The second reading is John Chapter 17. John Chapter 17 is a record of a prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ which he prayed just before he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. We are going to begin reading at verse 13. The Lord Jesus of course knew exactly what was going to happen and he knew that he was coming to the end of his earthly ministry. He was about to be arrested and crucified and he is praying for his people. John chapter 17 and verse 13 he says and now I come to thee And these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou wouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone. In that verse the Lord Jesus is referring to those who were his disciples. He says, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee. That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. I will end that reading there and trust that God will bless that passage to us. I must have a bit of room to move here. We are going to be looking at the 17th verse of this passage, John chapter 17 this morning. John chapter 17 and verse 17 where one of the things that the Lord Jesus prays for his people is this, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. I don't know if you are the kind of person who makes New Year resolutions. I am not a great maker of New Year resolutions. I am a good maker of New Year resolutions when I do make them. But I am not a great maker of them. I spent most of my life really wondering what all the fuss was about actually when it came to New Year. But some years ago I had a very difficult year and then we got to a new year and I was really pleased to see it come. So I started to realise why it was so significant and often significant to many people. And I thought well this year can't be as bad as the last year and gained a new appreciation of it. And it seems to me that there's no sort of legislation about this, but if in some way we can use the fact that it's a new year to help us to take stock, to help us to look at ourselves and to identify areas perhaps where we could improve, that it's not a bad thing. if we get any support from the fact that it is a new year to make use of that support and to try and take changes forward. I wonder if you've ever thought about the statement that Paul makes in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 12. That's the passage where he speaks about not being perfect and so on. But he says that this is what he does. He says, I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. And that's one of the places and one of the ways in which Paul sums up the Christian life. He sums up what he is doing. And it seems to me that that's a tremendous statement. It seems to me that that's one of those statements that in fact sort of yields more and more fruitful proof the more that we think about it. But what Paul is saying here is that first of all he speaks about what it was for him to become a Christian. He says, I was arrested. I was apprehended. We know about being apprehended. It's what policemen do to people who break the law. They apprehend them. They get hold of them, stop them, handcuff them. And they do whatever they can to stop them carrying on the way they were doing and to bring them to account. And that's how Paul describes becoming a Christian. He says, I was apprehended of Christ Jesus. Jesus arrested me. And then he says as a result of that, I follow after him. It's that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. In other words, when Jesus arrested Paul, it was for a purpose. It wasn't just that he might become a Christian. It was so that Paul, as a result of becoming a Christian, should become a different kind of person than Paul the non-Christian. It was to begin to set in motion in Paul's life certain principles and forces that were going to change him over the years that lay ahead. There was that for which he was apprehended. He wasn't just apprehended, he was apprehended for something. And Paul says that he was trying to apprehend the thing for which he was apprehended. So Jesus, if you like, had caught him, and because Jesus had caught him, he was trying to catch something else now, and make it a part of his life. That's what Paul was trying to do. And as I say, we could think about that for a long, long time, and it seems to me to be one of those verses that the more you think about it, or discuss it, or whatever, the verse for Discussion Bible Study, the more sort of thoughts that just seem to keep coming out of it. Because so much is implied in it. It tells us that the Christian life is not a life in which we are meant to stand still. It is a life in which we are meant to grow and go forward. It implies to us that we can never be satisfied that we have fully apprehended everything. that's supposed to be a part of our lives. Paul is trying to catch this, he's trying to bring it in. And the problem isn't that what he is trying to catch is trying to get away, but the problem is that it's such a high ideal that he could live his whole life four or five times over and still not have enough time to become what he really wanted to be. But even though that was the case, he hadn't given up. Even though he could never be what he would really want to be until the Lord Jesus Christ comes again and transforms