ACC ~ John 17 v14 - 19

OVERVIEW:

The world hates those who no longer look at it but begin to look beyond to what is unseen (ORIGEN). The moment the mind stops thinking about the affairs of the world, it encounters God (JOHN THE ELDER). The disciples were of the world by generation but were taken out of the world through regeneration (AUGUSTINE). The world hates Christ because it is in conflict with his words and teaching (CYRIL). It is only as we imitate Christ’s detachment from the world that we become strangers to the world (APHRAHAT). But even as Christ was taken out of the world, he left his apostles in the world to keep his message alive and guide others to the virtues of a godly life (CYRIL). In praying that they be kept from evil, he calls on us to pray like this as well (DIDACHE). He is also praying for their growth in sanctification (AUGUSTINE), preparing them and us for a worthy participation in heaven (CHRYSOSTOM). Experience itself teaches us to look beyond this world (CASSIAN) to our citizenship in heaven (CAESARIUS). We are to be reborn, leaving the world as a baby leaves the womb (JOHN THE ELDER).

Jesus’ prayer for his disciples calls on us to imitate Christ, who is the truth, so that we become virtuous just as he is (ATHANASIUS). In this prayer we also learn that not only does the Spirit sanctify but the Father and Son do as well (GREGORY OF NYSSA). To sanctify them in the truth is to make them holy by the gift of the Spirit and cause them to hold right and true doctrine (CHRYSOSTOM). The word of the Father, which is truth, is his own Word, his only-begotten in whom we believe (AUGUSTINE).

Having been sanctified from sin (AUGUSTINE), Jesus’ disciples are now sent out into the world for mission as he equips them with the power of the Spirit (THEODORE). Christ offers himself as a holy sacrifice in order to sanctify his disciples (THEODORE, CHRYSOSTOM). His consecration means our consecration (CYRIL) as we the members of his body are sanctified in Christ our head (AUGUSTINE). Christ is sanctified as a human being even as he also sanctifies us as God (AMBROSE).

17:14 | The World Hates Those Not of the World

CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE CAN ELICIT HATE

ORIGEN: “And the world hated them, because they are not of the world,” for it hated us from the time when we no longer looked “at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen,” [1] because of the teaching of Jesus. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 13.20. [2]

[1] 2 Cor 4:18.

[2] ANF 9:487*.

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND

JOHN THE ELDER: He said that his friends were not of the world and that the world has hated them. The fulfillment of his commandments [1] is the cross, that is to say, the forgetting and obliteration of all desire for the world and a yearning desire to depart from it in the flame of love, as was the case with Paul. In openness of speech toward my God and in confidence I truly say that the moment the mind strips off the world, it puts on Christ. The moment it departs from thinking about the affairs of the world, it encounters God. The moment the soul cuts off from itself associating with the world, the Spirit starts singing within it of its ineffable mysteries. It is a “mystery for me” [2] here, and a cause for fear. But to the true, truth is revealed. LETTER 5.2. [3]

[1] Jn 14:15, 23.

[2] Is 24:16 (Syriac).

[3] CS 101:331.

OTHERWORLDLY GENERATION

AUGUSTINE: And then, adding the reason for their being hated by the world, he says, “Because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” This was conferred on them by regeneration. For by generation they were of the world, as he had already said to them, “I have chosen you out of the world.” [1] It was therefore a gracious privilege bestowed on them, that they, like himself, should not be of the world, through the deliverance that he was giving them from the world. He, however, was never of the world. For even in respect of his servant form he was born of that Holy Spirit of whom they were born again. For if they were no more of the world, because they were born again of the Holy Spirit, he too was never of the world because he was born of the Holy Spirit. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 108.1. [2]

[1] Jn 15:19.

[2] NPNF 1 7:404*; CCL 36:616.

WHY THE WORLD HATES CHRIST

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: The world indeed hates Christ because it is in conflict with his words and does not accept his teaching. People’s minds entirely yield to base desires. And even as the world hates our Savior Christ, it has also hated the disciples who carry through him his message. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.9. [1]

[1] LF 48:526*.

IMITATE CHRIST’S DETACHMENT

APHRAHAT: Let us hate ourselves and love Christ as he loved us and gave himself up for our sakes. [1] Let us honor the spirit of Christ that we may receive grace from him. Let us be strangers to the world, even as Christ was not of it. Let us be humble and mild that we may inherit the land of life. Let us be unflagging in his service that he may cause us to serve in the abode of the saints. Let us pray his prayer in purity that it may have access to the Lord of majesty. Let us be partakers in his suffering so that we may also rise up in his resurrection. [2] Let us bear his sign on our bodies that we may be delivered from the wrath to come. DEMONSTRATION 6. [3]

[1] Jn 12:25; Eph 5:2.

