If you turn back in your Bibles
with me to John chapter 17, our topic today, the title of this
message is sanctification as Christ declares it. And there's
only one word that matters, isn't it? When it comes to any issues. What's he say? What sayeth the
Lord? So let's just read these verses
that we read earlier. He says in verse 617 of John 17, he says, sanctify
them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou has sent me into the
world, Even so have I also sent them into the world, and for
their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified
through the truth. Sanctification. It's a word that
is not often used in our vocabulary, but the word simply means, the
root of the word is simply holy. Holy. That's why the children of God
are called saints. Paul writing to a church that
you would think needs to be very seriously rebuked for wickedness
of all different sorts in the Corinthians. Now listen how he
begins that letter to that very wayward bunch of people. He says, Paul, call to be an
apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and sosten our
brother under the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them
that are sanctified in Christ Jesus. called to be saints, that
word to be, I love this King James Version, isn't it? Because
we can say that word doesn't belong there. Called saints,
God calls them saints. With all that in every place
call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. So what do the sanctified people
do? They call on the name of the Lord. I call on the name
of the Lord, who is the Lord, who sanctifies his people. So
generally in the scriptures the word is used with two different
sort of significances. One is to set apart to consecrate,
to appoint to solemn and holy purposes. So the first time this
word is used in the scriptures is in Genesis 3. And the Lord
finished his works of creation and he blessed the seventh day
and sanctified it. He set apart the seventh day
as a day. for his immediate honour. And
you might recall if you look at Leviticus and other passages
that speak of the furnishings of the temple, the things that
were set apart for the use in the temple were holy things,
whether they be shovels or all sorts of things they were declared,
they were set apart for the use and the purposes of God. God
says, they're mine. God says they're mine. And sanctification
also has the significance of making holy what was polluted
beforehand. If you're still in the Corinthian
letter, chapter 6 is a glorious description. of what we were. He says, Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such
were some of you. But ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God. So in the context of this prayer
of the Lord Jesus Christ, this glorious, glorious prayer that
the Holy Spirit has kept and preserved for us, the context,
he's sending his apostles out into the world, he's going out
of the world himself. He says that they haven't come
from this world, they're not people whose origin is in this
world, they're people whose origin is in heaven. And he's sending
them out into this world. And he's sending them out into
this world as lambs among the wolves and he's saying, you keep
them from the evil one and all that flows from his lies that
we looked at earlier. And you keep them and you preserve
them because I have given them the word of God. The real word of God has come
to them powerfully and Christ has been revealed in them. They're
going to be hated by this world. He's saying, you sent us of this
first. First prayer petition regarding
this thing of sanctification, and I want us to look at it in
light of what the Lord Jesus Christ prayed regarding sanctify. The first thing he says, and
it's something that he prays for, and it's something that
he prays the Father will do, isn't it? He says, he's speaking
to his Father, sanctify them through thy truth. Sanctify them
with the truth, sanctify them by the truth, sanctify them in
the truth. Thy word is truth. Sanctification, to start with,
is something that the Lord Jesus Christ is praying that God the
Father will do in the hearts of these people. So for a start,
it's got nothing to do with what they do. It's what God does,
isn't it? The beginning of it is God. In the beginning, God. If they could sanctify themselves
in any way at all, why on earth would he pray this prayer? He's
got no reason to pray this prayer. The first thing he says is he's
praying that the Father will sanctify them. Sanctification
is of course in the scriptures the work of God the Father, God
the Son and God the Holy Spirit. He speaks of his church that
he was going to die for that next day. He says he gave himself
for his church that he might sanctify and cleanse it. And
we read 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13 that, you know, we're bound
to give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord,
because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. Jude speaks of those in his very
first verse of his short epistle. He says they're sanctified by
God the Father. Sanctification is the work of
God to start with, so let's get that right in our heads. There's
nothing in the scriptures that ever even hint at the modern
notion of progressive sanctification. Sanctification because it's the
work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
It's the work of the God in covenant, isn't it? And that's what this
prayer is. The Lord Jesus Christ is praying
as the mediator, as the surety, as the representative of his
people, as the high priest of his people before his Father. We love the covenant of grace.
We love the covenant of love and the covenant in his blood.
We love the fact that in that covenant, all that God requires
of us, he looks to his Son for. That's what it is for him to
be the surety for us. He prays, he prays to his father. Don't you love the fact that
he's praying for our sanctification? He's praying that we'll be set
apart for God's purposes and God's use and God's glory in
this world. Don't you love also that the
Lord said this, my father always hears me. Is this prayer being
answered? Absolutely, 100%, don't doubt
it for a second, it is being answered. He wants, in the context
of it, he wants them to be kept from the evil one. And what's
the evil one going to do? He's going to attack their justification,
he's going to attack their sanctification, he's going to attack their covenant
union with God Almighty in Trinity. How are they going to be kept
from the evil one? By his sanctifying them, by him setting them apart
for his own purpose. The Father set him apart. Sanctified means to be set apart.
