Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Sanctify them through, [ en (G1722 ), or 'in'] thy truth: thy word is truth. Principles of vast importance are here expressed. Observe, first, the connection between this petition and that of John 17:15. As that was negative - "Keep them" - asking protection for them from the poisonous element which surrounded and pressed upon their renewed nature; so this prayer - "Sanctify them" - is positive, asking the advancement and completion of their begun sanctification. Observe, next, the medium or element of sanctification. All sanctification is represented as the fruit of truth; not truth in general, but what is called distinctively "God's truth," or 'Christ's Father's truth:' in other words, not only religious truth-as distinguished from all other truth, physical or metaphysical-but His revealed truth. Accordingly, as if to make this more clear-for the sake of those who listened to this prayer, and as many as should have it brought within their reach throughout all time-He defines what He means by "Thy truth," adding that important clause, "Thy word is truth." But what, it may be asked, is specifically meant by "Thy word?" This he had already explained in John 17:14, "I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." And in a previous verse (John 17:8), "I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me, and they have received them," etc.
The whole of His own teaching, then, as an express communication from the Father, through the Faithful and True Witness, was that "word of truth" through which He prays that they might be sanctified. It had fetched them in already (John 15:3). But they had not done with it when it ceased to drop upon their ear from those Lips into which grace was poured. Nay, it was only when He "went unto His Father, and they saw Him no more," that it was, through the promised teaching of the Spirit, to take its full "sanctifying" effect upon them. For then only was it seen and felt to be but the fullness of all the Old Testament revelations, the perfection of all gracious communications from God to men, "spoken unto us in these last days by His own Son," and the substance of all that was to be unfolded in detail by His apostles in their preaching and by their writings for all time. (Ephesians 1:13; Colossians 1:5.) Accordingly, just before His ascension, He commissioned these same faithful Eleven, as the representatives of His ministering servants in every succeeding age, to teach the baptized disciples to "observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them" - not to the exclusion of all divine truth except that contained in the Gospels, but as comprehensive of all revealed, saving truth. (See the notes at Matthew 28:16-20, Remark 3 at the close of that section.) But one other thing here must not be passed over. While our Lord holds prominently forth the ordained medium or element of sanctification-God's word of truth-He ascribes the sanctification which is thereby done entirely to God Himself, saying to His Father, "Sanctify Thou them." Great principles these in the divine economy of salvation, which cannot be too constantly and vividly present to the minds of believers, and especially of ministers.