The hour to which he had so long looked forward, the hour which he had anticipated with ardent desire: “The hour is come.” On the very night that Jesus prayed this prayer, Luke’s record tells us, “When the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them,
With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer;” So he began his great intercessory prayer, “Father, the hour is come, —
John 17:1-2. 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.
In these words we have both the general and the special aspects of redemption. Christ has received power over all flesh, but with this peculiar design, that he should give eternal life to as many as his Father has given him. Who are they who have been given to him by his Father? All who come to him by faith, even as he said, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” To all of these Jesus gives eternal life.
John 17:3. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Do you know God? Do you know Jesus Christ? Are you on speaking terms, on loving terms, with them? Are they your friends? Then, you have eternal life; for “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
John 17:4-6. 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.
What a sweet thing for the Lord Jesus to say of that poor, much-erring company of disciples, “They have kept thy word”! “They have not been all they might have been, nor all they ought to have been, but, O my Father, they have kept thy word!” I trust that we may be found faithful to the truth that the Holy Spirit has taught us, and obedient to its precepts, that our Lord may be able to say to his Father concerning us also, “They have kept thy word.”
John 17:7-8. Now they have known that all things to 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.
See how the Lord Jesus himself takes all his teaching from the Father. You never hear from him any boast about being the originator of profound thoughts. No, he just repeated to his disciples the words he had received from the Father: “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.” If Jesus acted thus, how much more must the messengers of God receive the word from the Lord’s mouth, and speak it as they receive it!
John 17:9-10. 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.
Is not this a wonderful prayer? If anybody, possessing the greatest possible inventive faculty, were asked to produce a prayer which could be fitly prayed by a person who was both God and man, it would be an impossible task. This chapter has about it all the air of truthfulness, it ought to be sufficient to convince any man that Christ was God and man. There is such a wonderful mixing of the two natures, without any confusion of ideas, so manifestly does he plead as man, and yet so clearly does he also pray as none but the Son of God could pray, that he must be the God-man, the one mediator between God and man.
John 17:11-12. 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.
It was known and foretold that Judas would be lost; therefore, the Saviour, the great Keeper of the sheep, is not to be held responsible for the loss of “the son of perdition”, who was never committed to his charge.
John 17:13-17. 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.
Our Divine Lord seems to think nothing about his own sufferings; all his thoughts are occupied with that which concerns his people. All his prayers are for them, that they may be made holy, and that so God may be glorified in them.
John 17:18-19. 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,
Or, “I set myself apart.”
John 17:19-20. That they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
They were only a handful of disciples, but you cannot tell what a multitude will believe on Christ through their word. There were but twelve apostles; yet John beheld a hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel, and after that he beheld a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palms in their hands. The Saviour doubtless linked his little band of disciples with the ancient promise, “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.” What great events from little causes spring! Whenever you are doing good, remember not only those who are immediately saved, but the others who will be blessed through them, even as our Saviour said, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” We who have believed on Jesus, through the word preached or written by the apostles, are also included in this prayer of their Lord and ours. Notice what our Saviour asked of his Father for them and for us: —
John 17:21. 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 when Christians, being one in Christ, and one in the truth, shall become more manifestly one in heart, and life, and faith, what glad days we may hope to see!
John 17:22-23. 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 them 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.
This is a wonderful expression, where will you find anything like it! It is indeed marvellous that God should have loved his people even as he loved Christ his Son, yet that is what the Lord Jesus here says: “Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”
John 17:24-26. Father. I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name,
“Thy character, thy work,” —
John 17:26. And will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
This prayer is for you, and for me, as much as for the twelve apostles. May the Lord fulfill it in all of us as well as in them, for his dear name’s sake!
Amen.