him, it is still his lifelong quest. This is how he describes the Christian life. There's something else here as well which seems interesting to me, and it's this, that he has gained the same vision for his life as Christ did. Christ had a purpose in making Paul a Christian. Paul had come to understand that purpose and he was as committed to making it a reality as Christ is committed to making it a reality. I'm trying to apprehend that for which I was apprehended by Christ Jesus. And it seems to me that if as Christians we can pick up some of that spirit, because it's true of us too, that the Lord Jesus Christ has made me a Christian in order to become something. And I'm embracing that objective for my life as well and I'm working at it. It's my aim and objective and I understand what it is. Well, how do we know what it is that we have been apprehended to become? Well, one of the ways in which we know is to read this prayer in John chapter 17. Because in John chapter 17 the Lord Jesus reveals many of the things that he desires for his church. He desires that they would be kept. that they would not be lost. He desires that they would be kept from evil. He desires that they would be glorified. He desires that those who have been given to him should be with him, where he is. He desires their unity. These are the things for which the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life. We're just looking at one of those things really because we're just looking at verse 17. But I must admit as I prepared this I thought to myself, well here's a good series here in this chapter. The things that the Lord Jesus desires for his church. We can't look at them all. We look at this particular one. But how do we look at it in that spirit of the Apostle Paul? This is what I was made a Christian for. This is what I was apprehended for. And therefore this is what I must try and apprehend in my own life. Even though I will never perfectly achieve it in the flesh, I will never perfectly achieve it in this life, I will never perfectly achieve it before I'm glorified, nonetheless, this is to be my aim. This is why I am made a Christian. It's not the only reason, but it's one of the reasons. Why am I made a Christian? And I hope that in that spirit, that same spirit, that we can look at this. Just remind ourselves of these words then. John chapter 17 and verse 17. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Well how important is sanctification to us? How important is it that we grow in our likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ? How much is that our great desire? The Lord Jesus Christ prays for us. It is part of his vision that we are saved to be holy. We are saved to be like him. We have to ask ourselves, well now are we trying to catch holiness? Not in the sense of catching it like an illness, being infected with it, you can't catch it like that. But are we trying to grasp it? To get hold of it? To make progress on it? Because that would be one of the things certainly that the Apostle Paul would have had in mind. Prayer, this little phrase in Jesus' prayer also reveals something else, it reveals something that we need in order to be holy. We need the truth. Sanctify them through thy truth. And it goes further, it tells us where we can find the truth. Thy word is truth. So I want to really look at this verse if you like under three headings. I want to first of all ask what sanctification is. And then secondly I want to affirm the practical nature of truth and the benefit of knowing truth. And then I want to look at this statement that the word is truth. So what exactly is Jesus praying for? Obviously he knew what he meant and the father to whom he was praying would have understood exactly what he meant when he prayed this but the possibility is that we might not. So when the Lord Jesus prays for his people that they would be sanctified through the truth, what exactly is he praying for? Well, the idea of sanctification is used in two ways in the Bible. Sometimes it's used of objects. So, for example, in the temple, which is the place where the people worshipped God, there were pots and pans that were described as holy. It wasn't that those pots and pans or indeed any of the other items of furniture and so on that were there. It wasn't that those particular items had some kind of moral character about them. It wasn't even perhaps that they actually looked any different to any other pots or pans or items of furniture and so on. It wasn't that. You didn't reverence them as you looked at them and thought, wow, you know, there's something really special and terribly holy and fit to be reverenced about that particular item. It wasn't that. But the point was that they were not used anywhere else. They weren't used for anything. They were separated. They were dedicated. They were the pots and pans and the items of furniture which were there in the temple to be used exclusively in connection with the worship of God. They were set apart. They couldn't be taken out and used in the kitchen or for some other purpose. They weren't for that. They were set apart for this purpose of worship. and so they are described as holy. But then there's another sense in which the word sanctification is used and that's the moral sense. It's perhaps the way we