John 17:18

Joh_17:18-19

As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world

Christian missions and missionaries: their ideals

It is our privilege to enter at once, by the open door of this utterance, into the interior of our Lords ideas.

He speaks of missions and missionaries. Addressing His Father, He says, Thou didst send into the world. It was a Divine mission, with reference to a most necessitous field of missionary operation. He says, Thou didst send Me into the world. Other missionaries were and are required to carry on the great transformation movement inaugurated by the ideal Missionary. They were required to fill up that which was behind of His labours of love, and His afflictions for the gospels sake. Hence the institution of a new mission by the ideal Missionary, a mission modelled after that of His Father: As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the world. The Saviour speaks as if He had already moved in person out of the present time into the future, and were looking back to the past. But these apostolic missionaries were not to be the last who would spread themselves out on the field of the world. The work that required to be done would not be finished when their labours were drawing to a close. The generation to which they belonged, having replaced a generation that went before, would itself pass on, and another would come in its room. On the heroes of that generation it would devolve to fill up that which was behind of the apostles labours and sorrows. Hence the Lord Jesus said to His Father, But not for these alone do I ask, but for them also who shall believe on Me through their word. His mind was looking forward to the living results of the labours of the apostles, and, in these living results, to the first of many successive relays of missionary workers. He prayed, giving earnest expression to an agony of desire, that nothing might impede the progressive subjugation to Himself of the whole world. I ask, that they all may be one, &c. Our Lord saw from afar the danger of rivalry and dissension among His disciples. He saw that such dissensions would involve disunion in missionary operations at home and abroad; that such disunion meant reduced efficiency all along the straggling lines of the sacramental host; and that such reduced efficiency meant the reduction of the numbers of those who would believe in His mission, and come under the purifying influence of His own and His Fathers love. It is but another aspect of this intense longing of our Lord, that, He says, And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, or, I consecrate Myself, i.e., I am, all along the line of My mediatorial career, consecutively consecrating Myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. It is a grand system of mutual co-operation that is needed; and when all Christian missionaries, in all mission-fields, at home and abroad, become thus co-operative, and hence consecrated after the model of our Lords consecration, then the bells of heaven may at once be set ringing, in jubilant peals, over the triumph of Christianity.

I. THE AIM WITH WHICH THE MODEL MISSION WAS INWARDLY FORMED AND INSPIRED. It originated in the mind, or, to go further into the interior of things, in the heart of the Divine Father. God felt compassion for men. Hence, His determination to send a Missionary into our human world. It was a determination of pure benevolence. Therein was its goodness, grandeur, glory. Dwelling in His own immensity, as the infinitely happy God, afar from the children of men, and yet near, He beheld them in their misery. The world was full of woes, in consequence of the wickedness of men. Unless the Lord Himself should interpose, what can be expected from roots of bitterness found everywhere--what but the fruits of pessimism and despair? But God has interposed, finding His opportunity in mans extremity. Thou, says Jesus, hast sent into the world, that is, Thou hast instituted a mission in reference to this world, and it has resulted in the purest labour of love. It is nothing less than to bring Gods own holy happiness within the reach of His human creatures.

II. THE WAYS AND MEANS EMPLOYED BY THE GREAT IDEAL MISSIONARY TO CARRY OUT THE AIMS OF HIS FATHER

1. He entered intimately and entirely into the spirit of these aims (Psa_40:7-8).

2. By and by the grand ideal Missionary came. His presence on the scene was indispensable. He came without loss of time--in the fulness of the time. He emptied Himself of all but love, and came.

3. After He came into our world, He did not take up His abode in some waste howling wilderness, and spend His days as a hermit, remote from the haunts of men. Nor did He take up His position on some conspicuous pillar like that of Simon Stylites, or on some coign of vantage in the architecture of society, and wave off the crowds that were surging around and jostling one another downwards. Far other was His plan. He mingled freely with the objects of His Fathers solicitude. He was found ever radiating pure spiritual effluence, and radiant with pure spiritual influence, wherever men did congregate.

4. It is noteworthy, besides, that while He did not avoid the society of the opulent and the cultured, yet He made His appearance among the humblest of those who were within the diocese of His missionary enterprise. In His sympathy with the poor, we have a pledge that the time is on the wing, though it may yet be remote, when all honest labour shall be equitably and generously rewarded, and when, in consequence, all the difficulties that beset the perplexing problem of right and righteous remuneration for work, shall, by the logic of love, be satisfactorily solved.

5. He ever went about doing good, now preaching on the frequented shore, now praying on the solitary mountain slope, now teaching, or reasoning, or comforting, or feeding the hungry, or healing the sick, or enlightening the ignorant, or delivering those who, in their spirits or their bodies, were the unhappy victims of influences inhuman and malign.

6. Then He was full, not merely of grace, but of truth; and of truth not merely as the ethical excellency of absolutely veracious witnessing, not merely, in addition, as the sum of true ideas concerning both God and man, but likewise as the actual antitypical impersonation of the most significant shadows of former ages. He was the true Prophet; the true King; the only One whose authority may be unreservedly trusted even when absolute; the true Priest; the true Sacrifice for sins; the true Propitiator and Propitiation; the true Light that lighteneth the way upward for every man that entereth into the world; likewise the true illuminated Way to the house that is the Fathers home.

7. He was, from the commencement of His missionary enterprise to its consummation, engaged in coming under the sins of all mankind without distinction or exception, so as to suffer by them and for them. Our sins became His sorrows and His sufferings, till His heart broke, and His self-sacrifice was complete.

III. For the very reason that the model mission culminated in the glorious propitiatory death of the ideal Missionary, its function as a mission became fulfilled, and room was made for the second great enterprise, with its peculiar complement of apostolic missionaries. They had, as far as was practicable, to take the Masters place on the mission-field, and to carry on the work He had inaugurated. We are thus launched into the third part of our missionary theme--the part that concerns THE RELATION OF THE APOSTOLIC AND ALL SUBSEQUENT MISSIONS AND RELAYS OF MISSIONARIES TO THE DIVINE IDEALS.

1. As it was our Lord Jesus who Himself was the Founder of the second great missionary enterprise, the aims inspiring that enterprise must have been in ecactest accord with the aims inspiring the original project of His Father--to save sinners from their sins, their inhumanities, their woes.

2. It has been within the reach of every Christian mission that has ever flourished, and it is within the reach of every Christian mission that now exists, to cultivate and cherish an exact accord with the aim which animated and informed the mission of our Lord. It was in the bosom of our humanity as well as of His own divinity that He framed and modelled His grand disinterested aim, so that we can get near Him in the ethical peculiarity of His project.

3. The ways and means of the great ideal Missionary may in part be imitated by all Christian missionaries. Like Him, they may be

(1) sympathetic;

(2) ministrant;

(3) meek and lowly;

(4) habitually going about doing good;

(5) abounding in prayer.

