Chapter XVII
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Ch. 17:1-26. CHRIST’S INTERCESSORY PRAYER.—His prayer of preparation for the Passion.—His prayer of intercession for his church.—His mission and its fulfillment.—The mission of his followers.—His fourfold petition for them: preservation; consecration; sanctification; glorification. See on ver. 24.
There is some question whether we have the exact words of the Lord or no. Alford goes beyond the declaration or even clear implication of the sacred narrative, in saying, in opposition to Olshausen and the German commentators generally, that we have here “the very words of our Lord himself, faithfully rendered by the beloved apostle, in the power of the Holy Spirit.” We can only say that the Lord has just promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit will bring all things to their remembrance which he has said to them (ch. 14:26); that on no heart would these sacred words be more deeply impressed than on that of the apostle who was leaning on Jesus’ bosom at the supper; that we cannot conceive any utterance in the rendering of which that promised inspiration would be more likely to be sought by John and vouchsafed by the Lord; and that if we cannot be sure that we have the very words of our Lord, we can be sure that no modern commentator has the right to sift out the prayer and tell us what were Christ’s words and what were the Evangelist’s. That the Holy Spirit did not consider the very words essential to our profit is evident from the fact that, while the prayer was almost certainly in Hebrew, John’s record is in Greek, and our version of it is in English; but that we have in these words the very spirit of the prayer, expressed as the Holy Spirit would have it expressed for the guidance and inspiration of the church universal, is as certain as the doctrine of inspiration itself.
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour[630] is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he[631] should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3 And this[632] is life eternal, that they might know thee[633] the only[634] true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou[635] hast sent.
1-3. And lifted up his eyes to heaven. See ch. 11:41, note. This is not an indication that he and his disciples had gone out from the chamber and were now in the environs of the city, though Godet even undertakes to fix the exact location: “Jesus had spoken the preceding words on the road from Jerusalem to Gethsemane; he was therefore on the point of passing the brook of Kedron.” In fact, these words indicate nothing as to locality. “The eyes may be lifted to heaven in as well as out of doors; heaven is not the sky, but the upper region, above our own being and thoughts, where we all agree in believing God to be especially present, and which we indicate when we direct our eyes or our hands upward. The Lord, being in all such things like as we are, lifted up his eyes to heaven when addressing the Father.”—(Alford.)—And said, Father. Not our Father, for Christ never identifies himself with his disciples; nor my Father, for that would too strongly emphasize the separation between him and them; without identifying himself with his disciples, he yet uses language on which their spirits too can ascend towards God.—The hour is come. The hour of the Passion, to which all prophecy had pointed, for which all the O. T. dispensation had prepared, and from which all redemptive influences proceed. Comp. Matt. 26:45; Mark 14:41; John 7:30; 8:20, etc.—Manifest thine own Son in his glory, that thy Son also may manifest thee in thy glory. The changed position of the words, in the two clauses, in the original (σοι τὸν υἱὸν in the first clause, υἱὸς σοι in the second), justifies the rendering thine own Son. To glorify (δοξάζω) in N. T. usage nearly if not quite always signifies to manifest glory. The authorities which Robinson (Lex., δοξάζω) cites in justification of the definition to make glorious are at best of doubtful interpretation. The glory of Christ is his self-sacrificing love. The noblest manifestation of this glory is his patient and peaceful endurance of the Passion. In the cross of Christ alone would Paul glory (Gal. 6:14); it is the Lamb slain that is the glory of heaven (Rev. 5:6). Christ here prays that the Father will so enable him to endure the cross that it may become glorious, and so a manifestation of the Father’s glory; it is Jesus Christ “lifted up” who draws all men unto him, and this in order that through him they may be drawn to the Father. He prays that every knee may bow and every tongue confess him Lord, but only to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:11). Throughout this prayer the thought is always the same; glory is of character, not condition; the glory of a divine love manifested in self-sacrifice; making the Son worthy to receive the peculiar love of the Father; making all that, through Christ, become partakers of the same divine nature, participators also in the same divine love, sons of God, and therefore one with the Father and with his Son.