High Priestly Prayer

But yeah, they told me just in January that I would be running 10 miles in a shot. I was like, no, ain't happening in this life. But so far, so good. Really hasn't, no, I was awful worried about that.

But so far, so good. It does help to be a little lighter. Last week was 241 kilometers riding, 35 kilometers rowing, and 27 kilometers running. I'm training for the double-triple bypass bike ride in July in Colorado.

I know, it sounds like a hard operation. No, no, no. It's a two-day ride. You go over three passes. That's why it's called the triple bypass. But the double-triple is you do that one day, stay the night, and ride back.

So it's 240 miles, 21 ,000 feet of climbing. You're never lower than 400 feet above Flagstaff. That's the lowest point. And the passes are all at 11 ,000 herbs. I did it last year, but I didn't do it as fast as I wanted.

Now we have to work ever harder because we're getting older. And no, no oxygen tanks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, John chapter 17. John chapter 17. Mr. Ricketts has arrived so we can begin. I have a hard time starting without Codex Rickettonius, at least in the room, because I received special from its ancient, you know, all the great saints down to the generations who have handled that particular text.

Hey, take a look at it sometime. You'll go, oh, yeah, I see a few scribbles here from Martin Luther and, you know, some odd things he said in the Book of James. Yeah, some sections are in papyri. It looks like it anyways.

You can never replace it now because it would just be completely wrong to do that. So John chapter 17. We have been looking at a number of, as I recall last time, I went off on the phrase Holy Father at one point.

I don't believe that we talked a little bit about Judas. I didn't want to get too deeply into that. Were we pretty much ready to start 14, as I recall? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I figured. I was thinking about some of the issues, but I'm trying to avoid the sermons and actually get through the material as best I can.

The World, the Word, and Sanctification in John 17:14-17

So John 17, 14. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Now, very familiar words to all of us, I'm sure. Once again, the primary fulfillment is the apostles, but when you have phraseology such as, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, we know that Jesus makes this application in a broader sense to all of his disciples in John 14 -16.

So, while it has the specific application to them, there is the wider application that certainly we experience in our own lives as well. I have given them your word. Once again, Jesus' role as revelator of the Father.

The words that he has spoken, they are not his own, but as he has heard the Father speaking, so he has delivered these words accurately to the disciples. The world has hated them because they are not of the world.

Now, the world's hatred toward the disciples is yet a fairly muted thing in light of the centrality of the world's hatred toward Jesus. But even at that, you have to sort of stand back a little bit and go, well, exactly how has the world expressed hatred to the apostles by this point in time?

Certainly you see the opposition of the Jews, but in comparison to what is going to be experienced even in just the next few decades once persecution begins by the Roman Empire, what has been experienced by the apostles to this point would be considered fairly minor, but the point is that there has been a transition on the part of these individuals and this theme of the hatred of the world, once again, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but the many ways in which the word world is used by John, illustrated here once again, now you have the world as a system of things that hates those that are not under its own lordship.

There really is a lordship of the world. It can take many different forms, but here we are given an insight into why the world hates, and the world hates because we are not of the world, and so you've seen some of the graphics of the little fish swimming upstream against all the other fish that are going downstream and they all look like a bunch of piranhas and things like that, and you've got the one little fish going the other direction, and it's sort of illustrative of the hatred of the world and not being a part of the world and walking separately, so on and so forth, but what you have here is an insight that part of the reason for the hatred that Jesus says, do not be surprised, the world will hate you because it's hated me.

Well, why is that? Well, because we are not of the world. What does it mean we are not of the world? It's ek tu kasmu. That phrase ek, with the genitive in the original language, can refer to ownership, origin, source.

There are a number of ways it can be understood, but there is clearly a separation that has been referred to beforehand because what has Jesus said? They were the fathers and he gave them to the son, and so there has been this same terminology, for example, that Paul uses when he says we've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.

There's a radical change. That's another reason why this false gospel is so prevalent in evangelical churches, of a repentanceless, unchanged life. Salvation is just so far removed from anything found in scripture.

And, by the way, one of the arguments that's used, even by a professor just down the road here at Phoenix Seminary, there's a big anti-lordship professor over there, and one of the arguments they'll use is, well, did you know that the word repent is never found in the gospel of John?

So what they do is they create almost a canonical theory that says John is the definitional gospel, and if John is the definitional gospel and it never says to repent, then we don't need to be preaching repentance.