It means to hallow. The Lord's Prayer, hallowed be
thy name. We are hallowing the name of
God. We don't make it holy, but we are led of God to regard it
as holy, which is what he's talking about here. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father set him apart. sanctified him as the substitute,
as the shepherd, as the sacrifice. He set him apart to be holy.
He set him apart to be the shepherd, the saviour, the lord, redeemer.
He set him apart to bring glory to his father. He set him apart
to finish a work. He set him apart to manifest
the name of God to people who cannot know the name of God unless
he does his manifesting work. He set him apart for him to bring
the word of truth to them. Sanctify them by thy truth. Set
apart, not to be made more holy, but to be regarded as holy and
declared as holy. Sanctification describes our
whole salvation from beginning to end. We were set apart from
before this world began and we'll be set apart from this world
in the time of love when He comes and reveals Himself to us and
we'll be set apart from the religion of this world and we'll be set
apart from the ways of this world and we'll be set apart for His
glory in this world and come that great separation. and the
Day of Judgment we'll be set apart to be His. And then we're
going to be set apart from all that's evil in the new creation. We're set apart by God, sanctified
by God. So we're set apart in Christ
by the Father. We are God's. God's children
are God's gift to His Son before the world began. We're set apart
in the covenant of grace. We're set apart to be given by
the Father to the Son. son as the gift from the Father.
God only ever views his people in Christ. He doesn't view them
any other way. They're in his son. We're chosen
in him. We're set apart. Hebrews 13.12
says he might sanctify the people with his own blood. We are sanctified
through the offering, we read it earlier, of the body of the
Lord Jesus Christ once for all. For one offering he has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. And I want to remind you that
those that are sanctified are in the passive tense. Passive
voice, it means that it's something that God does to you and you
are passive. There is something that happens
and God does it. And God gets all the glory. And
God must do the work. So, this is, to go back to where
we were, sanctification is the Father's work. Sanctification,
in our verse, John 17, Verse 17, sanctify them by thy
truth. Sanctification is directly linked
to the truth, the truth, thy truth, the only true God. The Holy Spirit is the spirit
of truth, John 14, 15, and 16. He takes Christ's work of holiness
and he reveals it to us. So if anyone comes talking sanctification,
It needs to be examined by this measured. Are they talking about
the truth? The truth of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is? He is the truth himself. He's the truth of God revealed
to us. We are commanded of God to test
the spirits and one of the things that I've said earlier that will
separate God's people from the rest of this religious world
is the whole business of progressive sanctification. If you can progress
in your sanctification then you can see something in yourself
that's getting better and better and better. You find me one person
in all the scriptures that that applies to. There's not one there. Noah wasn't
any better after the flood than he was before the flood. Job
declared after all of what he'd been through, Behold, what did
he say? I am vile. What did Paul say
of himself at the end of his life? He's the chief of sinners. None of them. What did David
do at the end of his life? What was David's declaration?
I've got better and better and better and more and more holy.
Absolutely, you read his history. God has made with me an everlasting
covenant, orders insure in every detail. God has done all the
work and in that covenant is all of my sanctification, in
that covenant is all of my righteousness, in that covenant that he made
is all of my standing before God Almighty and not a single
thing of my doing at all. And he wrote half the Psalms
and he was remarkable. David was remarkable. But he
didn't know about this modern notion of progressive sanctification. Sanctification is the work of
the Father. Sanctification is the work of
the Triune God. Sanctification is directly linked
to the truth of who God is and who we are and how God saves
sinners. Sanctification is directly linked
to the Word of God. The Word of God. He says in verse
14, I've given them thy word and the world has hated them. That's the truth that he's talking
about here, isn't it? The truth of who God is. The
truth of who the triune God is in all of the glory of his manifest
character. All of the glory of his eternal
covenant. All of the glory of him being
the absolute sovereign God. Sanctification is the work of
the Triune God, it's directly linked to the truth, it's directly
linked to the Word of God. We go to the Word of God to find
out what sanctification is according to the Lord Jesus Christ. We
don't go to what men write in their creeds. If you got to read
them you would be horrified by what they state in their creeds
about how we progress and how we're more and more getting rid
of all the sin in our lives and there's just some remnants remaining
of it, like a fellow that we knew. He said, I've got a few
little sins and there was another fellow we knew who said, I've
only got one sin left I'm dealing with. Sadly it was a sin of pride
and sadly it was a sin of ignorance because he didn't know who he
was and he didn't know how holy God was. He wouldn't be saying
those things. But in the context of our passage
here, he says, sanctify them through the truth, thy word is
truth, as thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent
them into the world. Sanctification is directly linked
to the sun coming into this world. Someone had to live a perfect,
holy life before God and before man and under the law of God
in every way possible. perfectly holy. Not any time
in his life was there a thought that wasn't a holy thought. There
wasn't one single thing that he ever thought or did that didn't
glorify his father. What a remarkable saviour we
have. What a remarkable standard there is for sanctification.
