"Sanctify" sure is one of those Christianese words isn't it?! The kind of word that makes a lot of people roll their eyes. I grew up hearing words like that tossed around without thought and they really began to loose their significance. Up until about 8 years ago I kind of detested words like that. I had to start over with what I believed and the Lord had a lot of foundational cracks in my belief system to heal and repair and sometimes remove. One thing that has helped is to treat the Word as holy and not use it lightly and if I don't understand something I look it up. So I'm not ashamed to admit that after 25ish years of being a Bible-Believing-Christian that I had to look up the word sanctify. I wanted to know if it meant what I thought it meant and if it was really "that big of a deal". Turns out, it is a pretty big deal and shouldn't be used lightly. Here it means, "I make holy, treat as holy, set apart as holy, sanctify, hallow, purify."
But can I say that that word isn't what blew me away this morning? No, it was that tiny little word that would normally be completely overlooked between the weighty two words "sanctify" and "truth". It's the word "in," some translations use "by". I've always read this verse like this, "Set them apart, make them holy, with Your Word of Truth." I've always considered it something like when your filthy with sin the Word washes you clean. But what that little word, "in" actually means is, "in the realm (sphere) of," as in the condition (state) in which something operates from the inside (within)." So basically in means in not with. When I'm sanctified, made pure and holy and set apart, it's because I'm actually in the Word or Truth. It's not something that I use to clean up with after I've messed up. It's where I am. In Him. I guess to me being sanctified always made me feel put out, on the outside of something because I'm no longer apart of the world. And while that is true it's because I'm actually being put in something. I'm set apart because I'm made apart... of Him.
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