"Sanctify them in the truth..."

This Sunday's reading from John 17:6-19 usually loses me as Jesus prays for his disciples. This time I tried to take a third and fourth read through, and while the form and structure bogs me dowm, verse 17 seemed to stand out.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

In the course of the prayer, Jesus has three "asks",

1. "protect them in your name that you have given me"
2. "protect them from the evil one"
3. "Sanctify them in the truth"

The first ask, "protect them in your name that you have given me", is a prayer for general protection probably from the world that hates them. Note the name God has given Jesus is God's name so when we pray in the name of Jesus, we are praying in the name of God.

The second ask, "protect them from the evil one", appears to refer to Satan, the existence of whom many would deny. To the deniers I would have to say that if they don't believe Jesus, then there is nothing I can say to convince them.

The third ask, "Sanctify them in the truth", opens up the discussion over the meaning of "sanctify" and how one might be sanctified in truth.

Time for a trip to "Theopedia",

"Sanctification, or in its verbal form, sanctify, literally means 'to set apart' for special use or purpose, that is, to make holy or sacred. Therefore, sanctification refers to the state or process of being set apart, i.e. made holy. In systematic theology, the term often carries a technical meaning that differs from the biblical word group. Sanctification is regularly equated with the Christian life. In Wesleyan theology, it can refer to a moment of 'Entire Sanctification,' in which one reaches a state of Christian Perfection."

So I read "sanctify in truth" to mean "set aside" because they have been in the presence of truth and they will have the truth in them when Jesus' prayer is answered. I wonder if the upcoming descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was a moment of "entire sanctification".

"In Christianity, the term can be used to refer to objects which are set apart for special purposes, but the most common use within Christian theology is in reference to the change brought about by God in a believer, begun at the point of salvation or justification and continuing throughout the life of the believer. Many forms of Christianity believe that this process will only be completed in Heaven when believers are also glorified, but some believe that complete holiness is possible in this life."

Progressive sanctification means that rather than a moment of "Entire Sanctification" most of us have to settle for a lifelong process which is a good thing as well,

"Indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image of his Savior, the more he must recoil against every lack of conformity to the holiness of God. The deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the greater the intensity of his love to God, the more persistent his yearning for the attainment of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, the more conscious will he be of the gravity of the sin that remains and the more poignant will be his detestation of it....Was this not the effect in all the people of God as they came into closer proximity to the revelation of God’s holiness." -John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied

The process of being "set apart" begins the moment you begin to follow Jesus. I think it is a process because we are always straying from his path.