These words spake Jesus
Christ’s prayer for Himself
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCE.
1. The place--probably the west bank of the Kidron; but to a devout soul any spot serves as an oratory (John 4:21; 1 Timothy 2:8).
2. The time--the last night of His life. Not surprising that sinful men should pray then: and comforting to know that the Sinless One then found solace in prayer.
3. The audience--not in solitude as oftentimes before (John 6:15; Matthew 14:23; Luke 9:28), or in the company of strangers John 11:41; Matthew 11:25), but in the hearing of His disciples. Note the distinction between private and public prayer--the former for individual profit, the latter the advantage of others as well.
II. THE SPIRIT.
1. Reverential--lifted up His eyes. It becomes those who approach the throne of grace to remember whose throne it is (Psalms 11:4; Psalms 45:6), to cherish exalted views of His majesty (Psalms 31:8; Psalms 89:7), and to show them by corresponding outward postures (Exodus 3:5; Hebrews 12:28).
2. Filial--“Father.” In the Spirit of a Son He maintained communion with the Father, which is also the true Spirit for us (Romans 8:15).
3. Believing. Shown by the appeal Christ makes to the arrival of His hour as a reason why His prayer should be heard. The hour being prearranged by the Father, He intercedes for the fulfilment of the promise which was bound up with it. True prayer ever springs from faith in the Father’s promise (Psalms 119:49; Hebrews 11:6).
4. Urgent. Revealed by the action above described, and by the twofold recurrence of the main petition (verses 1-5). Fervent importunity a characteristic of right prayer.
III. THE PETITION. “Father, glorify,” &c.
1. What it implied.
(1) That the praying Son had been in existence before the world was (verse 5).
(2) That though the Son He was not in that glory.
(3) That He had laid aside that glory in order to become the Father s servant (Philippians 2:6-7).
2. What it desired.
(1) Not posthumous fame through the influence of the gospel (Psalms 72:17); this He could not have had before the world was.
(2) That having finished the Father’s work, He might resume His preexistent glory in an incarnate form.
IV. THE PLEAS.
1. The honour of the Father. He saw that the cause the Father had at heart could be more successfully carried forward by the Son on the throne of the universe.
2. The salvation of the Church. The work of bestowing eternal life on dead souls would proceed more efficaciously were He in heaven.
3. The recompense of Himself (verse 4). Yet Christ employs this argument only in the third place.
Learn
1. The Fatherhood of God is the best refuge for dying men.
2. The chief end of man is to glorify God.
3. Eternal life is impossible apart from the grace of God and the revelation of Christ.
4. The best preparation for heaven is the faithful execution of
God’s will on earth. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
The prayer of Christ
Between this and the one offered in Gethsemane there is a difference we cannot help observing. Both were offered on the same night, yet in the one Christ is filled with calmness and triumph, and in the other with agony and dejection. This has been seized by sceptics as proof of the untrustworthiness of Scripture. But note
1. That whilst Christ was Divine He was also human. In proportion as human nature is refined and sensitive it is liable to varying moods arising out of the different influences which play upon it. Christ’s humanity was peculiarly so.
2. That Christ was wont, at times, to dwell upon separate aspects of His destiny. Some were bright, others dark. What more natural in pondering the former as He does here, He should rise into ecstasy.
3. That whatever the Saviour’s mood, He was always true to His redeeming purpose. Proceeding to the prayer, note
I. THAT JESUS SPEAKS TO GOD ON THE GROUND OF GOD’S FATHERLY RELATION. He does not go as servant or subject, but as child, and says “Father” six times in the prayer. Mark
1. How unrestrictedly the name is used. Not “My” Father. He had already taught His disciples to say “Our Father;” so now He makes no selfish appropriation of the name: teaching us Christ’s perfect oneness with ourselves, and our privilege to trust in the love of God.
2. How reverently the name is spoken! The tone we cannot hear; but the gesture suggests it, and the epithets of verses 11 and 25. When you go to the Father never lose sight of the Sovereign, lest you dishonour Him and disgrace yourselves.
