John Chapter 17

From The Open Bible Project

17:1 Jesus said these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you;

• (1) Jesus Christ, the everlasting high Priest, being ready to immediately offer himself up, by solemn prayers consecrates himself to God the Father as a sacrifice, and us together with himself. Therefore this prayer was from the beginning, is, and will be to the end of the world, the foundation and ground of the Church of God. (2) He first declares that as he came into the world so that the Father might show in him (being apprehended by faith) his glory in saving his elect, so he applied himself to that only: and therefore he desires from the Father that he would bless the work which he had finished.

17:2 even as you gave him authority over all flesh, he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

• (a) Over all men.

17:3 This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

• (b) He calls the Father the only true God in order to set him against all false gods, and to include himself and the Holy Spirit, for he immediately joins the knowledge of the Father and the knowledge of himself together, and according to his accustomed manner sets forth the whole Godhead in the person of the Father. So is the Father alone said to be King, immortal, wise, dwelling in light which no man can attain unto, and invisible; (Romans 16:27; 1 Timothy 1:17).

17:4 I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do.

17:5 Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.

17:6 I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word.

• (3) First of all he prays for his disciples by whom he would have the rest of his disciples gathered together, and commends them unto the Father (having already rejected the whole company of the reprobate) because he received them from his Father into his custody, and because by embracing his doctrine, they will have so many and so mighty enemies, that there is no way for them to be in safety, except by his help.
• (c) He shows by this the everlasting election and choice, which was hidden in the good will and pleasure of God, which is the groundwork of our salvation.
• (d) He shows that the everlasting and hidden purpose of God is declared in Christ, by whom we are justified and sanctified, if we lay hold of him by faith, so that we may eventually come to the glory of the election.

17:7 Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you,

17:8 for the words which you have given me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew for sure that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

17:9 I pray for them. I don't pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

17:10 All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

17:11 I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.

• (c) He prays that his people may peaceably agree and be joined together in one, that as the Godhead is one, so they may be of one mind and one consent together.

17:12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you have given me I have kept. None of them is lost, except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

17:13 But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

17:14 I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17:15 I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one.

• (4) He shows what type of deliverance he means: not that they should be in no danger, but that in being preserved from all they might prove by experience that the doctrine of salvation is true, which doctrine they received from his mouth to deliver to others.

17:16 They are not of the world even as I am not of the world.

17:17 Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.[54]

• (f) That is, make them holy: and that thing is said to be holy which is dedicated to God and belongs to him alone.

17:18 As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world.

• (5) Moreover, he adds that the apostles have a calling common with him, and therefore that they must be held up by the very same virtue to give themselves up wholly to God, by which Christ, who was first, did consecrate himself to the Father.

17:19 For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

• (g) The true and substantial sanctification of Christ is contrasted with the outward purifyings of the law.

17:20 Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word,

• (6) Secondly, he offers to God the Father all of his, that is, all those who will believe in him by the doctrine of the apostles: that as he cleaves unto the Father, receiving from him all fulness, so they being joined with him may receive life from him, and being loved together in him, may also with him eventually enjoy everlasting glory.

17:21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.

17:22 The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one;

17:23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me.

17:24 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

17:25 Righteous Father, the world hasn't known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.

17:26 I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them."

• (7) He communicates the knowledge of the Father with his own little by little, which knowledge is most full in Christ the mediator, that they may in him be beloved by the Father, with the selfsame love with which he loves the Son.