4. Even when it is utterly impossible to do as Jesus did, as when in solemn loneliness He bore the sin of the world and made propitiation for it, still it is permitted to all Christian missionaries, from age to age, to take their stand by the side of the cross, and pointing aloft to the crucified One, to exclaim, Look! the sight is glorious! Lo, the Lamb of God bearing, and bearing out of the way, the sin of the world! Look! and live.

5. It is a grand privilege to be linked on, as workers, to some disinterested missionary enterprise! (James Morison, D. D.)

The Model Missionary

These words speak of a two-fold mission; Christs mission from heaven to earth, and the Churchs mission from Christ to the world. The former is at once the origin, model, and motive of the latter. The text suggests a correspondence between these two missions. They correspond

I. IN THEIR AUTHORITY. Both are of Divine authority. God sent Christ into the world, and Christ sends the Church. Christians have a right to go into every part of the world to unfurl their banner on every shore, and fight the battles of the Lord. We want no licence from potentates to authorize us to preach the gospel, &c.

II. IN THEIR PRINCIPLE. What induced Christ to come into the world and inspired Him in working out His mission? All-embracing, disinterested, unconquerable love. The same must influence the Church, and no other feeling.

III. IN THEIR OBJECT. Why did He come? To seek and to save the lost. This is a faithful saying, &c. This is our work. We have to save from ignorance, carnality, worldliness, sin, the devil.

IV. IN THEIR MODE. Both are

1. Spontaneous.

2. Self-denying.

3. Persevering.

4. Diligent.

5. Devout.

V. IN THEIR ENCOURAGEMENTS. Christ had

1. The Divine presence; so has the Church.

2. The highest sympathy.

3. The assurance of success. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The Christian mission identical with that of Christ

Here are two impressive facts. One is that Jesus is holding converse with the Father about the conversion of the world, and the Christians whom He was to leave in it. The other is that Christ regards the mission of those Christians in the world as practically identical with His own. The two missions are identical.

I. IN THEIR PURPOSE AND MOTIVE-POWER. Christs mission originated in the bosom of God, in view of an infinite calamity which had fallen on man. The race was hastening to a wrecked immortality. There was but one power that could arrest its fatal progress--Love. God was Love. Christ came to establish an empire of love, and to change the moral drift of the perishing race, The apostles caught this sublime thought. If God so loved us, we ought to love one another. The scope of the Divine mission was universal, and hence, All the world became the watchword of the Christian ages. Hence, when Christ gathered a little band of followers, He pushed them out into the great world of want and woe and hate, along the line of His own career--As Thou hast sent Me, so have I sent them.

II. IN THEIR METHODS.

1. He ignored superior races and civilizations, and pushed His truth out to the weakest and the lowest. With a sublime radicalism He goes after the most needy.

2. He recognized the essential slowness of the cause, and hence, taught and wrought with Divine patience, believing in the immortality of truth, and looking down through a long vista of years for results.

3. He ignored the principle of demand and supply, as utterly defective for the lifting of humanity. That principle aims to merely meet existing desires. Christ ignored desires and acted in view of needs. His method was to come where there was no demand for Him, but where there was an immeasurable need; and for loves sake, mans sake, Gods sake, to thrust Himself upon the attention of men, when they wanted something else; thus creating a demand for spiritual life where none existed. Our mission is to proceed on the same principle. The apostles so acted. They went where there was no demand for them. The Macedonian cry which came to Paul was not the cry of the men of Macedonia, but the cry of the Spirit of God for Macedonia. These three principles should characterize our Christian methods.

III. IN THEIR REQUIREMENT OF THE SAME QUALIFICATIONS. The most impressive aspect of Christs mission is its divine heroism--the total abandonment of Himself to the cause of the lost. This, too, must be true of the Christian disciple. To the man who really enters upon the Christian mission, every land is his fatherland, because man identified with Christ is greater than the world on which he works, and his final home is above.

IV. IN THEIR SOURCES OF HOPE, THEIR ASSURANCE OF SUCCESS. We are not to carry to the sin-sick world a doubtful remedy. We go to lost men as messengers of hope. The Christians message is not simply a new law--that men have now; not a new philosophy--that has failed already; not merely a sense of guilt--there is no hope in that. What the world needs is a gospel of Hope. The story of the cross is such a gospel. The supreme theory of the Christian, then, is to grasp the Divine conception of his mission--to get Christs view of the ideal man. The Greek ideal man was an elegant thinker; the Roman, a great ruler; the modern, a king of commerce. Christs ideal man is he who, identified with God, heroically commits his consecrated powers to the service of Gods suffering poor. (J. Brand.)

The union between Christ and His Church

Christ expects that His Church will be in the world as He was in these senses

I. THAT THE MIND THAT WAS IN HIM SHALL BE IN HER. He has not overlooked the force of evil, so He expects

1. Penitence to have its perfect work not ceasing until it grows in humility, and cleanses the spirit from viler tastes and sordid vices.

2. Faith that will perpetually fill the nature and lay claim to the gift of the Holy Spirit, using it in the development of grandest virtue.

3. That love will thrive in the heart, turning the tyranny of passion into a glow of piety.

4. That His Cross will charm the eye, and protect from destructive allurements.

5. That however lofty her effort she will not fail in it.

6. That she will look on men with the eye of pity, and spare not herself in the work of their redemption.

II. THAT THE CHURCH WILL ENGAGE IN THE SAME WORK AS OCCUPIED HIM. This naturally follows. There cannot be identity of spirit without identity of purpose and employment. It is not that the Church sets before herself some outward action as exactly reproducing that of Christ, but, looking with eyes like His through the agate windows of charity upon the needs of men, she sees wants which others overlook, and feels within herself some power to meet them; and using the power she has it grows until it flows out into the variety of usefulness which is the image of Him who went about doing good.

1. Are there children about her? She will feed the lambs and carry them in her bosom.

2. Do others neglect the old? She ministers to the solitude and decay of age.

3. Does the false world tread down the fallen? She lifts them to self-respect by the love and energy with which she reclaims them.

4. She checks Pharisaism by the glow of her real charity.

5. She cries to the multitudes, Behold your God.

6. She engages in the absorbing effort to save the one sinner at the well. Her path may be obscure, but consecrating what she has she makes many rich. I do not ask has the Church realized all this; but is she aiming at it? Had she done so long ago, nations now lying in darkness would have been basking in the light of love.

