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The Sanctifying Word
by Arturo G. Azurdia III

Introduction
God wants a holy people. About this there can be no question. He who is altogether holy desires a people who reflect His own perfection of holiness. And this is nothing new; God has always wanted a holy people. Long ago His word to the nation of Israel was His desire for their holiness: "For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy" (Lev. 11:44). In the New Testament God’s ambition for His people remains steadfast:

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’ (1 Pe. 1:14-16).

It is certainly safe to make the statement that God wants a holy people. By itself the statement arouses no controversy, it is not sensationalistic in any sense, it bears no radical overtones. It seems self-explanatory and obvious. Very few, if any, evangelicals would deny the legitimacy of such a statement. Unfortunately, however, great confusion prevails in the minds of many of these same evangelicals with regard to the nature of true holiness. While it is accurate to affirm God’s desire for a holy people, is it equally accurate to affirm God’s desire for a moral people? Such a question raises a second and more provocative one: is there a difference between morality and holiness?

The answer is, yes, there is. Morality is negative and limited. It tends to define itself externally, and more particularly, in terms of what one refrains from doing. Holiness, on the other hand, is more positive and pervasive. To be sure, it effects the externals, but it does not end there. It is more penetrating. Consider some of the distinctions between morality and holiness: the moral person abstains from wrong actions . . . the holy person hates the very thought of doing wrong. The moral person is motivated by what men perceive him to be . . . the holy person is consumed by what God wants him to be. The moral person lives by an impersonal list of do’s and dont’s . . . the holy person lives by what brings the greatest pleasure to his Heavenly Father. The moral person keeps a meticulous record of all of his good deeds, by them expecting to win the favor of God . . . the holy man grieves that nothing he ever does, even for God, is completely free of any sinful or selfish motive. He knows that every blessing he receives from God is solely an expression of His grace. The moral person lives by his own definition of what is right and what is wrong, and he delights to impose that definition upon other people . . . the holy person allows the Word of God to direct his life, and in anything beyond that he relishes in the freedom that Jesus Christ has purchased for His people, and in the differences that freedom allows among those who dearly love the same Savior.

Stated simply, an impassable chasm exists between morality and holiness, and the most obvious historical illustration of this is that which existed between the moralists of the first century, the Pharisees, and the incarnate Son of God. The former were the embodiment of morality. The latter was the personification of holiness. To confuse the two is to cheapen the depth and breadth of true Christian religion.

This brings us to the pressing issue at hand. We are living in a day when a large percentage of evangelicalism is morality-driven rather than holiness-driven. Many actually believe that the greatest need of the hour is a resurgence of a moral majority. Yet, in addition to the misunderstanding of the nature of true holiness, such an aspiration displays great weakness at two critical points.

First of all, it belies a superficial diagnosis of humanity’s dilemma. "Man is not suffering from a corruption that touches every part of his constitution as a man," it implies. "He has simply made unwise moral decisions." Can it be of any surprise, then, that Spirit-produced regeneration is often confused with socially-induced reformation? The problem with this, biblically speaking, is that sinful actions grow out of an unholy heart, and morality as such, even when it is in the majority, does not possess the power to transform an unholy heart.

Secondly, the longing for a national morality fails to recognize the undeniable fact that throughout history the God of the Bible most often accomplishes His purposes through a holy minority rather than a moral majority. It is holiness that God wants for His people, not morality, and this is especially the case at those crucial moments in history when He desires to advance His kingdom in some significant way.

It is my contention that the most poignant illustration of this fact is found on the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ as He speaks to His Father on the night before His death.

Establishing The Context
By the light of the Judean moon, Jesus and His disciples begin their final journey to the place where He will be betrayed by the kiss of a friend. As it was, His evening had already been quite busy: He had washed the feet of His disciples, He had unmasked and dismissed the betrayer, and He had instituted the sacred supper as the sign of the new covenant. Finally, after the singing of a hymn, Jesus and His men leave the Upper Room, and somewhere prior to their entrance into the Garden of Gethsemane He lifts up His eyes to heaven and begins to pray.

In the first five verses of this prayer Jesus Himself is the object of His own intercession. Beginning in verse six and extending through verse nineteen, Jesus turns His attention to pray for His disciples. This particular section of His prayer can be sub-divided into two halves: in vv. 6-11a Jesus justifies the intercession He is about to make on behalf of His men; then, in vv. 11b-19, Jesus proceeds to set forth the three specific requests that concern them. Our purpose here is to consider the third request as it appears in vv. 17-19. It is a request for sanctification, and it can be summarized as follows: Jesus prays that God the Father would set apart His people by the means of the Word of God for the accomplishment of a particular purpose.

Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth. As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth (John 17:17-19).

As God the Father had sent the Lord Jesus Christ to earth for a particular purpose, so too Jesus was now commissioning His men to a particular purpose. To be sure, these purposes were united in the same objective: the salvation of God’s people. However, the respective responsibilities to be borne in the accomplishment that objective were very different. The distinctive mission of Jesus was now immanent: to accomplish the work of redemption at Calvary. The distinctive role of the disciples would begin later at Pentecost: to proclaim the redemption that Jesus had secured. But before either of these two particular purposes could be accomplished something needed to happen, both in the lives of the disciples and in the life of Jesus Himself. They needed to experience what Jesus refers to as sanctification. It is to an understanding of these words that we now turn our attention.

The Meaning Of This Request: "Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth."
In order to enhance a more thorough understanding of this statement, four helpful questions may be asked of it.

