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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}
