The Highway Forums General Discussion Devotional Quotes Sanctify them by Your Word

Sanctify them by Your Word. Your Word is truth. John 17:17

Next, He points out the means of sanctification, and not without reason; for there are fanatics who indulge in much useless prattle about sanctification, but who neglect the truth of God, by which He consecrates us to Himself. Again, as there are others who chatter quite as foolishly about the truth and yet disregard the Word, Christ expressly says that the truth, by which God sanctifies His sons, is not to be found anywhere else than in the Word. True, it is God alone who sanctifies; but as the Gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth (Romans 1:16,). Whoever departs from the Gospel as the means must become more and more filthy and polluted.

The truth is here taken, by way of eminence, for the light of heavenly wisdom, in which God manifests Himself to us, that He may conform us to His image. The outward preaching of the Word, it is true, does not of itself accomplish this, For that preaching is wickedly profaned by the reprobate; but let us remember that Christ speaks of the elect whom the Holy Spirit efficaciously regenerates by the Word.

~John Calvin

The original adjective holy and the verb sanctify are derived from the same root. Hence by combining the two ideas one might translate: Holy Father make them holy in the truth. More fully stated, the verb here employed means to set apart from the world by actual sanctification of life, so that the heart and mind, in thought, words, and deeds, one begins to live more and more in accordance with the law of God. This sanctification can take place only if the entire personality is desirous of being governed by the truth; i.e., by God's redemptive revelation in Christ, as the ultimate standard of life and doctrine. The truth is embodied in Christ, in Him alone. He is the truth. However, the Word of the Father, which had been given to the disciples, must be the source of truth. It is wholly infallible. Without it, the work of sanctification is entirely impossible.

~ William Hendriksen [Commentary on Gospel of John]