Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 17:19
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
19. sanctify ] Or, consecrate, as in Joh 17:17. Christ does for Himself that which He prays the Father to do for His disciples. In Joh 10:36 He speaks of Himself as consecrated by the Father; set apart for a sacred purpose. But only thus far is the consecration of Christ and of His disciples the same. In them it also implied redemption and cleansing from sin; and in this sense the word is frequently connected with ‘purify’ (2Co 7:1; Eph 5:26; 2Ti 2:21; Heb 9:13). The radical meaning of the word is not separation, as is sometimes stated, but holiness, which involves separation, viz. the being set apart for God.
might be sanctified through the truth ] Rather, may be sanctified or consecrated in truth. ‘ In truth’ = in reality and not merely in name or appearance; the expression is quite distinct from ‘in the truth’ in Joh 17:17. As a Priest consecrated by the Father (Joh 10:36) He consecrates Himself as a Sacrifice (Eph 5:2), and thereby obtains a real internal consecration for them through the Paraclete (Joh 16:7).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I sanctify myself – I consecrate myself exclusively to the service of God. The word sanctify does not refer here to personal sanctification, for he had no sin, but to setting himself apart entirely to the work of redemption.
That they also … –
1. That they might have an example of the proper manner of laboring in the ministry, and might learn of me how to discharge its duties. Ministers will understand their work best when they most faithfully study the example of their great model, the Son of God.
2. That they might be made pure by the effect of my sanctifying myself – that is, that they might be made pure by the shedding of that blood which cleanses from all sin. By this only can men be made holy; and it was because the Saviour so sanctified himself, or set himself to this work so unreservedly as to shed his own blood, that any soul can be made pure and fit for the kingdom of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 19. I sanctify myself] I consecrate and devote myself to death-that I may thereby purchase eternal salvation for them. There seems to be here an allusion to the entering of the high priest into the holy of holies, when, having offered the sacrifice, he sprinkled the blood before the ark of the covenant. So Jesus entered into the holiest of all by his own blood, in order to obtain everlasting redemption for men: see Heb 9:11-13. The word, , to consecrate or sanctify, is used in the sense of devoting to death, in Jer 12:3, both in the Hebrew and in the Septuagint: the Hebrew signifies also to sacrifice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I sanctify myself, here, is no more than, I set myself apart, as a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing in the sight of God: and indeed sanctifying, in the ancient notion of it under the law, did ordinarily signify the setting of persons and things apart to the special service of God; which was done legally by certain ritual performances and ceremonies, and is still done inwardly and spiritually by regeneration, and renewing of the hearts of men and women by the efficacious working of the Holy Ghost. Christ saith, that for his disciples sake he sanctified himself, being both the Priest and the sacrifice.
Christ set apart himself as a sacrifice for his people,
that they might be sanctified: not only our eternal life and happiness, but all the means to it, fell within the counsel of God; hence we are said to be chosen of Christ, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, Eph 1:4; and within the purchase of Christ: hence the apostle saith, Eph 5:25,26, that he gave himself for his church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water: and our Saviour here saith, that he set apart himself for a sacrifice for our sins, that his people might be sanctified through the truth; that is, by receiving the truth, not in their ears only, but in their hearts, in the love of it, and bringing forth the fruits of it in all holiness of life and conversation.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. And for their sakes Isanctifyconsecrate.
myself that they alsomightmay.
be sanctifiedconsecrated.The only difference between the application of the same term toChrist and the disciples is, as applied to Christ, that it means onlyto “consecrate”; whereas, in application to the disciples,it means to consecrate with the additional idea of previoussanctification, since nothing but what is holy can be presented as anoffering. The whole self-sacrificing work of the disciples appearshere as a mere result of the offering of Christ [OLSHAUSEN].
throughin.
the truthThough thearticle is wanting in the original here, we are not to translate, asin the Margin, “truly sanctified”; for thereference seems plainly to be “the truth” mentioned in Joh17:17. (See on Joh 17:17).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And for their sakes I sanctify myself,…. Which is to be understood, not of his making himself holy; for he never was a sinner, and so stood in no need of sanctification: he was made like unto us, yet without sin; he looked like a sinner, but was not one; he was traduced, charged, and treated as such, but was perfectly holy, and free from all sin; he was essentially and infinitely holy as God; and as man, he was holy in his conception and birth; he was filled with the Holy Ghost, and was holy in his life and in his death: rather this may be meant of his being separated, and set apart for his office as Mediator, which, though done by the Father, and is ascribed unto him, Joh 10:36; yet may also be attributed to himself; since he voluntarily devoted himself to this work, and cheerfully accepted of it: though it seems best to understand it of his offering himself a sacrifice for, and in the room and stead of his people, in allusion to the offerings under the law, the sacrificing of which is expressed by sanctifying, Ex 13:2; and because his sacrifice was an Holy One: what he sanctified or offered was “himself”: not his divine, but human nature, his body and his soul; and these as in union with his divine person; which gives his sacrifice the preference to all others, and is the true reason of its virtue and efficacy; and this is expressive of his great love. He himself is also the sanctifier or offerer, which shows him to be a priest, and that he had a power over his own life, and that he sacrificed it voluntarily; and this he is said to do at that present time, because the time was very near that he was to be offered up, and his present prayer and intercession were a part of his priestly office. This he did not for his own sake, nor for the sake of angels, nor for all men, but for his disciples, as distinct from the world; and not for the apostles only, but for all that the Father had given to him; and that as their substitute and surety, in their room and stead:
that they also might be sanctified through the truth; that is, have all their sins expiated, and they be cleansed from all the guilt and filth of them, through Christ himself and his sacrifice, who is the truth; or “in truth”; as it may be rendered, really and truly, in opposition to the legal sacrifices which atoned for sin, not really, only typically; or through the. Gospel of truth, bringing the good news of atonement by the blood and sacrifice of Christ, and which the Spirit of God seals to the conscience with comfort and joy.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
I sanctify myself ( ). To his holy ministry to which the Father “sanctified” () him (Joh 10:36).
That they themselves also may be sanctified in truth ( ). Purpose clause with and the periphrastic perfect passive subjunctive of (that they may remain sanctified). The act of Christ helps us, but by no means takes the place of personal consecration on the part of the believer. This high and holy prayer and act of Christ should shame any one who uses the livery of heaven to serve the devil in as does, alas, sometimes happen (2Co 11:13-15).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And for their sakes I sanctify myself,” (kai huper auton ego hagiazo emauton) “And on their behalf I sanctify myself,” as an example of an Holy Life, wholly committed to do your will and work, without selfishness, sin or rebellion, Joh 6:38; Joh 10:18; Php_2:5-7; Heb 7:26. His consecration of Himself was, to His sacrificial death, for every believer, and for the church in particular, Act 20:28; Eph 5:25-26.
