Joh 17:9-26 | 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 17:9-26

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.

The Disciples in the World

The Son is now going to speak to the Father in particular about the disciples in their relation to the world. He comes to the Father and turns to Him to speak to Him about His own, to entrust the continued care of the disciples to Him. He does this in the world in which He too still finds Himself, so that they can hear it. They are also in the world and will remain there when He has gone away from them to the Father. They are no longer of the world, they no longer belong to the world, but they still have to go through it.

Now they hear the Son speaking about them with full knowledge of the situation in which they find themselves. How it must have delighted their hearts to hear Him speak of them in this way to the Father. This awareness of the Father’s attention and love going out to Him always filled the Lord Jesus Himself with joy in His life on earth. He always finds His joy in fellowship with His Father.

Through His prayer the disciples may know that they too may always have fellowship with the Father, that the Father always pays perfect attention to them and desires fellowship with them. The Son has been here in the Name of the Father and has found His joy in serving the interests of the Father. Thus, from now on they will be here in His Name and have the same joy in them as those who serve the Father by presenting the Son.

To enable them to do so, the Son has given them the word of the Father. Again, the word here is the full revelation of the Father that He has brought. The Lord does not say ‘words’, remata, which means ‘utterances’, but ‘word’, logos, which means the expression of His thoughts. Furthermore, He asks the Father to keep them because of taking His place in the presence of the world. He connects Himself with them in the presence of the Father which is a great blessing. He connects Himself with them no less in their presence in the world, and that too is a great blessing. In both cases it is His place. Where He is, there are His own, and where His own are, there He is.

The Lord Jesus says that they are not of the world. By this He does not mean that they should not be part of it. What He means is that fundamentally they do not belong to the world because they are joined to Him. That must have the effect of making them behave that way. It is terrible if they, and also we, would even give the impression of being of the world after all. That would be a denial of the true relationship to the Father.

The Lord does not ask the Father to take them out of the world. The taking out of the world of His own happens when the believers are caught up (1Thes 4:16-17). Until that time they must remain in the world where darkness, hatred and death reign. With that in mind, He asks for their keeping.

There is no question that they should keep themselves by leaving the world, for example by retreating behind the thick walls of a monastery. Monasticism and monastery life is contrary to what the Lord Jesus is saying here. The separation from the world sought by God is not realized by isolating oneself. Evil is within us. The Son asks the Father that the evil one who is behind the evil system of the world will not get hold of them (cf. Mt 6:13).

He emphatically repeats their identification with Him in their separation from the world (Jn 17:14). This repetition is necessary because we easily forget this separation. Only if our focus remains on Christ we will continue to see our being separated from the world. Christ Himself is the absolute example of separation from the world. He did come into the world, but never for a moment He was part of it. His place and attitude toward the world are determining for those of the disciples and also for ours.

Sanctification

Then the Son asks the Father to sanctify them. Through sanctification we are brought into conformity with the Holy Father. Sanctification is being set apart for Him. They have been brought into contact with the truth of the word of the Father that has come to them in the Son. They have acknowledged and accepted that word. As a result, they have entered into another world, the world of the Father and the Son. The Son has given the word of the Father that introduces us into His love, into His thoughts, into His counsels, into His glory. By being in it, we are truly set apart (sanctified). That is what the truth produces.

Again, this is far beyond the law, which also sets apart, but nationally and only for Israel from the nations around them. That we are set apart from the world does not mean that we have nothing to do with the world anymore. We are not in the world because we happen to be there, but we are in the world for a purpose. We are sent into the world as the Son was sent into the world by the Father. That means we have a word for that world, as He had. Sanctification does not lead to isolation, but to usefulness in bringing the truth to a world that lives in the lie.

Our sanctification occurs not only through the Father’s word, but also through the Son’s sanctification for us. This sanctification consists in His literally leaving the world to take up a sanctified place with the Father. He is there for us. He is there our model of sanctification. His place with the Father is our place. There is sanctifying power in the truth (Jn 17:17) and there is sanctifying power in seeing Christ in glory (Jn 17:19).

So there are two wonderful truths that sanctify the believer in the present tense. The first truth is the revelation of the Father in His word that has come to us through and in the Son. The second truth is the knowledge of the glory of the Son as the risen and glorified Man in heaven. When these two truths are before our attention through the Holy Spirit, we will live a sanctified life.

Unity of All Believers

Here all believers are given a place in the Son’s prayer. He is speaking to the Father about those who believe in Him through “their word”, that is, the word of the apostles. We have never literally heard the apostles preach, but we believe in the Lord Jesus through what they have left us in God’s Word. What the Lord Jesus asks for us is that we will be one in the same way that the Father and the Son are one. That involves a unity of life, the possession of the Divine nature. Thus, it is absolutely not a unity with a characteristic that the members are imprisoned in the same system. It is not even directly about the unity of the body of Christ, although that unity is also based on a unity of life.

The unity of which Christ speaks here is a unity brought about by each child of God having the Son as his life. It is the unity of the family of God. We are not called to establish that unity, but to understand that all who have received the Son are one. The dividing line that runs through the world is between those who do have that life from the Son and those who do not. It is not a dividing line between denominations, but exclusively between believers and unbelievers.