It's a good thing to do. Don't get me wrong. But it is certainly not definitional, the gospel, from their perspective. Well, what does it mean to not be of the world? What does that mean? Is that just some positional thing?

Is that just some, you know, how does that work? And it seems very clear to me that it says they are not of the world, that that's the same concept, the same realization of the fact that these are individuals who live differently, have a different worldview.

They have to repent is to turn around, to go the other direction, and that's exactly what this type of language is referring to. And so the world hates those that are not of the world, that are not under the lordship and direction of the world.

Jesus says, just as I am not of the world. So if you're going to be a follower of Christ, and, of course, it's non-lordship things, that's an option. You don't have to be a follower of Christ. You can believe in Christ for salvation and not be a follower, which, again, obviously no New Testament writer had ever even dreamed of such an absurdity, but it's all over the place today.

Just as I am not of the world, this is the same terminology that Jesus uses when, or that the Bible uses when it speaks of following after Christ, walk, be holy even as he is holy, walk as he walked, et cetera, et cetera.

And so Jesus is not of this world, and we are not to be of this world, and therefore the world will resist that. The world hates those that exist outside of its control. Like I said, there are many different ways of being under its control.

There are religious ways of being worldly. False religion is, in essence, how to be religious while remaining under worldly dominion. So the world's hatred is, in particular, focused upon those who are not under its dominion and lordship.

So I do not ask, referring to the Father, that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil ones. So here is a vital verse in regards to the reasons for sanctification, the reasons that we experience this, the trials and difficulties of life that conform us to the image of Christ.

Christ is not praying that we be taken out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. And here you might, okay, we're not of the world, but don't take them out of the world. Obviously, within two verses, different nuances of the very word world.

One, the system of things that is in opposition to God. The second, the created order, the created world in which we live as creatures. And so the Lord does not ask that we be removed from this world.

That would be the easiest way to do things, just stray in the presence of God, and no more suffering, no more trials, no more anything like that. But that you keep them from the evil one. And so that there is going to be a protection that is provided, even in the midst of trials and tribulations and the attack of the evil one, who clearly is here thereby associated with the world that hates us.

And yet, when the Son prays that the Father keep them from the evil one, clearly the triune God is capable of accomplishing His will. And when the Father and the Son agree upon such a thing, that is certainly a bulwark for great confidence.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Is that just a repetition of verse 15? Well, in the sense that it is repeating the same general truth, yes, but it's specifically asserting that to be a true disciple of Christ, to be one of His followers, is to have a different origin for the life that is yours now than the life that had been yours before.

If the world remains your primary source of thought, enjoyment, pleasure, it's primarily what's on your mind most of the time, that's not a good sign. And when you encounter, as I have to encounter all the time, forms of Christianity or self-proclaimed Christianity that seek to look like the world and think like the world and act like the world.

I was listening to a confab online that took place this week. There's a new book out by Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian, and everyone's all excited about it. There's actually nothing new in it.

But anyway, if you've kept up with that field, you go, okay, you got that from Boswell, you got that from Brownson, you got that from Countryman, you got that from Scanzoni. You know where you got everything.

There's nothing new in it. But anyway, they had this online thing, and they had people interacting with them. Of course, they didn't have any conservatives interacting with them, but they had heretics interacting with them, and one of them was a guy named Tony Jones.

And then the other one, I didn't even know who he was until I spoke with Michael Brown about it Friday on The Dividing Line, and it was Jim Baker's son. Remember Jim Baker, you know, the air-conditioned doghouse Jim Baker guy?

His son was this guy who was the most liberal and heretical of the people they had on. And given you have Tony Jones on, that's saying a fair amount. And I just had no idea that Jim Baker's son had flown off into the ionosphere someplace, but that's not overly surprising either.

But anyway, as I listened to these people speaking and talking and rejecting biblical norms and undercutting biblical authority, all the while trying to sound as religious as possible, I could not help but recognize the very world-oriented and world-derived ways of thought that were being inflicted upon Scripture as I listened to these individuals speaking.

And so you have a description here, they are not of the world just as I am not of the world, and so there is a repetition of this disjunction, this separation. And if we're not of the world, then that which marks the world, a desire for the fulfillment of personal lusts and the focus upon the here and the now rather than the eternal and all the things that we could identify as a worldly attitude, these should not be the things that capture our hearts and minds and give us pleasure, but they should be things that are troubling to us and difficult for us to be around with regularity.