2) “That they also might be sanctified in truth.” (hina osin kai autoi hegiasmenoi en aletheia) “In order that they also may be having been sanctified in truth,” 2Ti 2:15; Jas 5:19 in the province of the word of truth, to do my bidding through the church, to your glory, Col 3:16-17; For the church is the pillar and ground, support of the truth, 1Ti 3:15; Eph 3:21; For His truth “endureth forever,” Psa 117:2.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
19. And for their sales I sanctify myself. By these words he explains more clearly from what source that sanctification flows, which is completed in us by the doctrine of the Gospel. It is, because he consecrated himself to the Father, that his holiness might come to us; for as the blessing on the first-fruits is spread over the whole harvest, so the Spirit of God cleanses us by the holiness of Christ and makes us partakers of it. Nor is this done by imputation only, for in that respect he is said to have been made to us righteousness; but he is likewise said to have been made to us sanctification, (1Co 1:30,) because he has, so to speak, presented us to his Father in his own person, that we may be renewed to true holiness by his Spirit. Besides, though this sanctification belongs to the whole life of Christ, yet the highest illustration of it was given in the sacrifice of his death; for then he showed himself to be the true High Priest, by consecrating the temple, the altar, all the vessels, and the people, by the power of his Spirit.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(19) And for their sakes I sanctify myself.Comp. Note on Joh. 17:17. The consecration here thought of is that to the work which was immediately before Himthe offering Himself as a sacrifice. The word was in frequent use in the special sense of an offering or sacrifice set apart to God. As a New Testament example of this, comp. Rom. 15:16. By this consecration of Himselfwhich in a wider sense is for all men, but in the special sense is for their sakesHe will, as both Priest and Sacrifice, enter into the Holy of Holies of the heavenly temple, and will send the Holy Ghost, who will consecrate them.
That they also might be sanctified through the truth.Better, as in the margin, . . . . might be truly sanctified. The words they also are emphatic, answering to their sakes and myself in the preceding clause.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. Sanctify myself The great conditional sanctification or consecration of himself, by which Christ entitled himself to redeem a glorious Church from out the world, and present it pure and perfect before the Father, was the suffering of death. Thus as a redeemer he was made perfect through suffering.
For their sakes
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
DISCOURSE: 1713
THE END FOR WHICH CHRIST DEDICATED HIMSELF TO GOD
Joh 17:19. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
THE sanctification of men is no less necessary for their usefulness in this world, than it is for their happiness in the world to come. Hence our blessed Lord, in his intercessory prayer, made this a very prominent subject of his requests in behalf of his Disciples whom he was about to leave in the midst of an ensnaring world: sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth [Note: ver. 17.]. And for the encouragement of all his followers to the latest period of the world he declares, that the attainment of this object in their behalf has been a very principal end of all that he ever had done, or was at that instant doing, for them: For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth.
In opening to you these words I will shew,
I.
What is that act to which our Lord here refers
To sanctify means to purify from sin, and to devote to God. In the former sense it may be properly applied to men: but it is in the latter sense only that it can have any reference to Christ.
Under the Mosaic law the priests and all the vessels of the sanctuary were sanctified to the Lord [Note: Exo 30:26-29.]. The offerings there made, all shadowed forth the Lord Jesus Christ, who sanctified and set apart himself to the work of saving a ruined world. This he did,
1.
When he first undertook our cause
[From eternity he entered into covenant with the Father to redeem our souls by his own obedience unto death: and the utter insufficiency of all other sacrifices being acknowledged, he engaged to offer himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world [Note: Psa 40:6-8.] ]
2.
When he assumed our nature
[St. Paul cites the foregoing passage with an express reference to the time of Christs coming into the world: and there is a remarkable variation in his language suited to that occasion. In the Psalm it is said, Mine ear hast thou opened; referring to the law which ordained that a servant who devoted himself for ever to the service of his Master, should have his ear bored through with an awl [Note: Exo 21:5-6.]: but in the Epistle it is said, a body hast thou prepared me [Note: Heb 10:5-7.]. At his incarnation therefore he sanctified himself afresh to this great work.]
3.
When he submitted to the baptism of John
[John wished to decline the office of baptizing so exalted a person. But, on entering upon the office assigned him, the Lord Jesus Christ judged it necessary to consecrate himself to it afresh by this solemn ordinance, in which he was openly and ostensibly devoted unto God: Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness [Note: Mat 3:15.].]
4.
When he went up to Jerusalem in order to his crucifixion
[The paschal lamb was to be separated and set apart four days, in order to its being fully ascertained by the most accurate examination, that it was without spot or blemish, and therefore fit to be offered in sacrifice to God [Note: Exo 12:3; Exo 12:6.]. And on the fourth day previous to his crucifixion did our blessed Lord go up to Jerusalem, that after the strictest examination his very judges might proclaim his innocence, and consequently his fitness for the work assigned him, of making an atonement for the sins of the whole world. And his persisting in his work in opposition to all the dictates of suffering humanity, shewed that on this occasion also he sanctified himself to the office he had undertaken [Note: Joh 12:12-13; Joh 12:27-28.].]
5.
When he surrendered up himself into the hands of his murderers
[He beat them all to the ground, when they came to apprehend him; to shew that he could with his word have struck them all dead upon the spot [Note: Joh 18:4-8.]. He took care also to exempt his Disciples from a participation of his lot, because their work was scarcely yet begun. But himself he resigned into the hands of sinners, in order that all which he had undertaken to do and suffer might be accomplished in him.]
Having seen what the act was, let me shew,
II.
What light his performance of it throws upon his character
There was a most mysterious composition in his character
[All others, even Aaron himself, were sanctified through the instrumentality of one appointed to that office: but Christ sanctified himself. He was at the same time the Sacrifice, and the Priest that offered it, and the Altar on which it was offered [Note: Heb 13:10.].]
And this it was which gave his offering its efficacy
[Had he been a mere man, his sacrifice could never have availed for the redemption of the world. But he was God and man in one person: and his divinity, whilst it gave an infinite value to his sacrifice, both qualified and authorized him to present himself a sacrifice to God. Both his body and soul were alike offered; the one to endure all that was due to our bodies, the other, all that was due to our souls. And his was, not a typical offering, like those presented under the law, but a real and true propitiation for sin. Nor did his sacrifice avail for a typical and temporary remission of sins, but for the full and everlasting forgiveness of all sin [Note: Heb 9:13-14.] Thus the expression in my text, whilst it seems to convey nothing very particular to the mind, gives us, in reality, an insight into the deepest mysteries of our religion, and shews, that it was God who purchased the Church with his own blood [Note: Act 20:28.].]
Stupendous in this view, was the act to which he referred. But let us consider,
III.
What his ends were in the performance of it
Generally, it was for the sake of his people that he did this. But particularly, it was, that they might be sanctified through the truth.
The sanctification of his people was a very principal end which he aimed at in all that he did and suffered for them
[His people must be sanctified unto the Lord, even as he was. The different vessels of the sanctuary, no less than the offerings presented there, were altogether devoted to the Lord. In like manner must the disciples of Christ be sanctified. In this view they are called a kind of first-fruits, which could on no account, and in no degree, be alienated from the Lord [Note: Jam 1:18.]. Nay more, we are called to offer up our whole selves living sacrifices unto the Lord, as a reasonable and acceptable service [Note: Rom 12:1.]. And that we might be thus sanctified was the great end of all that our blessed Lord either did or suffered for us: he gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works [Note: Tit 2:14.]. And the very same object he still keeps in view in all that he is at this moment doing for us in heaven [Note: Rom 14:9.].]
This however must be accomplished through the instrumentality of his word
[His Holy Spirit indeed is the agent, without whom not even the word itself would produce any good effect. But he is pleased to make use of his word as the means of quickening us to a heavenly life [Note: 1Pe 1:23.], and of carrying on his work where it is begun [Note: 1Pe 2:2.], and of completing it even to the end [Note: 2Ti 3:16-17.]. His word is the mould into which we are to be cast [Note: Rom 6:17. the Greek.], and by which we shall be altogether changed into the divine image. This is the state to which he desires to bring us; and by his word ministered unto us, he will turn us from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God [Note: Act 26:18.].]
Observe now from hence,
1.
How great is the love of Christ to fallen man!
[He well knew all that he must endure if he would become a substitute and surety for fallen man: yet he undertook our cause, and came down from heaven for us, and never ceased from his work till he could say, It is finished Methinks the ox and the ass may well reproach our more than brutish ingratitude [Note: Isa 1:3.] ]
2.