—Inasmuch as thou hast given him power over all flesh, in order that (for the very purpose that) unto the all which thou hast given to him, to them he should give eternal life. Maurice’s criticism on our English version is just: “Our translators would have appeared to themselves and to many of their readers to be using an uncouth and strange form of speech, if they had rendered the words literally. But I think they were bound to encounter any apparent difficulty of construction, rather than to incur the risk of contracting or perverting the sense.” Christ has authority (the original implies both power and authority; see ch. 1:12, note) not merely over all mankind, but over all terrestrial life and the earth itself, the abode of flesh and the realm of his redemptive work (Col. 1:14-18); but this authority and power is conferred upon him by the Father (ch. 5:19, 30) for a purpose, namely, that out of the world he may gather a kingdom, receiving the entire body which God has given to him, and conferring on each individually, in that body, eternal life. Thus here, as in ch. 6:37 (see note there), Christ speaks of the all (πᾶν, neuter singular) as given to him in a body by the Father, but of each one as receiving individually (αὐτοῖς) the special, personal gift of eternal life. Observe on the one hand that Christ declares himself, by implication, Lord of all, not of Jews, or elect, or Christendom merely; but on the other hand he also declares, by implication, that not all will receive from him the gift of life eternal. There is implied a redemption universal in its offer, but not in its results. The whole is given to him, but only that he may impart eternal life to the chosen. Who are thus chosen is indicated in ch. 6:40, namely, every one that seeth (spiritually) the Son and hath faith in him. Because the Father has thus conferred divine authority on the Son, for the work of redemption, the Son pleads with the Father to so carry him through the Passion hour that this redemptive work may be consummated and eternal life imparted to the believer. Beware of reading eternal life here as equivalent to everlasting life or age-abiding life. The duration is merely incidental; spiritual life is everlasting; but that which is essential is its spirituality, not its endurance. The nature of this life is indicated in the next sentence.—But this is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent forth, Jesus the Messiah. That (ἵνα) cannot here be rendered in order that, and curiously both Alford and Meyer, who insist that it is always telic, i. e., always signifies intention, here render it without that signification. “This knowledge of God here desired is the eternal life” (Meyer); “is, not is the way to” (Alford). Spiritual knowledge and spiritual life are in so far the same that neither is possible without the other. We become like God only as we know him (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2); we know him only as, becoming like him, we become sharers of his life (Matt. 5:8; John 3:3; Heb. 12:14; 2 Pet. 1:5-9). For this knowledge (γιγνώσκω) is not intellectual understanding of the truth about God, but a personal and spiritual acquaintance with him; it is not psychological, but sympathetic. See Jer. 9:24; Ephes. 3:19; Phil. 3:10; comp. 1 Cor. 8:2. The connecting particles are important. Christ prays that the Father will glorify him in the approaching Passion, in order that he may be able to give eternal life to those whom the Father has given to him, for this life can be given only by giving them a true apprehension of the one God, and he can be made known to them only through him whom he hath sent into the world, Jesus the Messiah. The knowledge of the only true God is in contrast with polytheistic paganism; knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah is in contrast with Jewish pride and prejudice. The first was the burden of Paul’s preaching at Athens; the second of Peter’s preaching at Jerusalem (Acts 2:22-36; 17:22-34). The use of the third person here, and the phrase Jesus Christ, often found together in the Epistles, but never in Christ’s previous discourses, have been cited by rationalistic critics as an evidence that this prayer was the work of a later writer, who with doubtful dramatic license put it into the mouth of Christ. The answer is (1) that the time had now come for Jesus to declare in unmistakable language his Messiahship, and that no more natural or suitable form could be employed than that of such a prayer; (2) that the very fact that the names appear so frequently in conjunction in the Apostolic writings, and in the early church, is itself a reason for believing that the apostles derived them from their Master.
4 I[636] have glorified thee on the earth: I[637] have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I[638] had with thee before the world was.
4, 5. I have manifested thy glory on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. By anticipation Christ regards that as consummated, the consummation of which is so near at hand. In fact, not the least part of his work was the endurance of the Passion of the next twenty-four hours. Comp. Paul in 2 Tim. 4:7, “I have finished my course,” etc.—And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with that glory which I have always had with thee before the world was. That is, Manifest my glory in and with thee, that glory which I have always possessed. The word glorify is used throughout this prayer, I believe, always with the one signification, viz., to show forth glory, not to confer it (see on ver. 1), and that the glory of inherent character, not of circumstance or condition. I have had (εἶχον, imperfect) is, as above rendered, equivalent to always or habitually had. The language before the world was clearly implies Christ’s pre-existence with the Father from the creation of the world. It is not, and by no candid interpretation can be made, the language of a merely human experience. God is said to have chosen his saints (Ephes. 1:4), but not to have loved and glorified them, from before the beginning of the world; but Christ’s grace was prepared and his glory was manifested before the foundation of the world (Col. 1:17; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2). Christ declares that he has manifested the glory of the Father by the fulfilling of the Father’s work thus far; and he prays the Father to remember the glory of love which bound the Son and the Father together in the eternal life of the past, and to so sustain him in the trying experiences of the present, that this divine glory, which he has had with the Father from before the beginning of the world, may be made manifest.
