Sanctify Them
Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 6th July service and hymns are below.
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Our principal verses are:
Jhn 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Jhn 17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
Jhn 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Sanctify Them
The work of sanctification is a blessed and glorious work of God upon the soul and in the life of a believer. It is a work of the Triune God. The Father sanctifies, the Holy Spirit sanctifies and the Lord Jesus sanctifies His people. Those sanctified are set apart for the glory of God. They are made holy and blameless in His sight. Ultimately, they will be delivered pure and spotless into the presence of God. Sanctification, like justification, is a free gift and a sovereign blessing from our loving Father.
Set apart
According to scripture we may understand sanctification in two ways. Something, or someone, may be said to be sanctified when set apart, consecrated or appointed to a holy purpose. When the Lord God finished the works of creation, He blessed and hallowed the sabbath day. That is, He sanctified it, He set it apart for His honour and to point the church to His great work of salvation by grace; we rest in Christ from our own works. Elsewhere in the Old Testament we see this pattern repeated in the furniture and vessels of the tabernacle which were sanctified, or set apart, to be employed in the worship and service of God.
Made holy
The other definition of sanctification is when someone who is sinful and defiled is made holy in Christ. No creature makes itself holy in the sight of God. Making holy that which is corrupt and polluted is a divine work of grace, mercy and peace. Sanctification of the elect was accomplished by the Son of God on the cross. He purchased redemption for His people by His blood, cleansed His people from their sins and made them righteous before God. This is ‘the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness’.
A present state
The Apostle Paul describes the church in Corinth in like terms when they believed the gospel and were brought into spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. He tells the new converts they are clean and pure, who had, until recently, been notorious for their corruption and idolatry. ‘And such were some of you’, says the Apostle, ‘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’.
The prize of success
In our verses today the Lord Jesus asks His Father to sanctify the disciples through the truth. As on previous occasions in this high priestly prayer, we note this is not a request for favour. The Lord is asking the Father to bestow those blessings that are His to distribute by right. Christ is claiming His prize as the victorious Mediator in the great settlement of grace. Having accomplished the work His Father had given Him to do, the Saviour asserts the rights and privileges of His success.
Transforming grace
Certainly, the disciples were set apart to serve in the capacity of apostles and no doubt this is included in the Lord’s statement. At Pentecost their hearts and minds were filled with the Spirit of God and they were dedicated by Christ, who is the Word, to serve God and represent the Truth in their ministries to the ends of the earth. How else can we explain the changes that took place in the lives of these men? Similarly, all those born again by the Spirit are set apart and dedicated to the service and worship of God in Jesus Christ.
God’s work alone
What is most important is to notice how the sanctification of a sinner is God’s work alone. No one will ever glory before God for their obedience to the law or good works. Those who lay the duty of sanctification on a believer, to be accomplished under the law, have missed the central lesson. It is Christ Himself ‘who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption’.
Christian assurance
Brothers and sisters, sanctification is the free gift of God in Christ. It is received and enjoyed by faith and not by works. By faith we trust in the Lord our righteousness and receive His righteousness as members of Christ’s body. We believe that He who sanctified Himself and offered up His own body on the tree, sanctified to Himself a people fit for God’s presence. This is, ‘a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing … holy and without blemish’. Faith lays hold upon these assertions, stands upon the promises, believes in the success of Christ and rests in His perfections.
Amen
Hymn 774
Sanctification. Acts 15. 9; 1 Cor. 1. 2; Heb. 9. 14
J. Hart C.M.
1
The Holy Ghost in Scripture saith
Expressly, in one part,
Speaking by Peter’s mouth, “By faith
God purifies the heart.”
2
Now, what in holy writ he says,
In part or through the whole,
The self-same truths, by various ways,
He teaches in the soul.
3
Experience likewise tells us this;
Before the Saviour’s blood
Has washed us clean, and made our peace,
We can do nothing good.
4
[But here, my friends, the danger lies;
Errors of different kind
Will still creep in, which devils devise
To cheat the human mind.
5
“I want no work within,” says one;
“’Tis all in Christ the Head;”
Thus, careless, he goes blindly on,
And trusts a faith that’s dead.
6
“’Tis dangerous,” another cries,
“To trust to faith alone;
Christ’s righteousness will not suffice
Except I add my own.”
7
Thus he, that he may something do,
To shun the impending curse,
Upon the old will patch the new,
And make the rent still worse.
8
Others affirm, “The Spirit of God
To true believers given,
Makes all their thoughts and acts so good,
They’re always fit for heaven.”
9
The babe of Christ, at hearing this,
Is filled with anxious fear;
Conscience condemns, corruptions rise,
And drive him near despair.
10
These trials weaklings suffer here;
Censure and scorn without;
And from within, what’s worse to bear,
Despondency and doubt.
11
But, gracious Lord, who once didst feel
What weakness is and fears,
Who gott’st thy victory over hell
With groans, and cries, and tears;
12
Do thou direct our feeble hearts
To trust thee for the whole;
The work of grace in all its parts
Accomplish in the soul.
Hymn 869
Praise to the Trinity. Ps. 67. 3, 5
J. Hart 104th
1
Give glory to God, ye children of men,
And publish abroad, again and again,
The Son’s glorious merit, the Father’s free grace,
The gifts of the Spirit, to Adam’s lost race.
The Lord Jesus calls upon His Father to Sanctify His people reminding us that sanctification is not man’s work but a work of God in our lives for our happiness and His own glory.