John 17:17

John 17:17. Consecrate them in the truth: thy word is truth. The word here rendered ‘Consecrate' is constantly used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to express the entire dedication and consecration both of persons and of things to God. In this sense, but with the deeper meaning of inward and spiritual consecration, we find it here. It is thus, when applied to persons, not less but more than sanctification, the latter being implied before the former can take place. The word corresponds to the attribute prefixed to ‘Father' in John 17:11 (for which, however, we have in English no other word than ‘holy '): the same word, too, is used by Jesus of Himself in chap. John 10:36. To be consecrated is, therefore, to be separated from the world, to be dedicated as a holy thing to God. This is to be done ‘in the truth,' in that sphere of the truth which is the sphere of the Father and of the Son; in living communion with, and appropriation of, the truth, so that the truth shall be that in which their whole being is moulded and consecrated. This meaning of ‘the truth ' is then more fully brought out by the statement, ‘Thy word is truth.' Here by ‘word ' we are not to understand the word of God in genera], but the word already spoken of in John 17:14, that special word of the Father which is found in His revelation of Himself in the Son, the Word. And this word is ‘truth ' in its most absolute sense, truth which finds concrete expression in ‘the truth.' It is the ‘truth' that came by Jesus Christ, not merely truth in opposition to error, but the eternal reality of things in contrast with that which is unsubstantial and shadowy, that which must pass away.