6 I[639] have manifested thy name unto the men which thou[640] gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy[641] word.
6. Christ here passes from the prayer for himself to the intercessory prayer for his disciples, with whom, by the request in ver. 20, he includes all who have faith in him, through all time.—I have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou entrusted to me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou entrusted them to me; and they have guarded thy teaching. To manifest is literally to cause to shine (φανερόω, from φαίνω). The name that was enveloped in darkness, of him whom no one by searching can find out, who was, and apart from Christ ever is, the unknown and unknowable, Christ has made to shine forth out of the darkness. The name represents all that which lies back of and gives meaning to the name, here the power and character of God. See Matt. 28:19, note. Especially his name of Father Christ has made to shine out upon a before orphaned world, both by manifesting in himself the character of God the Father, and by his life, and notably by this prayer, manifesting also the relation which may and should subsist between the children and the Father to whom Christ gives access (Rom. 5:2; Ephes. 2:18; 3:12). The verb rendered gave, here and below (δίδωμι), is equally capable of being rendered entrusted or committed (Rob. Lex.). This is clearly its meaning in Matt. 16:19; 25:15; John 5:22; and I think represents the meaning here and in John 10:29 better than the word gave. The Father entrusts his children to the guardian keeping of his Son, but will at the end receive them again unto himself when the Son delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father (1 Cor. 15:24). They were the Father’s (thine) before they were entrusted to the Son, not because they were Israelites; for Christ includes all, Gentiles as well as Jews, in this prayer, and elsewhere makes it clear that he does not regard any one as of God because descended from Abraham (ch. 8:37, 39, 40; comp. Luke 3:8); nor because they were chosen by God from the foundation of the world; for there is no distinct declaration nor any necessary implication of election, either absolute or conditional, here. The disciple of Christ is the Father’s, because he is born from above, by the Spirit of God, before he can see the kingdom of God, certainly therefore before by faith he can enter it. Thus he is of the Father before he hears Christ’s voice; he is given by the Father to the Son before he comes to the Son (John 3:5; 6:37, 44; 8:47). Teaching or word (λόγος), a different Greek word from that rendered words in ver. 8, indicates the whole system of divine truth entrusted by the Father to Christ and by him taught to his disciples, and pre-eminently that truth of God which was embodied in the Son’s life and death even more than in his verbal instructions (ch. 7:16; 12:48, 49). It is called the Father’s word or teaching because the words of Christ were not his, but the Father’s (ch. 14:24). To keep (τηρέω) is to guard watchfully, as one guards a prisoner; it therefore includes the idea both of watchful attention to the word and solicitude to preserve it by obedience in the life and heart (ch. 8:51, note). Christ then declares that he has made luminous the name of God, by interpreting the divine Fatherhood, not to the whole world, but to those selected out of the world and entrusted to his guardian keeping; and that those thus entrusted to him by the Father, to whom they owe the first impulse of divine life that sent them to Christ for light, have been attentive to hear and careful to preserve the instructions they have received from him. In the succeeding two verses he indicates what was the heart of this divine instruction.