What obligations have we to holiness!
[By holiness T mean, a total surrender of ourselves to God. And if we aspire not after this, what do we but pour contempt upon all that Christ has done and suffered for us, and cause him, as far as lies in our power, to have sanctified himself in vain. What excuse shall we offer for this when he shall call us into judgment? Verily if, being called to be saints, we be not found so at the last day, it would be better for us never to have heard of Christ at all ]
3.
What guilt do they contract who turn back from the service of their God!
[As Aaron and his sons were sanctified with the blood of the Mosaic covenant [Note: Lev 8:30.], so are we with the blood of the Christian covenant. And, if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, we do, in fact, tread under foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant wherewith we have been sanctified an unholy thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace. What then awaits us in the eternal world? The despisers of Moses law died without mercy: but a much sorer punishment will come on us, even the everlasting wrath of our offended God [Note: Heb 10:26-29.] O let not any of you turn back unto perdition; but be of those who believe unto the saving of their souls [Note: Heb 10:38-39.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Ver. 19. And for their sakes do I sanctify ] As both priest, altar, and sacrifice; and this Christ did from the womb to the tomb; at his death especially, when this Paschal Lamb was roasted in the fire of his Father’s wrath, that his people might be made partakers of his holiness,Heb 10:10Heb 10:10 . Here also it is worth the noting, that these petitions in our Saviour’s prayer do so sweetly depend one upon another, that if you take away one, you deface the other. Phavorinus in Gellius, comparing between the style of Lysias and Plato, observes this difference; Quod si ex Platonis oratione aliquid demas mutesque de elegantia tantum detraxeris; si ex Lysiae, de sententia.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19. ] See above on Joh 17:17 . Notice, says Meyer, the emphatic correlation of .
It is clear against all Socinian inferences from this verse, that all that part of implied in ch. Joh 10:36 is here excluded: and only that intended which is expressed Heb 2:10 by . Of this, His death was the crowning act, and was also the one to which the most directly applies; but the whole is included. The confining the meaning to His sacrifice (Chrys., Euthym [236] ), and the . to their martyrdom , or their spiritual self-offering , Rom 12:1 (Euthym [237] ), is insufficient for the depth of the words.
[236] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
[237] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
. ] in truth: what truth, is evident from Joh 17:17 , where, in the repetition, . , the article is also wanting: see also ch. Joh 1:14 ; Joh 4:24 : 3Jn 1:3 , for , without the article. But the distinction is perhaps somewhat obscured after a preposition.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 17:19 . The crowning plea is that it was for this end, their consecration, Jesus consecrated Himself: , “and in their behalf, that they may be consecrated in truth, do I consecrate myself”. “ in the present with can only be understood of Christ’s self-consecration to His sacrificial death.” Tholuck. , Euthymius; so Meyer, Reynolds and others. This however is needlessly to limit the reference and to introduce an idea somewhat alien to this context and to Joh 10:36 . Calvin is right: “Porro sanctificatio haec quamvis ad totam Christi vitam pertineat, in sacrificio tamen mortis ejus maxime illustris fuit”. The object of Christ’s consecration to His work was the severance of His disciples from the world and their inspiration with the same spirit of self-sacrifice and devotedness to sacred uses. , understood by the Greek commentators as “real” in contrast to what is symbolic, cf. Joh 4:23 . Thus Euthymius, , , . “Discernit a sanctificationibus legis.” Melanchthon Similarly Godet. Meyer renders “truly” and remarks: “As contrasted with every other in human relations, that wrought through the Paraclete is the true consecration”. But is it possible to neglect the reference to , Joh 17:17 ? As Lcke points out, John (3Jn 1:3-4 ) does not always distinguish between and . The object to Christ’s consecration was to bring the truth by and in which the disciples might be consecrated.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
for their sakes = on behalf of (Greek. huper. App-104.) them.
I sanctify Myself = I dedicate or consecrate Myself. This shows the meaning of sanctify; not making holy as to moral character, but setting apart for God. The Lord was the antitype of all the offerings, which were holy unto Jehovah.
might be = may be.
the truth. There is no article.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
19.] See above on Joh 17:17. Notice, says Meyer, the emphatic correlation of – – .
It is clear against all Socinian inferences from this verse, that all that part of implied in ch. Joh 10:36 is here excluded: and only that intended which is expressed Heb 2:10 by . Of this, His death was the crowning act, and was also the one to which the most directly applies; but the whole is included. The confining the meaning to His sacrifice (Chrys., Euthym[236]), and the . to their martyrdom, or their spiritual self-offering, Rom 12:1 (Euthym[237]), is insufficient for the depth of the words.
[236] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
[237] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
.] in truth: what truth, is evident from Joh 17:17, where, in the repetition, . , the article is also wanting: see also ch. Joh 1:14; Joh 4:24 : 3Jn 1:3,-for , without the article. But the distinction is perhaps somewhat obscured after a preposition.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 17:19. , I sanctify Myself) I dedicate and consecrate Myself wholly to Thee. They are going out into the world for My sake; I, moreover, am going to Thee, also for their good. An Euphemism, appropriate to the love of Christ: I sanctify Myself, in enduring death, and that the death of the cross.-, sanctified) It is of such as these, and of them only, that the Canonisation is truly being made by the Lord Himself: 1Pe 3:18, Christ hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God; 2Co 5:15, He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.- , in [through] the truth) even though it may not appear externally. This is contrasted with ceremonial sanctimony.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 17:19
Joh 17:19
And for their sakes I sanctify myself,-For the sake of them he sanctified himself to death and shed his blood to seal the truth. [This covers the entire consecration of Jesus to his mission, including all he was to do and suffer on the next day. He sacrificed everything, even his own life, to the fulfillment of his mission.]
that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.-That these disciples might be led by that truth, devoted to it, and sanctified by it. The only way of sanctification is through the truth of God. The only union possible is in the truth as God has delivered it. He who turns from the truth of God-sets aside any of that truth for the sake of union with others-not only sets at naught the authority of God, but he places himself upon ground upon which union is impossible. Union is not only undesirable, but impossible, save as men are sanctified by the word of God. A union in any other way save as we are sanctified by and in the truth would be a union out of and against God. If this were possible, it would only be the presage of swift and widespread destruction from God.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Masters Consecration
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.Joh 17:19.
The richest, fullest life our earth has ever known was the life of Jesus Christ. No one ever had within himself such complete satisfactions, such assured convictions, and such settled peace as He. Rich and full as His life was to Himself, it was the richest, fullest life to others that has ever blessed humanity. Wherever He went He was the source of helpfulness. Even the hem of His garment had power in it, and from His lips, His hands, His heart went out an unceasing, abounding inspiration to the souls of men. Jesus Christ was a great fountain whose waters of comfort welled up like a flood within His own heart, and then flowed forth full-volumed to cheer the world. His life had more in it and gave more from it than any other life since time began. What was the secret of it? He sanctified Himself.
When Augustine Thierry, after withdrawing himself from the world, and devoting himself to study, that he might investigate the origin, causes and effects of the successive German invasions, spent six years in poring with the pertinacity of a Benedictine monk over worm-eaten manuscripts, and deciphering and comparing black-letter texts, at last completed his magnificent History of the Conquest, he found he had lost his eyesight. The most precious of his senses had been sacrificed to his zeal in literary research. The beauties of nature and the records of scholarship were thenceforth shut out from him; and yet did he think the sacrifice too great? In a letter, written to a friend long afterward, he said: Were I to begin my life over again, I would choose the road that had led me to where I now am. Blind and afflicted, without hope and without leisure, I can safely offer this testimony, the sincerity of which, coming from a man in my condition, cannot be called in question. There is something in the world worth more than pleasure, more than fortune, more than health itself. I mean devotion, self-dedication to a great end. There is a higher end than scientific research, and to that end Jesus Christ dedicated Himself.
