---
title: John 17:17
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-17-17/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-17-17.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 17:17
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 17:17

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth."

## JW Usage

Witnesses affirm this verse — "your word is truth" — and use it to support the conviction that the Bible is the standard of truth. In practice, however, the application is filtered through the organisation: the Bible is the truth as understood through the Watchtower's interpretation. The verse does not, in JW practice, function as a falsifiability test for organisational teaching.

## Protestant Usage

When a Witness asks "how do we know we have the truth?" and we appeal to feelings or to organisational track record, we have already lost the argument. Jesus locates truth elsewhere: "your word is truth." Scripture is the standard, not human certainty and not institutional authority. Pair with Acts 17:11 (the Bereans tested even an apostle's preaching against Scripture) and 1 John 4:1 (test the spirits — every claim is testable). The argument runs cleanly: every religious group claims subjective certainty, so subjective certainty cannot adjudicate truth claims; the differentiator must be external; Jesus says that external standard is the Father's word, written. If our feelings contradict Scripture, our feelings are wrong. If the Watchtower's reading contradicts Scripture, the Watchtower is wrong. That rule cuts evenly in every direction.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Comparative Line-Up](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/comparative-line-up.md) — Competing Certainties Cannot All Be True [Epistemology]