Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                Chapter Seventeen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 14-21 continued

Jesus informed His disciples, and His Church, in His prayer that they "are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Jesus meant that His Church would separate itself from the evil nature of the world with all of its sinful and evil acts. II Corinthians 6:16-18. Jesus also meant that His Church has a holy mission to preach the gospel to the people of the world just as He had a mission to save all the living humans of the world. Luke 24:47-48; John 12:47. The world has always recognized that God's Church comprises "peculiar" people, certainly much different from worldly people. I Peter 2:9-11. This fact provides additional evidence that God's Word is true and that Jesus is truly the Son of God.

Jesus prayed that His Father would "sanctify" His Church through the truth that His Spirit would teach in His inspired New Testament. For God to sanctify something means that God separates it from the evil nature of the world to be obedient to His special mission or purpose for it. Jesus sanctified Himself by being absolutely obedient to His Father's Will, and He prayed that His Father would sanctify His Church to represent Him to the world and that it would be obedient to its mission that He had assigned to it.

Jesus then prayed not only for His disciples but for every future believer who will be a member of His Church. Jesus prayed that every future believer will be obedient to God's Will as He would reveal it to them in His New Testament. Future believers who never join a local church will nevertheless be members of Christ's spiritual, universal Church. Jesus' prayer for His believers can only mean that He will never lose a single believer whom He has saved by His grace. John 10:27-30; Ephesians 5:25-27. Christ has all the power He needs to make sure that every one of His backslidden believers will repent of all their sins and evil either prior to or at the time of His Rapture of His Church. Matthew 28:18.

Jesus prayed again that His Father would unite all of His believers saved by grace into one body by the power of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit in every believer saved by grace unites them all together and into the Body of Christ. I Corinthians 12:12-14. The Holy Spirit unites Jesus and His Father into One Being, and the Holy Spirit unites every believer saved by grace into the Body of Christ who represents Him to the world. But this fact does not mean that believers saved by grace will ever be a part of God's Being. The unity of Being with Christ and His Father happens to be different than the unity of the Church which the Holy Spirit always makes subservient to God. The Church cannot be perfect, but the absolutely perfect Body of the risen Savior can be One with God. John 10:30.