Jesus's Prayer

Continuing a Bible study of the Gospels:

(John 17:1) These words Jesus spoke, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that Your Son also may glorify You."

In the last chapter, Jesus had been preparing His disciples for their future without Him.  He now lifted up His eyes to heaven and began to pray.  He said His hour had come when He would suffer and die, and He asked that the Father glorify Him by supporting Him and carrying Him through the coming greatest of trials so that His actions would in turn glorify and bless the Father.

This has been a difficult chapter for some to understand.  Was Jesus really God?  If so, was He praying to Himself?  And if not, does this prove that Jesus wasn't God?  Jesus is God; that was proven in scripture (John 1:1).  However, Jesus was that part of God's Self that He made man to be born into the world to provide a way for God's creation to be saved.  So He did in effect pray to that part of Himself in heaven that was wholly God and wholly holy wishing His actions on earth to have been according to God's plan and sufficient to save His creation.

(2) "And You have given Him power over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him."

Jesus acknowledged that God had given Him power over all mankind that He could give eternal life to as many as God called to Him.  God had prepared that way for people to be saved from eternal damnation, and it was only through Jesus that men could receive eternal life.

(3) "And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

To have eternal life was to know God intimately, the only true God, and to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ which was the only way to know God.

(4) "I have glorified You on the earth; I have finished the work which You gave Me to do."

Jesus had done all He had done on earth to glorify God and to bring people to Him.  He had obediently finished the work God had sent Him to earth to do up to that point, and He was committed to follow through until it was completely finished. 

(5) "And now, O Father, glorify Me with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was."

Jesus asked that the Father return Him to His former glory as One with the Father as He had been since before the world was created.

(6) "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word."

Jesus had manifested His Father's name by making His nature, character, and will known to the men He had sent to Him from out of the world and its worldview.  Jesus acknowledged that they were God's creation, but He had given them to Jesus to bring them to eternal life through His plan.  Jesus assured Him they had received His word and had accepted Him and His gift of salvation.

(7) "Now they have known that all things whatever You have given Me are of You."

Jesus, in His prayer to God, said that the men He had sent to Him had been taught and now believed that everything He did and said was of God Himself.

(8) "For I have given to them the words which You gave Me, and they have received and have known surely that I came out from You, and they have believed that You sent Me."

The reason the disciples now knew God was because Jesus had taught them the doctrines of God that He had given them to know.  They had received those doctrines and knew that Jesus had come from God and had been sent for that purpose.

(9) "I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them whom You have given Me, for they are Yours."

At this point in Jesus's prayer, He prayed for those whom God had given Him, those disciples who would preach God's plan for salvation throughout the world.  They had been brought through Christ to salvation and union with God; they belonged to God and Jesus prayed for them that they be strengthened and protected and blessed by God in their mission.

(10) "And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them."

As Jesus and His Father were One, all who had come to Jesus were God's, and all God's belonged to Jesus.  Jesus was glorified in them because they had come through Him to be with God, and they would continue to glorify Him as they preached His gospel to the world.

(11) "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We."

Jesus acknowledged that He was about to be no more in the world as He was about to go back to the Father in heaven.  However, His disciples would still be in the world, and He prayed that they be preserved in His name, in the knowledge of God.  He prayed that God defend and sustain them in obedience to Himself and His cause.  Jesus prayed that they be unified in love and purpose, as one Christian unit as God and Jesus were one.

(12) "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name; those whom You gave Me I have kept and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled."

Jesus said that He had kept or preserved all His disciples in God's name, in the knowledge and worship of Him.  He had preserved all His disciples God had sent Him, except Judas Iscariot, which of course, had been God's plan all along to use him to execute His will and fulfill scripture.  That's not to say that Judas never had a choice, but God chose him because He knew the choice he would make.  Jesus had not preserved him as a disciple because he was never meant to be one but had a different purpose.

(13) "And now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves."