The prayer of the Lord Jesus for that unity has been answered. When believers who have never seen each other before meet and detect the same life in each other, there is an immediate feeling and experience of unity. Of course, on the basis of this unity, believers are also meant to act in unity in practical terms. As far as this unity is concerned, unfortunately little is shown by the Christians. It is a unity of which the fellowship is experienced as the Father and the Son have fellowship and experience it with each other.

The unity is as that of the Father and the Son, but also a unity in the Father and the Son. It is according to the example of the unity of the Father and the Son and it is in fellowship with the Father and the Son. Our unity is founded in the unity of the Father and the Son. It is the same fellowship of life. If the Divine nature would characterize all believers of whatever nationality or background, the world could believe that He is the Sent One of the Father. If all believers propagated that unity, it would bring people in the world to faith. It is a testimony to the whole world.

Unity in Glory

Now the Son is going to speak about the period after the disciples’ stay in the world. He is thinking of the time when they will be with Him. Then they will have the glory that He has received. In His prayer He says that He has already given to them the glory that He has received from the Father. That is the glory that He received from the Father as Man as a reward for His work. In His great mercy, He shares that glory with those whom the Father has given Him (Jn 17:6) and to whom He has also already given eternal life (Jn 17:2). Precisely because He as Man has received that glory from the Father, He can share it with men.

As a result, all who share this glory are one in the same way He and the Father are one. It also involves a glory that comes from the Father, which He has given to the Son, and which the Son then grants to the believers. As a result, the Lord Jesus can say that it is a unity whereby He is also in them and whereby the Father is in Him. “I in them and You in Me” means that the Son reveals Himself in the believers when He returns, a revelation in which the Father will also be revealed in Him. When that situation has come, believers have become perfectly one. This is a third unity, after the unity of the apostles in Jn 17:11 and that of all believers now on earth in Jn 17:21.

In this futural, perfect unity, no failure is possible. When Christ returns with His own in glory, they will have the same glory as He (Phil 3:20-21) and the unity will be seen by the world. The world will see the Father in the Son and they will see the Son in the saints. Then the world will know that the Father sent the Son and that the Father loved the believers as He loved the Son, for this cannot be denied when the world will see Christ and His own in glory (2Thes 1:10).

The world will also know that the Father has loved us, for the fact that the believers will possess the same glory as Christ, will be proof of it. What the world will then acknowledge is true now. What the world will then see points back to what He and also they were on earth as objects of the Father’s love.

The Will of the Lord Jesus for His Own

In the concluding words of His prayer, the Son, while we hear this, emphatically addresses the Father once more with “Father”. What He says to the Father is not a plea, it is not even a question, but the expression of His desire or will. Here He lets His Divine will be heard, “I will”, just as He once said to a leper, “I am willing, be cleansed!” (Mt 8:3). He does this not because His will would not be the same as the Father’s, but to make it clear to us that His will is perfectly that of the Father.

What He announces here as His desire or will is that He wants us to be with Him in the place where He is, in the Father’s house (Jn 14:3). He wants us to be there to display His glory to us. This is not His glory as the eternal Son, for that only the Father knows perfectly and cannot be seen by us (Mt 11:27). For us, who are and remain creatures, there remains a glory in the Lord Jesus that can absolutely only be known by the two other Divine Persons.

Nor is it the glory that will be seen at His revelation to the world, for we will share that glory with Him. Here it is the glory that the Father has given Him by virtue of His glorification by Him on earth. He receives that glory by virtue of His personal relationship of love that the Father had for Him from eternity as the eternal Son. We may see how He as Man enjoys that eternally.

We will not be sharing that glory, but we will see it in the Father’s House. It is the glory of Jn 17:5, the given glory, but in an aspect of glory that is His alone. We will also grant Him that wholeheartedly and admire Him in it. There are aspects in His glory that at all times exceed the glory we may share with Him. As the Most Glorious of all He will always be far above us.

The Continuing Work of the Lord Jesus

In Jn 17:11 the Lord Jesus addressed the “holy Father”, for His holiness must determine the disciples’ separation from the world. Here He contemplates the world in its sin and blindness and speaks to the “righteous Father”. Nor does He speak of the world as the system that hated Him, but as the system that did not know the Father when the Father came to the world in the Son. In contrast, the Son states that He did know Him and that His disciples have known that the Father sent Him. He knows the Father and His own know the Father through Him. They also belong to Him now.

He has expressed the Name of the Father in His whole Being, as only He could. He has done that on earth. He will do the same from heaven, and that is, that He may give the disciples and also us the consciousness of the same love of the Father that He had when He was on earth.

To remove any hesitation from the disciples, He adds that He Himself will be in them as their life. Not only is the Father’s love for the Son in them, but the Son Himself is in them. As a result, they are able to live His life. That life means everything to the Father. The Father will then also love them as He loved the Son when He was on earth. In a sense Christ will then be all in all in those who have Him as their life (cf. 1Cor 15:28).