I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil.
ουκ ερωτω ινα αρης αυτους εκ του κοσμου αλλ ινα τηρησης αυτους εκ του πονηρου
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Again He explains His speech and again makes it more intelligible. By this He shows nothing other than that He greatly cares for the disciples, since He prays for them with such diligence. Yet He had said that the Father would do whatever they asked.
"I do not ask that You take them out of the world." He said this to show His love for them and His great care for them, since He offers prayer for them with such zeal.
He does not teach the Father what is needed, for that would be utterly improper. Rather, as I have said, He says this to the Father in order to show that He greatly loves the disciples and cares for them.
I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that, while they remain in the world, You keep them from evil.
He reveals the most necessary gift for us, the good pleasure from above and from the Father. He says that this gift should come from Him to those who face dangers for His sake, as a just and fitting recompense. For the world hates, on account of God, the servants of God and the fulfillers of His appointed laws. They count worldly deception as nothing, and rightly ought to receive from Him assistance, grace, and continuance in good estate. Since they in some way lean on Him and hope in Him, struggle for His sake, and do not fear excessive dangers, how could they finally remain without a recompense corresponding to their zeal?
Therefore the Savior says, 'I have given them Thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.' They received, He says, and very gladly, Thy word, Father, which came to them through Me. This is the evangelical preaching, which easily turns those who receive it away from worldly life and earthly thoughts. For this reason they were hated by the world, that is, by those who wished to think worldly thoughts and who love this sensual and defiled life. For the words of the saints are unpleasant to worldly people. They always draw them away from the evils of this life and reveal the impurity of worldly living. They accuse the sinfulness of the world and strike with bitter reproofs those who find pleasure in falling and moving about in earthly evil. They also wage war against every kind of violence, remove vainglory, and teach men to renounce covetousness and keep as far away from it as possible, since it is the mother of all evils. They command men to stand outside the ancient deception, and urge those caught in the devil's snares to go to the God of all. For this reason, Father, He says, they are hated. Though guilty of nothing shameful or impious, they became almost unbearable to worldly people. But because 'I have given them' from Thee 'the word,' they too have now become outside the world, as I am. For conduct and life in Christ are wholly removed from earthly thought and worldly condition. Following this life as far as we can, we ourselves also escape being numbered among worldly people. Therefore the divine Paul commanded us to walk in His steps (cf. 1 Pet 2:21). We follow Him as we ought especially when we love thoughts only of things above the world. Then, setting our mind above fleshly thought, we look only to heavenly things. He again numbers Himself with the disciples according to His humanity. In imitation of Him, when He is understood as man, we ascend to every form of virtue, as we recently said. We flee every sin in the world and become strangers to its evils. This is surely what the divine Paul writes to us about himself and Christ: 'through Whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world' (Gal 6:14). Elsewhere he also commands, 'Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ' (1 Cor 11:1). Paul imitated our Lord Jesus Christ, of course, not in the sense that the Lord is the Creator of all. Besides the things already created, Paul did not create other heavens for us, nor did he bring seas or earth into being. How then did he imitate Him? Clearly, by reflecting in his morals and conduct the wondrous pattern of the life He manifested to us, insofar as this was possible for him. For who can be compared with Christ? Therefore, having united Himself with us according to His humanity, or rather, having appeared for us as the leader into a great good, I mean departure from the world through a life above the world, He says, 'I am not of the world.' For evangelical life and preaching are above the world. This also applies to you, since His divine word has settled in your souls. But as the world 'hates' Me, He says, so it hates 'them.' The world hates Christ because it opposes His words and does not receive His teaching, having wholly surrendered its thought to impulses toward evil. And in the likeness of our Savior Christ, the world clearly hated the disciples themselves, who preached His word for His sake. Paul did this when he said, 'We are ambassadors for Christ, since God exhorts through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God' (2 Cor 5:20). What then does He ask, after revealing that the disciples will be hated by those attached to worldly evil? 