normally think of it when we think of a holy person, a holy life. In verse 11 in this prayer Jesus uses this word when he addresses God the Father. He describes him as Holy Father. Now God is a Holy God. The angels who are in the presence of God When we read of them and hear what they say, they just cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy. They are so impressed with the holiness of God. He has a moral character which is more pure than we can imagine. And this word which is translated here, Holy, Holy Father, It comes from the same root as the word that Jesus uses in verse 17 when he prays that we might be sanctified. So he is praying that we might have the characteristics of God, make them like you. This is what sanctification means. Holiness of life. We read from Romans chapter 6 beginning at verse 11. It speaks about holiness of life. It speaks about what we do with our bodies. What we do with our arms and our legs and our tongues and our minds and so on. How we actually put these things to use. And we are exhorted in Romans chapter 6 not to yield those things to sin, but to righteousness. to dedicate our bodies in the everyday things that we do to God. In another place Paul speaks about trying to bring every thought captive to Christ. And this is how we often think of holiness. Holiness is something that doesn't happen overnight. Sanctification is something that doesn't happen overnight. It's something that is a process. Jesus prays in this verse, sanctify them through thy truth. Now there is no experience that can suddenly deliver you and me to a knowledge of all the truth. Our grasp of truth is something that grows and goes on growing throughout our lives. When we think one true thought and grasp one true idea, that becomes a kind of foundation on which we can build further true thoughts and further true ideas. And when we begin to understand things as we ought to understand them, we begin to be able to look at other things in a truthful way and in a critical way. And sometimes we find ourselves being critical of things that we've been doing for years without worrying about. Because we suddenly realise, oh that contradicts that truth. That kind of behaviour, that way of speaking, that way of thinking, it contradicts that kind of truth. I never thought of that before. Truth is something that we have to be led into. When Jesus was speaking to the apostles and spoke about the fact that they would come to know all the truth. They were going to write the Bible, they must be kept from error. And he said he would send the Spirit, but even the Spirit would lead them into all the truth. It wasn't just suddenly that the Spirit was going to come and suddenly they were going to know everything. And it's the same with us. Truth is something that we have to be led into. And as we are led into it, if we receive it with humility, it will sanctify us. It will change what we do and it will change what we are. So that's what sanctification is. It is being dedicated to God's purposes, dedicated to God's service, not spending part of our lives living for God, part of it living for ourselves. And it's something which is progressive, it's something which shows itself as we become increasingly holy. But it's something that progresses as we grow in our understanding of the truth. The second thing I wanted to say really is that this verse implies to us the practicality of truth. Now I just want to affirm it. Because we live in a day in which people sort of have less and less time for truth and doctrine and all of these things. They say no, doctrine is not helpful. It's not only a waste of time, they even go so far as to say that doctrine is actually divisive. It's what separates Christians. Christians, they say, have a wonderful experience and a whole sort of basis on which they can unite with each other and share their experience of God and then they start talking about doctrine and they start disagreeing. So doctrine is a bad thing. No, not according to this verse. If you haven't got truth, if you haven't got doctrine, you can't have the sanctification that Jesus prayed you would have. Truth exists. It's part of our Christian understanding that there is such a thing as truth. And truth isn't a politician. Truth doesn't have to be popular in order to exist. It isn't something that depends on whether or not I accept it. It's true whether or not I accept it. There is such a thing as that. And it seems to me that we live in a world in which that whole kind of way of thinking is just so very thoroughly rejected. I was reminded of an essay I once read by G.K. Chesterton in which he describes the experience of being in a horse-drawn handsome cab which was being driven far too fast and it turned over. And he said in the period between this thing being upright and being on its side and him being thrown out, he said he went through every religion known to man in order to try and preserve himself and what might happen. But it seems that people do this kind of thing. I had a strange experience recently. It was a very strange experience. I met up with three people with whom I was at school. I did this thing that everybody else is doing. I went on this Friends Reunited website and started making contact with people and I met three of them. And it's very