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. I have declared unto them thy name, etc. - I have taught them the true doctrine.
And will declare it - This he did:
1st. By the conversations he had with his disciples after his resurrection, during the space of forty days.
2dly. By the Holy Spirit which was poured out upon them on the day of pentecost. And all these declarations Jesus Christ made, that the love of God, and Christ Jesus himself, might dwell in them; and thus they were to become a habitation for God through the eternal Spirit.
Our Lord's sermon, which he concluded by the prayer recorded in this chapter, begins at John 13:13, and is one of the most excellent than can be conceived. His sermon on the mount shows men what they should do, so as to please God: this sermon shows them how they are to do the things prescribed in the other. In the former the reader sees a strict morality which he fears he shall never be able to perform: in this, he sees all things are possible to him who believes; for that very God who made him shall dwell in his heart, and enable him to do all that He pleases to employ him in. No man can properly understand the nature and design of the religion of Christ who does not enter into the spirit of the preceding discourse. Perhaps no part of our Lord's words has been less understood, or more perverted, than the seventeenth chapter of St. John. I have done what I could, in so small a compass, to make every thing plain, and to apply these words in that way in which I am satisfied he used them.
Commentary on the Bible, by Adam Clarke [1831].