While establishing a new church in Silicon Valley years ago, the Lord provided me a job with what was then the highest-valued technology company in the world. But I was not a computer scientist, engineer, or coder. I barely knew how to send an email. I was in way over my head. And one day in a meeting, I came VERY close to exposing my ignorance and losing my job.
I was clueless about nearly all the terminology being thrown around in the discussion that day. So as usual, I just kept my head down and mouth shut. But then, someone used the acronym ATM. And suddenly, I imagined I might be able to contribute to the conversation. But thankfully, before I made the mistake of talking about the Automated Teller Machine at my bank, I quickly Googled ATM and discovered they were actually discussing something called Asynchronous Transfer Mode – whatever that means.
It's easy to get sidelined by unfamiliar terminology, and sanctification can fall into that category. It’s one of those stained-glass words that tend to only be used and understood by theologians. And it can get even more opaque when preceded by the term positional or progressive. But there are few things more important for every Jesus-follower to comprehend. In fact, it’s so essential to the Christian life that Jesus made it the climax of the second movement in his High Priestly Prayer.
Before expanding the scope of his intercession in John 17 to specifically include all those who would follow in their footsteps, Jesus concluded the section focused on his original disciples with one final request to the Father on their behalf in verses 17-19. He prayed, “Sanctify them.”
The Greek word translated as sanctify means to render, declare, or set something apart as sacred. Jesus was asking that his followers be marked as standouts because of their holiness. It would be the basis of their testimony for him in this world. But that was an awfully big ask considering that these men were just as unholy as anyone else. They would need to undergo a transformation, and that transformation would be two-fold.
First, the Lord requested that this sanctification be accomplished by the impact of the Father’s truth on their lives in the form of his word, a term that means the entirety of the message. Jesus had spent the previous three years infusing the whole of the environment surrounding the disciples with the message of God. And it was THAT truth he was asking the Father to use in changing them as they embraced it daily, lived it out, and progressed toward holiness.
But a progressive sanctification is insufficient to produce the result Jesus prayed for. If you start with a sinner, the shaping influence of God’s word alone can’t produce a saint. That requires something else, a different starting point. The position from which the progression begins must be changed. And this positional sanctification can only be accomplished through the saving work the sinless Savior accomplished on the cross.
But when you start with a sinless Savior, sinners CAN become saints. And it’s why Jesus went on to say in verse 19, “I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified.” He set HIMSELF apart as a holy sacrifice to pay the penalty for sin, remove its stain from repentant sinners’ lives, and make it possible for them to be set apart unto holiness both positionally and progressively.
As believers, it’s our high privilege to be part of the answer to the Savior’s prayer for our sanctification. Let’s dedicate ourselves to steadily allowing God’s word to progressively shape us into the saints his sacrifice has already positionally made us to be.