strange to meet people that you haven't met for 35 years. That's how long ago it was, since I was at school with them. And you've had no contact with them at all, down in the meantime. So your life has gone on in completely different directions and then all of a sudden you come back together again. It's a very strange experience. But it really underscored to me how much one should appreciate being a Christian. These other three people were not Christians. I don't want, they are not here to defend themselves. I don't want to stand here and sort of slag off their lives and everything. But certainly there were things in their lives that I wouldn't want to have in mine. Problems they had and failed marriages and difficulties and so on. And just going from one thing to another with no, nothing firm, nothing to really hold on to, nothing to give them principles and guidance. And I appreciate that the grace has gone too, because when I thought back to our school years, really, if anything, the boot should have been on the other foot. When we met together, it should have been me that was the disaster, and they that were much more successful. I was a disaster at school. I didn't become a Christian until I was 17. I wasn't brought up in a Christian home or anything like that. I didn't really understand the gospel at all until I was in my teens. And my school years were terrible. They were terrible for my teachers. They were terrible for me. And I was, you know, appallingly behaved and very lazy. And if any of you are struggling to overcome the habit of laziness, overcome it because I can tell you if you acquire it and nurture it and train yourself, it's a habit that stays with you. And one of these people, it's quite interesting, one of them said, sort of part way through the meeting, she just suddenly blurted out, I can't believe you. She said, I thought you'd be sitting in handcuffs to a policeman or something. But that's how it was. And really, that's how it should have been. I was taken aside by the deputy headmaster of my school, before I left school, and given a real stiff talking to. And he said, you know where you'll end up? And I knew what was on his mind, but I denied it, of course. No, I don't know. He said, you're going to end up in jail. And as I sat there I thought, it's my life that should have been a mess. But Christ came in and I appreciate this in a new way. Much more than I did certainly before a few weeks ago. Because we go on in the Christian life and we just sort of mix with Christians and we take a lot of things for granted. But the world doesn't have them. And the world is in a terrible mess. And truth is a very practical thing. It really does save you, it rescues you, it rescues you from all sorts of things. Let me give you some examples. We could go back to Romans 6, the whole letter to the Romans. is a tremendous blend of powerful doctrine, real hard to understand doctrine, and when you do understand it, it's powerful, but it's very practical. What is the great practical exhortation in the letters to the Romans, it's in chapter 12 and verse 1, where Paul urges us by the mercies of God to present our bodies as living sacrifices. That's what all this doctrine in the Letter to the Romans is all about, all leading up to, and then in the chapters afterwards he spells out how we present our bodies as living sacrifices. The most probably sustained doctrinal portion of scripture, the Letter to the Romans, is there for practical effect. In Philippians chapter 2 we've got that wonderful passage about the Lord Jesus Christ and how we are to try and have the same mind, the same attitude as Him. Philippians chapter 2 verse 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Now what is that passage telling us, telling us to be humble? What gives it its power and its authority? It is the doctrine of the Incarnation. If you were there when the Lord Jesus was born, unless you were one of those people who understood him because God revealed to you who he was, you would have just thought it was a baby being born. You wouldn't have realised it was God coming in the flesh, you wouldn't have realised that's what you were looking at. We need the scriptures to tell us that that's what happened. We have the doctrine of the incarnation, otherwise it's just a birth. There might be a lot of circumstances that make it a sort of a birth that we go ooh and ahh over, you know, animals present and all that kind of thing. There might be a lot of those kind of circumstances, but that's not the great significance of it. It's the incarnation. Well, what is the incarnation? It is God. who was glorious, who had equality with the Father but he didn't consider it something to be grasped. He didn't say I'm not going to stay here in heaven so I'm just worshipped all the time by everybody who sees me because when they see me you can't do anything else but worship me. No, he didn't consider his equality with God something to be grasped. But he laid it aside, he became a man and when people looked at him as a man they didn't realise they were looking at God. So his experience on earth was very different to his experience in heaven. But he humbled himself and became obedient even unto death. Now if we grasp that, we realise that we ought to humble ourselves. You