So they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. Now, obviously, if I were to handle this text as a Puritan would, we would not finish this verse for many a week.

I believe that there have been those who have done as many as 30, 40 different sermons just on a verse such as this, which is understandable. You can look at every word and then chase it all the way through Scripture and make all sorts of applications and connections and things like that, and this is probably one of those verses that would allow you to do that.

Sanctify them in the truth. As you know, the term to sanctify, hagiadzo, is to make holy, to make separate. It seems to fit here and helps to shed some light on what it means that we are not of the world.

It means we've been separated from it. Even the materials we've been reading on Sunday evenings for a year now or so should help you to have the proper background for this kind of language in the sense of the separation of the people of Israel in every aspect of life.

So many of the laws that we have read or will yet be reading in Numbers and Deuteronomy, especially Deuteronomy, the value that is found in them for us today is in understanding how they illustrate the separateness, the separatedness of the people of God from the peoples that were around Israel.

So many of the laws that we go, why would God do that? What was the purpose in that? They find their application when we understand what was going on in the culture around them at that time. And had some of the reasons, some of them remain difficult for us to understand because we are not, we don't have exhaustive knowledge of all the religious beliefs of the people that were around Israel at that time.

But so many, once you do, take the time to understand. For example, there's a big, in the religions that surround the people of Israel, there was a big, as in most pagan religions even to this day, if you go to Mexico for that matter, the pagan religions of South America and Central America.

What's one of the big things? Fear of or veneration of the dead. You think of Santeria, you think of the religions of the Mayans and the Olmecs and the Toltecs and the mixture of all these things. You either honored the dead, so you have ancestor worship, which you still have in forms of Buddhism and Hinduism and things like that.

But in a grosser form, in the Central American religions, the ancient religions around Israel, honoring the dead, taking the names of the dead, invoking the assistance of the dead, but even more so, you had the concept of the fear of the dead, the curses of the dead, that the dead would come back and try to track you down and bring difficulty into your life.

And so, once you have that in mind, you sort of look at some of the laws of what the people of Israel are forbidden from doing. And it wasn't that the act itself violated some creation ordinance or some eternal morality of God.

It was the fact that it was being done by the people around Israel for a specific purpose of, for example, warding off the curses of the dead or things like that, that explains why there is need to be this separation from the activities of the people around.

And what I'm thinking about doing, I don't know how I'm going to work this out, but I'm thinking about possibly doing once we, I don't know, either when we finish up Hebrews, I'm not sure how this would work as a sermon series or anything like that, but I'd like to go through the Holiness Code in Leviticus 18 through 20.

We've read through it, but reading through it is the same thing as actually dealing with it. And one of the reasons I want to do this is we've all, and we did this briefly in a Sunday School lesson, I don't know, it might have been as much as 10 years ago now, but you all remember the West Wing episode with the Dr. Laura incident, you know what I'm talking about?

There was a incident on the West Wing television show where the president went after this Dr. Laura character. It was based upon this spoof letter that had been written mocking the Christian utilization of Leviticus 18 and 20 in regards to homosexuality.

And it basically was saying, you know, I really appreciate your pointing us to Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, and it really helps me to explain to homosexuals why they're wrong in God's sight. But I wanted you to help me out with a few other questions I had.

For example, I'd like to sell my daughter into slavery, and I'm just having some problems with that. And my neighbor I just saw was violating the Sabbath, and I'm wondering if I need to kill him or do I need to get some other people to help me to kill him for doing that.

And I was wondering about the Washington Redskins because they handle pig skin, and you're supposed to stone anybody who does that as well. It's all the what you hear all the time, well, are you wearing any mixed threads?

Is that polyester you're wearing? Ah, see, you're just picking and choosing. And it is such a common, common, common objection that the reason it remains common is because most Christians sit there and pick their noses when faced with it because holiness code, context, background, don't have a clue.

I have no idea. I don't know what that was about. Why shouldn't what's the difference between a pig I mean, I love bacon. You know, it's all first Christians who say that. My Muslim friends say, see, you don't really believe the law of Moses because, you know, that's haram.

It's not halal. And there's all sorts of applications, and the reality is if we look really closely at those laws, there's a tremendous amount of material there that is deeply significant and abidingly significant.