III. THAT THE CHURCH WILL ENDURE THE SAME SACRIFICES AS HE ACCEPTED. Of course there is one part of the sacrifice which we cannot aspire to. But it is evident that no one can have the mind of Christ or do His work without being involved in sacrifices identical to the spirit in which they are accepted and the pain they involve with His. St. Paul speaks of the conflicts of Christ in his body, of being crucified with Christ, of being conformed to His death, &c. Sanctity will never be without its sorrows. You will be misunderstood and misrepresented.

IV. THAT THE CHURCH WILL BE SUFFICIENTLY EQUIPPED IN ALL SHE HAS TO DO AND BEAR. My grace is sufficient for thee. Let that grow and it will conquer. (R. Glover.)

Christs consecration for His people

I. THE MISSION OF THE DISCIPLES. As Thou hast sent Me, &c. They were sent forth

1. By the same authority as their Master. This language could not be used by any mere man, and is in harmony with My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. When a man knows what he can do, and has to do, he is in the fittest condition for doing it. Jesus knew that He was sent into the world, and for what; and He was equal to it. Whatever authority belonged to the Father in sending the Son into the world, belonged to the Son in sending forth His disciples.

2. For a kindred purpose. Christ was the Light of the world, but His radiance was to shine through them, so that they too were lights of the world. The mission of the Son of God was personal and peculiar, and could neither have extension nor repetition (Heb_9:26). To proclaim the power and purpose of His death was the mission of the disciples (connect Joh_18:37 with 2Co_4:2). The mission of the Master and that of the disciples coincide in that both were for the glory of God and the salvation of men.

3. To a similar experience. As the world treated the Master, so it treated the servants (Joh_15:22; Mat_16:24). And as in the case of the Master, so in the case of His disciples now, No cross, no crown.

II. THE CONSECRATION OF THE MASTER--For their sakes, &c.

1. By Christs sanctifying Himself we are to understand His devotement to the will of the Father, the surrender of Himself as a sacrifice for sin, the climax of which was at hand in the Cross I sanctify Myself is the language of One who had perfect control over His own course anal action; who was under no obligation to place Himself in the position of having to utter them. He came not to be ministered unto, &c. Accordingly, His consecration was sacrificial (2Co_5:21). In the profoundest sense He consecrated Himself for man; our cause He undertook, our interests He had in view.

2. But how could this consecration be for the sanctification of His disciples? It had what may be called a legal power, making their consecration possible. The sacrifice which the Son of God presented was the ransom price of redemption. If Christ had not become a curse for us, the curse could not have passed from us, and man could not have been sanctified for God. What mere authority could not do, God effected through His only begotten Son. Truth in all its purifying and transforming power reached them through the consecration of their Lord; for thus they saw the things of God as they had never been unfolded before. Truth is

(1) The element of sanctification, the sphere in which it is realized and enjoyed. It is only when we are in the truth, when we know it, and are in Him that is true, that we can be sanctified.

(2) The instrument. Through its influence within, wielded by the Divine Spirit, the soul becomes weaned from the world, separated from sin, and conformed to the image of God. It is not an outward service, an imposing ritual, an exciting ceremony, which can sanctify, but the truth of God, received into the heart, and applied by the Holy Spirit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. The entrance of the Divine Word gives light, and light is always for holiness.

(3) The end, so that holiness shall become triumphant in the heart and the history. What is sanctification in every case but the reign of truth in the inward parts? To be true men, true to God, true to ourselves, and true to our fellow-creatures--so true in thought and feeling, in word and action, as to clearly reflect the image of our Father, is the highest ambition which as moral creatures we can cherish. (J. Spence, D. D.)

Spiritual work

Here are remarkable parallels, comparisons, connections:--As--so, Thou--Me, I--them. I sanctify Myself that they might be sanctified. The main thought of the text will come out under three words

I. COMMISSION--As Thou hast sent Me, &c. This is a style of speech which we find often in the lips of Christ; it indicates His unique personality. He says, for instance, in Joh_5:1-47., As the Father raiseth up the dead, &c. He assumes and asserts prerogatives which belong to God. He does so here. This is the grandest act of God. All that we know of God seems to be consecrated in this act: God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God, the Holy, saw with intense repugnance the pollution of men; God, the Creator, saw with grief the obliteration of His image in man. But the God of salvation had the thought of salvation. God sent not His Son into the world to condemn, &c. What a wonderful parallel--Thou didst send Me, and I send Thee!

1. Take all the missionaries, preachers, teachers, devoted servants of God, all together, they do not equal the one Jesus. No; the parallel cannot be traced strictly in regard to the person sent, nor in regard to the special purpose of the sending. The specific purpose for which Christ came was to redeem men by His own precious blood. He trod the wine-press alone. Our blood, the blood of our martyrs, does not mingle with His atoning blood. But when we have said that we may say that there is a very close parallel between the Fathers sending of Christ and of Christ sending of His apostles; for just as the great Father sees the world Christ sees it. And He has the Fathers love; for does not He give Himself? Furthermore, He is with men, just as the great Father was always with His Son. And so Christ says: I am with you always. Go, teach all nations.

2. Then, although we have a distinction between the persons, they are living men whom Christ sends, not books, messages, letters. We may print the gospel in all the languages of the world, and send them to all the world; but it will not save the world. Christ said: I will send you. You must go out, living men and women, sinners saved, hearts through whom the great love has passed--you must be able to say: This is a faithful saying, &c.

3. The sphere is the same. It is very interesting that though Christ confines His movements to a very small spot, yet He says, I am come into the world. If the Prince of Wales had landed in Ireland, just visited Dublin, and then come home again, he might truly have been said to visit Ireland; and Christ comes to Palestine and says, I have come into the world. He annexed the world by that act--linked it on to Himself. But it is needful that in a more literal sense the great Christ should visit the world; and so He chooses these men and says: I send you into the world. Go into all the world, &c.

4. And He sends them with the same purpose, Go to save. This is a very ennobling parallel. It is not a mere political or military mission, or a scientific undertaking; it is like that great act of God in sending down His Son--it is, indeed, an expansion of that act.

II. CONSECRATION.

1. Whenever an honest man accepts an office his next thought will be, How can I best prepare for it? The high priest must be born of the tribe of Levi--he must be without blemish personally; and after that there must be special ceremonies; and then he is consecrated, and may go within the veil. But is there anything so sublime as this the Son of God saying: I sanctify Myself? And do you notice He used the present tense--I am sanctifying Myself? Although the life of our Lord on earth was brief, He retained His connection with the human race. So we regard that thirty years, especially the last three, as a period of consecration on the part of the great Saviour. He was sanctified by His daily obedience, prayerfulness, self-denial; by His fierce, but always resisted, temptations; by His Gethsemane agony; by the Cross.