see the doctrine and the practicality. Without the doctrine, well, there isn't the same authority, there isn't the same impact. Further on in the New Testament, in the first letter of John, in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 14. There are lots of verses we could look at for this, but we read this, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. There is a doctrine in the scripture, the doctrine of the church. And it is a wonderful doctrine. It tells us that this church is not a human institution, it is a blood-bought thing. It is a blood-bought community. It tells me that my fellow church member is a church member for exactly the same reason that I am, because Christ went to the cross and hung and suffered there for him and shed his blood. It tells me that that church member, that naturally I wouldn't actually have anything to do with, because they're not the kind of person that I normally mix with, is loved by God just as much as I'm loved by God. And I recognise from that that I must love that person too. And I must be willing to do it and want to do it. And if I don't love that person, I don't love Christians, I don't love God. If I can't love the image of God in another man, then I don't love God. John makes this point very forcibly here. If we don't love God, if we don't love our brothers, he says, how can we love God? If we don't love our brothers whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen? We might love something that we've created in our own minds, that we call God, but in reality what we see in our brothers and sisters is the true God. And if we don't love it, we don't love Him. Doctrine. The doctrine of the church. Very practical. It is what actually creates the quality of relationship that is supposed to exist between Christian people. Let's go back to Peter's second letter to Peter. Chapter 3 and the passage beginning at verse 10. We read this, But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found in him in peace, without spot, and blameless." Here's a doctrine, it's not an experience. Nobody's experienced the second coming of Christ. It doesn't happen. It's a doctrine. But it's a practical doctrine. Peter twice uses the word seeing, verse 11, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be? Verse 14, wherefore beloved seeing that ye look for such things. It is a doctrine, it is a very real hope and we ought to be characterised and the more strongly and firmly that we hold this hope the more we will be characterised by heavenly characteristics. The more we will realise as we look at the world and our heart goes out after certain things. Oh I must have that. Why? It's not going to be different. But you and I are going to live with it all. In an environment which is much better. That's what Peter says here. We look for such things. We expect the world to be burned up. We expect all the things that people live for and feel that they can't live without to be taken away from them. We ought not to love the world because of the doctrine. It's not consistent with what we believe to be attached to this world. So as these truths, there are many many more examples, but as these truths are grasped by us and as they grasp us, and as they shape our thinking and our beliefs and our understanding of the world that we see. They cause us to be liberated from the wrong things that want to get hold of us. They cause us to be attached to the things that we ought to be attached to. They sanctify us. Truth is practical. Don't ever believe anybody. who says that truth isn't practical, or doctrine isn't practical, or doctrine is divisive, it doesn't do a good thing and so on. It's practical. There are many examples of that in the scriptures. But then lastly, where do you find truth? Opinions people come out with very enormously. People say what they want so that they can behave however. Jesus said in John chapter 3, didn't he, about people, he said men love darkness because their deeds are evil. And that's not just an observation, it's a really sort of powerful statement, isn't it? That actually people love darkness, they're emotionally attached to being ignorant. And they will feed this ignorance, like you feed a love. And you do the things you do in order to encourage love and so on and for it not to die. And that's what people will do and they will feed all of this. This is something else I realised through this meeting that I had recently. We were talking about different things and people come out with all sorts of phrases like... How can you tell what's right and wrong? You can't tell. I think I'll become a Muslim says somebody who has got no idea at all about any kind of religion whatsoever as far as I could work out. But anything was attractive provided it enabled them to do what they wanted to do. Any kind of affirmation, commitment, or I believe in reincarnation, all this kind of thing, without really thinking it through. And it just seemed so odd to me. I thought, why go through all this when there is such truth, there is actually a living saviour, a resurrected Christ that could really come in and really put your feet on solid ground. But young men love darkness. They don't love light, they love darkness because their deeds are evil. But where do we find truth? You won't find it by