'I do not ask,' He says, 'that Thou shouldest take them out of the world. But that Thou shouldest keep them from evil.' Christ does not desire that the saints be freed from human affairs or separated from bodily life while they have not yet completed the course of their apostleship and have not yet shone with the virtues of piety. Rather, after living among worldly people and guiding them toward a way of life pleasing to God, they are then to be carried with glorious struggles to the city above and dwell in the regions of the holy Angels. Therefore, as we find, one of the saints approaches the God Who loves good and sings, 'Take me not up in the midst of my days' (Ps 101:25). For it is not harmless for God-loving souls to be separated from life in the flesh before completing their excellent way of life. Therefore the law of Moses also teaches that death at an improper time is sent to lovers of sin as a kind of wrath and punishment. It often cries out that one must depart from evil, 'lest you die before your time' (Ex 28:35; Lev 8:35; Lev 10:7; Lev 22:9; Num 18:32 and elsewhere; cf. Eccl 7:17). Otherwise, the desire of the saints to depart from our affairs, that is, earthly life, would cause no small harm to those weak in faith. Indeed, they would be left altogether without guides in piety, since they would have no one able to do this. Knowing this, Paul also said, 'It is better to depart and be with Christ, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake' (Phil 1:23-24). Therefore, providing for the salvation of those not yet converted to the faith, the Lord says that worldly people must not be left without enlighteners and guides. Rather, He prays that the saints be preserved, always remaining outside evil living and turning away the assault of temptations by the power of the almighty Father. Again we must observe that He calls His own word, which came from Him, namely the evangelical word, the word of God the Father. He thereby shows that He is not other than the Father, because of consubstantiality. Thus in the Gospel books we find that the Jewish people were astonished at Him, because He taught them 'as one having authority, and not as their scribes' (Mt 7:29). For they conversed with the people while wholly preferring what the law demanded. But our Lord Jesus Christ did not follow at all the patterns contained in shadow and letter. Rather, uttering His word with divine authority, He says, 'It was said to those of old: You shall not kill. But I say to you' (Mt 5:21-22): do not desire. Although the law decreed concerning the divine sayings that nothing should be added to them or taken away from them (Deut 4:2), Christ both took away and added, transforming the figures into truth. Therefore He must not be reckoned among those under the law, that is, among creatures. For whoever by nature belongs among servants must certainly also be subject to the law. Thus Christ called His own word the word of the Father, for He is the Word in the Father and from the Father. He proclaims the will of the Godhead, I mean the true and one Godhead, contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
For it was still necessary that they remain in the world, although they were already not of the world. He repeats the same thought: They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth (cf. Jn 17:16-17).
Jesus Christ explains precisely what He asks the Father for the disciples. He does this so that they may be more encouraged, knowing that they will not die before they fulfill the work of preaching, and that God the Father will guard them.
Therefore, first of all, He prays for those whom He has already brought to this knowledge of God. Through Him Himself they have come to know the Father. They are to be instruments in spreading the knowledge of God among men. As He prepares to depart from the world and leave His disciples alone in it, He entrusts them to the protection of the heavenly Father, to whom they have been dedicated by Him. He asks that the communion of divine life with Him, whose beginnings He has laid in them, may be preserved in them. He commits them to the defense of the heavenly Father, since He leaves them in the world amid struggle. He does not ask the heavenly Father to take them from the world, as He takes Him.
That would contradict their vocation, which the heavenly Father indicated when He gave them to His Son. Their vocation is that through them the world itself should be transformed and changed by the knowledge of God revealed through Jesus Christ. He prays only that the heavenly Father preserve them from inward temptations of evil. He prays that inwardly they remain strangers to the world, as men sanctified by the truth He preached. He prays that His holy life, which He is ready to surrender for them, may be the foundation of their sanctification. "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth."
When Christ was with them in the world, He, for His part, used every means of His saving guidance to preserve from destruction all whom God had given Him. Only the υιός της άπωλείας, the man given over to perdition, was permitted to perish because of his sinfulness. Like the other disciples, he heard Christ's teaching and received it. Yet he did not keep it within himself and was not established in it. He alone was overcome by the temptations of evil that reigns in the world. This was foreseen by God and foretold in Scripture. After confessing before the Father how He had acted toward His own while He was with them, the Lord returns to prayer. He says that the hour of His departure from the world has now come. He notes that He speaks this aloud before His disciples.
In this way, amid all the temptations soon to come upon them, they would remember Christ's intercession for them. They would be filled with the same joy with which He is filled as He goes to the Father. He goes to the Father after He has fully handed over and revealed to His disciples everything the Father entrusted Him to reveal to men. Yet at the same time the world, the unbelieving part of mankind, hated them because they were not of the world. Therefore they need God's special help, which protects them from the evil of the world. And the Lord prays to the Father that He preserve them from this evil.