[2] See 2 Tim 2:11-12.

[3] NPNF 2 13:362-63**.

17:15a | Do Not Take Them Out of the World

WHY THE APOSTLES SHOULD STAY IN THE WORLD

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Christ does not wish for the apostles to be set free of human affairs or to be rid of life in the body when they have not yet finished the course of their apostleship or distinguished themselves by the virtues of a godly life. Rather, his desire is so see them live their lives in the company of people in the world and guide the footsteps of those who are his to a state of life well pleasing to God. After they have done this, then at last, with the glory they have achieved, they will be carried into the heavenly city and dwell with the company of the holy angels. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.9. [1]

[1] LF 48:527*.

17:15b | Keep Them from Evil

PRAY TO BE KEPT FROM EVIL

DIDACHE: “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; [1] for yours is the power and the glory forever.” [2] Pray like this three times a day. DIDACHE 8.2-3. [3]

[1] Or, possibly, “evil.”

[2] See Mt 6:13, textual variant.

[3] AF 259.

SANCTIFICATION KEEPS THEM FROM EVIL

AUGUSTINE: “I pray not,” he adds, “that you should take them out of the world but that you should keep them from the evil.” For they still thought it was necessary to be in the world, although they were no longer of it. Then he repeats the same statement: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth.” For they are kept from the evil, as he had previously prayed that they might be. But it may be inquired how they were no longer of the world if they were not yet sanctified in the truth. Or, if they already were, why does he request that they should be sanctified? Isn’t it because even those who are sanctified still continue to make progress in the same sanctification and grow in holiness? And they do not do so without the aid of God’s grace but by his sanctifying of their progress, even as he sanctified them at the outset [of their sanctification]. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 108.2. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:404-5**; CCL 36:616-17.

PREPARATION FOR WORTHY PARTICIPATION IN HEAVEN

CHRYSOSTOM: Christ came not to put us to death and deliver us from the present life in that sense but to leave us in the world and prepare us for a worthy participation in our heavenly home. This is why he said to the Father, “And these are in the world, and I come to you. I pray not that you should take them from the world but that you should keep them from the evil,” that is, from sin. Further, those who insist that the present life is evil … would have to agree that murderers would deserve a crown for rescuing us from evil. … Miserable, wretched person! What are you saying? Is this life evil, a life where we have learned to know God, and meditate on things to come, and have become angels instead of humans and take part in the choirs of the heavenly powers? … In calling the present world evil, he [1] has accommodated himself to our usage. COMMENTARY ON GALATIANS 1.4. [2]

[1] Paul, commenting on Gal 1:4, makes the same point as Christ in Jn 17:15.

[2] NPNF 1 13:5-6**.

17:16 | Foreign to the World

EXPERIENCE TEACHES US TO LOOK BEYOND

JOHN CASSIAN: The Lord speaks to his Father in the Gospel as follows: “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” … No one can understand the truth and force of this except one who has gone through the trials of what [Jesus] was talking about—one who has been under the teacher of experience. This is someone the eyes of whose soul the Lord has turned away from all things present, so that he no longer considers them as things that will soon pass away but as things that are already over and done with, and he sees them vanish into nothing, like misty smoke. … And so, if we are anxious to attain true perfection, we ought to ensure that we have outwardly with the body made light of parents, home, the riches and pleasures of the world, so that we may also inwardly with the heart forsake all these things and never be drawn back by any desires to what we have forsaken. CONFERENCE 3.7.2, 4-5. [1]

[1] ACW 57:125-26**. Origen uses this passage to speculate on whether there are other worlds besides ours. See On First Principles 2.3.6.

CHRISTIANS LOOK TO ANOTHER CITY

CAESARIUS OF ARLES: There are two cities, dearest brothers. … The first is the city of this world, the second, the city of paradise. The first city is full of labor, the second is restful. The first is full of misery, the second is blessed. If a person lives sinfully in the first, he cannot arrive in the second. We must be pilgrims in this world in order to be citizens of heaven. If one wants to love this world and remain a citizen of it, he has no place in heaven, for we prove our pilgrim status by our longing for our true country. Let no one deceive himself, beloved brothers. The true country of Christians is in heaven, not here. … The angels are our fellow citizens. Our parents are the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs. Our King is Christ. May we live, therefore, in this earthly sojourn in a manner that will enable us to long for such a country during our stay here. SERMON 151.2. [1]

[1] MFC 4:185*; CCL 104:618.

