Set Apart

I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You;  for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours;  and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them.  I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. John 17:6-19 NASB

Continuing His prayer to the Father, in the hearing of His disciples, Jesus now began to make specific intercession for them.

 “I manifested Your name to them” by teaching them Who and What God is, and about His perfect plan of grace, revealed in His Son. He had taught them to recognize their distinct identification with the Father, through Himself. “

“they were Yours” God knew from eternity past which humans would be willing to believe in Him and be part of His kingdom and His Church (positive volition at God-consciousness). These are the ones who were ready to believe in Jesus when He began His earthly mission (positive volition at gospel hearing). They belonged first to the Father, and He gave them to His Son. These common men had been sincere believers in God as they understood Him, so when the Son actually showed them the reality of God, they accepted the truth from Him. Their lives demonstrated a pattern of commitment to the truth.

“they have kept  (Greek: tereo—guarded carefully, held fast, cherished) Your Word." This is the key to knowing and understanding God. He reveals Himself through His perfect word of truth. Communication of doctrine. Jesus is the Word incarnate. Every Word of God is embodied IN HIM. Our understanding of  and response to that Word determines our own level of spiritual maturity. Emotions cannot think. Our faith depends on keeping God’s Word. Our testimony is the sharing of it. 

“the world” (kosmos) is Satan’s domain. Jesus came to redeem His people out of the world. His prayer was for His people, that their faith would be sustained through the remainder of the time they would have to be in the world. In verse 11, we see again that Jesus considered His work complete and Himself already gone from the world and back into His eternal glory. “I’m detached from the kosmos, but these men will have to remain here a while. Please, since they wear Your name and belong to Me, protect them from the evils of the kosmos, as I have done up to now.”  The only one lost was Judas, the “son of perdition” (Greek: apoleia—damnation, destruction, ruin). He, too, was known from all eternity for exactly who he was: Satan’s tool; evil traitor. Sinister component of prophecy.

Jesus was “sensing” home. He couldn’t ask for the removal of His disciples from the world, because they had important work to do in the world, which hated them.  They would surely be harassed by Satan at every turn, if not for God’s gracious guardianship of their lives. Jesus spoke these things in the world, and in their hearing, so that they would have that assuring memory in the days ahead. It would be a joy and comfort to them as they faced the battlefield of the angelic conflict.

“sanctify” means to be set apart for a specific purpose. In this case, the purpose is to do the work of God. Jesus was set apart as the Messiah, the Savior of fallen humanity. He received the chosen ones from His Father and set them apart to continue His work of telling the good news of salvation and growing His Church. He is in the Father, the Father is in Him and we are in Him and in the Father. Those disciples were, and we are, as He is in the world. They were, and we are IN HIM for all eternity, which makes us aliens here, on a mission of mercy.

They were, and we are, sanctified by truth: the Word of God. That Word in our souls is what makes us different from the world.

The Word separates. We are separated; set apart; sanctified unto HIM.