II. THAT JESUS CONFESSES TO GOD HIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE NEAR FULFILMENT OF HIS MISSION, “The hour is come.” No hour of His life was unimportant, but one hour overshadowed all others--the hour of His sacrificial death. Take that away and what is there left? To Him it was the hour of agony, but of triumph also. To us it is the hour of life and joy, shaded by the thought that to be such to us it was necessary that it should be terrible to Him.
III. THAT JESUS PRESENTS TO GOD A PETITION RESPECTING THE ISSUE OF THE CRISIS TO WHICH HE HAD COME. Although perfect He had to fortify Himself for the trial by prayer.
1. “Father, glorify Thy Son.”
(1) By inspiring Him with strength and courage.
(2) By maintaining His integrity.
(3) By giving Him victory.
(4) By making the bruising of His heel to be the breaking of the serpent’s head.
(5) By raising Him from the dead and setting Him at Thy right hand.
2. “That Thy Son also may glorify Thee”--beautiful unselfishness!
(1) By showing to men that Thou art the Father, enabling Him to suffer and triumph on their behalf.
(2) By vindicating to men the grandeur of Thy attributes, and the rightness of Thy claims.
(3) By revealing to men the purposes of Thy love and the promises of Thy grace.
(4) By bringing men, through the power of His sacrifice, into loving worship at Thy feet and into the enjoyment of everlasting life in Thy presence. (B. Wilkinson, F. G. S.)
A petition urged by a threefold argument
I. THE PETITION. A vindication of Christ’s character. “Glorify Thy Son.” Answered by
1. The signs at His death.
2. His resurrection.
3. His ascension.
II. THE ARGUMENT is
1. Christ’s relation to the Father. Influence increases in proportion to the nearness of relationship (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:15).
2. Christ’s relation to time and to a special period. There is a special hour in every conflict which determines the value of all that has gone before, and gives defeat to one side and victory to the other So this hour in Christ’s conflict with the powers of evil.
3. Christ’s relation to the glory of the Father. That which would bring honour to Christ would bring honour to God, inasmuch as He claimed to be the revealer of the Father.
Lessons from this answered prayer:
1. It is not only for our comfort, but God’s glory that prayer in accordance with His will should be answered.
2. It is right to ask for a vindication of our character when under a cloud, not only for our own sake but for that of others. (W. Harris.)
God has no son without prayer
“What strange condescension, that He who hath the key of David should knock at the Father’s gate, and receive His own heaven by gift and entreaty!” These are Manton’s words of surprise at the first sentences of our Lord’s prayer in John 17:1-26.: “Father, glorify Thy Son.” Even to Jesus it is said, “Ask of Me.” God had one Son without sin, but never a son who did not pray. The cry of “Abba, Father!” is the mark of sonship. True prayer is the sign of a true-born child of God: “Behold, he prayeth” is the token by which each heir of glory is known. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Supreme things in man’s spiritual history
I. The supreme PURPOSE OF EXISTENCE--to glorify the Father. What is this? Not laudation however enthusiastic; not contributing to His blessedness and grandeur, this is impossible--but the revelation of Him in our character and life. Whatever creature works out the nature that God has given him in harmony with His will glorifies Him. It is here indicated that we can only glorify God as He glorifies us. There is more of God seen in a Divinely-inspired and righteously-regulated soul than in all the splendour of the heavens.
II. The supreme MISSION OF CHRIST. In John 17:2 it is suggested
1. That Christ is Master of the race. “Power over all flesh.” His authority is absolute and independent, yet never interfering with the freedom of any of His subjects, and estimating their services not by their amount but their motive.
2. That Christ is Master by Divine appointment. The Divine rights of kings is an impious fiction, but Christ reigns by right divine, and therefore we should obey Him and rejoice in His government.
3. That Christ is thus Divinely appointed in order to make us happy. Eternal life or goodness is the supreme necessity of man. Goodness is eternal because God is eternal. Sin is death.