LEAVE THE WORLD AS A BABY LEAVES THE WOMB

JOHN THE ELDER: Do you want Christ to appear to you in prayer as he would to his friend? Let love for him be within you without a moment’s break. Do you want this love to be continually inflamed in your soul? Then remove from your soul love for the world. Do you want your home to be in that place which is without place, being in God? Leave the world, as a baby leaves the womb. Then you will have seen reality. For Christ cannot live with the world. I beg you, listen to him as he demonstrates to you with his own words, “I am not of the world.” This is why it chases me away from where I would live, and also why I cannot live with it, “because it hates me.” [1] But he is continuously overshadowing the soul and visiting it, so that if it empties itself of the things of the world he can dwell in it. LETTER 5.1. [2]

[1] Jn 7:7; 15:18.

[2] CS 101:330-31.

17:17 | Sanctify Them in Your Word, Which Is Truth

IMITATING THE TRUTH, WE BECOME SONS

ATHANASIUS: We are made sons through Christ by adoption and grace, partaking of his Spirit. For “as many as received him,” he says, “to them he gave power to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name.” [1] And therefore, he is also the Truth, saying, “I am the Truth,” [2] and in his address to his Father, he said, “Sanctify them through your Truth, your Word is Truth.” We, by imitation [3] [of this truth], become virtuous and sons. Therefore, he did not say “that they may be one as we are” so that we might become such as he is, but that as he, being the Word, is in his own Father, we too, seeing him as our example, might become one toward each other in concord and oneness of spirit, nor be at variance as the Corinthians, but be of one mind as those five thousand in the Acts of the Apostles who were as one. [4] DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS 3.25.19. [5]

[1] Jn 1:12.

[2] See Jn 14:6.

[3] Gk kata mimēsin. On this point of imitating the truth, see also Clement of Alexandria The Instructor 1.3; Gregory of Nazianzus Letter 102; Irenaeus Against Heresies 5.1; Augustine Sermon 101.6; On the Trinity 4.17; 9.21; Eusebius Ecclesiastical Theology 3.

[4] ESUS IS INFORMED THAT LAZARUS IS SICK | JOHN 11:1-5

[5] NPNF 2 4:404-5**.

NOT ONLY THE SPIRIT SANCTIFIES

GREGORY OF NYSSA: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit alike give sanctification, life, light, comfort, and any other similar graces. And let no one attribute the power of sanctification in a special sense to the Spirit when he hears the Savior in the Gospel saying to the Father concerning his disciples, “Father, sanctify them in your name.” [1] So too all the other gifts are produced in those who are worthy alike by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: every grace and power, guidance, life, comfort, the change to immortality, the passage to liberty, and every other boon that exists, which descends to us. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. [2]

[1] Jn 17:11 and 17 are here conflated.

[2] NPNF 2 5:328**. See also Basil Letters 189.7; Ambrose On the Holy Spirit 3.4.25.

SET APART FOR THE WORD AND PREACHING

CHRYSOSTOM: “Make them holy by the gift of the Spirit and right doctrines.” As when he says, “You are clean through the word that I spoke to you,” [1] so now he says the same thing, “Instruct them, teach them the truth.” “And yet he says that the Spirit does this. Why then does he now ask it from the Father?” He asks so that you may again learn their equality of honor. For right doctrines concerning God sanctify the soul. And if he says that they are sanctified by the word, do not be amazed. And to show that he speaks of doctrines, he adds, “Your word is truth,” that is, “there is no falsehood in it, and all that is said in it must happen.” Again, it signifies nothing purely figurative or material. Paul says something similar concerning the church that he has sanctified by the Word. For the Word of God is also used to cleanse. [2] Moreover, “sanctify them” seems to me to signify something else, namely, “set them apart for the Word and for preaching.” And this is made plain from what follows. For, he says, “as you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 82.1. [3]

[1] See Jn 15:3.

[2] Eph 5:26.

[3] NPNF 1 14:303*.

THE LOGOS IS TRUTH

AUGUSTINE: “Your speech (sermo) is truth.” What else did he mean than “I am the truth?” [1] For the Greek Gospel has logos, which is also the word that is found in the passage where it is said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [2] And that Word at least we know to be the only begotten Son of God, which “was made flesh and dwelt among us.” And so, there also might have been put here (as it actually has been put in certain copies) “Your Word is truth,” just as in some copies that other passage is written, “In the beginning was the speech.” But in the Greek without any variation it is logos in both cases. The Father therefore sanctifies in the truth—that is, in his own Word, in his Only Begotten—his own heirs and his [Son’s] co-heirs. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 108.3. [3]

[1] See Jn 14:6.

[2] Jn 1:1.

[3] NPNF 1 7:405*; CCL 36:617.