So whenever, like a friend of mine said, I can jump over a
barn if I'm allowed to build the barn. If man can set the standards,
then he'll always set the standards that allow him to get there.
And he'll always set the standards so that he's actually been able
to look down his nose at others who aren't keeping the standards.
It's directly linked, isn't it? Sanctification is directly linked
in our passage, as Christ describes it here, to him being sent into
this world. He sends his people into this
world as completely sanctified people. He sends his servants
into this world declaring that sanctification is entirely the
work of God Almighty in Trinity, and it's a completed, finished
work, and God declares it to be the reality in the lives of
his people in the gospel. Sanctification, he says, just
to go back to what I just said, he said, you are all clean. He's
talking about these 11 that he's talking about. You're clean.
Why? Through the words that I've spoken
to you. Why are they clean? He declares
them to be clean. He sets them apart as clean. And what he declares and what
he says creates reality. That's why we have this reality.
He spoke. He spoke. The Lord Jesus Christ
spoke and the stars and the light and everything came into existence.
Everything you see is here because the Word of God brought it into
existence. Everything is still here because
the Word of God sustains it. You read it in Hebrews chapter
1. He sustains everything. by his powerful word. Sanctification
and God's people holding on to it as God declares it to be is
going to be the source of the hatred of this religious world
to the children of God. If he gives them his word, and
part of his word is about his perfect sanctification of them
and his father's sanctification of them, and his sanctification
in his blood washing them clean, then this religious world is
going to hate that. According to God, they're going
to hate it. God, our Christ, declares that
it's finished. That's what he's saying in the
perfect tense of these verbs, isn't it? That it's perfectly
completed, never to be repeated, and it's passive. That means that God does it all,
and God is active, and God declares it, and God applies it to his
people. Sanctification is something the Lord prays for His Father
to do. It's something that He does Himself. It's directly linked
to the truth. It's directly linked to the Word
of God. It's directly linked to the coming of the Son and
Him sending His Apostles. It's directly linked to the cause
of hatred of this religious world. And sanctification the Lord Jesus
Christ talks about here and the sanctification of the saints
through the truth is vitally linked and it's the grace gift
of God. And if you go back into John
chapter 17 the Lord Jesus Christ speaks again and again and again
about a union. Sanctification is vitally linked
to the union of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that the Father
gave him. Again and again, seven times
he says, All that the Father has given me, all that the Father
has given me, can there any be doubt about it? So sanctification
and election are linked together. We're set apart. Hebrews 2.11,
I'll just read it to you for want of time, but he says, He
that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of When he set himself apart, he
set all of his people apart with him, didn't he? Psalm 18, just
turn to Psalm 18 very briefly and I just want to show you a
wonderful verse about him setting himself apart because Graham
asked me about what does this mean. In Psalm 18 verse 23 is
one of the glorious descriptions that can only ever be applied
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 23 of Psalm
18, I was also upright before him. Who can stand in God's presence
and say I'm upright? He can. I was also upright before
him and I kept myself from mine iniquity. In all of his life he perfectly
kept himself from all of the sins of all of those who were
united to him until it came to the cross and God the Father
made him, he who knew no sin, that's what that verse is saying,
he who knew no sin and did no sin and could not do any sin,
he, bore their sins in his own body on the tree. The Father
laid all of the sins of all of God's elect people on him. because
of a union that he had with them before the foundation of the
world. That's what he goes on to declare again and again and
again. And at the end of this prayer, he makes it abundantly
clear that includes all of God's people. We're all united to him. Sanctification is vitally linked
to the union of Christ and the Father and all that were loved
in him. Sanctification is directly linked,
therefore, to him bearing all of their sins. If he has borne
all of their sins, sin cannot be in two places at once. If
it was on him, it cannot be on me. If it was punished in him
as it was, it cannot possibly ever be punished in any of God's
children. It is impossible. God would deny
everything about the reality of his being If he ever did that,
he can't. The sins are gone. That's what
justification means. The sins are gone. And to go
back to our prayer in John chapter 17, sanctification is directly
linked to the glory of God the Father. That's the style of this
prayer, isn't it? Father, glorify your name. Father,
glorify your name. It's about the glory of God.