listening to people. Chops and changes. You won't find it by listening to scientists. This is one of the great areas of authority, isn't it, in our day. Science is supposed to have so many answers. I remember hearing a man who actually wrote physics textbooks as a profession. He was a Christian man. He said, my physics textbooks are not like the Bible. He said, I've already written it five times already. There isn't the authority then. There isn't the authority in the ever shifting, changing opinions of men. That's what Jesus said, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. Right now we are coming back to the New Year's resolutions. Let's resolve to become more familiar with the scriptures. Let's resolve to be more faithful in our daily reading. Let's resolve, if we can, to give more time so that we can give it more thought. We have got such a fantastic thing here in this book. We don't realise how powerful it is. We don't realise how powerful and life-changing the things that it contains are. We don't realise how much good it does us. It's like those things, you know, Robert Murray which shames him, you know, when he speaks about being in heaven. Then, Lord, shall I fully know, and not till then, how much I owe. And it seems to me that we don't realise how much we owe to God simply for giving us the Bible. Now, I don't want to give the impression that being a Christian is just about reading the Bible and obeying it as a set of laws or anything like that. I don't want to give that impression at all. We know that being a Christian is about knowing God personally through Christ and out of that relationship we read the scriptures because it is the word of God, the God whom we love and who loves us. But this is where we find the truth. Thy word is truth and there is so much error And there are so many people in this world, there are so many people in this land, even a few doors up and down this street, probably, who never hear truth. Who just have, you know, what they hear, what they pick up, who are floundering around. We have truth. No, it won't achieve what it's going to achieve overnight. I told you I was very lazy when I was at school. I was lazy in everything. I was lazy in academic work, I was lazy in sport, lazy in athletics, lazy in everything. You know, when you used to get sent off on a cross-country run, I knew where you could start walking and not be seen. And where you had to start running again in order not to be seen. And all of those kinds of things. And when I was about 20, I thought, I'll start running. So I did. And more or less kept it up. With more or less regularity till now. When I run now, I think this is really enjoyable. Why didn't I do this when I was a teenager? I actually had the energy, and I wasn't as heavy as I am now, and so on. This is actually really enjoyable. I could hardly run through a bus when I was a teenager, let alone run a few miles or something, but I can now, and I do, and I enjoy it. And I was thinking, recently I was doing it, I was thinking, ah, this is really enjoyable. I was running through a sort of wooded area, fairly near where I lived, and it was very nice. And how enjoyable this is, and sort of feeling fit, you know, deep breaths and all that kind of thing. But I thought, well, this is the result of just keeping it up over the years. When I first started, I ran round the block. I lived in Tottenham, you know, it was a little block. I ran round the block and I ate all day. I think the next day I went around two blocks. I was actually crawling for about a week. So I didn't start from a good position at all. But now I can. I run a few miles and enjoy it. It's only because I kept it up. And it's just a little bit every day. Every week I should say, to be perfectly honest when it comes to running. That's how it is with the scriptures. We are not going to turn to the scriptures and sort of have a kind of mega revelation. We are going to be led into the truth. And as we grow in our understanding of certain things then we will be able to build on that and we will be able to deepen our understanding and we will be able to understand more things. You have to think certain right thoughts before you can sort of grow and develop and think in a certain direction. You have to get hold of certain fundamental things. So it's like that. And although we can't see each and every day, yes I've made that much progress, I can measure it today, progress will be made. And maybe it's over the years that we have some kind of experience, as I say I had recently meeting these three friends. And you realise how different your life has been. certainly to what it could have been. And how God has been a woman, though you haven't realised it, perhaps on just a small way each and every day. But over the years the fruit is there, the difference is there. So this is then the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, or one part of his prayer for us, that we should be sanctified through the truth. This is the means. The truth is here, in these pages. It is a practical thing. Grow, even if it's only a little bit, daily if possible, in your understanding. And we will be sanctified as a result. And in that we will be following after. trying to apprehend that for which we were apprehended of Christ Jesus.