In the instructive and profound book on The Religion of the Semites, Dr. Robertson Smith quotes, as containing the deepest conception of the Atonement, these words of our Lord, uttered as He knelt in prayer by the altar of the supreme sacrifice: For their sakes I consecrate myself, that they themselves also may be consecrated in truth. Besson writes in his spiritual letters, It is in His passion that the Saviour shows Himself, like the sun at midday, in all the ardour of His love. And in the shadow of the cross, He who had schooled Himself daily to the repression of feeling spoke the secret of His life and death. He interpreted His whole work as a consecration in the power of love. On the Cross He consecrated Himself as the atoning sacrificethe absolute oblation for the sins of the whole world. Here is the first aspect of the Cross; its witness to the deep necessity of expiation, to the completeness of Christs offering for sin. But this doctrine may be stated with a narrow correctness which leaves a world of unknown feeling behind. Before the death of Christ came His life, and that was a long self-sacrifice. It was willingly surrendered hour by hour till all the years were full. Then it was completedconsummated in death.1 [Note: W. Robertson Nicoll, Ten-Minute Sermons, 235.]
I
The Act of Consecration
The word sanctify is used in the Bible with two distinct significations. The original meaning of the word is to consecrate, to dedicate, to set apart to God and to Gods service; and this is its ordinary meaning in the Old Testament. We commonly intend by it, to make holy: sanctity and holiness are the same; sanctification is the growing completeness of the Christian character, the hallowing of the personal life: in this sense the word is often used in the New Testament. Sanctification, in brief, may describe either the purpose or the process of the Christian life.
It is not hard to trace the connexion between these two meanings of the word; to see how the first meaning passes naturally and necessarily into the other. Perfect consecration would be complete and absolute holiness. No purity would be wanting to the motive, no elevation to the character, of one who should be devoted to the Lord his God, with all his heart, and all his soul, and all his mind, and all his strength. We must lay aside any thought of a native holiness, in man or angel, apart from conformity to Gods character and obedience to His will. God alone is holy, in and of Himself; the source of our sanctity, like the spring of our life, is in God. The charm and energy of the personal holiness even of Christ lay in His constant devotion to His Fathers will.
This is at once our Lords life-purpose, and an ideal for us. I sanctify myself. I am set apart, consecrated, devoted to Thee and to mankind. Consecrated in thought, word and deed: devoted in motive and in action. I am near Thee in my daily life, in my going out and coming in, in my trials as in my triumphs, in my death as in my life. I am like Thee, revealing Thy character; having Thy image stamped on me.
1. He concealed His greatness and glory.The natural dignities of the Son of God had to be hidden from us. John, the beloved disciple, he who knew the Lord more intimately than any other, he who saw most clearly into the depths of that soul, who leaned upon the bosom of the Lord, tells us that he beheld the glory of the Son of God, His face like unto the sun in its strength, His eyes like unto flames of fire;and John fell at His feet as dead. Thus was it on the Mount of Transfiguration, when for a moment the innate glory of the Son of God shone through the veil that hid it, and His robes were white and glistering, and again His face was like the sun, and again His eyes were like unto flames of fire, and the disciples, blinded and bewildered by such splendour, hid themselves, afraid, and shrank from that excess of light. Think of Him, then, for our sakes setting apart His glory that He might become our Blessed Brother and Friend, and that all might draw near to Him and be at home with Him; sitting down with lowly fishermen, welcoming the outcast, gathering to Himself the little children, drawing around Him all the sad and needy of the earth.
Out of this comes the other great temptation that assails Him. If Thou art the Son of God, if Thou art not bound by these laws of humanity, if Thou canst dismay and bewilder Thine enemies by the manifestations of Thy glory, put forth Thy power, assert Thine authority. Think of Him as He stands with outstretched hand rebuking Peter there in the shadow of Gethsemane, in that night, the full moon of the Passover high in the heavens, about Him the rough crowd gathered with swords and staves! Judas has betrayed his Lord with a kiss, and the soldiers step forward to lay their hands upon the Saviour, when Peter draws his sword to fight for the Lord. Thinkest thou, said Jesus, that I cannot now pray to my Father and he will presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But He sanctified Himself, setting Himself apart for our sakes.
Think, again, how it met Him on the Cross. From out the crowd that gathered about the city walls, there rings the fierce derision, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Others have suffered perhaps as cruel a martyrdom, others have hung in anguish, mocked and derided; but of all that ever went forth to die, He alone could say, I lay down my life. No man taketh it from me. This is the glory and triumph of Christ that, conscious of a power which could have achieved so sublime and instant a triumph over all His foes,His cross transformed into a throne, about Him all His holy angels, and He seated amidst the terrors of judgment summoning these His murderers to His feet,for our sakes He Bet Himself apart and hung upon His cross and sunk until there came the final cry, It is finished.
Is humiliation easy? Was it easy for Christ to humble Himself? Is it easy for us? There are certain animals, says George Eliot, to which tenacity of position is a law of lifethey can never flourish again, after a single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominance is a law of lifethey can only sustain humiliation so long as they can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate still.1 [Note: George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss.]
Manin, the last doge of Venice, was compelled to swear allegiance to Austria in the name of his compatriots. With a broken heart he made ready for the ceremony, but as he stepped forward at the appointed time to pronounce the fatal words, his strength and his faculties gave way together. He fell senseless at the feet of his foes, and died not long afterward.2 [Note: W. M. Sloane, Napoleon Bonaparte, ii. 24.]
2. He made an absolute surrender of Himself.There are times when Egoism can reach its best development only by what would be called a complete surrender of itself to the help of others. There is a tradition that one who desired to produce a fine kind of pottery always failed until he threw himself into the fire that was baking his work, and lo, the effort was now a success, the pottery came forth as he had desired. Egoism submerged in Altruism became perfected Egoism and perfected Altruism at once. So Christ reached an hour in His life when He could not be the most that He ought to be unless He actually laid down His life for others. He would have been a renegade to His own high ideas of nobility of character if He had not been willing to die for mankind. Egoism for its own development needed a prodigal Altruism. The fulness of His own life demanded an outpouring of that life.
I heard sometime since of an oculist who was very fond of cricket. But he had given it up, much as he enjoyed it, for he found that it affected the delicacy of his touch; and for the sake of those whom he sought to relieve he sanctified himself and set himself apart. That is what we wantthat there shall come into our lives a force that prompts us always to be at our best and readiest for service, our fullest and richest to help, a tree that is always in leaf and always in bloom and always laden with its fruit, like the orange tree, where the beauty of the blossom meets with its fragrance the mellow glory of the fruit.1 [Note: Mark Guy Pearse.]
There are two great pictures, each of them by a famous artist. One picture represents a woman in a hospital. The woman is a princess, fair and beautiful to look upon, but the hospital is most loathsome, because it is the home of a number of dying lepers, and this fair and beautiful woman is represented as wiping the face of a dying leper. That picture is a symbol of the dignity and the beauty of social service. But there hangs by its side another picture by another great artist. It represents a woman in her oratory. She is in the attitude of prayer. Beside her stands an angel. She is looking over the open pages of the Holy Bible, which are illuminated. And the legend tells us that while she knelt there in that place of prayer, seven times she was interrupted. Seven times there came a call at her door, a demand upon her love, upon her charitya sevenfold recognition of the needs of her brother man. And seven times, with a patience and with a moral beauty beyond all description, she goes to the door, relieves these cases of necessity, and returns to her knees, to her attitude of prayer. This is a picture of the supreme dignity and the great worth of personal sanctification.1 [Note: O. W. Whittaker.]
