John 17:4-5

Christ's Great Sacerdotal Prayer. John 17, 1-26.

V. 4. I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. V. 5. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

In this way the Son glorifies the Father, by bringing the believers to the right knowledge of the Father. This work He began in this world, that was one of the purposes of the incarnation.

The fact that Jesus carried out the work entrusted to Him, that He fulfilled the will of the Father in every detail, will serve the glory and praise of the Father. Every person that was gained by the teaching of Jesus will add his voice in praising the God of mercy and in praying to Him in spirit and in truth.

All this being accomplished, the Father should now, in turn, receive the Son up into glory. crown His human nature with the full and unrestricted exercise of all the divine attributes and powers which were His in the bosom of the Father before the world began.

Jesus, even in the midst of humiliation on earth, was the possessor of the divine glory; even as man He was almighty, omniscient, omnipresent. But He did not make use of these divine attributes communicated to Him except in His miracles and at a few other occasions when the flashes of His divine majesty became visible to men. But through His Passion, death, and resurrection Jesus wanted to enter into the state of glory, into the full exercise and enjoyment of the heavenly, divine essence, and of all the joy and bliss in the presence of His Father, also according to His human nature.

This section of Christ's prayer therefore includes a petition for Himself, namely, for His own glorification as man; but He indicates even here that this glorious culmination will be of benefit also to men.