The Son’s Prayer In John 17 / Part 1

Series –March 2018 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Meditations On The Son’s Prayer
 Part One: INTRODUCTION

This prayer is unique among all of the prayers found in Scripture, and it has a very special appeal to Christian believers. It was uttered immediately after the Upper Room Discourse of John 13-16, as stated in the opening words of John 17: “When Jesus had spoken these words” (v.1 ESV ). After Judas Iscariot had left the Passover gathering, the Lord Jesus explained to the eleven remaining apostles that He was going away. They were to be left behind in the world while He returned to the Father. That news troubled them. But the information He gave about the Holy Spirit and the instructions as to how they were to live in these new circumstances reassured them. The Lord Jesus concluded His talk by praying specifically for them, showing that He did really care. Therefore, this unique prayer is often called “The High Priestly Prayer Of Intercession.”

As God the Son, who is co-equal with God the Father, the Lord Jesus always asked1 His Father whenever He prayed. In His prayer recorded in John 17, we therefore see:

1. The Son asked for Himself (vv.1-5).
2. The Son asked for the apostles (vv.6-19).
3. The Son asked for all Christian believers (vv.20-26).

The other three articles of this series will consider these sections. However, in our introduction we will look at some prominent themes in this prayer.

The Father
The name Father, referred to twice in His prayer (17:11-12), is the central theme of the Lord’s teaching in John 13-17 about His disciples’ new relationship with God. By revealing Father, the Godhead’s eternal relationship in which the Father and the Son live was made known to the disciples.

The name of a person in Scripture describes the character of that person,2 but the name of a person of the Godhead describes who He is in His Being. Through Jesus Christ His Son, God is now known as He really is in His nature: “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:16). “The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has [fully] declared Him” (Jn. 1:18 NKJV).

The Lord Jesus directly addressed the Father six times in His prayer:

• “Father” (vv.1,21,24) – as Son, He spoke directly to His Father in the intimacy and affection of His eternal relationship to Him.
• “O, Father” (v.5) or “Thou Father” (JND) – He emphatically spoke to His Father as His equal within the Godhead.
• “Holy Father” (v.11 ESV) – He was conscious that the apostles had been called out of an unholy and sinful world, but they were to continue to live in it as we are today. As saints, all believers need to be practically separate from the world.
• “Righteous Father” (v.25) – His assessment of the world was that it was unrighteous in its treatment of both the Father and Himself (see 15:21-25).

Love
The revelation of the name Father includes that reality of eternal love which is proper to the divine relationship of the Father and the Son. The Son can speak to His Father as His equal because He eternally dwells, or abides, in the Father’s bosom (1:18). His prayer climaxed with the disclosure that this same blessedness and intimacy of affection – the Father’s love which He experiences and enjoys – is the everlasting portion of His people (17:26). The Father’s love for Him from before the foundation of the world is also the reason He was able to make His request that they be with Him where He is (v.24).

Give, Gave And Given
Believers are familiar with the idea that God’s giving is an action of His love. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16). This idea is expressed 17 times in John 17:

• The Father gives to His Son because He eternally loves Him and trusts Him with everything that He has given Him (vv.2,4,6-9,11-12,22,24).
• The Son gives many things to His followers because the Father has gifted them to Him (vv.2,8,22).

Those Given To The Son By The Father
Throughout his gospel and in various ways John described the people who believed in the Lord. By belief in the true Light they are “the children of God,” who became part of His family by divine birth (1:12-13). John 6:37 identifies them as “all that the Father gives Me.” In verses 39-40, 44-45 and 54, the believers’ eternal security is guaranteed. The Son re-emphasized this fact in chapter 10 when He called them “My own” (v.14) and “My sheep” (v.27). There also is a double security, for they belong to both His Father and Himself (vv.28-30). At the beginning of the Upper Room Discourse, the term used is “His own.” But in the breathings of divine love in John 17:6, the Son said to the Father that they are the men3 whom His Father had given Him from out of the world. We can say that they were the Father’s possession according to His eternal purpose and by His sovereign choice and grace.

