“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).
Here we touch
the essence of the Incarnational mission, the essence of our sacrificial priesthood,
and the essence of our koinonia with one another in the Trinity. Here we have
our mission and the means of our mission. This core passage speaks of our relationship with
the Trinity, our relationship with one another in Christ, and our relationship with
the world.
Beyond this
passage we enter the Holy of Holies, the ineffable Presence. In the Presence
there is abiding “mission” (17:21, 23), for is not our God always giving,
always seeking, and gloriously always finding? We enter the Presence engaged in
mission, we move outward from the Presence engaged in mission. This mission has
two directions with one goal. We are on mission to declare our Father’s Name to
our brethren and to present them complete in Christ (Heb. 2:12; Col. 1:28), and
we are on mission to the people of the world to bring them into a relationship
with the Trinity (John 3:16). The one goal is that we may all live as members
of the Body of Christ, the Family of God, forever and ever in that Great City
which is composed of Christ, Christ, the fulness of Christ, so that God may be “all
in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).
If Jesus
sanctified Himself for us, and if He sends us as the Father sent Him, then we
are to sanctify ourselves for Him and for others, for not only does Jesus send
us as the Father sent Him, but “as He is, so also are we in this world” (1 John
4:17).
This passage
means that we do not belong to ourselves but to Him who sends us. Our lives are
not our own, our agendas must not be our own. We do not live as others do, for
their own pleasure and ease; we do not seek distractions and entertainment, we
seek the truth and beauty and goodness, the welfare of others and the glory of
God.
A life centered
in John 17:17 – 19 is a life that is able to say, in Christ, ““I glorified You
on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John
17:4).
All service and
leadership in the Church has its ground in John 17:17 – 19 (which is integrated
with John 13:1 – 17 and Matthew 20:20 – 28). Those who serve Jesus Christ are
called to be both priest and sacrifice. Let us not teach the priesthood of the
believer if we are not also teaching the sacrificial life of the believer, the
two ought not to be separated. When we gather as God’s flock we gather as sacrificial
lambs, as those who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Rev. 14:4).
The passage
begins, “Sanctify them in the truth,” and it concludes, “that they themselves
also may be sanctified in truth.”
We are made holy
and set apart to God in and through and by the truth. Our lives are a continual
setting apart to God, a continual going out from the world, the flesh, and the devil;
a continual departure from Babylon; and a continual entering into the Holy City
in Christ. We leave the fragmentation of the world and its chaos and enter into
the Holy of Holies of oneness in the Trinity (John 17:21 – 26). Living in this
unity of Life in God enables us to be deeply and eternally grounded as we live
on mission to the brethren and the world, for just as Jesus is not of the
world, so are we not of the world.
What does this
passage look like in your life?
In the life of
your family?
In the life of
your congregation?
We’ll continue
to ponder this passage in our next post in this series, the Lord willing.
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