7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
8 For I have given unto them the words[642] which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
7, 8. Now. Already; the word is emphatic.—They know. Assuredly know; the perfect tense has the present signification, but indicates completed knowledge; not that the disciples were perfect in knowledge of Christian truth, but they were fully convinced of the fundamental truth of Christianity, viz., that it is a divine revelation, not an earth-born and human philosophy.—That all things whatsoever thou hast entrusted to me are bestowed by thee. Are of thee (παρὰ σοῦ ἐστεν) signifies bestowed by thee; the former is the more literal, the latter is the truer translation, because it renders the Greek idiom into its English equivalent (see Rob. Lex., παρά, I:2). Christianity is a gift of the Father through Christ.—That the words which thou hast entrusted to me I have entrusted to them. This clause, like the preceding one, is dependent on the first clause; the disciples have assuredly known that whatsoever truths are possessed by Christ came from the Father, and that whatsoever the Father has entrusted to him he has in turn entrusted to them, keeping nothing back for fear or favor. Comp. Acts 20:20, 27. I see no reason for translating the same Greek particle (ὅτι) that in ver. 7, for or because in ver.8, first clause, and that again in the last clause of the same verse. Christ before spoke of doctrine or teaching (λόγος), i. e., the system as a whole; he now speaks of words (ῥήμα), thus emphasizing the truth that each specific word in his teaching, whether of promise, commandment, or instruction, is from the Father. These words were entrusted by the Father to Christ, and now that Christ is about to leave his disciples he entrusts these words in turn to them, sending them forth, as he himself was sent forth, to teach only what they are commanded. See ver. 18; Matt. 28:20. He does not merely give these words to us for our own behoof; he entrusts them to us to be used for others.—And they have received (not them, an addition by the translators which the context does not warrant), and known assuredly that from thee I came forth. They have just declared their reception of this central truth of Christianity, that Jesus Christ came forth from the Father (ch. 16:29, 30). They not only have known that Christ has taught only what the Father imparted to him, i. e., is a teacher sent from God (ch. 3:2, note), but they have gone on from this knowledge to the spiritual reception by faith of the truth that Christ himself has come forth from the Father. Their faith has laid hold on not only his divine teaching, but also his divine character. Whosoever begins by accepting Christ as a divine and authoritative teacher, and holds fast to that faith, grows into the experience of continuous acceptance of him in his person and character as a manifestation of the Father from whom not only the words, but he himself, came forth.—And have had faith that thou didst send me. “That I came out from thee is more a matter of conviction from inference, hence they have known; whereas the other side of the same truth, thou hast sent me forth, the act of the Father unseen by us, is more a matter of pure faith, hence they have had faith.”—(Alford.)
9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world,[643] but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
9, 10. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world. It is monstrous exegesis to conclude from this that Christ never prays for the world; he simply says, I am not now praying for the world, but for my own disciples. He enjoined on his followers to pray for the unbelieving (Matt. 5:44); he prayed upon the cross for them, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34); in this very prayer, in ver. 23, he prays “That the world may know that thou hast sent me,” etc. The tense here is present, and the above translation accurately represents the original. In asking for those who have accepted him as a manifestation of the glory of the Father, that they may be kept even unto the end, he is praying for his own. “The most he asked for the world is that it may be converted, not that it may be sanctified or kept.”—(Luther.) To the same effect are Godet, Alford, Meyer, and the modern commentators generally.—But for those whom thou hast entrusted to me; for they are thine; and mine all are thine, and thine mine, and my glory is manifested in them. All is emphatic; the only begotten Son has nothing in reserve from the Father. What Luther says is true: “Any man may say, What is mine is thine, but only the Son can say, What is thine is mine;” nevertheless there are few that can utter with the whole heart, and without any reserve, even the first clause, “Mine all are thine.” Christ pleads for his own on two grounds: (1) They are the Father’s in the ownership of love; thus the covenant mercy of God for his own is plead as one ground of intercession. Comp. Ps. 51:1; 69:13, 16. (2) They are entrusted to the Son’s safe-keeping, and their preservation and sanctification will manifest the Son’s glory, i. e., the glory of his redeeming love and power; thus the Father’s love for the Son is plead as a second ground of intercession. Thus also his example indicates what it is to pray to the Father in the name of the Son, viz., in order that his glory of redeeming love may be manifested. While this declaration, “Mine all are thine and thine mine,” is to be taken in its more comprehensive sense, as indicating the unity of the Son and the Father in all things, yet the context gives a peculiar and spiritual significance to it. All that come to Christ by faith, so becoming his, are born from above and are the children of God; and all that are truly born from above and are the children of God come to Christ by faith, and so become his (ch. 6:44, 45; 8:42, 47).
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep[646] through thine own name[647] those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture[648] might be fulfilled.
