Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer, Part VI, John 17:18-22

Our Lord Jesus Christ is openly praying for his disciples and included in his asking is a request that they be set apart and equipped to continue the mission in which He has been engaged. 

His hour has come to return to His father but his disciple’s hour has come to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. 

They are to carry the Gospel which will be complete on the morrow as Jesus Christ who now prays to His father will face the wrath of men in order for us who have received Him as Savior to not receive the wrath of God. 

For those who are in Christ Jesus are not appointed unto wrath but are appointed unto eternal life with God.

And with that thought: Oh how the word Halleluiah comes to mind!

So Jesus prays that his disciples standing before him and those who will follow be sanctified, be set apart, be equipped to do the work for which they are sent.

And He says in John 17:18, As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

The Father had established the pattern of sending---and Jesus Christ in sending his own into the world was following that pattern.

If you are a believer you are a sent one in the same pattern that the Father established with his Son.

God asks his children as He asked Isaiah in:

Isaiah 6:8,……… Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. 

Which is the proper answer for any disciple!

So even as the Lord Jesus Christ lived on earth to represent the Father, so we now live on earth to represent Christ as sent ones.

Christ was sent to reveal the Father, to show forth his glory, and so believers are sent forth to take that revelation and to show Christ's glory, which is the glory of the Father.

He was sent to seek and to save that which was lost. 

And we are ones sent to join in that effort by pointing the lost to Jesus Christ.

We cannot save but we know the Someone who can save.

Jesus seeks and he saves today through those whom he sought and saved.

Though his personal witness he saved the apostles and through their personal witness and the witness of those after them to this day all who are saved are saved by sent ones following this pattern. 

He is indeed the Head and those who have been born into his family through the new birth are his body. 

And as his body worked on the earth, He expects his body, the church to work in His stead.

For the body of Christ has his hands for helping, his feet for going, his mouth for preaching the Gospel.

Believers are left to occupy His place. 

Believers are to be witnesses for Truth as his body was a witness for truth.

As partakers of the heavenly calling we are now commissioned to represent him here below. 

Being "sent ones" it is as if we are sent from heaven and are sent to this world in the same manner that the Father sent Jesus Christ. 

Another proof that believers are not of this world but simply pilgrims passing though on the way home that the body be reunited with the head.

Jesus continues speaking openly to His father in John 17:19, And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

Jesus says, I sanctify myself.  I will be obedient to the Father's will. 

I will be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

My obedience is not dependent upon my comfort, my obedience is even to the death of the cross. 

That is true obedience.

I set myself apart, I dedicate myself, I consecrate myself, I separate myself for your sakes that you also may be set apart for the Father's will.

Jesus Christ gave his life that I may give my life for the Father. 

Jesus Christ separated himself to do the Father's will that I may be separated to do the Father's will. 

Without his separation, without his sanctification, without his death and shed blood I could not be sanctified through the truth.

Hebrews 10:14 says, For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

How freely and voluntarily he laid down his life for the sake of his own!

And not only did he sanctify himself through the cross he is set apart on high as the glorified Man, the one upon whom the believer sets his affections and his worship.

He is both sacrifice and Priest. 

He entered into the Holy of Holies of the heavenly temple and sent forth his Holy Spirit who sanctifies through the truth those he saves. 

This was only made possible because he sanctified himself through the cross.

Read Col 1:19,20,  For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;  And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

His prayer continues in John 17:20,21  Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Up to this point in the prayer of Jesus Christ it appears that he was only praying for his disciples.

But here in this portion and to the end of the High Priestly Prayer Jesus Christ links all believers to his disciples. 

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ you can include yourself as one of the "them also."

... but for them also which shall believe on me through their word

He does not pray a different prayer for Christians who come later than he does for his disciples.

He did not forget believers of any age but prayed for all his own of every age.

He knows that the disciple’s word that they carry, will be effectual. 

He prays for those who shall believe on him through their word.

What is the continuance chain from the disciples to every believer? 

It is not the Baptist or Presbyterian or Lutheran or Methodist name, It is the word of God. 

How does every believer join himself to John or Peter or Andrew? 

Only through the Word of God and the Word of God is Jesus Christ. 

That is the only constant, not some denominational name or grouping.

So He has prayed that the Father preserve them through his name. 

He has prayed that they might have his joy fulfilled in them. 

He has prayed that the Father keep them from evil. 

He has prayed that He sanctify them, set them apart.

And He prays here that they be one, that they be unified in the same pattern that Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Father are unified. 

He is not here describing a physical or organizational union but a spiritual union of believers. 

And that spiritual union is to be in accord with the Word of God.

So He continues in John 17:22, And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

This glory that Jesus Christ speaks of here is a glory that the Father had given him for his perfect work as the incarnate Son of God. 

This is the glory of his perfect and sinless humanity as he revealed the Father to man.

This glory is the reward for his perfect work here on Earth.

Isaiah spoke of this glory when in Isaiah 53:12 he wrote: 

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: ....

The writer of Hebrews 1:2,3 recalled the glory that the Father had given him for his work: 

The father:  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;