II
The Aim of Consecration
I sanctify myself,that is the starting-point of redemption. For their sakes,that is the end, the common good, the social welfare. The beginning is individual, the aim is social. The way to make a good world is, first of all, to be good oneself. First character, then charity; first life, then love;that was the way of Jesus Christ. He does not stand in history as the great organizer or reformer of the social world. He stands primarily as the witness of the capacity for social service offered to each human soul. The Kingdom of God, which is the end of endeavour, is to come through the personal sanctification of individuals for the sake of others. The Christian paradox is the paradox of the solar system. An isolated soul, like an isolated planet, means instability and chaos. The stability of each part is found in its steady orbit round the larger centre, and the integrity of the whole vast order hangs on the adjustment of each single part. That is what is known in the world of nature as the law of attraction, and what Jesus calls in the spiritual world the Kingdom of God.
The mother consecrates herself for her infant. She devotes herself in self-forgetting love. The motive is strong, the strongest we knowmother-love. This emotion throbbing in the mother-heart finds expression in a thousand acts of loving care; but the child grows up and needs a mothers care less; still the care subsists. Some mythical relation arising out of motherhood seems to grow up in the mothers heart which delights in self-giving. The average mother has it, without any special gifts of intellect. The exceptional mother controls this natural emotion by foresight and educated taste. It is only the unnatural mother that has it not. And yet, though it is common, it is never learned from the outside. It springs up instinctively in answer to the infants need. It is spontaneous and almost unthinking, and yet it is the most beautiful love in life, for it gives all and asks nothing. What a lyric life becomes to the mother in her joy! Her thoughts run to poetry and her horizon is filled with her helpless child. It is all the world to her. Something of this mother-love there must be in all consecration. We must love some one, some community, some race, in self-abandoning, self-effacing love before we can consecrate ourselves for their sakes. This is one standard of our capacity for such an enterprise. Can we love others better than ourselves so as to serve them? Otherwise the service will at the moment of pressure seem to us less important and less demanding than our own comfort and we shall throw it up in petulance or despair.1 [Note: Alexander Tomory, 66.]
Dante, writing his poetry, never forgot Beatrice. He perfected that poetry in thought, in word, in spirit, in movement, hoping that it would receive public recognition and bring him honour. But he perfected it and sought recognition and honour because burning in his soul was love for his idealized Beatrice, at whose shrine and to whose praise he intended to offer all the recognition and honour that he might possibly win. Beatrice was a vision beckoning him on to industry and skill. In a far holier, higher way Christ had His beckoning vision. It was the whole world that beckoned Him to endeavour and development. Perhaps from that hill behind Nazareth He watched the ships of all nations going up and down the Mediterranean, and the world with all its kingdoms stood out before His thought. Certain it is that when the hour of temptation came to Him, and all the kingdoms of the world were made to pass before Him, He recognized them, and they appealed to Him because He had thought of them so often, so lovingly, so devotedly. Yes, the supreme vision of Christ was others. Never at any period of His life was He without it. He unrolled the scroll of the Scriptures, and what He read was that He should open the door to the imprisoned, should bind up the broken-hearted, and should give deliverance to the enslaved. He used saw and hammer in the shop, making box, wheel, or door, and His eyes, His thought, His being, could not stop with them; His vision was peering far out into all the earth, and He was seeing thousands upon thousands of hearts appealing to Him for help.2 [Note: James G. K. McClure, Loyalty, 214.]
1. For us, as for Christ, sanctification is separation for use.It is in this sense that our Lord immediately goes on to say, For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. To sanctify is to set apart. The Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself (Psa 4:3). In this sense the vessels of the Temple and of the Tabernacle were sanctified when they were set apart for a holy use. In this thought of separation the idea of the intrinsic character of the person or thing sanctified does not come into view in the first instance. Our Lord Himself, being perfectly holy, needed no moral renovation, but He did need to be set apart, to be devoted to the performance of the Fathers will. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that is, I set myself apart to do always the things that please Him. He came upon earth as a servant. I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me (Joh 6:38). He came as separated unto God, not in any spirit of Pharisaism, but in the spirit of whole-hearted devotion. He came to do but one thingMy meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (Joh 4:34), and this high aim is certainly, by virtue of his calling, also set before every Christian.
In the wonderful system of the telephone the whole complex communication depends at each point on the little film of metal which we call a transmitter. Take that little disk out of the mechanism, and it becomes insignificant and purposeless: but set the transmitter where it belongs, in the wonderful mechanism of the greater system, and each word that is spoken into it is repeated miles and miles away. So stands the individual in the vast system of the providence of God. He is a transmitter. Taken by himself, what can be more insignificant than he? Yet, at each point the whole system depends on the transmissive power of the individual life. It takes its place in the great order, saying to itself, For their sakes I sanctify myself; and then, by the miracle of the Divine method, each vibration of the insignificant but sanctified life reaches the needs which are waiting for its message far away.1 [Note: F. G. Peabody, Sunday Evenings in the College Chapel, 250.]
2. The next element is purification.It follows almost without saying that if you set apart a person or a thing to the service of an absolutely holy God, anything that defiles that person or thing renders it unfit for Gods use, and hence, though the first meaning of the word is separation, it speedily acquires, as Archbishop Trench in his work on the New Testament synonyms points out, a moral significance; thus the thought of purification is added to the fundamental idea of separation. If I want to separate a cup to Gods service, and that cup is polluted, I must not only set it apart for Gods use, I must separate it from the pollution that is in it. Thus separation involves the idea of the removal of a defilement which is inconsistent with holy use. If I am to he separated to God, and sanctified for Gods service, it is not enough that I should be set apart without any reference to my intrinsic character. The character itself must be purified from the defilement which makes it unfit to be used in a holy service. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the masters use, and prepared unto every good work (2Ti 2:21). Thus we see that the deeper thought of the moral and spiritual renovation follows close upon the first great meaning of separation, and in fact springs out of it.
Henry Drummond never said a truer thing than when he declared that what God wanted was not more of us, but a better brand. We need the perfecting of holiness for the perfecting alike of our usefulness and of our happiness. According to the Divine ordination, holiness and happiness are evermore inseparable. This is the secret of the bliss of heaven. And in proportion as holiness is cherished in the heart and practised in the life, will the new Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven.
The men of grace have found
Glory begun below,
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
From faith and hope may grow.1 [Note: P. S. Honson, The Four Faces, 226.]
3. Transformation.The purification is followed by a gradual transformation into the image of Christ. Sanctify them in the truth. The truth is not only the element in which we are to live, but the element into which we are to be transformed. The purposed end of the truth is not that we may find wisdom, but that we may gain holiness. That is to be the Christian distinctiveness; we are to be clothed in the garb of truth, and the world is to recognize, by our moral garments, that we are the kinsmen of the Lord. And in order that we may attain to this spiritual beauty, it is needful that we take our individual powers and deliberately separate them and dedicate them unto the truth. We must have a consecration service, and devote our reason to the truth. And we must have a consecration service, and devote our affections and our will. And the powers of the second rank must not be allowed to remain in assumed inferiority or defilement. Our imaginations must be devoted to the truth, and so must our language, and so must our humour. Every faculty and function in our life must be set apart to the clean, beautiful, beautifying truth, as revealed to us in our Saviour by His promised Spirit.
