'These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may
glorify Thee: As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is
life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have
finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father,
glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with
Thee before the world was. I have manifested Thy name unto the men
which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest
them Me; and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all
things whatsoever Thou hast given Me, are of Thee. For I have given
unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them,
and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed
that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are
Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no
more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy
Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that
they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept
them in Thy name: those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of
them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be
fulfilled. And now come I 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
shouldest 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.'--JOHN xvii. 1-19.
We may well despair of doing justice to the deep thoughts of this
prayer, which volumes would not exhaust. Who is worthy to speak or to
write about such sacred words? Perhaps we may best gain some glimpses
of their great and holy sublimity by trying to gather their teaching
round the centres of the three petitions, 'glorify' (vs. 1, 5), 'keep'
(v. 11), and 'sanctify' (v. 17).
I. In verses 1-5, Jesus prays for Himself, that He may be restored to
His pre-incarnate glory; but yet the prayer desires not so much that
glory as affecting Himself, as His being fitted thereby for completing
His work of manifesting the Father. There are three main points in
these verses-the petition, its purpose, and its grounds.
As to the first, the repetition of the request in verses 1 and 5 is
significant, especially if we note that in the former the language is
impersonal, 'Thy Son,' and continues so till verse 4, where 'I' and
'Me' appear. In verses 1-3, then, the prayer rests upon the ideal
relations of Father and Son, realised in Jesus, while in verses 4 and 5
the personal element is emphatically presented. The two petitions are
in their scope identical. The 'glorifying' in the former is more fully
explained in the latter as being that which He possessed in that
ineffable fellowship with the Father, not merely before incarnation,
but before creation. In His manhood He possessed and manifested the
'glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth';
but that glory, lustrous though it was, was pale, and humiliation
compared with the light inaccessible, which shone around the Eternal
Word in the bosom of the Father. Yet He who prayed was the same Person
who had walked in that light before time was, and now in human flesh
asked for what no mere manhood could bear. The first form of the
petition implies that such a partaking in the uncreated glory of the
Father is the natural prerogative of One who is 'the Son,' while the
second implies that it is the appropriate recompense of the earthly
life and character of the man Jesus.
The petition not only reveals the conscious divinity of the Son, but
also His willing acceptance of the Cross; for the glorifying sought is
that reached through death, resurrection, and ascension, and that
introductory clause, 'the hour is come,' points to the impending
sufferings as the first step in the answer to the petition. The
Crucifixion is always thus treated in this Gospel, as being both the
lowest humiliation and the 'lifting up' of the Son; and here He is
reaching out His hand, as it were, to draw His sufferings nearer. So
willingly and desiringly did this Isaac climb the mount of sacrifice.
Both elements of the great saying in the Epistle to the Hebrews are
here: 'For the joy that was set before Him, [He] endured the Cross.'
The purpose of the petition is to be noted; namely, the Son's
glorifying of the Father. No taint of selfishness corrupted His prayer.
Not for Himself, but for men, did He desire His glory. He sought return
to that serene and lofty seat, and the elevation of His limited manhood
to the throne, not because He was wearied of earth or impatient of
weakness, sorrows, or limitations, but that He might more fully
manifest by that Glory, the Father's name. To make the Father known is
to make the Father glorious; for He is all fair and lovely. That
revelation of divine perfection, majesty, and sweetness was the end of
Christ's earthly life, and is the end of His heavenly divine activity.
He needs to reassume the prerogatives of which He needed to divest
Himself, and both necessities have one end. He had to lay aside His
garments and assume the form of a servant, that He might make God
known; but, that revelation being complete, He must take His garments
and sit down again, before He can go on to tell all the meaning of what
He has 'done unto us.'
The ground of the petition is twofold. Verses 2 and 3 represent the
glory sought for, as the completion of the Son's mission and task.
