I woke up this morning with Jesus’ prayer from John 17 on my mind.
“Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He
said, ‘…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. I do not ask on behalf of
these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they
may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You,
that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You
sent Me’” (John 17:1,14-21).
The oneness that Jesus prays for (17:21) is not in isolation from what
comes before; the oneness, in fact, weaves together several strands in this
section of Jesus’ prayer.
It is the possession of the divine Word that seems to be the trigger
for the hatred of the world (17:14-16). To have the Word makes believers alien
to this world even as we pilgrimage deeper into the world. The world hates the revelatory
intrusion of its Creator. God’s Word is a threat to their satanic freedom and
self-sovereignty.[1] The possessors of
this threatening must conform to the world or suffer the hatred of the world.
Instead of conformity, Jesus prays that the Word brings greater
holiness as His Church pursues the mission He has given us (a mission which
mirrors the one given the Son by the Father): “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” (17:17-19). This sanctifying is a
setting aside from the agenda and ways of the world to an absolute commitment
to the truth, character (“name” in 17:6,11,12,26), and purpose of the Father
through the Son by the apostolic Word in the Church through the succeeding
generations. “Sanctify” means an ever-increasing non-world life in the midst of
the world.
Jesus doesn’t pray for unity for unity’s sake. Mere unity is not evangelistic
witness. Unity in Word-treasuring holiness and Father-given, Jesus-imitating, Spirit-empowered
Gospel mission (20:21,22) is Jesus’ prayer for the disciples and those who
would believe their Word (the New Testament is their Word).
Father, hear our ever-living Intercessor as He prays
For our non-conformity
For our holding to the Word
For our holiness in that Word
And the alien and unique
Unity that will result.
Give us the Son’s desire for this.
Spirit, we confess that without You
This will never happen. Help us.
Son of God, keep praying,
And lead us to pray
Your prayer after You.
[1] I
am reminded of the line we sang last Lord’s Day, “we are free in ways that we
never should be” (MercyMe’s “God With Us”).
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