III. The supreme SCIENCE OF MAN (John 17:3). Physical science is promoted and extolled amongst us. But compared with this knowledge all else is a meteor flash. I only really know the man with whose character I have an intense sympathy. Only so can I know God, and thus knowing God I have eternal life (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The hour is come
The supreme hour
When regarded aright, no hour of any human life can be considered unimportant. It is a portion, and a necessary portion, of one great whole. It may seem to be trivial. We may treat it as though it were of little worth, casting it from us as something we can afford to waste; but that is to act with ignorance, if not with criminality. Examine any building from the foundation to the top-stone, and the architect, who sees the meaning of every stone and the reason of its position, will tell you that all the stones are needed for strength, for symmetry, or for beauty. Remove one, misplace one, and its importance will be evident, for to that degree the structure is imperfect. It is so with our life--the hours of which it is composed are of untold value in their relation to each other and the great whole of which they are parts, so that we dare not be indifferent concerning any one. This is further manifest if we remember that any hour may be to us the most momentous hour of all. Yesterday is the parent of to-day, and by an inexorable law, to-day’s history makes the facts of tomorrow. So that it may be said that in the present hour, as the germ in the seed, lies our coming destiny. How, then, can we call any period unimportant, if it leads on to the most important of all? It becomes great by what it helps to bring. And to every life some great and solemn period comes--a period that may be called the greatest--a period that is decisive--a period that seems to condense in itself all others--for which all others have prepared--just as it is said the hundred years of patient culture have prepared the aloe-tree for the single year in which it blossoms into flower--a period when we are tested--when it is seen what our real characters are--a period which we each may describe as “My hour.” Then we may win everything or lose everything that is worth having. These hours may come in youth or middle age. They do come to us in our temporal affairs and in our spiritual history. Now, the two facts of which I have been speaking are in an infinitely higher degree true of Jesus Christ. There was no season or event in His career that was in any sense unimportant. Knowing who He was--the Divine Man, the world’s Saviour--it is impossible to think of even His simplest action as without significance. Yet we notice that even in His life, in which every moment was supremely great, there was a period which stood forth to His own mind, and which appears in the history as overshadowing all other periods, and, indeed, giving new importance to them all. We have here a remarkable illustration of
I. A DESTINY FORESEEN. It has been maintained by some that there is a certain fixed plan or destiny for every life. The mere statement of such a theory is sufficient to suggest immediately the immense difficulties with which it is surrounded. For you begin to think upon the multitude of gross, wicked, worthless, and suffering lives that are passed in the world, and to wonder whether they are all according to the appointment and will of God. Yet it is impossible not to be convinced that if there be a God, wise, powerful, good, He must have some plan and purpose for all human lives. This, in few words, is our conception of Divine Providence--it is care for the whole, and care for each part. God is the God of order, and if He had not a purpose and a plan, and consequently what we may term a destiny, for each human soul, He would be working without order, and chance and accident would be the governors of the world, and not God. This we can never believe. That it is possible to get out of this order, and to follow our own blind and foolish wills, choosing our own path rather than God’s, seems to me also undeniable. Just as a father, looking upon his son, shall say, “I will educate and prepare my boy for such a business or profession; he shall go to this school for so many years, and then at such an age he shall be placed yonder, and I shall have great comfort when I am an old man in seeing him fulfil all those purposes which I have cherished as the best ambition of my life.” All fathers, I suppose, have some such ideas as these. But how few are realised? The son begins to exercise his own freedom of choice, and sometimes bounds off in a directly opposite road--and all the plans seem confused and broken and worthless. Is not the whole Bible a record of the fact that men constantly choose a way that is not His way, and seem to frustrate the destiny for which they were appointed? All sin is a disturbing element in God’s plans. Yet with this in view we are compelled to believe in the existence of a sovereignty that is able to see all possible contingencies, to estimate and provide for every catastrophe, to compel all things to work out His designs. If I did not hold fast to that, the world would appear to me a chaotic confusion, a terrible place of disorder--no lordship, no mastery--and, therefore, an unaccountable mistake.We come into life for a purpose What that is seems hidden from us. We learn by experience; all is concealed, and it is only afterwards we see God’s purposes, just as Joseph, when in Egypt, saw them. He could not understand his destiny when taunted and sold by envious brothers. It was all mystery when, through a false charge, he was thrust into prison. Some men, however, have seemed to be inspired by an almost supernatural belief that they were sent into the world to accomplish an object very clear to their own minds. The great moral and spiritual reformers of every age have expressed themselves as Divinely inspired and delegated to fulfil the great mission to which they have given their energies--until it was accomplished their hour had not come. Now when we speak of Jesus Christ in such a connection as this we do not forget what and who He was, and that His mission was one of grander importance than that of any other being who has entered our world. He acts and speaks as though He knew and could see that His life and His death are all the result of a prearranged plan. There was to be nothing accidental--nothing that could be attributed to the wild uncertainties of chance. He came not so much to live as to die. That was the supreme hour of His life. For then He became the Lamb of God bearing the Sins of the world. Then He accomplished the purpose of Divine mercy; revealed as it was never before revealed the infinite love of God’s heart to a race that regarded Him with fear and suspicion and hatred. That was Christ’s hour--an hour of untold sorrow, but an hour of wondrous triumph and glory. Do you not see that distinct plan--luminous, certain, inevitable in our Lord’s life? Is it not the thing in His life? Take that away, and what is left? The meaning has gone. The beauty is marred. Like music without the leading part, the air, there may be harmony, but the chief significance is altogether wanting--you can make nothing of it.
