John 17 has been described as the High Priestly prayer. This is perhaps the longest prayer of the Lord Jesus recorded for us and it reveals what is upon His heart. In that sense, we are ‘standing on holy ground’ as we examine this prayer that shows us what truly matters to Him and His Father.
Jesus’ main priority as He goes towards His death, is that His Father should accomplish His eternal plan, reversing the effects of the Fall and calling together a people who will belong to Him forever.
In verses 1-5, He prays for the completion of His ministry. In verses 6-19, He prays for the completion of His apostles’ ministry. In verses 20-26, He prays for the impact of the ministry of all the believers who come to believe in Him through the ministry of the apostles. This would include the ministry of the Church. In particular, He prays for the unity of the apostles and the believers and He asks for all the believers to be with Him and to see His glory, the glory He has before the creation of the world.
In verses 1-5, Jesus asks the Father to glory Him, that He may glorify the Father. He prays that the Father should acknowledge His work by returning Him to His position of heavenly glory. We know that the glorification of the Son would be through the cross; in this prayer, Jesus speaks as if the events of the cross are already accomplished. This reveals His utter confidence in the Father and the Spirit to see Him through His greatest hour in triumph. Jesus seeks in His glorification nothing less than the glory of His Father. When Jesus petitions His Father to glorify the Son, He does so on the basis of the Father’s plan to give all authority to the Son as a function of the Son’s triumphant cross-work and exaltation. Jesus asks that He might be glorified in order that the He might in turn glorify the Father – the Father is glorified before human beings as they are brought to faith in the Son and in the One who sent Him, and gain eternal life. Notice that knowing God is eternal life – it is not the way to eternal life. Just as being shut out from a relationship with God is central to the Fall, so entering back into a relationship with God is central to the experience of eternal life now. Jesus’ prayer is that God’s glory should be manifest through the achieving of His eternal plan to reverse the effects of the Fall by calling together a people who know Him through His Son.
Jesus then prays that His Father would accomplish His plan through the completion of His apostles’ ministry. Essentially, He prays for His apostles, affirming them as being authentic and reliable (although he was aware of their weaknesses), and He prays that the apostles may be protected and set apart for the Father’s use. The apostles belong to God, they have been given to Jesus by God and God has been fully revealed to them by Jesus. They are now God’s people who know the only true God and Jesus Christ; because they no longer belong to the world, the world hates them, and yet they need to persevere in the world. So far Jesus has kept them and protected them on earth (with the exception of Judas Iscariot); now that He is going away, He asks the Father to protect them in accordance with His name.
In His prayer, Jesus specifically mentions the evil one besides the world. Lest we forget that spiritual warfare and the evil one are not just imaginary, this should jolt us to be conscious that the evil one relentlessly seeks to destroy God’s people and work, and that he operates through the world and through our flesh or “old man”. Jesus prays also for the unity of the apostles and this prayer for unity also extends to all those who will believe through their ministry. It is not just a unity with each other; it is primarily a unity with the Father and the Son. The Father and Son’s unity is a unity of purpose and intention, guaranteed by the Son’s sacrificial and obedient self-giving and the Father’s eternal plan to bring about a reversal of the Fall. It is not a sentimental unity that comes about by abandoning the truth of God.
Jesus turns His focus on the impact of all believers’ ministry in His prayer. In praying for their unity, Jesus’ desire is that the world should see His people’s unity in the truth as it is worked out in relationships within the church, and that people in the world would, on account of this, come to believe the message of the gospel for themselves.
He then prays that they may go to dwell with Him in glory for ever. Our understanding of this glory would help us tremendously to persevere on this earth and in our walk with God in His mission. The final return of Christ which will be marked by the resurrection of the dead and the consummation of all things is the event which is marked by His glory. God’s purpose is to save men and women – and men and women enjoy bodily, not merely spiritual existence. The work of applying the finished work of Christ is therefore not complete until the day when the resurrection of our bodies has been accomplished by God.
He will come to be glorified in the very world in which He was humiliated. Then every knee shall bow to Him and willingly or unwillingly confess His Lordship. His glory will be seen and He will be glorified. At that very moment Christians will share in His glory, since they cannot ever be separated from Him. This will take place in the experience of the whole Church at the same time. On that day we shall all together share in the glorification of Jesus, and our glorification with Him. We will all be transformed to be like Christ.
The day of the Christian’s glorification will also be the day when the universe in which he lives will be transformed. Just as the believer will be changed, so too his environment must be changed to suit his new condition. The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom 8:21). God will then complete the work He has begun in us, and we will both manifest and enjoy the fulness of fellowship and family life with Him. Neither sin nor bodily weakness nor the mind of the flesh will hamper us in expressing the totality of our love for Him in worship, or the depths of our loyalty to Him in obedience and service. It is a glorious prospect!
No man can believe he has such a glorious destiny when he will be changed into the perfect likeness of Christ, without living a life that is already changed by that prospect; it encourages and challenges us to live the Christian life and to persevere through the tribulations in order to enter into that glory.
Our hope is real; our hope is glorious. Let us therefore not lose heart but rejoice that the prayer of our Lord Jesus for us in John 17 will definitely come to pass.