This chapter contains the marvellous prayer of our Great High Priest. May the Holy Spirit apply its teaching to our hearts as we read it!
John 17:1. 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:
The great design of Christ, all through his life on earth, was to glorify the Father. He came to save his people, but that was not his first or his chief aim. It was his object, through the salvation of myriads of the sons of men, to glorify the Father.
John 17:2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him
Here we have both the universality and the speciality of the work of divine mercy. Christ has power over all flesh, men are in the power of the one Mediator, but there is this special object ever before him: «that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.»
John 17:3. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
This does not mean mere head-knowledge; but to know in the heart and soul the one only true God, and Jesus Christ who was sent of him to the sons of men, «this is life eternal.» God without Christ brings not eternal life, and Christ, if he were not sent of God, would not bring eternal life to us, but knowing God in Christ Jesus is eternal life.
John 17:4. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
Here our Saviour speaks by anticipation. He foresaw that he would pass through his passion, that all the work of his people's redemption would be fully accomplished, and in this his final prayer on earth to the Father he could truly say, «I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.» May you and I be able to say the same when we depart out of this world! Not boastingly, there was no boasting in our Lord, but truthfully conscientiously, from the bottom of our heart may each one of us be able to say, «I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do»!
John 17:5. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
After the finished work, Christ was to have the glory. O worker for God, seek not glory before thy work is done! Expect not honour among men because thou hast begun the work so earnestly; plod on until it is finished, then shall the glory come. «Verily I say unto you, they have their reward,» said our Lord concerning the scribes and Pharisees who sought the praise of men; but you have not your reward at present, it is yet to come. Wait for it, for it is sure to come.
John 17:6. 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.
How tenderly he speaks about them! He says the best he can of them; they were faulty, feeble folk, but he says, «They have kept thy word.» So they did. Oh, that you and I may do the came, and not be swept away by the drift of the current of unbelief! If we are not perfect, if we fail in some respects, yet may the Master be able to say of us to God, «They have kept thy word»!
John 17:7. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
How the blessed Christ loves to lay aside all honour to himself even in his own gospel! He said that the things which he had taught to his disciples were not his own, they were the Father's. The Father always honours the Son, and the Son takes care always to honour the Father.
John 17:8-10. 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.
Every true child of God glorifies Christ; and if you cannot say that you are glorifying Christ, you should question whether you really belong to him. If you are his, it is true of you, «I am glorified in them,» not only by them, but in them, «their suffering with patience, in their labouring with diligence, in their faith, in their trustfulness in me, ‘I am glorified in them.'»
John 17:11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world,
We also know that we, too, are in the world; we have good reason to feel it, and sometimes to mourn it.
John 17:11. 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.
When God keeps us, he keeps us in unity, our divisions are not the result of his work. When we get away from his keeping, and get away from his Word, then we are sundered in heart from him and from one another; but by his keeping he keeps his children one.
John 17:12. 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.
The Scripture was fulfilled in the preservation of his own, and also fulfilled in the destruction of the traitor. God's Word will be fulfilled anyhow. Oh, that it may be to us a savor of life unto life, that we may be kept by it, and not a savor of death unto death, as it was to Judas, who was blinded by the very light that shone upon him! That fierce light that beat about the King of kings fell on him, and it blinded him eternally. God save us from such an awful doom as that!
John 17:13. And now come I to thee;
I can only read you this wonderful chapter, but what must it have been to have heard it! I think I see the look on the Saviour's face as he says to his Father, «And now come I to thee.» May something like that look be on your faces, my beloved, when your last moments come! Looking away from your dear ones whom you must leave as Jesus left his disciples, may you each one be able to say, «And now come I to thee»!
John 17:13. And these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
While he drained the cup of sorrow to the dregs, and went forward to all the agonies of the cruel cross, he wanted his disciples to have his joy fulfilled in them, that they might be filled full with his joy.
John 17:14. 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.
This does not look like trying to please the world, to adapt our method to the spirit of the age, to come as near to the world as ever we can, to dabble in its politics, and join in its schemes. This has to me a very different tone in it from all that.
John 17:15. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world,
Christ and his people did not go together out of the world all at once that would have been to leave the world in an utterly forlorn condition, without any help whatever, so he says to his Father, «I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world,»
John 17:15-16. But that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
You cannot make Christ a worldling; do what you will with his character; twist it as you like, you must see that there is something unworldly, otherworldly, about him. So let it always be with his people.
John 17:17. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word in truth.
Thank God for that: «Thy word is truth.» Not, «Thy word contains the truth with an admixture of error;» or, «Thy word has some truth in it;» no, but, «Thy word is truth.» Not only is it true, but it is truth, the very essential truth.
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,
«I separate myself to this work, I dedicate, devote, consecrate myself wholly for their sakes,»
John 17:19-20. That they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone,
This little handful of disciples who had been gathered to his name,
John 17:20. But for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
Thank God that he will bless our word as well as his own Word! When our word is based upon his Word, when we do but expound what Christ has given us to say, then men shall believe on him through our word.
John 17:21-23. 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.
This is a wonderful expression. Does the Father love his people as he loves Christ? Then his love to them must be without beginning, without change, without measure, without end. Oh, it would ravish your heart, it would carry you away to the very heaven of heavens, if you could get the full meaning of this expression, «and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me»!
John 17:24. 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 lovest me before the foundation of the world.
This is Christ's last will and testament: «Father, I will.» It is not merely his prayer, but he makes this as one clause in his will, that all whom the Father gave him should be with him to behold his glory. And it will be so, beloved. He will not lose one of his own. He will never drop from that dear pierced hand any portion of the eternal gift of his Father.
John 17:25-26. 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, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
Here the doctrine becomes a matter of experience. May we never rest till we get the full experience of it, that the very love which God gives to Christ may be found in our hearts shed abroad by the Holy Ghost! Amen.