17:18 | I Send Them into the World

SANCTIFIED FROM SIN, NOW SENT

AUGUSTINE: But now he still goes on to speak of the apostles, for he proceeds to add, “As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” Whom did he send in this way but his apostles? For even the very name of apostles, which is a Greek word, signifies in Latin nothing more than, those that are sent. God, therefore, sent his Son, not in sinful flesh but in the likeness of sinful flesh. [1] And his Son sent those who (born themselves in sinful flesh) were sanctified by him from the defilement of sin. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 108.4. [2]

[1] See Jn 1:1, 14.

[2] NPNF 1 7:405*; CCL 36:617.

THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT FOR MISSION

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: The participation in the Spirit will not only give them the power to be freed from evil but will make them so strong that they will travel throughout the world and preach as I have preached. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 6.17.18. [1]

[1] CSCO 4 3:318.

17:19 | For Their Sakes, I Sanctify Myself

DISCIPLES EMPOWERED THROUGH CHRIST’S PASSION

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: [Christ says], “The reason I bring myself to the passion is so that through me they may obtain the sanctification that comes through the Spirit, and be sanctified and be empowered to preach the truth, being certain of the hope of the resurrection.” He says that he sanctifies himself because, after the passion, he would hurry to heaven along with his own body and be in holiness. [1] COMMENTARY ON JOHN 6.17.19. [2]

[1] Note again the separation of the two natures in Theodore.

[2] CSCO 4 3:318-19.

CHRIST OFFERS HIMSELF OR HIS DISCIPLES AS A SACRIFICE

CHRYSOSTOM: What does he mean by “I sanctify myself”? He means, “I offer to you a sacrifice.” Now all sacrifices are called “holy.” But those that are specially called “holy” are reserved for God. In [Old Testament times], sanctification was typologically indicated by the sheep. But now it is not in type but in truth itself. Therefore he says, “That they may be sanctified in your truth.” “For I both dedicate them to you and make them an offering.” He says this either because the disciples’ Head was being made so, or because they too would be sacrificed. For it says elsewhere, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy,” [1] and “We were counted as sheep for the slaughter.” [2] And he makes them a sacrifice and offering apart from death. For it is clear from what follows that he was alluding to his own sacrifice when he said, “I sanctify.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 82.1. [3]

[1] Rom 12:1.

[2] Ps 44:22 (43:22 LXX).

[3] NPNF 1 14:303**.

HIS CONSECRATION MEANS OUR CONSECRATION

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Christ called down on us the ancient gift of humanity, [1] that is, sanctification through the Spirit and communion with the divine nature, his disciples being the first to receive it. For the saying is true that the hard-working farmer ought to have the first share of the crops. [2] But, in order for him to have preeminence [3] in this—for it is fitting that … he is seen as the beginning and the gate and the way of every good thing for us—he is inspired to add what follows, namely, the words “for their sake I consecrate myself.” COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.10. [4]

[1] See Eph 2:10.

[2] See 2 Tim 2:6.

[3] See Col 1:18.

[4] LF 48:536*.

THE MEMBERS SANCTIFIED IN THE HEAD

AUGUSTINE: But since, on the ground that the Mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus, has become head of the church, they are his members. Therefore he says in the words that follow, “And for their sakes I sanctify myself.” For what does he mean by the words “and for their sakes I sanctify myself” but I sanctify them in myself, since they also are myself? For those of whom he speaks in this way are, as I have said, his members. And the head and body are one Christ. [1] … And to be assured of the certainty of this in the present passage, listen to what follows. For after saying, “and for their sakes I sanctify myself”—to let us understand that he thereby meant that he would sanctify them in himself—he immediately added, “that they also may be sanctified in the truth.” And what else is this but in me, in accordance with the fact that the truth is that Word in the beginning that is God? TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 108.5. [2]

[1] Augustine quotes Gal 3:16, 29; Col 1:24.

[2] NPNF 1 7:405**; CCL 36:617-18.

CHRIST IS SANCTIFIED AND SANCTIFIES

AMBROSE: Let us pay attention to the distinction of the Godhead from the flesh. In each there speaks one and the same Son of God, for each nature is present in him. And yet, while it is the same person who speaks, he does not always speak in the same way. At one time you see in him the glory of God, at another time human characteristics. As God he speaks the things of God because he is the Word. As man he speaks in a human way because he speaks in my nature. … Even the letter itself [here] teaches us that it is not the Godhead but the flesh that needed sanctification. For the Lord himself said, “And I sanctify myself for them,” in order that you may acknowledge that he is both sanctified in the flesh for us and sanctifies by virtue of his divinity. ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 2.9.77-78. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 10:233-34**; CSEL 78:84-85.