As He completed His ministry to the human race, Jesus was leaving only eleven apostles and a few disciples. This little flock of Christ had to go into the kingdom of darkness and bring into it the light of divine truth. It is clear with what fury they would be met in that kingdom. Persecutions would begin against them and their followers. Even the word "Christian" would become hateful to the sons of darkness. What unshakable faith and what courage they needed to withstand the assault of the savage enemies of God's righteousness. Yet precisely this unshakable faith and this courage were lacking in them at that time. Soon they would abandon their Teacher. Peter, who until then had seemed the firmest believer in Him, this rock of apostolic faith, would deny Him three times.
Foreseeing all this, Jesus knew that victory would not come easily to His disciples. Without special support from above, they could not even emerge victorious from the struggle before them. Therefore, after giving them all His final farewell instructions, He turns in supplication to His Father. He asks Him to guard their faith from every temptation and wavering. He asks Him to sanctify them by His truth. He asks that, after they have completed their earthly struggle, they may be counted worthy to be where He, Christ, will be. He asks that not only they, but all who believe through their word, may be united by self-denying love for one another. He asks that they may remain in constant union with Him, Jesus Christ, and with the Father who sent Him.
The exposition of the first subject of the prayer for the disciples, "keep them," is completed. The exposition of the second subject begins, "sanctify them." As with the first, it is preceded by the motives and grounds for this prayer. "I have given them Thy word," and so forth. The Lord's word, His teaching, was given to the disciples as God's word and received by them as such. It aroused the world's hatred against them, as also against Him Himself. They must remain in this hostile world for the lofty purposes of spreading and establishing My Kingdom on earth. Therefore I do not pray that Thou shouldst take them at once from the midst of this hostile world. I pray only that Thou shouldst keep them from evil.
This is the evil which the hostile world, together with the prince of the world, can inflict upon them; cf. Mt 6:13; Lk 11:4. "They are not of the world," and so forth; see the note on Jn 15:19. "Even as I am not of the world": "Do not be troubled by this. The word 'as' does not here signify perfect likeness. When Christ and the Father are spoken of, the word 'as' expresses complete equality. When we and Christ are spoken of, it allows for a great difference, because of the great and boundless difference between His nature and ours" (Chrysostom; cf. Theophylact).
At the conclusion of His farewell discourse with the apostles, the Lord Jesus Christ foretold their victory over the unbelieving and embittered world. Yet He did not hide from them that a heavy struggle with the kingdom of darkness and malice lay before them. Foreseeing this struggle, Christ offers fervent prayer to God the Father in the presence of the apostles, to encourage them and strengthen their faith. From deep Christian antiquity this prayer has been called the high-priestly prayer. In it Christ, as High Priest, prays for Himself (verses 1-5), for His disciples (verses 6-19), and for His Church (verses 20-26). He also dedicates Himself to redemptive, sacrificial death.
In the prayer for Himself, Christ asks for divine glorification as the natural completion of His saving ministry on earth. He asks it for the triumph of the true faith, which leads to eternal life. For His little flock, the apostles whom He sends into the world for struggle, Christ prays that the heavenly Father guard their faith from all temptations and wavering. He prays that He sanctify them by His truth and, after they have completed their earthly struggle, count them worthy of blessedness in the Kingdom of Heaven in union with Him, Christ. For all believers drawn into Christ's Church by the preaching of the apostles, He prays that they remain in constant union with one another. They are to be bound by mutual self-denying love, and also united with Him and with the Father who sent Him: "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us" (verse 21; cf. verses 22-23). The high-priestly prayer of Christ the Savior depicts, in artistic form, the essence of His redemptive ministry to the world. It is lofty in feeling and deep in thought. At the same time, it is supremely simple and clear for a believing soul to receive.
So much consolation awaited the disciples from their union with their Lord. In the world, however, they could expect nothing for themselves except sorrows and persecution. Was it not easy for them to think, Why then does He not take us with Him? Why does He leave us in a world so unfriendly to us? How often such questions are torn from the depth of the heart when it encounters the malice of the world. How often Christ's followers sigh deeply because their sorrowful earthly life lasts so long. This is especially true of those who have not yet learned God's ways through long experience. They have only recently entered Christ's thorny path. At times they are so troubled by bitter temptations that they do not know what to think of the purpose of their earthly life.