2. It is a solemn thought that we are to consecrate ourselves after the manner of Christ. We do not know much about it. We sing hymns of consecration, and there are some few consecrated people among us; but the average Christian is not a consecrated person. No; his religion is rather a matter of convenience--it is not allowed to interfere with his ordinary human life; but we are to make it, by the grace of God, like Christs--a consecrated life. Now, that means we must set apart a life that gathers about one idea; it means, not the waters which are spread vaguely over a level surface, but the waters that are confined within deep banks and flow straight on; it means, not lines that are drawn in all directions, but radical lines that converge towards a centre. It means, therefore, that just as Christ fixed His thought upon the saving of the world, we should have our thoughts fixed on the saving of the world. As He regarded Himself as being here for no other purpose, we should regard ourselves as being here for no other purpose.

III. CONNECTION.

1. Christ consecrated Himself; He could do that. Can you or I have that strength to take this heavy, dull, carnalized humanity of ours and consecrate it? No; it mocks our endeavour, and we seem to lie a heavy carnal mass still. But see what Christ says: I do this for their sakes. So we share in His own consecration. Thus He was a typical man, in whom, in a certain sense, humanity is contained; and His consecration is potentially the consecration of men.

2. His consecration is our complete atonement, the removal of all our guilt. Oh, what a blessed step that is towards consecration to know that your sins are forgiven!

3. And this consecration of Christ brings all heavenly blessing down; it wins the Spirit for us, and is the substance of Divine truth; so that through the truth, getting these thoughts of Gods into our minds, and these great facts, and these holy influences, we become sanctified through the truth. (S. Hebditch.)

For their sakes I sanctify Myself

The sanctification of Christ

I. CHRISTS SANCTIFICATION OF HIMSELF.

1. He devoted Himself by inward resolve. God His Father had devoted Him before. It only remained that this devotion should be completed by His own will. In that consisted His sanctification of Himself. This self-sanctification applies to the whole tone and history of His mind. He was for ever devoting Himself to work: but it applies peculiarly to certain special moments when some crisis came which called for an act of will.

(1) The first of these moments came when He was twelve years of age, Wist ye not, &c. The Boy was sanctifying Himself for life and manhoods work.

(2) The next was in that preparation of the wilderness, the true meaning of which lies in this, that the Saviour was steeling His soul against the threefold form in which temptation presented itself to Him in after life, to mar or neutralise His ministry.

(a) To convert the hard life of Duty into the comfort of this life: to use Divine powers only to procure bread of earth.

(b) To distrust God, and try impatiently some wild, sudden plan, instead of His meek and slow-appointed ways--to east Himself from the Temple, as we dash ourselves against our destiny.

(c) To do homage to the majesty of wrong: to worship evil for the sake of success: to make the world His own by force or by crooked policy, instead of by suffering. These were the temptations of His life, as they are of ours. Life thenceforward was only the meeting of that in fact which had been in resolve met already--a vanquished foe.

(3) He had sanctified Himself against every trial except the last--death: He had yet to nerve Himself to that. And hence the lofty sadness which characterizes His later ministry. The words as of a soul struggling to pierce through thick glooms of mystery, and doubt, and death, come more often from His lips: for instance, Now is My soul troubled, &c.; My soul is exceeding sorrowful; and here in the text.

2. The sanctification of Christ was self-devotion to the truth. Also implies that what His consecration was, theirs was. His death was not merely the worlds atonement; it, with His life, was martyrdom to truth. He fell in fidelity to a cause--love to the human race. Let us see how His death was a martyrdom of witness to truth.

(1) He proclaimed the identity between religion and goodness. He distinguished religion from correct views, accurate religious observances, and even from devout feelings. He said that to be religious is to be good. Blessed are the pure in heart, the merciful, the meek. Justice, mercy, truth--these He proclaimed as the real righteousness of God.

(2) He taught spiritual religion. Gods temple was mans soul.

(3) He struck a deathblow at Jewish exclusiveness. For God loved the world, not a private few. Because of all this the Jewish nation were offended. By degrees--priests, Pharisees, rulers, rich and poor--He had roused them all against Him: and the Divine Martyr of the truth stood alone at last beside the cross, when the worlds life was to be won, without a friend.

3. The self-sanctification of Christ was for the sake of others For their sakes. He sanctified Himself that He might become a living, inspiring example, firing mens hearts by love to imitation. In Christ there is not given to as a faultless essay on the loveliness of self-consecration, to convince our reason how beautiful it is; but there is given to us a self-consecrated One--a life that was beautiful, a death that was divine--and all this in order that the spirit of that consecrated life and death, through love, and wonder and deep enthusiasm, may pass into us, and sanctify us also to the truth in life and death.

II. CHRISTS SANCTIFICATION OF HIS PEOPLE. Those whom Christ sanctifies are separated from two things.

1. From the worlds evil (Joh_17:15). The only evil--sin: revolt from God, disloyalty to conscience, tyranny of the passions, strife of our self-will in conflict with the loving will of God. This is our foe--our only foe that we have a right to hate with perfect hatred, meet it where we will, and under whatever form, in church or state, in false social maxims, or in our own hearts. By the blood of His anguish--by the strength of His unconquerable resolve--we are sworn against it--bound to be, in a world of evil, consecrated spirits, or else greatly sinning.

2. From the worlds spirit. He is sanctified by the self-devotion of His Master from the world, who has a life in himself independent of the maxims and customs which sweep along with them other men. His true life is hid with Christ in God. His citizenship is in heaven. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The nature of sanctification

It is religion shining; the candle lighted, not hid under a bushel, but illuminating the house. It is the religious principle put into motion. It is the love of God sent forth into circulation, on the feet and with the hands of love to man. It is faith gone to work. It is charity coined into actions, and devotion breathing benedictions on human suffering, while it goes up in intercessions to the Father of all piety. (Bp. Huntington.)

Progressive sanctification

This devotion to God is in a sense imperfect, At the end of every day we acknowledge that we have failed to work out fully into all the details of the day the one purpose which has, by the grace of God, been the mainspring of our action; and that we have often chosen unsuitable means. But each day we learn better what will, and what will not, advance the purposes of God; and each day our one great purpose permeates more fully our entire thoughts, and more fully directs our entire activity. Moreover, each day brings to us fresh proofs of the faithfulness, power, and love of God, and thus increases the strength of the faith with which we lay hold of all the benefits promised in His Word. This daily submission to the guidance of the Spirit brings us more completely under His holy influence, and, since our entire Christian life takes the form of devotion to God; all spiritual progress may be spoken of as growth in holiness. (Prof. Beet.)

Sanctification a process

As the external man perishes, so the inward is renewed day by day. As in the process of petrification, for every particle of wood washed away by the dropping well, another particle of stone is deposited in its place; so our sanctification goes on by a minute molecular change of the heart from stone to flesh, a process of depetrification. Little by little the flesh gives way to the Spirit, and more and more the spirit becomes accustomed to claim and enforce obedience. (J. B. Heard, M. A.)

Process of sanctification

It is wonderful to see how the little events of our daily life tend to our sanctification, though we know it not at the time. Every week seems so like the other! But you know when the sculptor begins his work, he strikes great pieces off the block. Every stroke tells visibly. But, when the statue is nearly finished, he takes the fine chisel, and strikes off but a little dust at a time. You scarcely see the effects of the blow; yet then it is directed with most art and skill,--then the work is nearly done. (Doing and Suffering.)

The difficulty of ascertaining our advance in sanctification

To gauge our process we must employ a measure of sufficient capacity. If we confine our attention to a few days or weeks, it is likely we shall be disappointed, being unable to perceive any advance. You must rather take in months and years. You shall stand by the seashore and be unable first to discover whether the tide ebbs or flows. It is only after diligent watching for an appreciable period that you decide that the sea is slowly but certainly advancing.

The evidence of sanctification

Look upon a holy man in his calling, and you shall find him holy: look upon him in the use of the creatures, and you shall find him holy: look upon him in his recreations and you shall find him holy. The habitual frame and bent of his heart is to be holy in every earthly thing that he puts his hand unto. (T. Brooks.)

Sanctification seen in little things

A holy life is made up of a number of small things. Little words, not eloquent speeches or sermons; little deeds, not miracles, nor battles, nor one great heroic act or mighty martyrdom made up the true Christian life. The little constant sunbeam, not the lightning, the waters of Siloam that go softly in the meek mission of refreshment, not the waters of the river, great and many, rushing down in torrents, noise and force, are the true symbols of a holy life. The avoidance of little evils, little sins, inconsistencies, weaknesses, follies, indiscretions, imprudences, foibles, indulgencies of self and of the flesh; the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up, at least, the negative beauty of a holy life. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 17:18. Ἀπέστειλας, Thou hast sent) The foundation of the sending is the ‘sanctification:’ ch. Joh 10:36, “Him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world.”—ἀπέστειλα, I have sent) I have commenced to send, I have bestowed the apostleship [ch. Joh 20:21, “As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you;” Mat 28:19, “Go ye, and teach all nations,” etc.; Mar 16:15].

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_17:18-19. In support of the prayer for the ἁγιάζειν of the disciples, there now follow further two motives for its being granted, deduced, (1) from the mission of the disciples into the world, on which account they need consecration; and (2) from Christs own personal consecration for the purpose of their ἁγιασμός, which purpose God will not be willing to leave unattained.

καθὼς ἐμὲ, κ.τ.λ.] Placed first with pragmatic weight; for as He could not execute His mission without the divine consecration (Joh_10:36), so neither could they who were sent by Him.

κἀγώ] Not instead of οὕτως ἐγώ (De Wette), but simply: I also have sent. Comp. Joh_15:9, Joh_20:21, et al.

ἀπέστειλα] The mission was indeed not yet objectively a fact (Joh_20:21; Mat_28:19), but already conceived of in its idea in the appointment and instruction for the apostolic office (Mat_10:5 ff.). Comp. on Joh_4:38.

Joh_17:19. Note the emphatic correlation of αὐτῶν … ἐγὼ ἐμαυτόν … καὶ αὐτοί.

The ἁγιάζω ἐμαυτόν, not including in it the whole life of the Lord (Calvin, Hengstenberg, Godet), but now, when the hour is come, to be carried out, is the actual consecration, which Christ, in offering Himself through His death as a sacrifice to God, accomplishes on Himself,[194] so that ἁγιάζω is substantially equivalent to προσφέρω σοὶ θυσίαν (Chrysostom), comp. 4Ma_17:19; ἁγιάζειν, הִקְדִּישׁ, is a sacred word for sacrifices in the O. T., see Exo_13:2; Deu_15:19 ff.; 2Sa_8:11; Esr. 5:52; Rom_15:16; comp. also Soph. Oed. Col. 1491; Dion. H. vii. 2. Christ is at once the Priest and the Sacrifice (Epistle to the Hebrews); and for (ὙΠΈΡ, in commodum, xv. 13) the disciples He performs this sacrifice,although it is offered for all,[195]so far as it has, in respect of the disciples, the special purpose: that they also may be consecrated in truth, namely, in virtue of the reception of the Paraclete (πνευματικῷ πυρὶ γυῖα λελουμένοι, Nonnus), which reception was conditioned by the death of Jesus, Joh_16:7. The καί has its logical justification in the idea of consecration common to both clauses, although its special sense is different in each; for the disciples are, through the sacrifice of Jesus, to be consecrated to God in the sense of holy purity, endowment, and equipment for their calling. On the other hand, the self-consecration of Christ is sacrificial,the former, however, like the latter, the consecration in the service of God and of His kingdom. Comp. on the self-consecration of Christ, who yields Himself voluntarily to be a sacrifice (Joh_10:18, Joh_15:13), Eph_5:2 : παρέδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν προσφορὰν, κ.τ.λ.; that is the idea of the present passage, not that He renounced the mortal σάρξ, and entered fully into the divine mode of existence and fellowship (Luthardt). See also Heb_9:14.

ἐν ἀληθείᾳ] Modal definition of ἡγιασμένοι: truly consecrated, Mat_22:16; 2Co_7:14; Col_1:6; 1Jn_3:18; 2Jn_1:1; 3Jn_1:1. See on 2 Cor. loc. cit.; LXX. 2 Reg. Joh_19:17 (where, however, ἐν is doubtful); Sir_7:20; Pind. Ol. vii. 126. In the classics the mere dative and ἐπʼ ἀληθείας are frequent. The true consecration is not exactly an antithesis to the Jewish sanctimonia ceremonialis (Godet and older expositors), to which nothing in the context leads, but simply sets forth the eminent character of the relation generally. As contrasted with every other ἁγιότης in human relations, that wrought through the Paraclete is the true consecration. Comp. Luther: against all worldly and human holiness. So substantially,[196] Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus, Beza, Calvin, Bengel, and several others, including Hengstenberg, Godet. The interpretation which has recently, after Erasmus, Bucer, and several others, become current, viz. of Lücke, Tholuck (?), Olshausen, De Wette, B. Crusius, Luthardt, Lange, Brückner, Ewald, that ἐν ἀληθ. is not different from ἘΝ Τῇ ἈΛΗΘΕΊᾼ, Joh_17:17, is erroneous, because the article is wanting which here, in the retrospective reference to the truth already articulated and defined, was thoroughly necessary; for of an antithesis to the state of being in which the disciples would be found over and above (Luthardt), the text suggests nothing, even leaving out of sight the fact that a state of sanctification in such an opposite condition would be inconceivable. Without any ground, appeal is made, in respect of the absence of the article, to Joh_1:14, Joh_4:24, where truth is expressed as a general conception (comp. Joh_8:44) (Sir_37:15; Tob_3:5; 2Ti_2:25; 2Ti_3:7), and to 3Jn_1:3 (Joh_17:4 is with Lachm. and Tisch. to be read ἐν τῇ ἀληθ.), where ἘΝ ἈΛΗΘ. must be taken as equivalent to ἈΛΗΘῶς,[197] and consequently as in the present passage and as in 3Jn_1:1.

[194] Comp. generally, Ritschl in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1863, p. 240 f.

[195] Already this solemn ὑπέρ (Joh_6:51, Joh_10:11, Joh_11:50, Joh_15:13, Joh_18:14; 1Jn_3:16) should have prevented ἁγιάζω ἐμ. from being understood in the ethical sense of the ripening to moral perfection through faithful, loving obedience towards the Father (so Wörner, Verhältn. d. Geistes z. Sohne Gottes, p. 41 f.). Simply correct is Euth. Zigabenus, ἐγὼ ἑκουσίως θυσιάζω ἐμαυτόν.

[196] In so far as they understand ἐν ἀληθ. of the true ἁγιάζεσθαι, in which, however, they find an antithesis to the typical holiness of the O. T. sacrifice, as e.g. Euth. Zigabenus: ἵνα καὶ αὐτοὶ ὦσι τεθυμένοι ἐν ἀληθινῇ θυσίᾳ· ἡ γὰρ νομικὴ θυσία τύπος ἦν, οὐκ ἀλήθεια. Comp. Theophylact; also Holtzmann, Judenth. u. Christenth. p. 421.

[197] The passage means: I rejoiced when brethren came and gave witness for Thy truth (i.e. for Thy morally true Christian constitution of life), as Thou truly (in deed) walkest. καθώς, κ.τ.λ., that is, not forming a part of that testimony of the brethren, gives to this testimony the confirmation of John himself. As the brothers have testified for Gaius, so he actually walks. This John knows, and the brethren have told him nothing new by that testimony, however greatly he has rejoiced in the fact of receiving such a testimony concerning his Gaius. Therefore he adds, with loving recognition, as thou truly walkest. That testimony therefore only corresponds to the reality.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 17:18 . καθὼς ἐμὲ ἀπέστειλας … “As Thou didst send me into the world, I also sent them into the world.” καθὼς seems to imply “in prosecution of the same purpose and therefore with similar equipment”. εἰς τὸν κόσμον is not otiose, but suggests that as Christ’s presence in the world was necessary for the fulfilment of God’s purpose, so the sphere of the disciples’ work is also “the world,” cf. Joh 5:15 . ἀπέστειλα , aorist, because already they had served as apostles, see Joh 5:38 and Mar 3:14 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 18, 19. “According as thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

If Jesus asks for them the spirit of their charge (Joh 17:17), it is because He has confided to them the charge itself. The term ἀπέστειλα, I have sent, alludes to the title of apostles which He has given them. But how does Jesus say that He has sent them into the world, when they are already in it? It is because He has drawn them to Himself and raised them into a higher sphere than the life of the world (Joh 17:16), and it is from thence that He now sends them to the world, as really as He was Himself sent from heaven. And the mission which He gives them is only the continuation of that which the Father has given Him (καθώς, according as); herein is the first reason which He presses in support of His petition: Sanctify them.

The second is set forth in Joh 17:19. The force of καί, and, at the beginning of this verse, is this: “And to obtain for them this consecration which I ask for, I begin by consummating my own.” Jesus asks nothing of the Father except after having done, or when doing Himself what depends on Himself to the end of making possible the realization of His prayer; comp. Joh 17:4; Joh 17:6; Joh 17:8; Joh 17:12; Joh 17:14. It is on what He does for His own sanctification that theirs will be founded. The words ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν, for them, are at the beginning because they set forth the aim of His work with reference to Himself. The word sanctify does not by any means imply, as we have seen, the removal of defilement; for it is not synonymous with purify (καθαρίζειν); it is therefore a wrong course in some interpreters to find in this word a proof of the existence of sin in Jesus.

The majority of interpreters (Chrysostom, Meyer, Reuss, Weiss, etc.) apply this word to the consecration which Jesus makes of His person at this moment in view of His expiatory death. Weiss sustains this meaning by the ordinary use of the word hiquedisch in the Old Testament to designate the idea of sacrificing. But this last reason proves nothing; for this term, as well as the Greek word, designates all consecration, even that which does not issue in death; comp. Mat 23:17, which we have just cited. And this sense is not admissible here, because it is inapplicable in the following clause, unless we see, with Chrysostom, in the sanctification of the apostles their acceptance of martyrdom, or refer it, as Meyer and Reuss do, to the gift of the Holy Spirit as the result of the expiatory death, or give up, as Weiss does, assigning the same meaning to the verbἁγιάζειν in the two clauses, and find therein a special nicety of expression; all which interpretations are quite improbable, the first, because the greater part of the apostles do not seem to have been martyrs; the second, because the relation between the two acts of consecration would be much too indirect; the third, because the ἵνα,that, as well as the καί, them also, implies two consecrations of a homogeneous character. We must, therefore, with Calvin, abide by the natural meaning of ἁγιάζειν : to take a thing away from a profane use in order to consecrate it to the service of God. Jesus possessed a human nature, such as ours, endowed with inclinations and repugnances like ours, but yet perfectly lawful. Of this nature He continually made a holy offering; negatively, by sacrificing it where it was in contradiction to His mission (the culture of the arts and sciences, for example, or the family life); positively, in consecrating to the task assigned Him of God all His powers, all His natural and spiritual talents.

It is thus “that He offered Himself to God without spot, through the eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14). When the question was of sacrificing a gratification, as in the desert, or of submitting to a sorrow, as in Gethsemane, He incessantly subjected His nature to the work to which the will of the Father called Him. And this was not effected once for all. His human life received the seal of consecration increasingly even till the entire and final sacrifice of death, when “by the things which He suffered” He finished the “learning obedience” (Heb 5:8).

The pronouns Iand myself set forth the energetic action which Jesus was obliged to exercise upon Himself in order to attain this result.