11, 12. And now I am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I am coming to thee. An additional plea for those whom he is leaving behind. He can no longer be with them, their guide and guardian; therefore he pleads for the guidance and the guardianship of the Father.—O Holy Father, guard them in that name of thine which thou hast entrusted to me, in order that they may be one in like manner as we are. There is some uncertainty as to the reading; (ὅ, and οὕς and ῶ are all found in MSS.) Some manuscripts give authority for our English version, Keep those whom thou hast entrusted to me; others give as above, Keep those in thy name which thou hast entrusted to me. The latter is sustained by the best critics (Alford, Meyer, Bengel, Groesback, Tischendorf). Every word in this sentence is weighty. The meaning of holy is pure, clean, without blemish. The divine holiness is ever going out of itself, imparting of itself to others, aiming to make all other natures holy; thus by the appellation Holy Father Christ appeals to the cleansing nature of the Father. To keep is to guard with watchful care. See above on ver. 6. In (ἐν) is instrumental; as the life of the flower is preserved in the sunshine, so the life of the soul in the name of the Father, in whom we live and move and have our being. The name stands here, as above (ver. 6), for all which that name represents: the paternal God. This name was not given to Christ, he does not bear it; but it was entrusted to Christ, that he might manifest it to his disciples, by teaching them the Fatherhood of God; and it is to this name that Christ commends his disciples, for it is by faith in this name, i. e., in the essential fatherly character of God, that the disciple receives the spirit of adoption whereby he becomes a child of God (Rom. 8:15-17), and it is this faith in his Father’s holy keeping which is a shield to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked (Ephes. 6:16). In order that may grammatically express either the object for which the Father’s name was entrusted to Christ, or the object of the holy keeping which Christ seeks for his disciples. In fact, the object of the manifestation and of the fatherly guardianship is the same, namely, that the disciples who have by faith received that name, and are protected by it, may become partakers of the divine nature, and so become one with the Son and the Father, not only in general purpose, but in all essential elements of character (Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4).—While I was with them I guarded them in that name of thine which thou didst entrust to me. The reading here, as above, is involved in some uncertainty, but this is the better reading. The words in the world are a gloss, and are needless.—And I preserved them. Our English version obscures the meaning by rendering two different Greek words (τηρέω and φυλάσσω) by the same English word (keep) in this and the preceding verse. Christ declares above that he has kept watch, here that this watch has been successful, and that he has preserved those over whom he has watched.—And no one of them has destroyed himself. This, which is the sense of the middle voice in Greek, it is important to preserve. “Christ did not lose Judas, but he lost himself.”—(Alford.) But the language implies that every one might have destroyed himself but for the guardian care of Christ.—Except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. See John 13:18; Acts 1:20; Ps. 41:9. It was predetermined, not that one who might have been saved should destroy himself in order to fulfill prophecy, but that one who would destroy himself should be among the twelve. Judas was not lured to destruction in order to fulfill prophecy, but prophecy was fulfilled in his self-destruction. See ch. 19:28, note. “Judas fell that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But it would be a most unfounded argument if any one were to infer from this that the revolt of Judas ought to be ascribed to God rather than to himself, because the prediction laid him under a necessity. * * * Nor was it the design of Christ to transfer to Scripture the cause of the ruin of Judas, but it was only intended to take away the occasion of stumbling by showing that the Spirit of God had long ago testified that such an event would happen.”—(Calvin.) It is a noticeable fact that the phrase son of destruction, here employed to designate Judas, is employed by Paul in 2 Thess. 2:3 to designate the Anti-Christ.
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them thy word; and the world[649] hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but[650] that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
13-16. But now I am coming to thee. and therefore can no longer be an earthly guardian. As a mother dying entrusts her children to God, so Christ his disciples.—And these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy filled to overflowing in themselves. These things include not only the prayer now offered for the disciples, but also the whole course of instruction given to them and immediately preceding the prayer. The object of both instruction and prayer is the same, that his disciples may be brought into that oneness with the Father, that life in him, and that consequent consecration to his will and service, which filled the Son with an abiding peace and joy, and that so they might be filled to the full with the same joy. See ch. 14:27; 15:11, notes.—I have entrusted to them thy teaching. Not given, but entrusted. See above on ver. 6. The teaching which the Father entrusted to the Son, the Son in turn entrusted primarily to the apostles, secondarily to his disciples throughout all time, that they may become lights of the world as he was the Light of the world, teachers of the truth of God as he was the Great Teacher (Matt. 5:14; Phil. 2:15). That this is the meaning is indicated by what follows. It is only as the disciples become, by their life and words, teachers of the truth, that the world hates them.—And the world has hated them, because they are not from (ἐκ) the world, in like manner as I am not from the world. The disciple of Christ is born from above (ch. 3:3; Gal. 6:15; 1 Pet. 1:3), and thus is spiritually like his Master (ch. 8:23). The origin of the divine life in Christ and his followers is the same; in both it proceeds from the Father.—I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest guard them from the Evil One. Not as Norton renders it, and as our English version implies, from what is evil, though that is included by implication; but from the Evil One, i. e., Satan. The original is, indeed, capable of either meaning; but the latter interpretation agrees best with John’s usage elsewhere. See 1 John 2:13, 14; 3:12; 5:18. The Evil One is treated by Christ as the source, or at least the representative, of all that is evil, as the prince of the kingdom of darkness and sin. Compare Matt. 13:25, 38, 39, where the tares, i. e., the children of the wicked, are represented as sown by the enemy, i. e., the devil.—If Christ does not desire for us that we should be taken out of the world, we are not to desire it for ourselves. Temporary retreat from the world, the better to prepare us for it, is legitimate; so Christ sometimes retreated, seeking strength in solitude and communion with his Father. But Christianity is not asceticism. The disciple is sent into the world that he may be a light to the world, and the measure of his Christian life is not his experience in hours of retirement from it, but the fidelity of his life in it.
