141. Sanctify in Truth
John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.
John 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Jesus’ prayer and promise is that we shall be sanctified. Sanctify = make holy. Sanctify literally means “set apart,” in the Biblical sense sanctify means set apart for a holy use, as implements or persons for temple worship. No one may come into the presence of God for worship or prayer unless he is sanctified (holy), for God is holy and can tolerate nothing less in His presence.
The work of Jesus Christ is to make sinners holy. He makes the unholy holy; this is inherently impossible; the death of Christ makes it not only possible, but Jesus makes it certain. Jesus sanctifies us in the narrow sense: God declares us holy, or righteous, by grace through faith because of Christ. We have a holy standing before God and we may freely and frequently come into the presence of God, and we will definitely enter the kingdom of God and come before His throne, both now by faith and later by sight. Jesus “set Himself apart” for my sake, out of perfect love, so that I might be “set apart” for God and His kingdom. This is a one-time event.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to make sinners holy in the wider sense; the wider sense is that He makes us actually live a more holy life; He makes us better people; good works predominate more and more over sinful acts. This is a long-term process, and it is never finished in a lifetime. The believer’s progress in being made holier is a fact, but humans cannot measure it, and neither others nor we ourselves can actually see progress. Additionally, the progress in sanctification is usually up and down and in fits and starts. It is a journey; it is, indeed, “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
The promise is that we are sanctified “through the truth, God’s Truth.” The Truth can be either Jesus, who is the truth, or the Word of God, which is called The Truth. The Word is Jesus Christ, and it is the spoken word, and it is the written word; all three combine to be the Truth. Essentially, and practically, the Truth that sanctifies is the Gospel. So, once again, we see how important it is to hear the Gospel, the same old Gospel message, over and over again. The Truth – Jesus died for sinners. This is the Gospel. This truth makes us holy: definitively, in the narrow sense, through faith in Christ; progressively, in the wider sense, through the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. Believe the promise: God makes you holy through the truth.