Word of Encouragement (4/1/2021)

Here is another petition from the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).

To sanctify is to make holy. Whereas justification declares us to be righteous in the tribunal of God once for all, sanctification makes us holy in character throughout our life more and more. Regarding this petition, Matthew Henry says, “The next thing he prayed for them was that they might be sanctified; not only kept from evil [v. 15], but made good.”  He goes on to say what this petition is asking for:

“[1.] ‘Confirm the work of sanctification in them, strengthen their faith, inflame their good affections, rivet their good resolutions.’ [2.] ‘Carry on that good work in them, and continue it; let the light shine more and more.’ [3.] ‘Complete it, crown it with the perfection of holiness; sanctify them throughout and to the end.’”

Those are good words to remember. Let us also remember that this is the goal of our salvation. God justified us in Jesus Christ—declaring us to be righteous while we were still sinners by Jesus’ work for us—so that He might sanctify us—making us holy in character by Jesus’ work in us. How jarring our life will be if we are merely declared righteous and we are not being sanctified! It will be like living with imposter syndrome, always fearing that we might be exposed, feeling no sense of harmony between our status before God and our daily life. We would feel like such hypocrites. God’s goal for our salvation is not to give unrepentant sinners an excuse and license to sin with impunity; it is to make us holy as He is holy. That is why Jesus asks the Father to sanctify us.

Jesus also prays how His disciples might be sanctified: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Here, Jesus presents the Word of God as the (or, at least, a crucial) means of our sanctification. We can see why. The Word of God is God’s true self-revelation, telling us what we are to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of us (WSC, #3). In it, we learn about a God who is holy, what holiness means, how God wants us to be holy, and how He will make us holy. But what makes the Word of God efficacious for (our salvation and) our sanctification is not just the truth of what it reveals; all the truth of God’s Word avails us nothing if our hearts are corrupted by sin. The Word of God cannot be efficacious apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, who not only inspired the Word but also illuminates the Word. Of course, the almighty Holy Spirit can use anything to accomplish His purpose. But the Word of God is like the electric wire made of the most conductive metal, through which the electricity of the Holy Spirit can pass through most efficiently and powerfully.

If Jesus prayed, and continues to pray, for our sanctification, we, too, should pray for our sanctification. To that end, we must be well-acquainted with the Word of God—not just intellectually familiar with it but also experientially competent in its application to our life. May our sanctification be the deepest longing of our hearts, the ultimate goal of all that we pray for! For that is the reason that Jesus came, suffered, died, and rose again and what He is praying for even now at the right hand of God!