17. Consecrate them in thy truth; thy teaching is truth. The original (ἀγιάζω) may be rendered either consecrate or sanctify. It means both to set apart from a common to a sacred use, and also to make holy for that use; in other words, it may mean to make holy in mission or in character. But the former is evidently the meaning here; for it cannot be said that Christ made himself holy in character for the sake of his disciples (ver. 19). Christ prays that the Father will set apart his disciples to a life of divine service, as priests unto God (Rev. 20:6). This consecration of the disciple involves his sanctification; for the sinner cannot be set apart to a holy work while yet in his sins. It does not involve sanctification in the Son, because he had no sins to be cleansed away. This consecration of the disciple is effected both by imparting to him through the Holy Spirit the truth of God (ch. 14:26), and by commissioning him to serve that truth by bearing witness of it unto others (Matt. 28:20; Acts 1:8). In thy truth (ἐν, dative) expresses the idea that the truth is both the instrument by which and the service to which the disciple is consecrated. We are consecrated unto the truth as we live in the truth; so Samuel was consecrated to the temple by being brought while yet a child to live in the temple. Christ designates the teaching or word which he has imparted, and which the Holy Spirit will further impart to his disciples, thy teaching, because all that comes through the Son and the Spirit comes from the Father (ch. 14:10; 16:13).
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
19 And[653] for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
18, 19. In like manner as thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Full weight is to be given to the phrase as, i. e., in like manner as (καθὼς). This is the most weighty and solemn declaration of the mission of the disciple, I think, in the N. T., albeit it corresponds with the universal teaching of both Gospel and Epistle, viz., that Christ is the first-born among many brethren, and that those who are his disciples are also to be in all things his followers; like him teachers of the truth; like him manifesting the life and character of God in the world, by the divine life begotten in them from above; like him bearing the sins of others in their own person, and so filling up what is behind of the sufferings Of Christ (Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; 1 Pet. 4:13). Christ does not merely leave his disciples in the world, he sends them into it, as he was sent, each disciple to be in his narrower sphere a saviour of others, and the whole discipleship to be the body of an ever living, ever incarnate, ever teaching, and ever atoning Lord. Thus, too, not only because they are left alone, but yet more because they are sent forth to complete his work, does the Son ask the Father to be to them what he has been to their Lord in his earthly mission.—And for their sakes I consecrate myself, in order that they also might be consecrated in the truth. As above, both in, i. e., by means of, and unto, i. e., to serve the cause of the truth. The definite article is wanting, and Meyer reads the phrase consecrated in truth, as simply equivalent to “truly consecrated”; but the other interpretation is warranted by Greek usage, and better accords with the context. While Christ identifies himself with his disciples in his prayer that they may become one with him, in his declaration that they are in the spiritual life born of the same divine Father, and in his commission to them to carry out his work, he distinguishes between himself and them; for he consecrates himself; they must be consecrated by a higher power. The consecration which the Lord made of himself was not made, though it was consummated, at Calvary. His death was a crowning act, not the whole act. “Our Lord possessed a human nature like our own, endowed with inclinations and dislikes as our own is, though of such only as are perfectly lawful. Of this nature he was continually making a holy offering; he constrained it to obedience; negatively by sacrificing it when it was in contradiction with his mission; positively by devoting to his divinely appointed task all his powers, all his natural and spiritual talents. It was thus that ‘He by the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God’ (Heb. 9:14).”—(Godet.) So also substantially Calvin, Alford, Hengstenberg. Comp. John 10:11, note.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one;[654] as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
20, 21. Not for these only am I praying, but also for those who have faith upon me through their teaching. The statement is not general, I am accustomed to pray for believers, but special, It is for all believers that I am now praying. His intercessory prayer is for us no less than for them.—That all may be one; in like manner as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee, that also they in us one may be; that the world may have faith that thou hast sent me. The emphasis of the Greek is partially represented in this nearly literal rendering. Observe the close connection with what has gone before. The burden of Christ’s prayer has been that his disciples may be preserved in the world, and consecrated for their mission as truth-bearers to the world; he now adds, I ask this in order that they may be one in us. His prayer is not merely that they may be one, but that they may be consecrated in and to the truth, so that they may become one. The implication is that whenever Christians are thoroughly consecrated to the service of Christ all differences so disappear that they work together in unity of the spirit and of faith; and this truth history abundantly confirms. This unity is not in creed, ceremonial, or ecclesiastical organization, but in the Father and the Son, i. e., the unity of personal devotion to, and love for, and spiritual communion and fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). This spiritual union in and with God will finally lead to but it is not founded on unity in opinion. It is a union that is apparent as well as real. The world will see it, and seeing will be led to believe that the Father has sent the Son, i. e., that Christianity is of divine origin, so marvellous will seem to be the power of love uniting in one kingdom elements, opinions, and nationalities so diverse. This spiritual unity of the discipleship of Christ is almost the consummation of Christ’s prayer. He has only one higher request to prefer for his church, namely, that through this unity in him and the Father who has sent him, the church may come to a true spiritual appreciation of the Son’s eternal glory with and in the Father (ver. 24).