II. A FORESEEN DESTINY TRIUMPHING OVER ALL OBSTACLES. We have said that this object lay before Christ all through His life, that all pointed to that supreme hour. But have you ever thought what wonderful preservations there were which prevented any failure? To most of us the thought of Christ’s failure is overwhelmingly terrible, for it means to us the quenching of all hope, a night of bitter despair. A world such as this without a Saviour is the most frightful of all conceptions. What more fearful spectacle can we imagine than that of a company of wretched shipwrecked men fixing all their hopes upon a lifeboat that has started to save them, and yet doomed to see it and their would-be saviours overwhelmed and drowned by the angry sea? But, thank God! that was impossible. Yet He was tried. The devil tried Him in those fierce wilderness-temptations. He would have had Him show His power then, and so gain triumph. When He was in the midst of a multitude teaching them the great truths of the kingdom, His very relatives came and attempted to seize Him, declaring that He was mad. The Pharisees and scribes, with some of His own friends, urged Him to work miracles, and by some grand display of power win a victory over all hearts. Nor, on the other hand, could evil pervert or hinder Him. Persecution ever dogged His steps seeking occasion to destroy Him, but it could not prevail against Him. But His hour was not yet come, and He calmly passed through the midst of them and went His way. Twice the same reason is assigned for His preservation. What was it made them so helpless, then, in comparison with the time shortly after, when they could take and maltreat and crucify Him according to their own wicked will? What was it? Surely the might of God. These facts are rich with comfort to all the faithful servants of Christ in times of anxiety and trouble about their own lives and their work. If we have yielded our hearts to Divine guidance, and are striving in all we do to subordinate our wills to God’s will, to work out His plans in our life, then we have a right to believe that He is ever presiding over our course, arranging and controlling events and circumstances by a wise, unerring, merciful Providence, and that in all He is working out His gracious purposes. So that no room is left for fear. So, on the other side, if any should fear lest the final hour will come and cut them off from achieving the work on which their heart is set--illness, sudden feebleness, even early death-let such be comforted. There is a grand truth in the familiar phrase, “Man is immortal till his work is done.” (W. Braden.)
The momentous hour
1. In every man’s history there are hours of peculiar importance. When a young man leaves home for the first time, and when he becomes his own master; when the man of enterprise wins his first battle and establishes his claim to the public confidence; when the scientific or literary man publishes his first or his greatest work; when the mother gives birth to her first child; when we die.
2. Note the deep interest our Lord attaches to this hour. It was always present to His imagination: In the brighest hours of His life, as at Cana and the Transfiguration and when the Greeks came to Him, and at the darkest, in Gethsemane.
I. JUSTIFY THE INTEREST WHICH ALL DEVOUT MINDS ATTACH TO THIS HOUR, not only in earth, but in heaven (Revelation 5:11-12).
1. The estimate which God forms of it. As there are some seasons on which man fixes with peculiar interest, so with God--the day of creation, the day of the deluge, the day of the Lord, but beyond all is the day of the Son of Man--his birth hour and death hour.
2. The long train of dispensations which preceded it and pointed it out. This is the key of them all. When God at sundry times and in divers manners spake to the fathers, it was but to point to the hour when He should more fully speak unto us by His Son. If He manifests Himself to patriarchs, it is to point out to them His day; if He chooses a peculiar people it is to make them depositaries of the promises of His coming; if He appoints sacrifices and ceremonies, it is but to typify His death.