A Connecticut farmer came to a well-known clergyman, saying that the people in his neighbourhood had built a new meeting-house, and that they wanted this clergyman to come and dedicate it. The clergyman, accustomed to participate in dedicatory services where different clergymen took different parts of the service, inquired:
What part do you want me to take in the dedication?
The farmer, thinking that this question applied to the part of the building to be included in the dedication, replied:
Why, the whole thing! Take it all in, from underpinning to steeple.
That man wanted the building to be wholly sanctified as a temple of God, and that all at once. Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?1 [Note: H. Clay Trumbull, Our Misunderstood Bible, 115.]
(1) We reach our best by devoting ourselves to the interests of others.I am my best, not simply for myself, but for the world. Is there anything in all the teachings that man has had from his fellow-man, all that has come down to him from the lips of God, that is nobler, that is more far-reaching than this, that I am to be my best not simply for my own sake, but for the sake of that world which, by being my best, I shall make more complete, I shall, according to my ability, renew and recreate in the image of God? That is the law of my existence. And the man that makes that the law of his existence neglects neither himself nor his fellow-men; he neither becomes the self-absorbed student and cultivator of his own life upon the one hand, nor does he become, abandoning himself, simply the wasting benefactor of his brethren upon the other. I watch the workman build upon the building which by and by is to soar into the skies, to toss its pinnacles up to the heaven, and I see him looking up and wondering where those pinnacles are to be, thinking how high they are to be, measuring the feet, wondering how they are to be built, and all the time he is cramming a rotten stone into the building just where he has set to work. Let him forget the pinnacles, if he will, or hold only the floating image of them in his imagination for his inspiration; but the thing that he must do is to put a brave, strong soul, an honest and substantial life into the building just where he is now at work.
David Livingstone longed for knowledge and for purity of soul. He sought to be an astronomer, and a chemist, and a botanist, and a geographer. He surveyed lands and built houses and steered boats. He laboured to know languages and obtain power among barbarians. How glad he was of recognition in England, and how he valued everything that men called success! But why did he value them? That he might heal that open sore of the world, Africa; that he might be able to call attention to Africa, and bring beneficent aid to Africa, and sanctify Africa. The more he sanctified himself, yes, the larger man he became in his possession of truth, power, and purity, the more Africa lay upon his heart and the deeper in his soul rang the needs of the dark continent. When, with the early daylight, his servants coming into his room found him dead upon his knees beside his bed, they saw the perfected sanctification of Livingstone expressed in his actually dying for others.1 [Note: James G. K. McClure, Loyalty, 223.]
(2) We remain at our worst by dedicating ourselves to self.A man may dedicate himself to a hundred things, but there is one thing to which he must not dedicate or re-dedicate self. He must be sure that he is not dedicating self to self. If he dedicates self to self he will not so soon awake, as we are sometimes told a man will, to bitter disappointment. For the more remarkable the powers are which he once dedicates to self, the more remarkable will he make the self to which they are dedicated, the more apparently worthy of the dedication will he become both to himself and to others. We do not see self-admiration diminish with years, with disappointments, or with knowledge of the world. It may, indeed, continue along with such high gifts and noble qualities that it seems the one fault in the man. But it is fatal.
It was to Croesus that Solon said, in the midst of all Croesuss wealth and power and wisdom (and powerful and wise Croesus was as well as wealthy), Count no man happy before he dies. And it was the same Croesus who on his own funeral pyre, having lost children and kingdom and home, called out the single word Solon! Solon! and thus declared that Solon was right, and that happiness could not be secured by things selfish. Christ Himself could not have been happy even in being spotless, except as He used His spotlessness for the benefit of others.
(3) The spring of all our activities must be devotion to Christ.For their sakes, said Jesus. For His sake, say we. That is our inspiration. The life of complete surrender is in Him and in Him alone. To know Him, to commune with Him, to rest in His love, to have and hold it as our ownthat is the secret of the surrendered life.
Just to give up, and trust
All to a Fate unknown,
Plodding along lifes road in the dust,
Bounded by walls of stone;
Never to have a heart at peace;
Never to see when care will cease;
Just to be still when sorrows fall
This is the bitterest lesson of all.
Just to give up, and rest
All on a Love secure,
Out of a world thats hard at the best,
Looking to heaven as sure;
Ever to hope, through cloud and fear,
In darkest night, that the dawn is near;
Just to wait at the Masters feet
Surely, now, the bitter is sweet.1 [Note: Henry van Dyke.]
III
The Instrument of Consecration
1. The Truth is the great sanctifier. There is no ray of truth that ever came from the Father of lights that does not hallow the heart on which it falls. It is not make-believes that will give you sanctity. There is a falsetto character about all piety resting upon make-believes. But Truthevery ray of it, is blessing. See God, the infinite Father, the Alpha and Omega of whose being is Love, love so infinite and inconceivable that it embraces every individual soul of man, with a desire to save and bless it; see Him in the graciousness of His providence, in the majesty of His rule, and every attribute you behold engages your love, quickens your trust, brings you near, makes you wish to serve Him, makes you His and like Him. The truth in God sanctifies. The truth in Christ, in His work, love, patience, humanity, Godhead, intercession, the everlasting purpose of His heart, is all of it quickening. The truth in man is a sanctifying thing. Fear no truth. All nervousness that dreads inquiry, all apprehensiveness of the result of modern investigations, is unbelief and mistake. Nothing that is true will displace a quickening influence for good without giving a more quickening influence still. Sanctify them through thy truth. Every error of life springs from an error of thought. A lie is the root of all evilsome misconception or misunderstanding. Truth of providence, truth of the rewards of goodness, truth of grace, truth of immortality, truth of God and manevery ray of it is quickening.
In the truth, and not simply through the truth. The Truth is, as it were, the atmosphere, the element, in which believers are immersed and by which they are sustained: and we must think of the Truth in the widest sense in which we can conceive of it. Such Truth, which Christ is, and which Christ reveals, is everywhere about us: it corresponds with the whole range of present experience: it is realized in a personal communion with its Source. Its function is not simply to support but to transfigure. Its issue is not knowledge but holiness.1 [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, 176.]
2. Thy word is truth.This leads us directly to the Bible and the Bible tends to make men saints, because it describes the lives and experiences of many who have lived near to God, and who have cared intensely for men. And we take fire by the things we read; as it has been said, If you read Shakespeare, after a while you think Shakespeare and you talk Shakespeare.
Thy word is truth. Thy word, written and unwritten, Thy word in the Bible, in nature, in history, in experience. We dare not limit either the time or the manner of His utterance. Forms of thought, the organization of the State, the relations of the sciences vary, and He meets our changing position with appropriate teaching. His message comes to each age and to each people as it came at Pentecost, in their own language. It comes to us through the struggles of the nations and the movements of society, through every fact that marks one least step in the method of creation or in the history of man. It is this message, given to us in our language, that we have to welcome and to interpret now. Only so will our personal consecration be perfected: only so will our social office be fulfilled.1 [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, 187.]
(1) The Word has a discovering and enlightening power. It is a mirror in which we see reflected our failures and sins; it is a searchlight discerning the very thoughts and intents of the heart.
A late postmaster in London gave a poor Roman Catholic woman a Testament. The priest visiting her on her dying bed found it beneath her pillow as she passed away, and took it with him, intending to destroy it. But it was found beneath his pillow likewise when he died, not long after.2 [Note: Homiletic Review, xxi. 158.]
(2) It has a cleansing and purifying power. We are very much influenced by what we read.