And I would argue any nation that ignores the moral concepts found in the holiness code will be a nation that will cut itself off from God's blessing and experience only his wrath. But at the same time, no, I did not have bacon this morning, but I could have.

That wouldn't have been a big deal. So how do we understand that? How do we understand the dietary laws? Is there any abiding moral principles found in the dietary laws? And there's all sorts of other places where, you know, you'll have one little mention of something.

And if we don't think these things through, we will be inconsistent when we go, well, you know, it says in Leviticus 18, you shall not lie with a man as you lie with a female. It is to eva, it is an abomination.

Well, so is a number of other things, not in Leviticus, but in other parts of the law. So is to eva just something that has to do with ceremonies? Is it just ceremonially abominable? Does it have a further application?

Is there a connection here to the creation ordinance of God and why God made male and female and all the rest of that kind of stuff? If you don't know the backgrounds, haven't thought them through, we end up looking like, because for most of us this is true, we end up looking like we're just picking and choosing based upon our own traditions, what's convenient, prejudice, you know, whatever else it might be.

So, you know, if you're sitting down to have some lobster, you know, and the Old Testament law says, no shellfish, no, no, no, that's wrong. It would be nice that you know why. Well, Jesus said all meats are clean.

Okay, but you still have to think through what that means. Was Jesus saying forget about the law? No. Well, it's that ceremonial and moral thing. Yeah, but where's the dividing line? Are there some standards we can use?

Is there, you know? And so that's something I'm certainly thinking about doing. I'm just not sure when exactly how to make it work and we'll see. How did I get there? Oh, yeah, made holy. We've been looking at all this material in the Old Testament.

And so we have the background to recognize this is a biblical theme and that God is concerned about making clear the division between that which is under his lordship and that which is in rebellion against him.

Now, everything is under his lordship in the sense of his sovereignty, but the world obviously lies under the power of the evil one. And there has been a separation that has been made between the world and believers.

And so obviously one of the big struggles that Christians have had and continue to have, and we might even have differences amongst us at certain points in the application area here, is what is permissible?

What is free for the Christian under the lordship of Christ? What is completely non-permissible? What's in between where a person would go, well, you know, could engaging in this activity be taken in this way and therefore I won't?

Or I won't be constricted by that? And there's all sorts of questions and difficulties. And if we haven't thought through what the foundations are, we end up arguing with each other based upon feelings and emotions rather than really having thought things through.

And feelings and emotions are a bad basis for almost any conversation in my experience because they just don't transfer over to the next person very well. So when it says to sanctify them in the truth, it really goes back to this separation of the believers from the world and that if they are being sanctified in the truth, then what's the primary context of the world but untruth, the lie?

And, of course, Jesus has already said, he's spoken of the devil, Satan, as the father of lies. He's a liar from the beginning. And so it really is a truth-error issue. Sanctify them in the truth. So there is a separation, there is a making of holiness.

Any attempt at holiness that has not as its first concern the truth of God will always end up in some kind of pietistic religious movement that will devolve down into emotion and experience and can never propagate itself over a long period of time.

History shows us that. There have been all sorts of pietistic movements where within one generation that movement's doctrinal backbone has turned to jelly. There cannot be sanctification without truth.

But you can have lots of truth without sanctification. You can have lots of truth. There's lots of people who know what the truth is. And there's an 18-inch difference between here and here, between head and heart.

And so, you know, there's a balance. There are obviously people who are just real big on the truth part, not so much on the application part, but then the other direction can never get anywhere. If you don't have the truth, there's never going to be any sanctification.

And all those movements that start saying we don't need to worry about doctrine, just give me Jesus, within a generation are an amorphous blob of nothing. Because there needs to be a backbone. And if you don't have a backbone, it doesn't work too well.

Sanctify them the truth. Your word is truth. Now, it does say halagas. It's interesting that it's halagas hasas aleithia esten. Your word is true. What is your word here? Well, you know, the natural sort of knee-jerk reaction on our part is to go, well, that's the Bible.

Well, in an extended sense, that would be true. But it would not be true to say that in this context, the first application is the 66 canonical books of the Bible. Because why? He's just said beforehand, what has he done?

I gave them your word. Well, they already had all the written word before Jesus came along. So, there is a primary sense that has to be understood before you can then make the application. This is speaking revelation.

And that halagas, it's interesting, the very same term that is used of Jesus, at the beginning of the Gospel of John, obviously John wants you to make the connection. The word became flesh. Halagas sarx agenata.

