Joh 17:9 | KingComments | STEP | The disciples – and we – hear the Lord Jesus once again saying that He is asking on their behalf. He no longer has any connection with the world or with Israel. The distinction is no longer between Jews and Gentiles, but between His disciples and the world. He does not ask on behalf of the world. For the world He has no more prayer; the world is under judgment. The time when He will ask for the world to claim it as His rightful possession, as His inheritance, will come when the Father tells Him to do so ( ). He is, so to speak, concerned here with the heirs and not with the inheritance. Until the time comes when He will ask for the inheritance, He asks the Father for those whom He still brings before the Father as “Yours”. As stated above, the Father has not lost what He has given to the Son. It remains His. At the same time, they are also the Son’s. For everything that is of the Son, applies that it is of the Father. The reverse is also true, that everything that is of the Father is His. The first could be said by a man to God, the second cannot. Only the Son can say that all that is the Father’s is also His, for He is one with the Father. The disciples belong to both the Father and the Son. At the same time, whatever the Father gives to the Son is for the glorification of the Son. Without any restraint or limitation He speaks of it to the Father that He is glorified in His own. We see here again that the Son sees His own in their perfect relation to Him and not in their weak practice. He is glorified in them because they believe in Him and acknowledge Him in Who He is, even though they have so often shown that they did not understand the depth of it. When the Lord Jesus says that He is no longer in the world, it means that He already places Himself behind the cross as already being glorified. He also knows perfectly well that His own are still in the world and that that world is very hostile to them. Therefore He comes to the Father for them in their defenselessness with the request to keep them in His Name, the Father’s Name. He addresses the Father as “Holy Father.” This emphasizes the complete separation between the Father and the world. The Father stands completely apart from the world; He has no connection with it at all. Nothing of it clings to Him or is able to have any influence on Him at all. On this basis, a few verses later, the Lord Jesus will also ask for them to be sanctified. Here He asks for them as those whom the Father Himself has given to Him. He reminds the Father, as it were, of that great gift as a special motive to keep them, that is, to safeguard them from the influences of the world. He asks that they be kept and not whether the Father will intervene in power for their benefit by exterminating their enemies. That time is yet to come and will come for His own from Israel. Their keeping does not only relate to the aspect of safety in the face of an evil world. In asking for their keeping, He also has their unity among themselves in mind. This unity is realized through the gift of the Holy Spirit as the fruit of His redemptive work. This being one concerns the twelve apostles in their testimony concerning the Son. It is important that in spite of their differences, they will give a unified testimony concerning the Son. No difference of opinion should spoil that testimony. That unity in their testimony has been maintained is evident when we read about their service in the book of Acts and the letters we have from them in the Bible. The Lord Jesus asks for His Father’s safekeeping because He Himself will no longer be with them and cannot safekeep them in that way in the Name of the Father. In the three and a half years during which His own walked with Him, He cared for them in unfailing faithfulness. In that care He was always focused on the Name of the Father. He has that in mind also when He will no longer be with them. His safekeeping did not include Judas because he had closed his heart to the work of God’s Spirit. He was not a child of God, but “the son of perdition”. He loved money and therefore made himself available to satan. That things turned out this way with Judas was not due to the Lord’s failing care. He did not slip out of His hand. The doom of such a course of action is foretold by Scripture. It is not the name of Judas that is foretold, but the result of one who would act in such a way.

‏ John 17:9

The Request to Be Kept and Unity

The disciples – and we – hear the Lord Jesus once again saying that He is asking on their behalf. He no longer has any connection with the world or with Israel. The distinction is no longer between Jews and Gentiles, but between His disciples and the world.

He does not ask on behalf of the world. For the world He has no more prayer; the world is under judgment. The time when He will ask for the world to claim it as His rightful possession, as His inheritance, will come when the Father tells Him to do so (Psa 2:8). He is, so to speak, concerned here with the heirs and not with the inheritance.

Until the time comes when He will ask for the inheritance, He asks the Father for those whom He still brings before the Father as “Yours”. As stated above, the Father has not lost what He has given to the Son. It remains His. At the same time, they are also the Son’s. For everything that is of the Son, applies that it is of the Father. The reverse is also true, that everything that is of the Father is His. The first could be said by a man to God, the second cannot. Only the Son can say that all that is the Father’s is also His, for He is one with the Father. The disciples belong to both the Father and the Son. At the same time, whatever the Father gives to the Son is for the glorification of the Son.

Without any restraint or limitation He speaks of it to the Father that He is glorified in His own. We see here again that the Son sees His own in their perfect relation to Him and not in their weak practice. He is glorified in them because they believe in Him and acknowledge Him in Who He is, even though they have so often shown that they did not understand the depth of it.

When the Lord Jesus says that He is no longer in the world, it means that He already places Himself behind the cross as already being glorified. He also knows perfectly well that His own are still in the world and that that world is very hostile to them. Therefore He comes to the Father for them in their defenselessness with the request to keep them in His Name, the Father’s Name.

He addresses the Father as “Holy Father.” This emphasizes the complete separation between the Father and the world. The Father stands completely apart from the world; He has no connection with it at all. Nothing of it clings to Him or is able to have any influence on Him at all. On this basis, a few verses later, the Lord Jesus will also ask for them to be sanctified. Here He asks for them as those whom the Father Himself has given to Him. He reminds the Father, as it were, of that great gift as a special motive to keep them, that is, to safeguard them from the influences of the world.

He asks that they be kept and not whether the Father will intervene in power for their benefit by exterminating their enemies. That time is yet to come and will come for His own from Israel. Their keeping does not only relate to the aspect of safety in the face of an evil world. In asking for their keeping, He also has their unity among themselves in mind.

This unity is realized through the gift of the Holy Spirit as the fruit of His redemptive work. This being one concerns the twelve apostles in their testimony concerning the Son. It is important that in spite of their differences, they will give a unified testimony concerning the Son. No difference of opinion should spoil that testimony. That unity in their testimony has been maintained is evident when we read about their service in the book of Acts and the letters we have from them in the Bible.

The Lord Jesus asks for His Father’s safekeeping because He Himself will no longer be with them and cannot safekeep them in that way in the Name of the Father. In the three and a half years during which His own walked with Him, He cared for them in unfailing faithfulness. In that care He was always focused on the Name of the Father. He has that in mind also when He will no longer be with them.

His safekeeping did not include Judas because he had closed his heart to the work of God’s Spirit. He was not a child of God, but “the son of perdition”. He loved money and therefore made himself available to satan. That things turned out this way with Judas was not due to the Lord’s failing care. He did not slip out of His hand. The doom of such a course of action is foretold by Scripture. It is not the name of Judas that is foretold, but the result of one who would act in such a way.