It was now time for Jesus to return to the Father.  All the things Jesus had spoken while He was in the World, He asked to be for the benefit of His disciples that they might have Jesus's joy fulfilled in themselves.  That joy of a successful mission, that He had overcome the world!  That joy that came from knowing the truth about God's purpose in Jesus and that they possessed eternal life, and that they could pass that exciting good news to others.  

(14) "I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

Jesus had given His disciples God's word and they had received it within their hearts.  For that reason, the world hated them because they were not of the world's sinful lusts.  They were not like the world, just as Jesus was not like it.

(15) "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil. (16) They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

Jesus didn't pray that His disciples should be taken out of the evil world, but rather that God protect them from the evil in the world.  Jesus had already told them that they would be persecuted and even killed (Matthew 24:9), so I believe what Jesus means by keeping them from evil is to protect and preserve them from the wiles of the devil who would seek to destroy their souls and their work.  The disciples were at that time not of the world and He prayed that they remain that way.

(17) "Sanctify them through Your truth; Your word is truth."

Jesus prayed that His disciples be made pure from their sins and made holy through God's word which was absolutely true.  All that had been prophesied and said by God and His word, the scriptures, and in His plan for salvation, would sanctify them as promised.

(18) "As You have sent Me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world."

Just as God had sent Jesus into the world to proclaim His good news that the world could be saved, Jesus was sending His disciples into the world to spread the same good news.

(19) "And for their sakes, I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

Jesus had no need for sanctification because He had no sin, but by this He meant that He consecrated Himself exclusively for the service of God.  This was His example for His disciples that they might also be sanctified through the truth in God.

(20) "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe in Me through their word."

Jesus prayed these things not just for His disciples, but for all followers who would come to believe in Christ through the preaching of His disciples.

(21) "That they all may be one, as You, Father, in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me."

Jesus prayed that all His followers, including those who came through the teaching of His disciples, would be in unity, one unit of brotherhood in Christ.  They should be one in the same love and purpose of God and of Jesus, who was God's plan for the salvation of man, and that the world may come to believe that God had indeed sent Jesus to save the world.

(22) "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one, even as We are one."

The honor which the Father gave to Jesus on earth Jesus bestowed on His followers.  The glory of Jesus shines in the children of God.  By sending Jesus into the world, God provided a single way for His people to be cleansed of their sins and able to approach Him.  By this, they became one, a unified Christian bride of Christ.  There would be unity of faith and purpose in Jesus's followers as there was unity of purpose in God and Jesus.

(23) "I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me."

Jesus dwelled within His followers by His spirit and by His Word, and by His Gospel message and His sacrifice, they could be made perfect in the sight of God.  They would act as one Christian unit following Christ so that the world would know Jesus had been sent by God to make disciples of men, and that God loved them.  Jesus provided atonement for people to be able to approach God and be in His presence and be loved by Him in the way that Jesus in His perfection could be in God's presence and loved by Him.  

(24) "Father, I want that they also whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world."

Jesus desired that His followers whom God had sent to Him to be made "perfect" by Jesus's sacrifice, be with Him in heaven, able to see Jesus as He truly is in all His glory.  Jesus, as God, always had that glory before the world was formed but His followers had only seen Jesus the man.  God would return Him to His glory in heaven and He desired that His followers be with Him there.

(25) "O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me. (26) And I have declared to them Your name and will declare, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

Jesus lamented that the world had not known the Father, but of course He knew Him intimately, and He had taught His followers by His words and His actions the nature of God, and He would continue to guide them by the Spirit of truth, that they might be united to God and loved by Him because of an indwelling Savior.

Jesus's beautiful prayer in this chapter is a perfect model for our prayers.  He shows the utmost reverence for God and the tenderest love for man.  I can't help but contrast it to the prayers of the name it and claim it Word of Faith bunch who belligerently declare that they know God's will and demand it.  The only one who ever truly knew God's will was Jesus, and see how humbly He prayed with great respect and reverence.  It's true that Jesus made a way for us to be able to approach God, but we should always remember how holy and almighty and perfect He is, and what an unbelievable and undeserving gift it is that we even be allowed to ask of Him.  But God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus so that we could commune with Him again.