John 17
CHAPTER 17
John 17:1-26 . THE INTERCESSORY PRAYER.
reverential reader would not have exclaimed, Oh, 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.1-3. These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes--"John 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" [ALFORD].
Father, the hour is
glorify thy Son--Put honor upon Thy Son, by countenancing, sustaining, and carrying Him through that "hour."
2. given--gavest
him power over all
give eternal life to as many as, &c.--literally, "to all that which thou hast given him."
3. this is--that.
life eternal, that they might--may.
know, &c.--This life eternal, then, is not mere conscious and unending existence,.but a life of acquaintance with God in Christ ( Job 22:21 ).
thee, the only true God--the sole personal living God; in glorious contrast equally with heathen polytheism, philosophic naturalism, and mystic pantheism.
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent--This is the only place where our Lord gives Himself this compound name, afterwards so current in apostolic preaching and writing. Here the terms are used in their strict signification--"JESUS," because He "saves His people from their sins"; "CHRIST," as anointed with the measureless fulness of the Holy Ghost for the exercise of His saving offices "WHOM THOU HAST SENT," in the plenitude of Divine Authority and Power, to save. "The very juxtaposition here of Jesus Christ with the Father is a proof, by implication, of our Lord's Godhead. The knowledge of God and a creature could not be eternal life, and such an association of the one with the other would be inconceivable" [ALFORD].
4, 5. I have glorified thee on the earth--rather, "I glorified" (for the thing is conceived as now past).
I have finished--I finished.
the work which thou gavest me to do--It is very important to preserve in the translation the past tense, used in the original, otherwise it might be thought that the work already "finished" was only what He had done before uttering that prayer; whereas it will be observed that our Lord speaks throughout as already beyond this present scene ( John 17:12 , &c.), and so must be supposed to include in His "finished work" the "decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem."
5. And now--in return.
glorify thou me--The "I Thee" and "Thou Me" are so placed in the original, each beside its fellow, as to show that A PERFECT RECIPROCITY OF SERVICES of the Son to the Father first, and then of the Father to the Son in return, is what our Lord means here to express.
with the glory which I had with thee before the world was--when "in the beginning the Word was with God" ( John 1:1 ), "the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father" ( John 1:18 ). With this pre-existent glory, which He veiled on earth, He asks to be reinvested, the design of the veiling being accomplished--not, however, simply as before, but now in our nature.
6-8. From praying for Himself He now comes to pray for His disciples.
I have manifested--I manifested.
thy name--His whole character towards mankind.
to the men thou gavest me out of the
8. they . . . have known surely that I came out from
9-14. I pray for them--not as individuals merely, but as representatives of all such in every succeeding age
not for the world--for they had been given Him "out of the world" ( John 17:6 ), and had been already transformed into the very opposite of it. The things sought for them, indeed, are applicable only to such.
10. all mine are thine, and thine are mine--literally, "All My things are Thine and Thy things are Mine." (On this use of the neuter gender, Absolute COMMUNITY OF PROPERTY between the Father and the Son is here expressed as nakedly as words can do it.