John 17:16,17

“ They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. 17. Sanctify them by the truth;thy word is truth. ”

Joh 17:16 is the transition from the first petition to the second. Jesus has introduced them into the sphere of holiness in which He Himself lives; but it is not only necessary that they should abide there (keep them); they must also penetrate farther therein, that they may be strengthened; for they have the mission to introduce the world into it. ῾Αγίασον, sanctify: this word does not merely designate their own moral perfection (Lucke, de Wette), but also the consecration of their whole life to the service of God's work (John 17:18). According to John 10:36, a consecration preceded the sending of Jesus to the earth: “me whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world.” He was marked with a seal of holiness that He might establish here on earth the kingdom of holiness. The same thing is to be repeated for His disciples. The word ἁγιάζειν, to sanctify, is not synonymous with καθαρίζειν, to purify. Holy is not the opposite of impure, but simply of natural or profane (without the idea of defilement).

To sanctify is to consecrate to a religious use what hitherto had appertained to the common life, without the idea of sin. Comp. Exodus 40:13; Leviticus 22:2-3, and Matthew 23:17: “Which is greater, the gold or the temple which sanctifies the gold?” But from the Old Testament point of view, the consecration was an external, ritual act; in the new covenant, where all is spiritual, the seat of consecration is above all the heart, the will of the consecrated person. Jesus, therefore, in saying Sanctify them, asks for them a will entirely devoted to the good that is, to God and to His service, and consequently to the task which God gives them to discharge in the world. All their forces, all their talents, all their life, are to be marked with the seal of consecration to this great work, the salvation of men; a thing which implies the renouncing of all self-gratification, however lawful it may be, the absence of all interested aims, of all self-seeking. This is the sublime idea of Christian holiness, but regarded here, where the question is of the apostles, as about to be realized under the special form of the Christian ministry, in the same way as each believer is to realize it under the form of the special task which is providentially assigned to him. We have given to ἐν, in the translation, the instrumental sense by, as in John 1:31; John 1:33. The divine truth is thus designated as the agent of the consecration. Meyer, Weiss and others translate in: “ In this sphere of truth, where I have placed them, complete the work of sanctifying them.” But to what purpose, in this case, the addition of the words: “Thy word is truth”? Must they not serve to present the truth as the means by which alone this consecration can be effected? Weiss tries in vain to give another sense.

The T. R. reads σοῦ (of thee) with the words the truth in the first clause; this pronoun is wanting in the Alexandrian authorities, and was probably added from the following clause (thy word).

The truth is the adequate expression of the character of God and of His relation to us. This truth is found only in the word of God addressed to the world by the mouth of Jesus. The second ἀληθεία does not have the article: This word is truth, nothing but truth.

In support of this prayer, Jesus alleges two reasons, one drawn from what they will have to do for the world (John 17:18), the other from the work which He accomplishes upon Himself on their behalf (John 17:19). Their mission is His, and His holiness will be theirs.