John 3:35 and 5:20 announce the eternal truth that “the Father loves the Son.” But the amazing fact about this eternal relationship is that the Father considers believers to be a suitable gift to demonstrate His love for His Son! The Son values us as a special love-gift from His Father, as is seen in the repetition of the expressions “You gave them to Me” (17:2,6,9,24) and “they were Yours” (v.6). Be sure to notice the amazing refrain of verses 9-10: “For they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.” Furthermore, He claimed they would be the means by which He would be glorified in the world that had rejected Him.

The Son had taken special care of the apostles while He was with them in the world. He, the Sent One, had made known to them the Father’s name (v.26). The true nature of God the Father had been seen in their Master’s deeds (v.4) and declared by His words (vv.8,26). They had kept and treasured the Father’s word (v.6). The Son had explained the Father’s will to them (vv.8,14). They also had come to understand the Father as the source of all things that the Son possessed (v.7) and to believe that He came from the Father’s presence (v.8).

In verse 20 the Lord grouped together the apostles and everyone who would believe in Him as a result of their testimony. It is the whole Christian family from Pentecost to the rapture who are “His own.” The first chapter of John describes His own as all who, by belief in His name, have become part of God’s family (vv.11-13). They are “His brethren.” No wonder John 13:1 asserts, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”4 His love for them endures unto the end, or to the uttermost – through everything in this life on earth and into eternity!

The World
There are 19 occurrences of “world” in John 17, emphasizing the Lord’s awareness of the threats that it would pose for believers. The Lord’s concern is shown in verses 11, 14 and 15, so He called upon His “Holy Father” (v.11).

Sometimes in John’s gospel, such as 1:9-10, “the world” means planet Earth on which we live. The second use of “the world” in verse 10 obviously means the people who live on earth, as John 3:16 also shows. However, the usage of “the world” in chapters 13-17 means more than just its people. The word takes on the meaning of the entire system of life by mankind who always acts against God, practicing ungodliness and not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John 2:15-17, John explained that this “world” is the antithesis, or direct opposite, of the Father; it always opposes Him. In fact, it is in active rebellion against Him and has shown its hatred for Him (Jn. 15:24).

Because the Lord knew that its hatred would be directed towards His people (17:14), He specifically prayed that believers be kept from its powerful and corrupting influences (vv.15-17). He also prayed for believers to be kept in the good of the Father’s name because any love for the world practically, or in what we do, prevents us from experiencing the love of the Father.

Glory And Glorify
To understand much of what the Son asked for, we need to know the meaning of these two words and others that are associated:

• “Glory” is the display of excellence. In John 17 it is the manifested qualities of the Father and of the Son, including esteem, dignity, high honor, exaltation, resplendent majesty, great fame, splendor, beauty and the all-varied tributes of praise and worship given to Them.
• “To glorify” is to cause the true excellences of a person to be manifested – to be seen, understood and appreciated by others.

When God’s glory is the subject, it is closely related to the truth that “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” and that “the true light is already shining” (1 Jn. 1:5, 2:8). Therefore the intent of this prayer in John 17 could be considered in three ways:

1. That the Father is glorified in/by the Son (vv.1-5).
2. That the Son is glorified in/by believers (vv.6-19).
3. That believers are glorified in/with the Son (vv.20-26).

As we go through these sections we will discover seven glories:

1. The Lord’s glory as Son, but also now as Man, seated at God’s right hand (v.1).
2. The Father’s on-going glory because His Son gives eternal life to believers (vv.1-3).
3. The Father’s glory brought to Him through the completed work of His Son on earth (v.4).
4. The personal Godhead glory of the Son (v.5).
5. The moral glory of the Lord Jesus reflected in His disciples as they live in this world (v.10).
6. The glory which believers have been given by the Lord to enable them to properly testify to Him (v.22).
7. The Son’s heavenly glory (v.24).

May the reminder that the Lord prayed for you encourage your heart!

ENDNOTES
1. The ESV uses “ask” in verses 15 and 20 but “pray” in verse 9 to translate the Greek word erotao?.
2. For as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him” (1 Sam. 25:25).
3. These men were the eleven apostles present with Him in the upper room that night. But they were representative of all the people who believed in Him during His public ministry. All Christian believers are included in this group of mankind (v.20).
4. JND’s footnote for 13:1 states that “the full force of this expression [the end] ... [is not] merely to time [but] going through with everything is ... implied.”

By David Anderson

Look for Part 2 next month.