22 And the glory[655] which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
22, 23. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one in like manner as we are one. I is emphatic. The Father has given glory to the Son; the Son makes all his followers participators in that glory. In what does this glory consist? Not in the power of working miracles (Chrysostom), for this he has not given to all those that believe in his name. Not the glory of the heavenly state (Meyer), for this he will give, but had not given to his disciples when he uttered this prayer. Not the glory of unity with the Father and the Son (Hengstenberg), for the glory is given in order that this unity may be attained; this unity with the Godhead is not the glory, but the result of it. The glory which the Father gave the Son was the glory of being the Son of God (Matt. 3:17; John 1:14; Heb. 1:5; 3:6). This glory Christ imparts to his followers, who through him are received into the adoption of God by faith, and become themselves sons of God (ch. 1:12; 1 John 3:1). And it is as we become thus sons of God that we become one with each other because one in him, one household of faith only as we are united to one Father (Rom. 8:29; Ephes. 1:10; 2:19). This glory of sonship involves not only filial relations with the Father, but the possession of a divine life begotten by the Father, and therefore a nature akin to that of the Father, who is love, and whose children we are only as we dwell in love (1 John 3:9, 10; 4:8, 16).—I in them and thou in me. And therefore the Father in them through the Son, by whom they have access to the Father.—That they may be perfected unto unity. This unity of love with the Father and the Son, and therefore with one another, is the culmination of the divine life, as well as the disclosure of it. Comp. Ephes. 4:11-13: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.”—In order that the world may know that thou hast sent me forth. It shall no longer have faith merely; it shall know assuredly the divine origin and authority of the Christian religion, and this conviction shall be compelled by the moral and spiritual power of a spiritually united church.—And that thou hast loved them in like manner as thou hast loved me. Comp. ch. 16:27. With a love not merely of compassion, but now, all quarrels with one another ended because all separation and estrangement from God are at an end, with a love of cordial approbation. Then the voice shall speak to the universal discipleship, Behold my beloved sons in whom I am well pleased; and the whole world shall hear and acknowledge him who has wrought this redemption (Phil. 2:10; Rom. 14:11).
