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:
For the general character of this portion of the Fourth Gospel, see the opening remarks on John 14:1-31. As for this Prayer, had it not been recorded, what reverential reader would not have exclaimed. O to have been within hearing of such a prayer as that must have been, which wound up the whole of His past ministry and formed the point of transition to the dark scenes which immediately followed! But here it is, and with such signature of the Lips that uttered it that we seem rather to hear it from Himself than read it from the pen of His faithful reporter. Were it not almost profane even to advert to it, we might ask the reader to listen to the character given of this Prayer by the first critic, bearing a Christian name, who in modern times has questioned, though he afterward admitted, the genuineness and authenticity of the Fourth Gospel (Bretschneider-with whom, as might be expected, Strauss agree): he calls it 'frigid, dogmatic, metaphysical.' What a commentary on those apostolic words, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14). Happily, the universal instinct of Christendom recoils from such language, and feels itself, while standing within the precincts of this chapter, to be on holy ground, yea, in the very holy of holies. We may add, with Bengel, that this chapter is, in the words of it, the most simple, but in sense the most profound in all the Bible; or, as Luther said long before, that plan and simple as it sounds, it is so deep, rich, and broad, that no man can fathom it.
The Prayer naturally divides itself into thee parts: First, What relates to the Son Himself, who offered the prayer (John 17:1-5); secondly, what had reference more immediately to those Eleven disciples in whose hearing the prayer was uttered (John 17:6-19); thirdly, what belongs to all who should believe on Him through their word, to the end of the world (John 17:20-24); with two concluding verses, simply breathing out His soul in a survey, at once dark and bright, of the whole past results of His mission. We address ourselves to the exposition of this Prayer, with the warning to Moses sounding in our ears-and let it sound in thine, O reader! - "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5); yet encouraged by the assurance of Him that uttered it, that the Comforter "shall glory Him-receiving of His, and showing it unto us."
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven. 'John,' says Alford, 'very seldom depicts the gestures or looks of our Lord, as here. But this was an occasion of which the impression was indelible, and the upward look could not be passed over.'
And said, Father. Never does Jesus say in prayer, 'Our Father,' though He directs His disciples to do it; but always "Father," and once, during His Agony, "My Father:" thus severing Himself as Man from all other men, as the "Separate from sinners," though "Bone of our bone, and Flesh of our flesh."
The hour is come. But did not the Father, you will say, know that? O yes, and Jesus knew that He knew it. But He had not that narrow and distant and cold view of prayer which some even true Christians have, as if it was designed for nothing else but to express petitions for benefits needed, promised, expected. Prayer is the creature yearning after Him that gave it being, looking up into its Father's face, opening its bosom to the brightness and warmth of His felt presence, drinking in fresh assurances of safety under His wing, fresh inspirations of His love, fresh nobility from the consciousness of its nearness to Him. In prayer believers draw near to God, not merely when necessity drives them, but under the promptings of filial love, and just because "it is good for them to draw near to God." We like to breathe the air of His presence; we love to come to Him, though it were for nothing but to cry, in the spirit of adoption, "Abba, Father." "Walking in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship One with the other-He with us and we with Him" - uplifting, invigorating, transfiguring fellowship. How much more, then, must Christ's prayers, and this one above all, have been of that character! Hear Him telling His Father here, with sublime simplicity and familiarity, that "the hour was come." What hour? The hour of hours; the hour with a view to which all the purposes of grace from everlasting were fixed; the hour with a view to which all the scaffolding of the ancient economy was erected; the hour with a view to which He had come into the world, and been set apart by circumcision and baptism and the descent of the Spirit; the hour with a view to which He had lived and worked and taught and prayed; the hour for which Heaven, for the ends of Grace, and Earth and Hell, to defeat those ends, were waiting alike with eager hope: that hour was now "come" - virtually come, all but come-`All things,' Father, 'are now ready.'
Glorify thy Son - `Put honour upon Thy Son, by openly countenancing Him, when all others desert Him; by sustaining Him, when the waters come in unto His soul and He sinks in deep mire where there is no standing; by carrying Him through the horrors of that hour, when it shall please the Lord to bruise Him, and make His soul an offering for sin.'
That thy Son [also] may glorify thee - by a willing and absolute obedience unto death, even the death of the Cross, thus becoming a glorious Channel for the extension to a perishing world of Thine everlasting love. [The kai (G2532) of the Received Text has insufficient authority, and is excluded by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles.]