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The word “sanctify” has the same sense as holy and consecrate. There is that which man can sanctify, and there is that which God sanctifies. Man’s sanctification is the esteeming of self or something apart for God. God sanctifies believers apart from unbelievers and is why the believer is holy, or conversely, it matters not because the imputed things of God enter simultaneously. Thus we can “sanctify God in your heart” (1Pe 3:15) because He has sanctified us. God’s sanctification of man enables the power—not to become holy, righteous or justified—but to manifest (walk in) their presence!
All of these godly attributes are fully imputed at the point of regeneration (rebirth), and therefore needs no additions. Faith, on the other hand is a gift that is imparted and not imputed, thus faith can and will increase (in quality not quantity) in those reborn. The work of God imputing godliness within is manifested by the walk of the believer without!
NC
“Sanctify them through thy truth” (Jhn 17:17). It is the Word of God applied to judge every thought and feeling that is in me. He does not say, “Sanctify them by the law,” but by the Word. Persons take the law as their rule of life, but you want enablement; you want an object that seizes your affections.
What object does the law give you? Where is the thing, and the One you are to love? Where is He? Who is He? The law cannot and does not tell me, save of a Judge: I have no object before my soul to give me blessed and holy affections; but the Father’s Word does give me this. “As thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (Jhn 17:18, 19). Now I get something by means of the Word: it is the Lord Jesus Himself who is the substance of all that the Word speaks about.
Therefore, the Lord Jesus says, as regards His place, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself.” He has gone up to glory, and there sets Himself apart as the object for our hearts. The Holy Spirit reveals Him to me, and the Word is the revelation of all that is in the Lord Jesus; it brings to me all that He is: “Sanctify them through Thy truth.” How? I have now got an object: it is the truth, which will judge everything that is in my heart. This it is that sanctifies me, by showing me the One whom I love, Who has said that I am going to be like Him.
The Lord Jesus has got hold of my heart, has given me a place with Himself and has fitted me for it by the revelation of Himself to my heart. And besides this place, I get the Holy Spirit sent down, taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to me (Jhn 16:13); revealing to me that He has given me what He has and is, that I may have it with Him, and that I may be like Him. The Lord Jesus Himself is mine, and I am His. He is the perfect and blessed Man set apart in the presence of the Father; and that, transported into my heart in the living power that it has in me through the Spirit, sets me apart to my Father.
It is the truth that sanctifies me; but if I look at what the truth is perfectly, it is the Lord Jesus. We “beholding the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
We get the present knowledge that we are loved as the Lord Jesus is loved. There is the place in which He places the believer now. All being founded upon the work that He has done, and upon His being thus in the presence of the Father, Who put us in this Himself; hence we can say, I know that I am loved as my Father loves His beloved Son. It is not enough for the Father to give His Son for us, but He places us in the same position and loves us with the same love.
If we grieve the Holy Spirit we may not enjoy the fellowship of that love; but there is the place in which the Lord Jesus has set us to stand with His Father and our Father, His God and our God (Jhn 20:17), and to enjoy Him who is the truth, and who gives us the consciousness of being loved as He Himself is loved. It will be manifested before the world when He comes to receive us, but it is ours now.
— J N Darby (1800 – 1882)
MJS Devotional: None But The Hungry Heart
All of these godly attributes are fully imputed at the point of regeneration (rebirth), and therefore needs no additions. Faith, on the other hand is a gift that is imparted and not imputed, thus faith can and will increase (in quality not quantity) in those reborn. The work of God imputing godliness within is manifested by the walk of the believer without!
NC
“Sanctify Them”
“Sanctify them through thy truth” (Jhn 17:17). It is the Word of God applied to judge every thought and feeling that is in me. He does not say, “Sanctify them by the law,” but by the Word. Persons take the law as their rule of life, but you want enablement; you want an object that seizes your affections.
What object does the law give you? Where is the thing, and the One you are to love? Where is He? Who is He? The law cannot and does not tell me, save of a Judge: I have no object before my soul to give me blessed and holy affections; but the Father’s Word does give me this. “As thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (Jhn 17:18, 19). Now I get something by means of the Word: it is the Lord Jesus Himself who is the substance of all that the Word speaks about.
Therefore, the Lord Jesus says, as regards His place, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself.” He has gone up to glory, and there sets Himself apart as the object for our hearts. The Holy Spirit reveals Him to me, and the Word is the revelation of all that is in the Lord Jesus; it brings to me all that He is: “Sanctify them through Thy truth.” How? I have now got an object: it is the truth, which will judge everything that is in my heart. This it is that sanctifies me, by showing me the One whom I love, Who has said that I am going to be like Him.
The Lord Jesus has got hold of my heart, has given me a place with Himself and has fitted me for it by the revelation of Himself to my heart. And besides this place, I get the Holy Spirit sent down, taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to me (Jhn 16:13); revealing to me that He has given me what He has and is, that I may have it with Him, and that I may be like Him. The Lord Jesus Himself is mine, and I am His. He is the perfect and blessed Man set apart in the presence of the Father; and that, transported into my heart in the living power that it has in me through the Spirit, sets me apart to my Father.
It is the truth that sanctifies me; but if I look at what the truth is perfectly, it is the Lord Jesus. We “beholding the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
We get the present knowledge that we are loved as the Lord Jesus is loved. There is the place in which He places the believer now. All being founded upon the work that He has done, and upon His being thus in the presence of the Father, Who put us in this Himself; hence we can say, I know that I am loved as my Father loves His beloved Son. It is not enough for the Father to give His Son for us, but He places us in the same position and loves us with the same love.
If we grieve the Holy Spirit we may not enjoy the fellowship of that love; but there is the place in which the Lord Jesus has set us to stand with His Father and our Father, His God and our God (Jhn 20:17), and to enjoy Him who is the truth, and who gives us the consciousness of being loved as He Himself is loved. It will be manifested before the world when He comes to receive us, but it is ours now.
— J N Darby (1800 – 1882)
MJS Devotional: None But The Hungry Heart