3. The great work that was accomplished in that hour.
(1) Man’s redemption.
(2) Satan’s overthrow.
(3) The harmony of the Divine perfections.
(4) The opening of the gates of heaven.
II. WITH WHAT FEELING SHOULD WE REVERT TO THE TRANSACTIONS OF THIS HOUR?
1. With the deepest humiliation that such a sacrifice was needed on our part.
2. With a humble determination to apply its benefits. (Homiletic Magazine.)
The supreme hour
“Father, the hour is come.” The hour; the hour of all hours the most important. What hour like that in interest, what hour so big with momentous issues on all the past, and on all the future! That was the central hour of all time’s hours. The confluence of the two eternities was at that time-point. That hour was the keystone of time’s huge arch, that arch which rests on the one side, and the other on eternity. Many hours in the world’s history are marked and memorable. The hour of the birth or death, the crisis-hour of one of the world’s great ones, a thinker, worker, statesman, or warrior; the hour which gave birth to and introduced some mighty revolution, which proved to be the birth or death hour of a nation, altering the destiny of millions of our race for weal or for woe, is important and to be marked; but what hour like this! an hour which had its bearing on the whole universe, and whose transactions were to effect eternally God and man, angels and devils. It was for this hour that the great clock of Time was set in motion at first. It was for this hour that the world was created and upheld; for this hour Heaven’s justice waited; in it sin was made an end of, and transgression was finished; in it the law of God was magnified, and made honourable; holiness was vindicated; the devil and his work virtually destroyed; death slain, and God’s chosen people saved with an everlasting salvation. The hour is come. The time was numbered to an hour. The betrayer had gone forth on his fell errand; the machinery of death was prepared, and the Victim was ready to bleed and die on the altar. And He it is who reminds the Father that the hour is come. It is Isaac that tells Abraham that it is time he should be laid on the wood and the knife be upraised. The Lamb of God says, It is time He should die, to take away the sin of the world. The hour is come: how solemn and how applicable are the words! This hour was long in coming, but it has come at last. The eye of many a priest and prophet, king and peasant, of the olden time, had been strained in looking earnestly across the intervening ages towards that hour; but, one by one, the eye of these men grew dim with age and closed in death, and still it came not. (T. Alexander, M. A.)
The final hour of the Son of God
This hour was marked by the union of wide extremes, by strange contrasts, and wondrous results. This will appear if we consider it
I. AS THE HOUR OF THE DEEPEST HUMILIATION AND YET OF TRANSCENDENT GLORY.
1. The Son of God was humbled by taking our nature upon Him, and by the poverty and reproaches which He endured; but all these were nothing compared with the humiliations of this hour.
2. Yet it was the hour of His glory. Sense saw nothing but the darkest clouds of shame; faith beholds those clouds gilded with heavenly splendour.
(1) The highest virtues were displayed in that hour--fortitude, meekness, submission, forgiveness, filial tenderness, above all, love.
(2) He was glorified by God. As there were miracles at His birth, at His baptism, in His ministry, so in His death. As on Mount Tabor He received glory and honour, so on Mount Calvary.
II. AS MARKED BY THE GREATEST OF HUMAN CRIMES AND THE MOST AFFECTING DISPLAYS OF THE DIVINE MERCY.
1. Jesus made His appearance in a wicked age; among other reasons for this, to show that the worst may find mercy. In this hour every evil appears under its greatest aggravations. Hatred of goodness, resistance to the authority of heaven, opposition to the evidence of truth, ingratitude.
2. The hour was not less distinguished by the mercy of God. The murderers were spared to be the subjects of grace. The Sufferer whom they hurried to Calvary was then bearing the punishment of their sins. He whom they stretched upon the cross was the atoning Lamb then laid upon that rude altar. The blood which they drew was then flowing to wash away the guilt even of their sins, and to sprinkle the mercy-seat to give their prayers acceptance.
III. AS EXHIBITING WICKED MEN AND THE EVER-BLESSED GOD ACCOMPLISHING OPPOSITE AND CONTRARY PURPOSES. The intention of the Jews was obvious.
