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Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer, Part II, John 17:2-12
We continue listening to our Lord as He communicates with His father in the role of High Priest making intercession for his own.
He has just concluded teaching his disciples of great truths while eating the last Passover in the upper room.
He had told them of his mission to go and prepare a place for them, he has told them he and his father are one, he has promised to give them a Comforter who will abide with them forever.
He has left peace with them, his peace, not as the world give peace, and he has taught them of their connection to him as a branch is to a vine.
And he has warned them of persecution that will come to those in opposition to the world and because of this he will precede them in this persecution by his coming death on the cross.
He tells them of his going but he also tells them of his coming again.
He then turns His eyes toward heaven to engage with his Father that he may bring before Him his disciples and those who will follow them for he says his hour has come.
And as He says this He asks the Father to: glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
And continuing in John 17:2,3, As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
So Jesus Christ makes it plain that knowledge of the Father and the Son is life eternal.
The more we know of God the more happiness and peace and joy and power and holiness and love and rest will we possess.
But ignorance of God is the death of the soul.
Jesus Christ came that men may know God.
He came to reveal the Father and to reveal the Father is life eternal.
Life eternal is a continuous state because those who are in Christ will continually increase in knowledge of God throughout all the endless ages of eternity.
There will never be a time when knowledge of God will cease for that is life eternal!
2 Pet 1:3,4, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the ...... knowledge of him.... that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
So knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ is the only avenue to eternal life!
Note the pairing of God and Jesus Christ.
that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Therefore Jesus is telling us you cannot know God without knowing Jesus Christ. So with this truth Jesus Christ continues his High Priestly work in:
John 17:4,5 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
By finishing the work that he was sent to do, God the Father was glorified by the Son.
The work that he had finished, now prepared him for his own glorification.
He therefore lays this work before the Father as finished and complete and he is therefore justified in asking that the Father glorify him with the glory that he had with the Father before the world was.
From this we learn that it is work that glorifies God.
Each one has his proper work assigned him by God.
This work must be finished here upon the earth.
It is a blessed thing at the hour of death to be able to say to the Father, "I have glorified thee on the earth."
Every Christian should have his work accomplished so that when the hour of death approaches, he, like the Lord, may have nothing to do but die and go to his Father in heaven.
Christ's glorification of the Father is the example that those who are being conformed to his image are to follow.
We are to devote ourselves to the work that we are called to do and to finish the work as Christ finished the work he was called to do.
And as Christ was glorified we too shall be glorified when we receive our new bodies and are united with Christ at his coming.
John 17:6, I have manifested thy name (his character) unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
Christ had made known the Father as the only true God and had glorified him on earth.
Jesus Christ's whole life, his ministry, his works, revealed the Father, the creator.
The men which the Father gave to Christ were first the Father’s by right of creation.
It was fully the Father's right to give them to the Son.
They were given to Christ by virtue of the fact that he is redeemer and they have believed on him.
They have accepted the truth about the Father that his Son came to reveal.
These men had been given to Christ as the Father's spiritual gift to him for they were fruit of the work of Christ.
He had manifested the Father's name (his character) to them and they had kept the word that he had spoken and the Father had given them to Christ.
Christ's Spirit was now to be engaged in conforming them to the Son for the Father.
They were first fruits of many to be a part of the people called out for his name.
They were the seed crop of the church and from them the people called out for his name were to come.
John 17:7, Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
So He speaks of his disciples to His father.
How weak their faith was at this time.
How little was their knowledge.
How afraid they were at their glimpse of what lay ahead.
In a little while they would flee from his very presence.
And yet Christ saw his disciples as to what they would be when his Spirit worked a work of grace in their lives.
The least degree of faith is precious in his sight.
This is the difference between the men of the world and the man of faith.
For faith greatly pleases God.
A grain of faith as a mustard seed pleases God for he can take that and grow it into a great tree.
Jesus Christ knows that the knowledge of God that he has brought into their lives will bring fruit that pleases the Father.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
My works are of thee and my word is of thee and they know that.
John 17:8, For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. |