Thereby Jesus realized in His own person the perfect consecration of the human life, and He thus laid the foundations of the consecration of this life in all His followers. This is what is expressed by the following clause: That they also may be sanctified, which develops the meaning of the first words: for them. According to Weiss, Jesus speaks here of a purely negative fact: the removal through the expiatory sacrifice of Christ of the guilt resulting from the defilements contracted by the believer, a guilt which would prevent his consecration to God. This is to fail to recognize the difference in meaning between the two terms sanctify and purify, and arbitrarily to change the meaning which the word sanctify had in the preceding clause. The meaning is indeed as follows: The sanctification of every believer is nothing else than the communication which Jesus makes to him of His own sanctified person. This is what He had already intimated in Joh 6:53-57; Joh 6:63, and what St. Paul develops in Rom 8:1-3, where he shows that Christ began by condemning sin in the flesh (condemned to non-existence), in order that the (moral) righteousness, required by the law, might be realized in us. Jesus created a holy humanity in His person, and the Spirit has the task and the power to reproduce in us this new humanity: “The law of the Spirit of life which is in Jesus Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death.” In this point, as in all others, the part of the Spirit consists in taking what belongs to Jesus (this perfectly holy human life), to give it to us. If this holy life had not been realized in Christ, the Spirit would have nothing to communicate to us in this regard, and the sanctification of humanity would have remained a barren aspiration. It is difficult to understand how Weiss can say that, with this interpretation, everything is reduced to the imitation of the example of Christ.

Let us remark finally that by reason of Joh 17:17, the question here is of the apostles, not only as Christians, but especially as ministers (Joh 17:18). Jesus Himself, while sanctifying Himself as man and for the purpose of realizing in Himself the ideal of human holiness, sanctified Himself at the same time as Saviour and for the purpose of giving life to mankind. In the same way, the task of the apostles will not only be to realize the consecration in that general form under which all believers are called to it; by freeing them from every earthly vocation and sending them into the world as His ambassadors, Jesus desired that their personal sanctification might be effected under the particular form of the apostleship. This form is not more holy, but it has, more than any earthly vocation, the character of a special consecration to the work of God. ᾿Εν ἀληθείᾳ, in truth, must have here, because of the want of the article, the adverbial sense: in a true way, in opposition both to the false Pharisaic consecration and to the ritual consecration of the Levitical priesthood. Thus from the general petition: I pray for them, there have been evolved these two clearly progressive petitions: “Keep them in holiness! Consecrate them by an increasing holiness, to the end that they may become, after me and like me, the agents of the sanctification of the world.” It is natural that Jesus should pass from this to a prayer on behalf of the world itself, at least as to the future believing portion of it, Joh 17:20-26. Jesus prays for the believers and asks for them two things: Joh 17:20-21, spiritual unity; Joh 17:22-24, participation in His glory; finally, He justifies these petitions in Joh 17:25-26.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He addeth moreover, that the Apostles have a vocation common with him, and therefore that they must be holden up by the selfsame virtue to give up themselves wholly to God, whereby he being first, did consecrate himself to the Father.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

As thou hast sent--sentest.

me into the world, even so have I also sent them--sent I also them.

into the world--As their mission was to carry into effect the purposes of their Master's mission, so our Lord speaks of the authority in both cases as co-ordinate.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 18. As thou hast sent me - so have I also sent them] The apostles had the same commission which Christ had, considered as man - they were endued with the same Spirit, so that they could not err, and their word was accompanied with the same success.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18. As thou hast sent me into the world. He confirms his prayer by another argument; namely, because the calling of Christ and of the apostles is the same calling, and is common to both. “I now,” he says, “appoint them to an office, which I have hitherto held by thy command; and, therefore, it is necessary that they should be furnished with the power of thy Spirit, that they may be able to sustain so weighty a charge.”

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(18) As thou hast sent me into the world.—Better, As Thou didst send Me. The tense points out the definite moment of His mission. (Comp. Joh_10:36.)

So have I also sent them into the world.—Better, I also sent. Comp. Notes on Mat_10:5; Luk_6:13. In the very word “Apostles” their mission was contained; but the thought here comprehends the immediate future of their wider mission. (Comp. Note on Joh_20:21.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. As thou hast sent] Better, Even as Thou didst send. Comp. Joh_10:36.

even so have I also sent] Better, I also did send. Comp. Joh_20:21, Joh_15:9. The Apostles had already received their commission (Mat_10:5-15; Mar_6:7; Luk_9:2-5), which is about to be renewed.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself,.... Which is to be understood, not of his making himself holy; for he never was a sinner, and so stood in no need of sanctification: he was made like unto us, yet without sin; he looked like a sinner, but was not one; he was traduced, charged, and treated as such, but was perfectly holy, and free from all sin; he was essentially and infinitely holy as God; and as man, he was holy in his conception and birth; he was filled with the Holy Ghost, and was holy in his life and in his death: rather this may be meant of his being separated, and set apart for his office as Mediator, which, though done by the Father, and is ascribed unto him, Joh 10:36; yet may also be attributed to himself; since he voluntarily devoted himself to this work, and cheerfully accepted of it: though it seems best to understand it of his offering himself a sacrifice for, and in the room and stead of his people, in allusion to the offerings under the law, the sacrificing of which is expressed by sanctifying, Exo 13:2; and because his sacrifice was an Holy One: what he sanctified or offered was "himself": not his divine, but human nature, his body and his soul; and these as in union with his divine person; which gives his sacrifice the preference to all others, and is the true reason of its virtue and efficacy; and this is expressive of his great love. He himself is also the sanctifier or offerer, which shows him to be a priest, and that he had a power over his own life, and that he sacrificed it voluntarily; and this he is said to do at that present time, because the time was very near that he was to be offered up, and his present prayer and intercession were a part of his priestly office. This he did not for his own sake, nor for the sake of angels, nor for all men, but for his disciples, as distinct from the world; and not for the apostles only, but for all that the Father had given to him; and that as their substitute and surety, in their room and stead:

that they also might be sanctified through the truth; that is, have all their sins expiated, and they be cleansed from all the guilt and filth of them, through Christ himself and his sacrifice, who is the truth; or "in truth"; as it may be rendered, really and truly, in opposition to the legal sacrifices which atoned for sin, not really, only typically; or through the. Gospel of truth, bringing the good news of atonement by the blood and sacrifice of Christ, and which the Spirit of God seals to the conscience with comfort and joy.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

Ver. 18. Even so have I sent them, &c.] Therefore they have need that there be put upon them of my Spirit, that they may be fit for the work. This boon none are to expect, but they that are sent of Christ, and such are sure to be gifted.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. He speaks of that mission, which agreed with him, as man, and become man for the salvation of mankind, to which also the apostles, and their successors were to co-operate, as the ministers and instruments of Christ, by virtue of their mission for him. (Witham) --- For the same intent as Christ himself was sent, were the apostles sent also: whence St. Paul says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and he has placed in us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians v. 19.) (Glossarium.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