His work of sanctification is His glorious work that glorifies
Him and all of His people before His Father. So sanctification
according to the Lord Jesus Christ has some of those elements in
it. For their sakes I sanctify myself
that they also might be sanctified. When God says be holy, for I
am holy, he's not saying do holiness, you can't do holiness. He's saying
be what I declare you to be, you are what I declare you to
be. He declares his people holy, he declares his people sanctified. We're sanctified. It's a description
of our position before God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
not of this world. We come from a place where only
holiness comes from, where only holiness can enter in. The Father
sets us apart in election. The Son sets us apart by his
blood. The Spirit sets us apart by the word of truth and the
spirit of truth. And he separates his people from
this religious world. He separates them to himself
and he says, I'm using these people for my glory. What a remarkable
thing to think that God Almighty is glorifying his son in the
gathering of his people in this world right now. Declaring them
to be sanctified. Listen to what he says. Ephesians chapter 3 Paul prays
he says I bow my knees for this cause I bow my knees verse 14
under the father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named Christ our righteousness,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all the saints." This is what the saints comprehend. What is the breadth? What is
the length? What is the depth and height? And to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all the
fullness of God. How can you be filled with all
the fullness of God? How can Christ dwell in your
hearts? You have to be as holy as he is holy. That's what he's
saying, isn't it? Now unto him that is able to
do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according
to the power that works in us. Do we really believe that he's
sanctified us? Do we really believe that he's justified us? He says
he has to all of his saints, all of his believers. Now unto
him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages,
world without end. Sanctification and belief of
the truth are linked together. We're set apart. We're set apart
for God's purposes. We're sanctified to be His in
this world. We are declared to be sanctified. We are declared to be holy by
God Almighty. And we're set apart to all this
when the truth comes with power and we're given eyes to see and
to be set free. If you ever know the liberty,
you know the glorious liberty of the sons of God, you'll know
what it's like when you are set free from the bondage of religion.
I remember it so well. It's finally being taught of
God that it's all about what He's done and it's not about
what I do. No matter how busy I was, no
matter how busy I was, it was always to do more, to do more,
to do more. And all of a sudden there is
this, I can rest. I can rest. He's done it all,
including this. He's done it all. The glorious
freedom. And we went back to those that
we knew and those that we loved in religion and we said, this
is really good news. I've got some really good news
for you people. This is such good news that you're just going
to be leaping and bounding and rejoicing in this. And you go
back and some of them rejoiced for a little while. Nearly all
of them ended up finding it so offensive. Why? because their
righteousness is taken away from them. That's what it is, isn't
it? The self-righteousness that we
got in the garden. Sanctification is a glorious,
glorious description. We, I trust all here, stake our
eternal souls on what God says Where else can you go? We've got no one else to go to. We
don't have any other words to go to. We stake our eternal souls
on what God has said. I sanctify myself. Sanctify them through the truth. Thy word is truth. I'm sending
them into this world. I'm sending them out into this
world as sanctified ones. I'm sending them out into this
world to declare that sanctification is finished and done as all of
God's work. Just like justification and washing
and all of the other activities of God. They're completed works.
complete at works. For their sakes I sanctify myself
that they also might be sanctified by the truth of his sanctification,
of his sanctification. Cole took it upon himself wonderfully
to put on our Bibles a verse out of 1 Corinthians 1 that you
know very well. I'm so thankful that he did it.
1 Corinthians 30 But of him are
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption, that, according as it is written,
he that glorieth, leading glory in the Lord. He's done all of
them together, hasn't he? He's all of our wisdom. I don't
have any of my own. He's all of my righteousness.
I don't have any of my own. He's all of my sanctification.
And he declares it to be so and he's all of my redemption. He's
done all of them together, hasn't he? For some reason the religious
world wants to leave one out. I don't know why they want to
upset these glorious, glorious verses that the children of God
find their peace and comfort in. He's sanctified by His blood. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank you and praise you for your word of promise. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that these words were signed and sealed by the blood of your
dear and precious Son, gloriously, triumphantly declared by his
resurrection from the dead, to reign and to rule over all. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you'd just cause us, like little children, to lie in his arms,
to rejoice in his word, to love his provision, to find ourselves,
Heavenly Father, just glorying in what our dear and precious
Saviour has done. Cause us to remember Him, Heavenly
Father, by these elements that He has provided, which cause
us to remember a broken body and shed blood. We praise you,
our Father, that nothing He ever did or said was done in vain. Glorify Him in our midst by granting
us, Heavenly Father, the faith and love of little children that
come and keep coming and look and look and look to Him. We
pray these things in His name and for His glory. Amen.