24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be[656] with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
24. Father, whom thou hast entrusted to me, I will that where I am they also may be. (The sense is the same whether the reading ὅ or οὕς be adopted.) Christ changes his expression; he no longer says I pray, but I will. “He demands with confidence as a Son, not as a servant.”—(Bengel.) There are two Greek verbs which are capable of being rendered I will; the one (βούλομαι) expresses an inclination, the other (θέλω) a positive purpose. The latter is the word used here. It might justly be rendered It is my will. It is nowhere else used by Jesus. With the close of his prayer there comes such assurance of his own unity with the Father that he no longer prefers a request; he declares his purpose. In this declaration of his purpose he recurs to the promise which he had made at the opening of this most sacred interview, “I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also” (ch. 14:3). In this expression I will, Christ’s prayer can hardly be a model for his followers. We may say to our Father, I wish; but we can never be so sure of his gracious purposes and of our union with him in them, that we can safely say to him, Father, I will.—That they may behold my glory, which thou gavest me, because thou lovedst me before founding a world. Observe, not before the foundation of the world, but before founding any world; the definite article is not in the original. On the significance of this declaration as a testimony to the pre-existent glory of Christ, see on ver. 5. To behold (θεωρέω) is primarily to be a spectator of, and in its primary signification includes the idea of attention, wonder, admiration. It is, however, here used certainly of spiritual apprehension; we shall be filled with wonder and surprise when the veil drops from our eyes and we see him as he is. The glory which Christ had with the Father from the beginning is the glory of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), the glory of a character whose radiance is infinite love, of which the sacrifice of Christ, purposed from the remote past, is the highest manifestation; and this is the glory which the saints, redeemed by his blood, behold in heaven (Rev. 5:8; 7:9; 21:23). Christ’s will, then, for his disciples is that they may be so spiritually exalted that they may be able to apprehend the full glory of that self-sacrificing love which now they look upon with so feeble appreciation, and which to the unbelieving world is inglorious (1 Cor. 1:23). This is the consummation of his prayer; what a climax in what an ascending scale! First that his disciples may be guarded in his absence by the divine care in which he himself has trusted (11-13); then that, guarded in the world, they may be consecrated to their Christly mission, to teach, to manifest God, to suffer (15-19); then that, with all believers, they may be brought into spiritual unity with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, being made sons of God, and so sharers in the glory of him whose greatest glory it was and is to be the well-beloved Son of the Father (20-23); and finally that, thus preserved, consecrated, adopted, they may be able to realize the glory of that love of self-sacrifice, to which we all sometimes find it difficult even to submit without rebellion, and in which only the most consecrated are ever able to rejoice.
25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
26 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.
25, 26. O righteous Father. Christ first appealed simply to the Fatherhood of God (ver. 1), then to his holiness (ver. 11), now at last even to his righteousness or justice. For since the Son has finished the work which the Father gave him to do, he may ask of righteousness itself to complete it. Thus justice and purity compete with love in pleading for the fulfillment of redemption. So in 1 John 1:9 it is said that “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”—Though (καὶ) the world has not known thee, I have known thee, and (καὶ) these have known that thou hast sent me forth. The world, the Son, and the disciples stand here in a triple contrast; to the world God is the absolute unknown; to the Son he is known; to the disciples God is manifested in the Son, who comes forth from God and goes to God again.—And I have made known thy name to them, and will make it known. And with the name all that the name represents—the justice, the holiness, and pre-eminently the Fatherhood. See on ver. 6. These words attest the consciousness in Christ that an answer has been vouchsafed to his prayer. He began by asking the Father to glorify the Son, that the Son might glorify the Father. He closes by declaring, not only that he has thus far made known the name of the Father (ver. 5), but that in the impending hour of passion and death he will make the Father known, and so will glorify him. It is true that the whole work of the church ever since, and of Christ in his church, has been making known the name of the Father; but it has been by interpreting the meaning of the cross of Christ, by preaching Christ and him crucified, as the wisdom and power of God (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:23, 24; 2:2). Thus this prayer ends, as it began, with an implied reference to the impending Passion; but it begins with petition; it ends with assurance of victory.—In order that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. That is, both that they may possess an experience of the Father’s love for them, and may possess a love like the Father’s, being made perfect in love, even as their Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48); so also that the Spirit of Christ may dwell in them, and that by this indwelling their own spirit may be conformed unto his (2 Cor. 3:18). In this simple and sublime sentence the Son embodies the object of his mission as the Divine Teacher, the Divine Revealer, and the Divine Sufferer. The object of his teaching, incarnation, and atonement is that he may make known the Father to those that will learn of his Son; and this that he may make them one with the Father and his Son—one in spiritual fellowship, because one in spiritual character.
It is a shallow criticism which imagines an incongruity between this prayer recorded by John and the prayer in Gethsemane which immediately followed, and which John has not recorded. Here Christ asks that he may be enabled to glorify the Father’s name to the end; there he asks that the same results may, if it is possible, be accomplished without the terrible ordeal of the betrayal, the desertion, the mock trials, the mob, the crucifixion, the veiling of the Father’s face. But in the agony of Gethsemane, as portrayed by the other three Evangelists, the Son never for a moment wavers from the supreme wish that the Father’s will may be accomplished and the Father’s name made manifest. The power, not merely to resign himself to the Father’s will, but affirmatively to pray, “Not my will but thine be done,” was a part of that very glory with which he besought the Father to invest him. The devout student will recognize in the prayer of Gethsemane a partial answer to the prayer in the upper chamber; for in Gethsemane, no less than in the court of Caiaphas, the judgment hall of Pilate, and the death on Calvary, the Father glorified the Son and the Son glorified the Father.