Already He had been endowed with 'authority over all flesh,' for the
purpose of bestowing eternal life; and that eternal life stands in the
knowledge of God, which is the same as the knowledge of Christ. The
present gift to the Son and its purpose are thus precisely parallel
with the further gift desired, and that is the necessary carrying out
of this. The authority and office of the incarnate Christ demand the
glory of, and consequent further manifestation by, the glorified
Christ. The life which He comes to give is a life which flows from the
revelation that He makes of the Father, received, not as mere
intellectual knowledge, but as loving acquaintance.
The second ground for the petition is in verse 4, the actual perfect
fulfilment by the Son of that mission. What untroubled consciousness of
sinless obedience and transparent shining through His life of the
Father's likeness and will He must have had, who could thus assert His
complete realisation of that Father's revealing purpose, as the ground
of His deserving and desiring participation in the divine glory! Surely
such words are either the acme of self-righteousness or the
self-revealing speech of the Son of God.
II. With verse 6 we pass to the more immediate reference to the
disciples, and the context from thence to verse 15 may be regarded as
all clustered round the second petition 'keep' (v. 11). That central
request is preceded and followed by considerations of the disciples'
relation to Christ and to the world, which may be regarded as its
grounds. The whole context preceding the petition may be summed up in
two grounds for the prayer--the former set forth at length, and the
latter summarily; the one being the genuine, though incomplete
discipleship of the men for whom Christ prays (vs. 6-10), and the
latter their desolate condition without Jesus (v. 11).
It is beautiful to see how our Lord here credits the disciples with
genuine grasp, both in heart and head, of His teaching. He had shortly
before had to say, 'Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast
thou not known Me?' and soon 'they all forsook Him and fled.' But
beneath misconception and inadequate apprehension there lived faith and
love; and He saw 'the full corn in the ear,' when only the green
'blade' was visible, pushing itself above the surface. We may take
comfort from this generous estimate of imperfect disciples. If He did
not tend, instead of quenching, 'dimly burning wicks,' where would He
have 'lights in the world?'
Verse 6 lays down the beginning of discipleship as threefold: Christ's
act in revealing; the Father's, in giving men to Jesus; and men's, in
keeping the Father's word. 'Thy word' is the whole revelation by
Christ, which is, as this Gospel so often repeats, not His own, but the
Father's. These three facts underlying discipleship are pleas for the
petition to follow; for unless the feeble disciples are 'kept' in the
name, as in a fortress, Christ's work of revelation is neutralised, the
Father's gift to Him made of none effect, and the incipient disciples
will not 'keep' His word. The plea is, in effect, 'Forsake not the
works of thine own hands'; and, like all Christ's prayers, it has a
promise in its depths, since God does not begin what He will not
finish; and it has a warning, too, that we cannot keep ourselves unless
a stronger Hand keeps us.
Verses 7 and 8 carry on the portraiture of discipleship, and thence
draw fresh pleas. The blessed result of accepting Christ's revelation
is a knowledge, built on happy experience, and, like the acquaintance
of heart with heart, issuing in the firm conviction that Christ's words
and deeds are from God. Why does He say, 'All things whatsoever Thou
hast given,' instead of simply 'that I have' or 'declare'? Probably it
is the natural expression of His consciousness, the lowly utterance of
His obedience, claiming nothing as His own, and yet claiming all, while
the subsequent clause 'are of Thee' expresses the disciples'
conviction. In like fashion our Lord, in verse 8, declares that His
words, in their manifoldness (contrast v. 6, 'Thy word'), were all
received by Him from the Father, and accepted by the disciples, with
the result that they came, as before, to 'know' by inward acquaintance
with Him as a person, and so to have the divinity of His Person
certified by experience, and further came to 'believe' that God had
sent Him, which was a conviction arrived at by faith. So knowledge,
which is personal experience and acquaintance, and faith, which rises
to the heights of the Father's purpose, come from the humble acceptance
of the Christ declaring the Father's name. First faith, then knowledge,
and then a fuller faith built on it, and that faith in its turn passing
into knowledge (v. 25)--these are the blessings belonging to the growth
of true discipleship, and are discerned by the loving eye of Jesus in
very imperfect followers.