That is: My Father, they have not thrust themselves into their employment, they have not run without sending; for as I am thine apostle, as I was sent by thee, so I have sent them. The apostles indeed were not sent for the same end in all things that Christ was sent; who was sent to purchase salvation for men, as well as to preach the gospel: but they were sent in part for the same work for which Christ was sent, and they were sent by him who had authority to send them; and as it is but reasonable for princes to protect those whom themselves send upon their embassies, so it was but reasonable that God should defend and protect those whom his Son had sent out as his ambassadors.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18. Sent me… I also sent them—So that both, primarily and secondarily, are from God; and as they were directed to ordain others to the same work, so it is evident that a body of ministry issuing from God himself, distinct from the laity, is a divine institution in the Christian Church.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As thou didst send me into the world from the glory which I had with thee before the world was a primal fact in the earthly consciousness of the Lord Christ, and one on which he repeatedly laid emphasis (Joh_10:36 Joh_17:8) even so I sentthem into the world; i.e. from that higher sphere of thought above the world to which I had called them. "They are not of the world," but I sent them from the unworldly home and from the high place of my intimate friendship, from the ground of elevated sympathy with myself, into the world, with my message and the power to claim obedience. Christ gave this apostolic commission near the commencement of his ministry (see Mat_10:5, etc., and Mar_3:14, Ina wsi met autou kai ina apostellh autoussein), and that first act, the type of the whole apostolic commission, which was finally confirmed, (Mat_28:19, 20 Joh_20:21, Joh_20:22) is here described in the timeless force of the aorist, so that the word embraces the entire ministerial function of all who believe in the mission of the Son.

The two apostleships.

The sense of apostleship must enter into all true Christian work. The Lord Jesus takes but the rank of an apostle speaks to his Father as having made him an apostle into the world. He grows up to manhood, not as other lads in Nazareth, to choose an occupation and walk in life for himself, but to take a path divinely chosen. He both is sent and knows well who sent him. The highest good is only to be got out of the Lord Jesus by treating him according to his apostleship. Treating Jesus otherwise than as sent, we insult and slander him. He comes not with his own claim, but with the claim of the invisible Father.

I THE APOSTLESHIP OF JESUS. "Thou didst send me into the world." That is the feeling of Jesus, and we must not dispute it. Not a discourse of Jesus, not a deed of Jesus, but has stamped across it, "Sent of the Father." Sent into the world:

1. For the worlds need. None the less so because multitudes live and die, practically denying the need of Jesus. Everything depends on what is aimed at. A man may say reading and writing are not necessary because he has been able to carry bricks and mortar all his life without knowing how to read and write. But it is plain that Jesus Christ has become a necessity to many, for they have died rather than deny him. To say that we need him not only proves our own blindness and self-ignorance. God sends no causeless messengers. If human prophets, entirely of the lineage of humanity had been enough, Jesus would never have come.

2. For the glory of the Sender. He expressly says, "I have glorified thee on the earth." We are to judge of the Sender by the Messenger. Jesus was qualified to speak and act freely and largely, out of a heart that was in full harmony with the heart of God. He could adapt himself without the slightest hesitation or failure to the ever-varying wants of men. Many had come before him and walked and talked with men in the name of God, avowing that they were the mouthpieces of Jehovah, and beginning their addresses with, "Thus saith the Lord." But then the consciousness of an evil heart and an imperfect life was upon them all. Isaiah says, "Woe is me... I am a man of unclean lips!" But no one ever heard Jesus speak in this fashion. Those who have not yet beheld in Jesus the glory of the eternal God have yet to receive him in spirit and in truth.

II THE CONSEQUENT APOSTLESHIP OF THE SERVANTS OF JESUS. Jesus was going from the world, and had to send others into the world to continue his work. They must be such as the world can take knowledge of. And Jesus sent them into the world as he himself was sent, for the world"s great need and the increase of the glory of God. Then in due season, their apostleship being over, they were gathered into the invisible. But Jesus went on sending, and has gone on sending ever since. "Missionary" is only a more modest word for "apostle." All of us must have some apostleship in us, or we can do little for Jesus. And all manifest and special apostles we should ever observe and encourage, holding up their hands, and considering their appeals with understanding minds and sympathizing hearts. He who receives the apostle receives Jesus, and he who receives Jesus receives the Father who sent him. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

world

kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. Christ’s mission; the Father sent him into the world.

Christ’s sending implies the designation of his person, his qualification for the work, his authority and commission.

Learn hence, that Christ did not of himself undertake the office of a Mediator, but was sent; that is, authorized and commissioned of God so to do; Thou hast sent me into the world.

Observe, 2. As Christ’s mission, so the apostles’ mission: As thou hast sent me, so have I sent them.

Learn thence, that none may, or ought, to undertake the office of the ministry, without an authoritative sending from Christ himself; not immediately and extraordinarily by voice or vision, but immediately by the officers of the church. And such as are so sent, are sent by Christ himself; and if so, it is the people’s duty to reverence their persons, to respect their office, to receive their message: As thou hast sent me, so have I sent them.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

into the world

Here into "the world" is a metonym that means to the people who live in the world. AT: "to the people of the world" (See: Metonymy)

so that they themselves may also be set apart in truth

You can translate this in an active form. AT: "so that they may also set apart themselves truly to you" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

send

world

set apart

true

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

18. καθὼς ἐμὲ ἀπέστειλας. For this thought, five times expressed in this chapter, cf. v. 8 and see on 3:17.

That the relation between Jesus and His disciples is comparable with that between the Son and the Father is several times stated in the discourses of Jesus as reported by Jn. As is the love of the Father to the Son, so is the love of Jesus for His disciples (15:9). The glory which the Father gave to the Son was given by Jesus to His disciples (17:22). As the Son lives by the Father (διὰ τὸν πατέρα), so His disciples live by Jesus (διʼ ἐμέ, 6:57). As the Father knows the Son, and the Son the Father, so does Jesus know His sheep, and they know Him (10:14, 15). As the Son is “in” the Father, so are His disciples “in” Jesus (14:20). These are amazing teachings, but they are deep-rooted in the Fourth Gospel. And, corresponding to them, we have the saying of this verse that as the Father sent the Son into the world, so Jesus sent His apostles into the world.

The comparison καθὼς … καί in such passages can never be exact or definite (see on 6:57), but at the same time it points in each case to something more than a superficial analogy.

κἀγὼ ἀπέστειλα αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν κόσμον. The words carry a reference not only to the original choice of the Twelve, ἵνα ἀποστέλλῃ αὐτοὺς κηρύσσειν (Mar 3:14; cf. Luk 9:2), but to their future mission, the aorist being used because of the certainty of this predetermined future in store for them. The actual commission is recorded at 20:21, 22: καθὼς ἀπέσταλκέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ πέμπω ὑμᾶς … λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον. (No distinction can be drawn between ἀποστέλλω and πέμπω in such passages; see on 3:17.) Cf. also 4:38.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Sent [απεστειλας - απεστειλα] . On a mission. See on Mt 10:16.

Sanctify. See on ver. 17.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.