1. It was to destroy Christ and His religion together, and they seemed fully to have accomplished their purpose. Ah, the blindness of man! Christ was put to death by wicked men; but in this they only accomplished “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Their success was their failure. They conceived that they had disproved His claims to the Messiahship by killing Him; but of the truth of these claims His death was one of the strongest evidences. It accomplished the prophecies and fulfilled the types.
2. They expected, too, to maintain the honour of their law against Him who, as they conceived, proposed to destroy it; but by the very means of His death that law was abrogated. When Christ said, “It is finished,” the shadowy dispensation passed away.
IV. AS BEING THE HOUR OF THE TRIUMPH AND OVERTHROW OF HELL.
1. The tyrant Death triumphed over Him who declared Himself to be “the Resurrection and the Life.” Satan triumphed over the Church. The disciples were dispersed, and hope was gone.
2. But this very hour of triumph was hell’s overthrow. Approaching it Christ rejoiced in spirit, and said, “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” The arm extended on the cross was extended that it might shake down the kingdom of Satan. The head was bowed that it might wear crowns won from the destroyer. He suffered the stroke of death only to rob the monster of his sting; and He sunk into the grave only to seize the key of its power, to open the gloomy realms, and call forth the prisoners to everlasting life. And the triumph over the Church was but temporary. The disciples were scattered only to be gathered again; discouraged only to be emboldened.
V. AS DISTINGUISHED FROM EVERY OTHER as a point of time standing between the eternity of the past and the future, and related to each in a manner which marks no other.
1. From eternity it was regarded by God. His plans of creation, providence, and grace were all arranged with respect to it. The law was given and types were set up all with reference to it. To it the patriarchs looked with intense feeling. The prophets inquired diligently into the import of their own predictions.
2. Through time and the eternity which follows there will be a constant looking back upon this hour. The Saviour looks back upon His sorrows. He remembers what it cost Him to redeem; and He will not therefore hastily destroy. Penitents look back to that hour, and hope for pardon, holiness, and eternal life. Saints look back upon it; and it fires their love and kindles their joys. The glorified spirits of believers will for ever look back upon it, and exclaim, “Worthy is the Lamb,” &c. Conclusion: This eventful hour suggests
1. The infinite evil of sin.
2. Motives of
(1)The strongest hope. “He that spared not His own Son,” &c.
(2) Love and obedience. How can we sufficiently love Him who has shown all this love for us?
(3) Holy fear. “Where much is given, much is also required.” (R. Watson.)
Glorify Thy Son
The Divine glorification
I. THE FACT. “Father, the hour is come.” He does not say “Our Father” as He had taught His disciples to say, for that would have seemed to place Him on a level with them; nor “My Father,” as this might seem to suggest separation; but He says simply “Father!” that great name which He alone had fully unfolded as summing up all the grace of His nature and all the mystery of redemption. The “hour” was the hour of
1. Mysterious suffering.
2. Mortal conflict (John 14:30). Satan’s hosts were to be overthrown and the world emancipated from their grasp.
3. Glorious exploit. It was the crisis of the world’s history and hope.
II. THE PETITION. Jesus here speaks in the third person--“Thy Son,” not “Glorify Me”; as if to indicate still more impressively the relationship between Him and the Father. But this was not all that was meant. The voice from the celestial presence had again and again declared, “This is My beloved Son,” &c. The Saviour here, as it were, reminds the Father of this. The words “glory” and “glorify” vary in signification according to circumstances. Glory to a man engaged in earnest conflict would be victory; to a man struggling with poverty affluence; to a man in sickness, health. So Christ has in view the hour of agony, and the completion of His work and His glorification has, therefore, a special relation to that. The petition comprehended
1. Divine recognition. “Own Me as Thy Son.” And this glorification was given Him. Nature sympathized with the mysterious Sufferer, and the Roman centurion was constrained to say, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Especially by the Resurrection was He “declared to be the Son of God with power.”
2. All-sufficient support, that He might bear up under all and go through all as became Him who had undertaken the work of human salvation.