In verse 9 Jesus assumes the great office of Intercessor. 'I pray for
them' is not so much prayer as His solemn presentation of Himself
before the Father as the High-priest of His people. It marks an epoch
in His work. The task of bringing God to man is substantially complete.
That of bringing men by supplication to God is now to begin. It is the
revelation of the permanent office of the departed Lord. Moses on the
Mount holds up the rod, and Israel prevails (Exod. xvii. 9). The
limitation of this prayer to the disciples applies only to the special
occasion, and has no bearing on the sweep of His redeeming purpose or
the desires of His all-pitying heart. The reasons for His intercession
follow in verses 9-11a. The disciples are the Father's, and continue so
even when 'given' to Christ, in accordance with the community of
possession, which oneness of nature and perfectness of love establish
between the Father and the Son. God cannot but care for those who are
His. The Son cannot but pray for those who are His. Their having
recognised Him for what He was binds Him to pray for them. He is
glorified in disciples, and if we show forth His character, He will be
our Advocate. The last reason for His prayer is the loneliness of the
disciples and their exposure in the world without Him. His departure
impelled Him to Intercede, both as being a leaving them defenceless and
as being an entrance into the heavenly state of communion with the
Father.
In the petition itself (v. 11b), observe the invocation 'Holy Father!'
with special reference to the prayer for preservation from the
corruption of the world. God's holiness is the pledge that He will make
us holy, since He is 'Father' as well. Observe the substance of the
request, that the disciples should be kept, as in a fortress, within
the enclosing circle of the name which God has given to Jesus. The name
is the manifestation of the divine nature. It was given to Jesus,
inasmuch as He, 'the Word,' had from the beginning the office of
revealing God; and that which was spoken of the Angel of the Covenant
is true in highest reality of Jesus: 'My name is in Him.' 'The name of
the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it and is safe.'
Observe the issue of this keeping; namely, the unity of believers. The
depths of that saying are beyond us, but we can at least see thus
far--that the true bond of unity is the name in which all who are one
are kept; that the pattern of the true unity of believers is the
ineffable union of Father and Son, which is oneness of will and nature,
along with distinctness of persons; and that therefore this purpose
goes far deeper than outward unity of organisation.
Then follow other pleas, which are principally drawn from Christ's
relation to the disciples, now ending; whereas the former ones were
chiefly deduced from the disciples' relation to Him. He can no more do
what He has done, and commits it to the Father. Happy we if we can
leave our unfinished tasks to be taken up by God, and trust those whom
we leave undefended to be shielded by Him! 'I kept' is, in the Greek,
expressive of continuous, repeated action, while 'I guarded' gives the
single issue of the many acts of keeping. Jesus keeps His disciples now
as He did then, by sedulous, patient, reiterated acts, so that they are
safe from evil. But note where He kept them--'in Thy name.' That is our
place of safety, a sure defence and inexpugnable fortress. One, indeed,
was lost; but that was not any slur on Christ's keeping, but resulted
from his own evil nature, as being 'a son of loss' (if we may so
preserve the affinity of the words in the Greek), and from the divine
decree from of old. Sharply defined and closely united are the two
apparent contradictories of man's free choice of destruction and God's
foreknowledge. Christ saw them in harmony, and we shall do so one day.
Then the flow of the prayer recurs to former thoughts. Going away so
soon, He yearned to leave them sharers of His own emotions in the
prospect of His departure to the Father, and therefore He had admitted
them (and us) to hear this sacred outpouring of His desires. If we laid
to heart the blessed revelations of this disclosure of Christ's heart,
and followed Him with faithful gaze as He ascends to the Father, and
realised our share in that triumph, our empty vessels would be filled
by some of that same joy which was His. Earthly joy can never be full;
Christian joy should never be anything less than full.
