John 17:13-19

¹³"I am coming to You now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of My joy within them. ¹⁴I have given them Your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. ¹⁸As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹For them I sanctify Myself, that they too may be truly sanctified."

Jesus shows that the reason why He was so earnest in praying for His disciples was not that He was anxious about their future condition, but rather to provide a remedy for their anxiety. Jesus prays to His Father in the presence of His disciples, not because He needed any words, but to remove from them all doubt. This was for their joy, but Jesus says “My joy within them.” And that’s what we experience. Our joy is indeed His joy within us. Joy comes from Christ alone, and we receive it through faith alone.

V14 teaches us the reason for Jesus’ prayer. Jesus prays for His disciples because the world has hated them. He says that His disciples are not of the world, because all those whom He regenerates by His Spirit are separated from the world. Calvin says, “God will not let His sheep wander among wolves without showing Himself to be their shepherd.” The preservation of the disciples was certain – for Jesus asked the Father to protect them once Jesus had gone back to heaven. Because this request came from the Father’s will, as we have already noticed, the Father could not refuse it. In fact, it was not for the Father that Jesus ultimately prayed – but for His disciples, so that they might hear Jesus’ prayer and so be filled with joy. God does not take His people out of the world, because He does not wish them to be effeminate and slothful; but He delivers them from evil, that they may not be overwhelmed; for He wishes to fight through them and to have them to fight for Him.

The disciples are not like the world anymore, but like Jesus. Being like Jesus, the world will hate them just as it hated Him. But just as Jesus overcame the world, not by leaving it prematurely, but by finishing His course, even to the end of crucifixion, so the disciples would overcome, not by being plucked out of the world, but by God’s grace to protect them from the Evil One who rages against them and turns his children, the unbelieving world, to the hatred and persecution of all who would be like Jesus. Truly, the ancient Christian saying is faithful: “If we died together, we will also live together; if we endure, we will also reign together” (2 Timothy 2:11-12).

Jesus has just prayed that the Father would preserve His people, so that, just as Jesus had overcome a hostile world, they would overcome that same hostile world. In v17-18, He asks that the Father would sanctify them, consecrate them entirely to Himself, and defend them as His sacred inheritance. The work of redemption begins with the Father’s plan, which sent Jesus into the world to accomplish redemption; but even though the Son fully accomplished redemption, the plan is not yet complete; for even as the Father sent the Son into the world, so the Son has sent us into the world. The Father sent the Son to accomplish redemption, and the Son has sent us to give the news of that redemption. The Father sent the Son to suffer for redemption to be accomplished; the Son has sent us to suffer so that the effects of redemption might be spread (Colossians 1:24). In all these ways, we, as believers, mirror the activity of Christ – what an amazing and undeserved opportunity has been given to us by divine grace! To suffer for the gospel is, as the early Christian believers found out, a most precious gift (Acts 5:41)! But we must not forget the way in which we are sanctified as the Son was sanctified; it is only through the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26). Let us be people of the Word! If we would be like Christ, let us be people of the Word! It is through the Word of God that the Spirit of God changes us into the glorious image of Christ Jesus our Savior.

Finally, in v19 we learn that because Jesus consecrated Himself to the Father, His holiness comes to us; for as the blessing on the first-fruits is spread over the whole harvest, so the Spirit of God cleanses us by the holiness of Christ and makes us partakers of it. This is done by imputation (Jesus is our righteousness; we have become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)); but Jesus is also our sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30), because He has presented us to His Father in Himself, that His Spirit renews us to holiness. We are sanctified by faith.