3. Perfect success. He had come to do a glorious work, and its accomplishment was essential to His glory.
III. THE OBJECT. “That Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” Do not these words bear decisive testimony to the Godhead of our Saviour? What mere creature could presume to ask this? The Divine glory would be secured by Christ’s suffering, for it was
1. The vindication of the Divine authority which had been defied. Sin could not pass unpunished in the universe of a holy God. Therefore the incarnate Son gave Himself to the cross as heaven’s protest against hellish falsehood and man’s iniquity, and to make an end of sin.
2. A new revelation of the Divine character. Evil had darkened the human mind so that the knowledge of God among men became lost. The Creator was looked upon with dislike and distrust. Jesus came to reveal the Father. Men would see in the Cross more gloriously than anywhere besides the perfections of the loving, righteous, and merciful God.
3. The triumph of the Divine grace. Jehovah’s highest honour amongst men is in the pardon of sin and the salvation of the lost, and in the bringing of many sons unto glory. (J. Spence, D. D.)
The mediatorial glory of Christ
The Lord Jesus is here praying in His mediatorial character. He is praying not as God alone, nor as man alone, but as God-man. And praying thus as God-man, He seeks that the Father may glorify Him. In the fifth verse we are told distinctly what the glory was which He sought. It was the very same glory which He had with the Father, when He dwelt in His bosom before the forthgoings of all time. As God He needed not to seek this glory. As God it was His of eternal and natural right. But as God-man, as the Covenant-head and Surety of His people, it was the promised reward of His work, sufferings and death. It was not all the reward, but it was part of it. He shall see His seed. He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. These were parts of it, but this glory was part of it also. As the one only Covenant head of His people--as the one Daysman between God and man--as uniting in his own person the Divine nature and the human, and in that person doing a work, He was to be exalted, and that above every name, thing and power. He was to be uplifted, as the representative of His Church, to the supreme seat of the universe, as God-man in glorified humanity, He was to be surrounded with the full blaze of the glory of eternity, to be made the centre of every holy eye, the joy of every holy heart, the love of every ransomed soul. He, the Sun of Righteousness, was to ray forth every beam of the Father’s love, power, excellence, and perfection. As the Head of His Church--the representative of His people--all honour and all glory were to be His, the full glory of the Godhead was to be His; the glory of the triune Jehovah, as it existed before the birth of time, in the remotest silence of the past and unpeopled eternity, was to be His, and for an inheritance for ever. As the Eternal Son, and so as God, He had a right of nature to the undivided glory of the triune Jehovah, but as God-man, and as the Substitute of His people, He stood on other ground. Ere He could possess this glory, as Mediator, He had a work to perform. He had the law to obey, its curse to endure, and God to glorify on the earth; and, in consideration of this work and as a reward for it, as God-man, this, the accumulated glory of eternity, was to be conferred upon Him by the Father. (T. Alexander, M. A.)
As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh
The royal prerogative
I. THE POSITION ASSIGNED TO CHRIST. It is of mediatorial supremacy. The word rendered “power” is “authority”--the right of dominion.
1. The source of this authority was God (John 5:22-26).
2. Its nature is power to legislate and rule.
3. Its extent is universal--not the race of mankind only. His dominion as the Christ extends to all life that has been damaged by the Fall and cursed by sin.
4. This supremacy is not a matter of mere doctrinal importance, it is of momentous interest and highest encouragement. He who rules over us is one of ourselves, with human feelings and human sympathies, and yet altogether free from human imperfections.
II. THE PREROGATIVE WHICH CHRIST IS SO EXERCISE
1. Its object is to give eternal life to man.
(1) It presupposes that men are doomed to die or are dead.
(2) But there is life, and Christ Jesus is invested with mediatorial power to give it (1 John 5:12).
2. Its extent. “To as many,” &c. The interests and affections of the Father and the Son must be identical; still there is the truth that the Father’s gift to the Son measures the Son’s gift of life to men. But vast is the gift which the Father has given to the Son (Psalms 2:8; Hebrews 2:10; Revelation 7:9).
3. Christ exercises this prerogative personally and directly. Human governments influence their subjects indirectly; but life comes straight from Christ to every one of His disciples through the quickening grace of His Holy Spirit. He has entrusted to no Church, system, set of men, this power. Hence every one of His disciples may say as truly as St. Paul, “He loved me and gave Himself for me”; and exclaim with St. Thomas, in adoration and worship, “My Lord and my God.” (T. Alexander, M. A.)