Then follows a final glance at the disciples' relation to the world, to
which they are alien because they are of kindred to Him. This is the
ground for the repetition of the prayer 'keep', with the difference
that formerly it was 'keep _in_ Thy name,' and now it is '_from_ the
evil.' It is good to gaze first on our defence, the 'munitions of
rocks' where we lie safely, and then we can venture to face the thought
of 'the evil,' from which that keeps us, whether it be personal or
abstract.
III. Verses 16-19 give the final petition for the immediate circle of
disciples, with its grounds. The position of alienation from the world,
in which the disciples stand by reason of their assimilation to Jesus,
is repeated here. It was the reason for the former prayer, 'keep'; it
is the reason for the new petition, 'sanctify.' Keeping comes first,
and then sanctifying, or consecration. Security from evil is given that
we may be wholly devoted to the service of God. The evil in the world
is the great hindrance to that. The likeness to Jesus is the great
ground of hope that we shall be truly consecrated. We are kept 'in the
name'; we are consecrated 'in the truth,' which is the revelation made
by Jesus, and in a very deep sense is Himself. That truth is, as it
were, the element in which the believer lives, and by abiding in which
his real consecration is possible.
Christ's prayer for us should be our aim and deepest desire for
ourselves, and His declaration of the condition of its fulfilment
should prescribe our firm adhesion to, and constant abiding in, the
truth as revealed and embodied in Him, as the only means by which we
can attain the consecration which is at once, as the closing verses of
the passage tell us, the means by which we may fulfil the purpose for
which we are sent into the world, and the path on which we reach
complete assimilation to His perfect self-surrender. All Christians are
sent into the world by Jesus, as Jesus was sent by the Father. We have
the charge to glorify Him. We have the presence of the Sender with us,
the sent. We are inspired with His Spirit. We cannot do His work
without that entire consecration which shall copy His devotion to the
Father and eager swiftness to do His will. How can such ennobling and
exalted consecration be ours? There is but one way. He has 'consecrated
Himself,' and by union with Him through faith, our selfishness may be
subdued, and the Spirit of Christ may dwell in our hearts, to make us
'living sacrifices, consecrated and acceptable to God.' Then shall we
be truly 'consecrated,' and then only, when we can say, 'I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me.' That is the end of Christ's
consecration of Himself--the prayer which He prayed for His
disciples--and should be the aim which every disciple earnestly pursues.
'THE LORD THEE KEEPS'
'...They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray
not that Thou shouldest 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.'--JOHN xvii. 14-16.
We have here a petition imbedded in a reiterated statement of the
disciples' isolated position when left in a hostile world without
Christ's sheltering presence. We cannot fathom the depth of the mystery
of the _praying_ Christ, but we may be sure of this, that His prayers
were always in harmony with the Father's will, were, in fact, the
expression of that will, and were therefore promises and prophecies.
What He prays the Father for His disciples He gives to His disciples.
Once only had He to say, 'If it be possible'; at all other times He
prayed as sure that 'Thou hearest Me always,' and in this very prayer
He speaks in a tone of strange authority, when He prays for all
believers in future ages, and says: 'I will that, where I am, they also
may be with Me.' In this High-priestly prayer, offered when Gethsemane
was almost in sight, and the Judgment Hall and Calvary were near, our
Lord's tender interest in His disciples fills His mind, and even in its
earlier portion, which is in form a series of petitions for Himself, it
is in essence a prayer for them, whilst this central section which
concerns the Apostles, and the closing section which casts the mantle
of His love and care over all who hereafter shall 'believe on Me
through their word,' witnesses to the sublime completeness of His
self-oblivion. Gethsemane heard His prayer for Himself; here He prays
for His people, and the calm serenity and confident assurance of this
prayer, set against the agitation of that other, receives and gives
emphasis by the contrast.
Our text falls into two parts, the enclosing circle of the repeated
statement of the disciples' isolation in an alien world, and the
enclosed jewel of the all-sufficient prayer which guarantees their
protection. We shall best make its comfort and cheer our own by dealing
with these two successively.