not in it.” We do this by indiscriminately fatting our minds at the world’s buffet of television, radio, movies and social media, while at the same time isolating ourselves from any personal involvement with the people of this world who most desperately need the gospel.
Jesus must be our model for living in the world, not of it. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day thought that to be holy, you had to avoid all contact with common sinners. So they were shocked when Jesus chose a tax-collector named Levi (Matthew) as one of His apostles and then went to a dinner party where Levi invited all of his notoriously sinful friends (Luke 5:29-32). Another time, a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus for dinner at his house. A well-known sinful woman came in uninvited, anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and some perfume, and dried His feet with her hair (Luke 7:36-50). Simon was shocked. He thought that if Jesus were a true prophet, He wouldn’t let such a woman even touch Him.
But Jesus’ philosophy was (Luke 5:31-32), “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” So Jesus was known as a friend of sinners (Matt. 11:19). If we want to be like Jesus, we also need to be in the world, not isolated from sinful people.
The way to be a friend of sinners without being corrupted by sin is to stay focused on your mission. Your aim is not to carouse with them as you may have done in the past, but rather lovingly to warn them of the judgment to come and to tell them the good news of the Savior (1 Pet. 4:1-6).
We cannot be sanctified by isolating ourselves from the world or by compromising with the world. Instead the Apostle Paul writes (Romans 12:2), “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
So how does God sanctify us?
b. By the truth (John 17:17)
Listen again to John 17:17, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” In John 17:14 Jesus prays, “I have given them Your word.” And again in John 17:19 He prays, “…that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” Sanctification comes by God’s truth, “in the context of the truth, in the realm of the truth, in the paradigm of the truth, in the presence of the truth, and that is to say by means of the truth” (MacArthur).
Warren Weirsbe points out that:
God’s truth has been given to us in three “editions”: His Word is truth (John 17:17); His Son is the truth (John 14:6); and His Spirit is the truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:6). We need all three if we are to experience true sanctification, a sanctification that touches every part of our inner person. With the mind, we learn God’s truth through the Word. With the heart, we love God’s truth, His Son. With the will, we yield to the Spirit and live God’s truth day by day. It takes all three for a balanced experience of sanctification.
Jesus calls God’s word “the truth.” He doesn’t say that God’s word contains the truth or that it is one truth among many. Rather, its very essence is truth. It is the absolute, final, and eternal source and standard of truth against which all else is to be measured. God’s truth does not vary from culture to culture or from age to age. Spurgeon said,
The Scripture alone is absolute truth, essential truth, decisive truth, authoritative truth, undiluted truth, eternal, everlasting truth. Truth given us in the word of God is that which is to sanctify all believers to the end of time: God will use it to that end. … The truth, when fully used, will daily destroy sin, nourish grace, suggest noble desires, and urge to holy acts.
Jesus says that God’s word will sanctify us or set us apart from the world for God’s purpose.
3. For what purpose does God sanctify us?
In John 17:18 Jesus prays, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” Jesus came into this world with a clear purpose: to testify to the truth (John 18:37) and to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). The Father had sent His Son into the world with the message of salvation through faith in Him (John 3:16-18). He sends His disciples with the same mission.
Jesus’ mission is behind His prayer in John 17:19, “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” In His prayer Jesus is setting Himself apart for the cross. He has dedicated Himself, consecrated Himself to obey the Father’s will in dying on the cross for the sins of the world. The result of His mission was that His disciples would be set apart in the truth of that mission.
We are set apart from the world, dedicated to God, purified by the truth of His word so that God could send us into the world with the good news that Jesus saves. J. C. Ryle comments,
“More holiness is the very thing to be desired for all servants of Christ. Holy living is the great proof of the reality of Christianity. Men may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a godly life.”
We are sanctified in the truth of God’s word so that we can testify to the truth of God’s word.
Concluding questions:
Jesus prays “sanctify them.” What area of your life needs to be set apart, dedicated and purified?
In what ways are you making sure God’s word is continually sanctifying and cleansing you?
How has God set you apart to be on mission in this world?