We are informed that the wretched man who took the life of President Carnot lived an apparently harmless, decent life for a good many years, until he came into contact with anarchist publications, which so saturated his mind with evil thoughts, schemes, and ideas that at length he was capable of the awful crime he committed. He was defiled, ruined, and destroyed by the word of falsehood which he read. It has again and again been shown in courts of justice that thieves and robbers have had the thoughts of such a life put into their heads by the tales of highwaymen and the like which are sown broadcast in print. The same principle holds true conversely, and it holds good with regard to the Word of God. The Bible has a sanctifying influence: it is a holy bookit sets before us holy examples, it exhorts us to a holy course of life, it furnishes us with holy doctrines, it points us to a holy Saviour.3 [Note: E. Moore, Christ in Possession, 74.]
(3) The Word has a nourishing and strengthening power. We are told that as new-born babes we are to desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow thereby. And the Apostle says, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up (Act 20:32). There is a vital link between the written word and the Living Word, and when the word of God dwells in us, Christ comes and dwells in us too. The secret of sanctification is an indwelling Saviour.
No distant Lord have I
Loving afar to be;
Made flesh for me, He cannot rest
Until He rests in me.
Brother in joy and pain,
Bone of my bone was He,
Now,intimacy closer still,
He dwells Himself in me.
I need not journey far
This dearest friend to see,
Companionship is always mine,
He makes His home with me.1 [Note: Maltbie D. Babcock.]
The Masters Consecration
Literature
Benson (E. W.), in Sermon Year Book, ii. 209.
Bernard (T. D.), The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ, 367.
Brooks (P.), Addresses, 11.
Carter (T. T.), The Spirit of Watchfulness, 239.
Darlow (T. H.), Via Sacra, 157.
Hoare (J. G.), Life in St. Johns Gospel, 62.
Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 397.
Ingram (A. F. W.), The Mysteries of God, 246.
Keble (J.), Sermons Academical and Occasional, 251.
Knight (G. H.), Divine Upliftings, 75.
Lang (W. C. G.), in A Lent in London, 186.
Lyttelton (A. T.), College and University Sermons, 50.
Mackennal (A.), The Life of Christian Consecration, 17.
McClure (J. G. K), Loyalty, 205.
Moberly (R. C.), Problems and Principles 397.
Nicoll (W. R.), Ten-Minute Sermons, 235.
Peabody (F. G.), Jesus Christ and the Social Question, 76.
Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 81.
Peabody (F. G.), Sunday Evenings in the College Chapel, 233.
Pearse (M. G.), The Gentleness of Jesus, 89.
Rainsford (M.), The Lords Prayer for Believers, 343, 356, 364, 378.
Skrine (J. H.), Sermons to Pastors and Masters, 58.
Stone (D.), The Discipline of Faith, 41.
Temple (F.), Five of his Latest Utterances, 7.
Tomory (A.), Memorials, 63.
Trumbull (H. C.), Our Misunderstood Bible, 108.
Watts-Ditchfield (J. E), Here and Hereafter, 27.
Welldon (J. E. C.), The Fire upon the Altar, 69.
Welldon (J. E. C.), The Gospel in a Great City, 114.
Williams (C. D.), A Valid Christianity for To-day, 201.
Examiner, June 1904, p. 584 (Jowett).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
for: Isa 62:1, 2Co 4:15, 2Co 8:9, 1Th 4:7, 2Ti 2:10
I sanctify: Joh 10:36, Jer 1:5, 1Co 1:2, Heb 2:11, Heb 9:13, Heb 9:18, Heb 9:26, Heb 10:5-10, Heb 10:29
that: Joh 17:17, Tit 2:14
sanctified through the truth: or, truly sanctified
Reciprocal: Exo 29:21 – shall be Exo 31:13 – that ye may Exo 40:10 – sanctify Exo 40:13 – anoint him Lev 4:34 – the horns of the altar Lev 8:22 – the ram of consecration Lev 14:29 – General Lev 16:18 – General Lev 21:8 – for I Num 7:15 – General Num 8:17 – I sanctified Num 19:18 – General Jos 3:5 – Sanctify Joh 11:15 – for Joh 16:26 – that Joh 20:21 – as Rom 8:29 – to be 1Th 2:13 – effectually 1Th 5:23 – sanctify Heb 10:10 – we Heb 13:12 – sanctify 1Pe 1:22 – ye have 1Pe 2:9 – an holy
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE CONSECRATION OF PERSONALITY
And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Joh 17:19
The translation is perhaps a little old-fashioned at this point and remote from our ordinary use, too much so to give us at once the full force of the statement. We may render it in more modern phraseFor their sakes I consecrate Myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.
I. I consecrate Myself.Who is it that thus unfolds the secret and motive of His life? I and myself are terms in which each one of us speaks of that mysterious force which he calls his personality. I am I, I am conscious of myself, I have a certain control over myself, with care I can improve myself, by neglect I can spoil myself. Moreover, I can awaken a response to myself in the world outside myself. I can put myself into outside things and shape them, as the artist puts himself into his handiwork and the musician puts himself into his music. More than this, most wonderful of all, I can put myself, to some extent, into other persons, as the master puts himself into his scholars, as the officer puts himself into his men, as the statesman puts himself into his party. My personality can modify the personality of another.
II. It is, then, a Personality that speaks to us here and says I and Myself; a conscious centre of vital force revealing to us His most sacred secret, telling us of His own discipline of Himself and of the effect which He looks to produce on the happiness of other men. I consecrate Myself, that they also may be consecrated. Personality is the inalienable possession of every human being as such; it is a gift which each one of us has received from God, Who is the Supreme Personality, in Whose image we have been made. But there is a vast difference between the force of one personality and the force of another. Personalities vary in respect of physical and mental capacity, in respect of opportunity of development, and, above all, in the use which they make of their opportunity, whatever it may be. Those persons who are favoured by natural conditions and by external circumstances, and who use their opportunity of self-development in a high degree, we are accustomed to speak of as personalities par excellence. We make a clear distinction between a personage and a personality. Outward circumstances make a personage; inward force, disciplined and developed, alone can make what we honour by the name of a personality.
III. It is not only a Personality, but the most personal of all personalities, Who speaks in the text and tells us the secret of His effective personality. I consecrate Myself. The words imply at least thisI am conscious of Myself, I can dispose of Myself; what I do with Myself will influence the selves of others, and therefore when I do the one thing with Myself which leads to the highest self-realisation and self-development, and which leads at the same time to the widest and deepest and most permanent influence on the selves of others, I take Myself, and by an act of self-determination I give Myself, I consecrate Myself, to the Supreme Personality of the universethe Personal God. I say to Him in every conscious moment of My existence, Father, not My will but Thine be done; and since Thy Will is the consecration of all personalities, the union of all wills with Thine, oh, therefore, Father, for their sakes I consecrate Myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.
IV. The more forcible the personality that is consecrated, and the more complete the consecration, the greater and truer the saint.Let us take a parallel. The commanding personalities of the world, devoted to great ends and favoured by congenial circumstances, are its heroes. The commanding personalities of the Christian Church, consecrated to God, and called to great service or great suffering, are the saints. You cannot all be heroes, and yet you have a certain capacity for heroic resolve and even heroic action, and so the heroes help you. The study of great mens lives is one of your best aids to the development of your personality. The sight of their memorials has stimulated many a young man to the effort to realise his own personality and to leave his permanent record in the world, and just in like manner you cannot all be saints, heroes of the spiritual life; and yet you have your personality, which is wholly your own, and the power of consecrating it according to your opportunity. Therefore the study of the saints may help you, and the commemoration of saintliness need not depress you. You, in your place, in your measure, you can consecrate what you are to God; you can yield your lesser personalities, as they yielded their greater personalities, to the Supreme Personality. So by the mercy of God, Who judges not according to what a man hath not, but according to what he hath, even you may come at last to be numbered and rewarded with His saints.
