Definition of Sanctify

Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. (John 17:17-19)

I have been pondering this text for quite a while now and mulling over just what the word sanctify actually means. For anyone who knows me very well they will recognize my incessant desire to discover the authentic meanings of the words used in the Bible and religion. The more I find the truth about what the words and phrases actually mean the more sense the Word of God makes and the more exciting it is becoming more me as it comes alive in my own heart.

I have been told most of my life that sanctify means to set apart for a holy purpose. Of course the word holy then has to be understood. What has been emerging in my understanding over the years is that actually both of these words mean much of the same thing. Maybe they are overlapping in their definitions. Holy I have learned, means to be dedicated to a specific person or purpose. Sanctify means nearly the very same thing. To be dedicated to something or someone means that the purpose or person needs to be identified or else the word is left dangling without its full meaning understood.

Jesus in His prayer here talks about both His disciples being sanctified as well as Himself. The object of the sanctification according to this context is truth. Now we have to unpack the real meaning of what truth is according to Jesus, for that is another word that I have found very slippery throughout my lifetime. Too often truth is assumed to be a certain set of doctrines or a creed or some other agenda by a certain group or cult. But if I restrict the definition to the words and life of Jesus and allow Him to explain it, I will have to arrive at the conclusion that whatever truth is it will be very intimately connected to Jesus Himself as well as the Word of the Father. But even that brings it back to Jesus, for at the beginning of this book John says that Jesus is the Word of God. (see the first chapter of the gospel of John)

But I still want to know more specifically what Jesus might have had in mind when He prayed that all of us who are His disciples need to be sanctified. I can't imagine He simply wanted us to know all the right answers to religious questions as has too often been assumed by many. Just a few minutes earlier during this time with His disciples Jesus had made this statement which puts it squarely into the context in which He was praying. Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6) So to take His prayer literally, He is asking the Father to dedicate His disciples to Himself who is the Truth, the Word of God as well as the Life of God.

To complete the three things mentioned here into one tight package, just previous to this part of His prayer Jesus had explicitly defined what eternal life is. "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3)

As I have pondered these ideas over the past few weeks wondering about this idea of being sanctified, it is becoming clearer to me that it is an issue of focus. Focus by definition also involves exclusion of peripheral things. To focus on something means to remove the attention from any surrounding things to pay attention to one specific thing exclusively. That does not imply that everything that is excluded is necessarily bad or wrong or unnecessary. However, it does involve the need to at least temporarily turn the attention away from anything that might distract so that all the powers of concentration come together to pay attention and coordinate on absorbing whatever it is we are choosing to focus on.

As I have thought about sanctification as a focus of the life and wondered how Jesus was sanctified, a quotation from an author who has long helped me discover deep insights was brought to my attention. Let me share that with you in closing.

So also Christ presented the principles of truth in the gospel. In His teaching we may drink of the pure streams that flow from the throne of God. Christ could have imparted to men knowledge that would have surpassed any previous disclosures, and put in the background every other discovery. He could have unlocked mystery after mystery and could have concentrated around these wonderful revelations the active, earnest thought of successive generations till the close of time. But He would not spare a moment from teaching the science of salvation. His time, His faculties, and His life were appreciated and used only as a means for working out the salvation of the souls of men. He had come to seek and to save that which was lost, and He would not be turned from His purpose. He allowed nothing to divert Him.

Christ imparted only that knowledge which could be utilized. His instruction of the people was confined to the needs of their own condition in practical life. The curiosity that led them to come to Him with prying questions He did not gratify. All such questionings He made the occasion for solemn, earnest, vital appeals. To those who were so eager to pluck from the tree of knowledge, He offered the fruit of the tree of life. They found every avenue closed except the way that leads to God. Every fountain was sealed save the fountain of eternal life.

Our Saviour did not encourage any to attend the rabbinical schools of His day, for the reason that their minds would be corrupted with the continually repeated, "They say," or "It has been said." Why, then, should we accept the unstable words of men as exalted wisdom, when a greater, a certain wisdom is at our command? {CT 386}