It seems so very obvious: Jesus wants his people to be sanctified (ie. set apart, holy). In fact, he prays for just that in his great prayer in John 17:
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:17-19)
But what does he have in mind?
He links the setting apart, the sanctifying, of his disciples to his own act of being set apart: "for them I sanctify myself, that they may be truly sanctified". So, he made himself holy so that we too could be holy? Wasn’t he always holy anyhow?
I think the emphasis here works in a slightly different direction. Jesus set himself apart for the doing of God’s will, that he might redeem and reconcile people to God. And he expressly states here that just as he had been sent into the world by the Father on that mission and had responded by sanctifying himself, so too he is sending his disciples into the world.
He is then, it seems, praying that his people would be set apart for God in order that they might be enabled and equipped to fulfil their calling to go into all the world with the good news. Set apart and sent out; that’s us.
Notice the crucial role played by God’s Word in this. Scripture is meant to make us more like Jesus, not simply in terms of what we usually think of as holiness (integrity of character, purity of mind and so forth), but, crucially, our becoming more like Jesus in our commitment to, and sacrificial outworking of, the great mission of God.
If Jesus prayed for that, it would be good if we did too.