Question #1: What does Jesus mean by the term sanctify?1

The New Testament and the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) frequently employ this term to mean: "the dedication of something or someone to the exclusive service of God; being set apart for or dedicated to God in a special way and for a particular purpose." Consider the following illustration.

During our first Christmas season as a married couple some dear friends invited us to dinner. They had decorated their home in warm and festive tones, but we especially took notice of their Christmas china. Driving home that evening my wife and I decided that instead of purchasing a Christmas tree we would select a pattern of Christmas dishes and begin the process of purchasing them, place-setting by place-setting and piece by piece. Eventually, over the next several years, we had assembled an entire set of this Christmas china.

To be sure, these dishes were not of the most elegant sort, nor were they of the most costly quality, but they have come to possess a great deal of sentimental value to us. Consequently, we do not use these dishes every day. Our children are not allowed to "play house" with these dishes. We do not use these dishes on other occasions throughout the year, however important those occasions may be. To use these dishes in such a way would be to "profane" them. Except for a few special dinners during the Christmas season, these dishes are very carefully packed into cardboard boxes and placed on a high shelf in our garage so that no one can access them without a ladder and a very long reach. These are "sanctified" dishes, set apart in a special way and for a particular purpose.

From a non-religious perspective this illustrates, in part, one of the meanings of the word sanctify: the dedication of something or someone to the exclusive service of God; being set apart for or dedicated to God in a special way and for a particular purpose.

When God established His covenant with the people of Israel He set forth specific prescriptions that were to precede their activities in worship. For example, Aaron and his sons were to be sanctified or "consecrated" (Ex. 28:41--29:9). This religious act did not infer that these men were experientially holy, nor that any actual holiness had been conferred upon them in the act of sanctification. Certainly the irreverent sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, illustrate that this "sanctification" had no immediate relationship to actual holiness (Lev. 10:1-11). The emphasis of this sanctification was functional, not experiential. These men were set apart for and dedicated to God in a special way and for a particular purpose, namely, to serve God as priests. The garments they were to wear while carrying out their priestly functions were to be sanctified (Ex. 29:21). The tabernacle, and even the priestly furnishings inside the tabernacle were to be sanctified as well (Ex. 40:9). All of these examples serve to illustrate one of the common meanings of the term "sanctify," that is, being set apart for or dedicated to God in a special way and for a particular purpose.

There is a second usage of the term "sanctify." The authors of the New Testament frequently use it to refer to "the ongoing, progressive conformity of the believer to Christlikeness." Anthony Hoekema defines this aspect of sanctification as:

. . . that gracious operation of the Holy Spirit, involving our responsible participation, by which He delivers us as justified sinners from the pollution of sin, renews our entire nature according to the image of God, and enables us to live lives that are pleasing to Him.2

Consider the usage of the term in the following passages: "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely . . ." (1 Th. 5:23). This does not refer to the act of being set apart in a special way and for a particular purpose. It refers to the progress of spiritual renewal in the life of a Christian, of ongoing, progressive conformity to Christlikeness. When the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews speaks about the purpose of God’s fatherly chastisement, he says, "He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness" (Heb. 12:10). Here the word for "holiness" possesses a closely-knit etymological relationship to the term for "sanctification," resulting in the conclusion that God’s discipline of His children produces a greater measure of experiential holiness, or in this context, the ongoing conformity of a Christian’s character to that of his Heavenly Father.

To summarize, the term sanctify is often used to mean: "to be set apart for or dedicated to God in a special way and for a particular purpose." It is also used in reference to: "the ongoing, progressive conformity of the believer to Christlikeness." Each context, therefore, must determine the intended meaning.

What makes John 17:17 so interesting, however, is that the two usages of the word sanctify appear to fuse together. In other words, when Jesus says "Sanctify them in the truth" He not only means, "set these men apart in a special way and for a particular purpose" (a purpose He defines in the next verse), but He also implies, "renew these men in accordance with the image of God." Such is an appropriate inference when one considers the stated means of this sanctification: "Sanctify them in the truth." D. A. Carson summarizes helpfully at this point:

Jesus’ followers will be "set apart" from the world, reserved for God’s service, insofar as they think and live in conformity with the truth, the "word’ of revelation (v. 6) supremely mediated through Christ . . . the revelation now embodied in the pages of this book. In practical terms, no-one can be "sanctified" or set apart for the Lord’s use without learning to think God’s thoughts after him, without learning to live in conformity with the "word" he has graciously given.3

William Hendrikson adds:

More fully stated, the verb here employed means to set apart from the world by actual sanctification of life, so that in heart and mind, in thought, words, and deeds, one begins to live more and more in accordance with the law of God. This sanctification can take place only if the entire personality is desirous of being governed by the truth . . .4

Therefore, when Jesus uses the word "sanctify" in this context He intends for its dual usage to converge. That is to say, His desire for these men is that they be set apart for a specific mission which would necessarily include a progressive conformity of their character to the truth.5

Such continues to be the case today. The Head of the Church is still pleased to send His servants into the world. One can hear the echo of the Apostle Paul: "And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Rom. 10:14-15). But, it might be asked, where specific individuals are concerned, how can we know that Jesus Christ has been the Sender? Quite simply, if God has set apart a man for a divine purpose the verifiable evidences of it will most assuredly be present in the character of his life. The contrary is also true: an unsanctified man is an unsent man. When these two aspects of sanctification converge in a man’s life they equip him to fulfill the commission that Jesus Christ has set forth.