Christ’s authority
1. As the text stands it is sometimes interpreted to mean that God gave Christ power over all flesh in order that He should impart eternal life to a certain number selected by the Father and given over to Him. In the stricter rendering, the meaning appears rather to be that God has given Christ authority over all flesh, that to all given to Him He might give eternal life; thus suggesting that it is God’s plan to give Him authority over all in order that He may give eternal life to all. Then if that be the ease, if any do not receive that life it is because they resist the authority. It is their own fault. In the contrary view not only does it appear unnecessary to have given Him a universal power for a partial work; but those who do not receive the life are not to be blamed, as they never had the opportunity of receiving it. If I were to gather fifty people and say, “I have received authority from a person whom you ought to obey to offer you a gift, which I hold in my hand for those who wish to have it”; supposing some turned away, the blame would be their own if they did not receive it. But if I brought the same persons together, and said, “I have authority to offer some of you, privately selected, a gift which I have here”; you could not find great fault if some sat still and said, “We do not see why you have summoned any except those chosen favourites, and we will wait to see if we are among them.” In the one we see what looks like a flaw in the perfect justice of God, which we do not see in the other.
2. But some people will say we have no right to sit, so to speak, in judgment on the perfect justice of God. Do you remember John Knox’s answer when Queen Mary asked him who was he that presumed to school the nobles and the sovereign of her realm? “A subject, madam,” said he, “born within the same.” Birth has its rights; and one of the birthrights of God’s children is to form their own judgment of their Father’s dealings with them. Does God’s character come fairly out of a transaction such as has been described? Why authorize Christ to say, “Come unto Me all ye that labour,” &c.; when the real meaning is--“You may all come, but there is rest for the souls of only a certain number.” Now, the meaning which we find in the most literal rendering of this text is most in agreement with the righteous character of God. Let us see what the statement teaches us.
I. GOD HAS GIVEN CHRIST AUTHORITY OVER ALL FLESH.
1. Authority is a higher thing than power, for it appeals to that which is within a man, while power appeals to the outward man. Though I had no rightful authority over a man, I might have such a power over him as to force him to do my will; but my power could not coerce his reason or conscience. It is to these authority appeals. It may rule these though it has no outward strength, and may be powerless and yet be none the less authority. Christ’s authority over all men was the same when He hung upon the cross as when He raised the dead. For it was not an official authority such as that of viceroy, which ceases when he is recalled; such as that of the priest who claims to absolve the sinner and direct the conscience, because he has been ordained by a bishop. It was not an authority which He had won for Himself by His displays of power, and which was lost when these were made no longer. It was the authority of the Divine character of the perfect Man swaying, because of His Divine perfectness, the hearts and minds of men.
2. We are helped to understand this when we compare with this chap. 5:27. Christ receives authority to judge men because Himself a Man, and yet the embodiment and example of the sinlessness of which they fall short. The authority which Christ has over us is the authority of love. And there is no authority like this, because you see Him to be the worthiest of your love and in whose love for you have full confidence.
II. OUR POSITION IN REGARD TO THIS AUTHORITY.
1. Had He an absolute power over us, then of course there would be no resisting. We should be forced to yield to Him. But this authority we can resist, or we can yield to it. What it expects from us is spiritual submission. In thus yielding to Him we are carrying out the desire and design of God. We are working together with Him, so are working out our own salvation; for the end for which God has planted this Divine authority in Christ is that we should have “eternal life.”
2. This is eternal life--to enter into the light and freedom and blessedness of a true knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ. It is the life of the spirit, the life which is akin to God’s and can never taste of death. We enter on this through yielding to the authority of Christ. The essence of the eternal life is not endless existence. That might be a curse rather than a blessing.
Let us understand
1. That God has given His Son authority to win us by love, not to sway us by force.
2. That God does not work in order to bless any one section of mankind, but to bless the race at large. The authority of Christ is co-extensive with that dominion of God which is over all His works.
3. To trust this all-embracing love and goodwill, and do what we can to meet it, and to show in our own lives its sanctifying power.
4. To feel our responsibility. (R. H. Story.)