In their soul the sorrowful cry resounds: Why, O Lord, should we live any longer? It is beyond our strength to struggle with the world and sin. O heavenly Goodness, take us to Thyself! "I do not pray that Thou shouldst take them out of the world," the Lord Jesus answers such complaints. Why is this so? He wills that His disciples should remain in the world for a time. For what purpose? For their good and for the good of His Church. The apostles still had to be purified by the Holy Spirit. They had to pass through the whole world with the Gospel preaching. They had to labor much for the spread of Christ's teaching, so as to be called great in Christ's Kingdom. Such was God's will concerning them. If the Lord delays in taking you from the earth, poor pilgrim of the earth, believe that this is needful for you yourself. Look more closely at yourself. Look more deeply into your heart. You will see that there is still much that is earthly in your heart. There are many attachments to the world, much dreamy self-love, and little firmness worthy of a disciple of Christ. You will see that the healing of these sicknesses of your soul still requires much time, much trial, and many ascetic labors. Therefore revere the good will of the heavenly Father concerning you. "I pray that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil one." The world is dangerous because it draws men to its sinful rules of life, sometimes by flattery and sometimes by violence. There is no doubt that "each one is tempted by his own desire, being drawn away and enticed" (Jas 1:14). Yet there is also no doubt that the things loved by the sinful world powerfully inflame our inclinations toward evil. One must have great firmness and much strength to withstand the seductions of the sinful world. Strange as it may seem, men deceived by sin do evil to themselves and wish to do evil to others as well. They are even offended when they do not succeed in doing evil. Against this destructive breath of the world the Lord Jesus asks heavenly help for His disciples. He prays that the heavenly Father preserve them from the corruption which the world is ready to bring upon them (Rev 3:10).
The Lord says, "I do not pray that Thou shouldst take them out of the world." The apostles were God's instruments for preaching. They alone were not to be saved. Through their mouths the Gospel had to be preached to the whole universe: "Their proclamation has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world" (Ps 18:5; cf. Rom 10:13-20). Therefore they are left as "witnesses" (Jn 15:27) and preachers of the Lord. Yet as He sends them into the world, the Lord gives them courage and strength in this prayer. Spoken aloud as a revelation for the disciples, it promises to "keep them from the evil one." "The Lord," says Chrysostom, "spoke not only of delivering them from dangers, but also of establishing them in the faith.
Therefore He added, 'Sanctify them in Thy truth,' that is, make them holy by the imparting of the Holy Spirit and right doctrines. As He had said before, 'You are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you' (Jn 15:3), so now He says the same thing: instruct them, teach them the truth." Without struggle there is no victory. Therefore the apostles had to remain in the world and go to battle. They had to remember the Lord's words, that they "are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." They also had to remember the Lord's words: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). The Lord repeatedly told His disciples that they could no longer belong to the world. They were to have nothing in common with it, but remain in it only for the Lord's purposes; cf. Jn 15:19 and above in this chapter, verses 11 and 14. Thus also in the preaching on the Beatitudes in Luke 6:26, the Lord warned His disciples that woe comes when all men speak well of them. As one of the Lord's "witnesses," the Apostle James, beautifully expressed it: "Friendship with the world is enmity against God" (Jas 4:4). "Sanctify them in Thy truth," the Lord prayed for His disciples. This is that heavenly, absolute truth which regenerated the believers. For this truth the world hated the Lord's disciples. The Lord prays that the apostles be sanctified by the Spirit of God, so that they may be reborn as new men dedicated to God's truth. These men offer themselves in sacrifice and dedicate themselves to God. The Lord mercifully receives their sanctified souls and bodies "as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God," for their rational service to Him (Rom 12:1). The truth in which the chosen disciples are sanctified is the fullness of all the divine words and deeds of the God-man, who manifested the invisible God in the world. It is the very Theophany of the Word, who is Truth. The Word of God is not only what our Lord Jesus Christ spoke. It is also all His works, sufferings, death, and glorious resurrection. Therefore, when "the Word became flesh," the new man is created together with this. He is "created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Eph 4:24). This new creation is accomplished by truth, which is the very Word of God, absolute Truth. "I am what I also say to you," the Lord said to the Jews. "I am the Word. I am the Truth. Apart from Me there is no other truth" (Jn 8:25 and the study of this verse).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 15 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS