Bible Commentaries
John 17

Verses 1-26

3 The knowledge of God is not given as the definition of eonian life, but eonian life is imparted that they may be knowing Him. Eonian life is life during the eons of Christ's reign and glory. Two methods are used by Him to acquaint His saints with Himself. First, they are left to taste the sorrows of sin at a distance from Him. Then, in the eons of the eons, in glorious fellowship with His Son, each high tide of bliss will mark some new discovery of His love, some fresh token of His affection.

4 The charge against all mankind is that all sin and are wanting of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). God guarantees to give glory and honor and incorruption to all who endure in good acts. Our Lord is the only one who can claim the reward. He is the only one who glorified God on the earth. He is the only one who accomplished the work God gave Him. Hence it seems perfectly natural for Him to demand glorification. Yet He does not ask for the glory His work deserves, but the glory which He had before the world is. He leaves His reward with God Himself. The saints will be a precious part of it.

6 Hebrew names were usually most expressive of character, life or ministry. Even we speak of a good or a bad "name", referring rather to character than sound or significance. Among the Jews the name of their God was given the honor due to the deity, hence it was never pronounced. Christ manifested God's name by displaying His attributes in His life and conduct. It is a precious thought to consider the disciples as a gift from the Father to His Son. As such, He valued them, not for their own sakes alone, but because of the Giver. It is this interweaving of human lives into the affections of God and His Christ which should give us the greatest cause for confidence and comfort. Our little lives are bound up with the love of God for His Son and the Son's response to the Father. As He says (10), all His belong to God,

and all God's are His. It is a great thing to have a God. But it is a much greater to know ourselves as the valued possession of God and His Beloved.

10 Glory consists in the esteem in which we are held by others. In the world Christ had no glory then, but in His own He was esteemed more than ever was the lot of man, and it has come to pass that, even in the world that rejects Him and repudiates His teaching, His name is placed upon the pinnacle of moral glory.

11 It seems evident that, in spirit, the Lord is beyond the cross. There it was that He finished His work (4), and until then He was still in the world.

19 That holiness, or sanctification, Is not essentially a cleansing from sin Is evident from this statement, for our Lord would not cleanse Himself from His own sin, for He had none, and He was not cleansed from, but bore, the sins of others. When the priest was consecrated, his hands were filled with the sacrifice. Real holiness consists in a positive occupation with the things of God, rather than a negative absence of sin.

22 The unity existing between the Son and the Father is here defined, for He desires the same oneness for His disciples. It is a unity of spirit and a community of interests which characterized the early disciples. This is the unity which exists between the Son and the Father. There is no thought of identity. How distinct they were in will, which is the vital element in personality, was to be seen a little later, in the garden of Gethsemane, where the will of Christ was not in line with God's. The cross was not His will, but the subordination of it to His Father.

23 It is with awed hearts and unshod feet that we enter into the pure precincts of God's love to His Son. We feel most unworthy to listen to such sacred secrets. Before the disruption, before sin or sorrow or a single sigh had sent its shadows across this scene, God's love for His Son had its birth. He came into the world, not to win God's love, but in response to it. His whole ministry was an exhibition of it, and an appeal for a suitable response. Now He reveals its fullest force, when He declares that God loves them as He loved Him. Few of His followers at that time, or even after the enlightening aid of the spirit that He had promised, entered into the fullness of this marvelous manifestation of God's affections.