The word became flesh in John 1 .14. But since here it's halagas hasas, your word is truth. Jesus is more referring to the fact that, again, he speaks as he has heard from the Father. There's perfect unity between the Father and Son.

There is no possibility of warping, changing, degradation in the process of the word coming from the Father to us because of the perfection of the channel through which it comes. The point is that God has revealed himself in perfection in Christ.

And as long as we are focused upon him, there is no darkness in him. There is no untruth in him. We can have perfect confidence in the validity of the revelation that Christ has given to us. And insofar as all scripture is theanustas, then you have the extended application to all of the word at that particular point in time.

So why do I emphasize the need to know what it meant in context so we can see what the connection is? Because so often the main weapon that we give to our enemies is we haven't done the work to make the connections.

And so they come along and say, oh, that's not what it meant. It meant this. And if we don't know, well, yes, I know it meant this. But because of this, this, and this, that's why it's a proper application.

That's where the unbelievers and the Bart Ehrman clones and so on and so forth get their real estate. That's where they get their credit, their ability, their power is. I didn't mean anything by that, Ms. Fergus.

I'm sure where that came from. But that's where they get their ability to grab hold of you and to challenge you, is if you don't know where the, you haven't thought through, you've made the conclusion, but if you didn't think through the process to get there, then it's not really a valid conclusion.

So that's where they get it. Really quickly, verse 18, we might make some progress here. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.

So it's a given that the Son has been sent into the world. Very difficult to read that kind of language without seeing a preexistence of the Son. The idea of the Son as a conscious individual, but of course that's been the theme all the way through the Gospel of John.

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. You go, well, we didn't preexist. Well, that's not the point. The point is the relationship between the Father and the Son is one that Jesus says, I'm not even, you know, I know where I came from.

You don't know where you came from. But just as the Son comes with authority from the Father, now the Son with that authority sends his disciples into the world for a specific purpose. And it's not the same purpose that Jesus had in coming.

Jesus' purpose is to come, accomplish redemption. He's going to go back into the presence of the Father and send the Spirit who's going to empower us. We're not being sent into the world to give our lives as a ransom for many or anything like that.

But you might see sort of the language of invasion here. We are not of the world, but we're being sent into it. And what's the power by which we are going to be sent to the world but the Holy Spirit? And what did Jesus say just in the previous chapters about the Holy Spirit?

He will convict the world of sin. So there is something in the sending of the disciples that is going to be used of God to bring about conviction of the world. And, of course, we know what that is, and that is the fact that we are called to be witnesses and hence to proclaim the gospel.

And that gospel is what God uses by the Spirit to draw his people into himself and to bring conviction of sin. And so we certainly have the very heart-affirming assurance that the authority that sends us into the world is God's authority.

And given that we are already hearing voices of those who are saying, shut up, shut up, do not speak in his name, that's a conviction that we need to have, that we indeed have been sent into the world by the Lord who has authority over the world.

And while we may be invaders into the world's space, the reality is their world's claim to ownership over this world is a bogus one. And the one who sent us is the one who has all authority in heaven and earth.

And so, as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. Very briefly, I don't have time to unpack this, but we'll try to remember to pick up with this.

Hagiadzo he-moutan, I sanctify myself. That's very interesting. This is the text that John Owen pointed to in interpreting Hebrews chapter 10 in regards to Jesus' setting himself apart, sanctifying himself in his role as high priest.

In his interpretation of Hebrews chapter 10, speaking of the new covenant there, by which he was sanctified. People assume that's the apostate there, but Owen said no, it's Christ. He sanctified himself.

For their sake I consecrate myself, I set myself apart. There's a lot that could be said as to exactly what that means, but it does use the language of substitution. Hupere auton in their behalf, or for their sake, I set myself apart.

And there is a purpose for this, and that is they also may be sanctified in truth. So we'll have to unpack a little bit more of that the next time we have the opportunity of being together and considering this tremendous text.

Okay? We press on. Let's have a word of prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word once again, and we thank you for the great privilege of hearing this prayer of our great high priest prior to his going to the cross in light of that final consummation.

We thank you for the promises it contains, the light that it gives us. We ask that you would be with us now as we go into your presence. May you lift up our voices in singing, in prayer, in the reading of the word, and especially in the hearing of his proclamation.

We pray in Christ's name.