Dean J. Armitage Robinson.
Illustration
Parents, for your children; masters, for your pupils; friends, for your friends, consecrate yourselves that they may be consecrated also. This is how Christianity is spread from the very beginning, for it follows the general law which governs the spread of ideas and the deepening of convictions. It is propagated by personality far more than by argument. Convictions produce convictions, consecration leads to consecration, personality reaches personality. You are passing, or you have passed, into years when habits are fixed and character is already almost unchangeable. For yourselves you have little hope that life can be much modified now, or that it can be rescued from its failure or comparative failure, but you do want those whom you love more than yourself to be better men and women than you have been. You want the might have been of your life to find a sure realisation in theirs. Then you must go down on your knees and bring what is left of your neglected and impaired and dwindling personality into the Presence of God. But young and eager soul, you are not to be depressed by the thought of the peculiar greatness of the hero or of the saint, for your lives are before you to do with them as you will. Each one of you has this most mysterious gift of personalityof saying I am I, of being a conscious centre of living force, a person capable of a purpose, able to act upon outside things, able to act upon other persons, capable of developing your own personality, of acquiring mental strength and moral character. To you God comes to-day, and this is what He says: Recognise this capacity, take pains, be all that you can be, not selfishly, but for the noblest ends. Consecrate your personality to Him, watch over it, and develop it for Him.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
SECRETS OF SANCTITY
Holiness is spiritual wholenessGodliness is Godlikeness.
The root idea of Christian holiness is possibly best seen on its human side by studying the word, Sanctification. In both Testaments the words, Holy, Hallow, Holiness, exactly correspond with Saint, Sanctify, Sanctification. The ruling thought of each is separation. Sanctification involves separation always and under all circumstances, whether in the Old Testament or the New.
I. Sanctification is separation from sin.Here is one of those fundamental truths writ large for us in Scripture. The man who is truly separated may expect the Holy Spirit to reveal from time to time whatever may be sinful or inconsistent; and until that thing is renounced or forsaken no further advance is possible. Israel, separated from Egypt, was thirty-eight years in the wilderness before it learned this lesson. May God write it speedily in our hearts! We may talk and pray and go softly all our days, but until we obey the intimations of the Spirit and the plain teaching of Scripture, we come to a standstill.
II. Sanctification is separation unto God.It was so in Israels days; it is so still. The minute observances of the Mosaic law appear at first sight arbitrary, formal, and unspiritual. Wherein lay the power of the Old Testament ritual to sanctify the heart, to produce, in other words, holiness of life? The answer is clear. It was not these ceremonials which in themselves separated Israel from the nations, for ritual observances are the natural effort of the heart to please God.
III. Sanctification to-day is separation in Jesus Christ.It has been strikingly observed that from the moment our Saviour uttered the high-priestly words, Sanctify them in Thy truth: Thy word is truth, For their sakes I sanctify Myself, the meaning of the word sanctification in the Bible deepens and widens. It no longer merely means separation from evil, but likeness to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament provides for the one, the New Testament provides for the other, and the transitional words are those of our great High Priest on His way to Gethsemane.
God has a definite ideal for my life: it is likeness to His own life. Let me ponder this well. It is very wonderful; but never let me forget that the first great condition of all holiness is separation. Separation from sin; separation unto God; separation in Christ Jesus; and all this through the power of God the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Canon Barnes-Lawrence.
Illustration
A well-known Christian man had publicly accused another of some serious fault or sin. As events proved he was mistaken, and this was pointed out to him. His duty was clear; reparation was due, and a public retractation needed. It was not difficult, the opportunity came, but there was no apology then or afterwards. That public utterance was never taken back publicly, and from that time the speakers spiritual influence waned. Doubtless he brought his gift to the altar, and with tears; but to his brother, who had something against him, he was never reconciled, and God could not accept his gift.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
9
Sanctify myself. Jesus never had any impurities from which to be cleansed, hence the definitions 1 and 2 (at chapter 10:36) should apply to him. For their sakes denotes that Jesus consecrated himself to the great work for the sake of the apostles. One result of the consecration of Jesus was the bestowal of divine truth, and that was to be the means by which the apostles were to be sanctified. (See verse 17.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 17:19. And for them I consecrate myself, that they themselves also may be consecrated in truth. It was for the very purpose of bringing them to a consecration like His own that His whole work of love and sacrifice had been freely undertaken. He might have said I was consecrated, a thought which has its perfect parallel in chap. Joh 10:36. But He speaks of consecrating Himself, partly because He entered into His consecration with perfect acquiescence and freedom; partly, perhaps mainly, because He is thinking of that High-priestly work of His which was now immediately impending. (It will be observed that the proleptic form of expression is not always maintained: see Joh 17:13.) The following words express, with special reference to the disciples, the end which Jesus had been desirous to attain. It is that their consecration might be the exact counterpart of His (they also); that they might act in it a free and independent part, devoting themselves in personal faith to the task assigned them (they themselves), and that all might be done in truth,not simply truly, but in conformity with the real, the essential, the everlasting (comp. on Joh 17:17). Finally, let us notice that the consecration spoken of is, alike in the case of Jesus and of His disciples, not a process but an act completed at once,in His case, when, gathering together in one view all His labours and sufferings, He presented them a living sacrifice to His Father: in theirs, when they are in like manner enabled to present themselves as living sacrifices in His one perfect sacrifice.
Thus the second section of the prayer closes, its main burden having been that the disciples, who are about to be sent forth into the world in order to carry on the work of Jesus there, and who for this purpose have had the name of the Father manifested to them that they may know the Father, and the word of the Father given them that they may proclaim the Father, may be preserved by the Father from the world, and may be enabled to exhibit a perfect consecration to the Fathers work. Thus shall the Father be glorified in them as He had been glorified in the Son, who accomplished the work that had been given Him to do.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
The word sanctify here, is not to be taken for the cleansing, purifying, or making holy, that which before was unclean; but Christ’s sanctifying himself imports,
1. His separation of setting himself apart to be a sacrifice for sin.
2. His consecration or dedication of himself to this holy use and service.
Hence learn, that Jesus Christ did dedicate and solemnly set himself apart to the great work and office of a Mediator.
Learn, 2. That the great end for which Christ did thus sanctify himself, was, that he might sanctify his members; therefore did he consecrate and set himself apart for us, that we should be consecrated to, and wholly set apart for, him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Joh 17:19-24. The prayer now passes to those whom they shall make disciples, the fruits of their missionary labours. For them He asks unity, in the Father and the Son, corresponding to the unity of Father and Son. Such unity will convince the world of His own Divine mission and of Gods love for men. The way to God, to union with Him, is not through ecstasy but through faith. Joh 17:24 gathers up the section into one wish, that all who form the Fathers gift should be with Christ to see the glory given to the Son by the Father, because of His love.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 19
Sanctify myself; consecrate myself, that is, to the work of redemption.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the {g} truth.
(g) The true and substantial sanctification of Christ is contrasted with the outward purifyings of the law.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus did not mean that He intended to make Himself more holy than He already was since that would have been impossible. He set Himself apart to do God’s will partially for the sake of His disciples. He is our example of perfect sanctification, and His sanctification makes ours possible. Without the sacrificial death of Jesus there would be no salvation and no mission for us. There would be no sanctification for us either. One of the purposes of Jesus’ death was to set believers apart to God and His mission for them to function as priests in the world (cf. 1Pe 2:9).