If Jesus were to pray one prayer point for you, what would it be? If Jesus were to grant you one wish, what would it be.
Undoubtedly, points like our ‘faithfulness’, ‘wisdom’, or ‘being all that God wanted us to be’ would be toward the top of the list. Yet this is not quite the way Jesus puts it.
Probably the best way to answer that question is for us to pray that our lives would be to the glory of God. One of the ways Jesus glorified God was in his prayerful trust of God.
John chapter 17 records a prayer by Jesus to his Father, the very same Father to whom Jesus is returning. I don’t know if you give much thought to Jesus’ praying, but although Jesus is the Son of God, he is often found in the Gospels looking into heaven and asking, thanking, pleading, and crying to his heavenly Father. But one prayer Jesus never prays is “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
If prayer marked Jesus’ life, then how much more should prayer mark your life, and mine?
There are three sections to this prayer in John chapter 17. First, Jesus prays for himself (vv. 1-5). Second, Jesus prays for his eleven disciples there with him (vv. 6-19). Third, Jesus prays for you and me, us who are alive now and reading his words (vv. 20-26).
Jesus prays about what immediately lies before him. He prays about the crucifixion that he will endure within the next 24 hours. He prays about the resurrection that will occur in three days time, when he will take up his life that he had freely laid down. He prays about the near future of the eleven disciples, and the tasks that lie before them.
And Jesus also prays about the distant future. Jesus prays for us—you and me. Jesus had us in mind when he looked ahead at his imminent crucifixion.
Jesus’ prayers are driven by the future, whether near or far, whether his or ours.
First, Jesus prays for himself. He first prays about himself, and asks the Father to glorify him. Verse 1:
17:1Jesus said these things, and then, lifting his eyes to heaven, said, “Father, the hour has come; Glorify your Son, so that the Son might glorify you […]”
Jesus first prayer is for himself. The request is a simple one—glorify me. Bring glory to me.
What is ‘glory’? Glory is what we do for Olympic Gold Medalists. We physically lift them up—we literally put them on a pedestal, higher than everything else, to be adoringly looked at and applauded. Mums and dads look at the lifted up person and say, “That’s my boy, that’s my daughter, I am so proud!” Little kids say, “When I grow up, I want to be a Gold Medalist’. Tears are shed. Songs are sung. Accolades are given. Applause and cheers are freely bestowed. Sponsorships are offered. TV appearances ensue. Wealth and riches are provided. That is glory as it is experienced in our world. The flower of our youth rises at 4am in the morning 6 days a week to train in the hope of getting it. Much is sacrificed in its pursuit.
Jesus’ glory is his lifting up, and his lifting up is on the cross, in crucifixion. Jesus too is put on a pedastal, physically lifted high for us to see. For he will soon be stripped naked and striped with bloody whelts, he will be slapped, whipped, punched, impaled, pierced, and stuck up on a pole for the world to see (John 3:14-15). All of this will be Jesus’ Gold medal performance, and all of redeemed creation will applaud him and sing his praise for it into eternity. They will announce it again and again, and celebrate his victory, and join in it, and benefit from it, and they will bring him their wealth and riches and pile them at his feet.
The hour had come for the Son of God to be glorified. For most of John’s Gospel, we are told that the hour had not yet come. At the wedding of Cana, Jesus had said it to his mum, “Woman, my time has not yet come.” But now Jesus’ time has come. Within 24 hours of Jesus praying this prayer, he would be lifted up on a cross, and hang their limp, dead, and lifeless. And Jesus is praying for all of this. For Jesus is praying for his glorification, and his glorification is paradoxically his crucifixion.
But Jesus’ glorification won’t finish at the lifting up of the cross. That is only the start of Jesus’ glorification. Just as the Gold Medal performance opens up the doorway to the TV deal, the sponsorships, the expert commentary gig, the book launch, the Order of Australia, and the Australian of the Year, so Jesus’ performance on the cross will be the prelude to all that flows from his job well done, his great achievement. Jesus will also be lifted up in resurrection, and then in ascension, and then he will be forever lifted up to the right hand of God and be seated there in his session. He will, as a result of his crucifixion, be given the name that is above every name. For crucifixion with Jesus can only lead to resurrection, ascension, and session. And all of it together is his glorification.
So Jesus’ prayer for his glorification is a prayer for that he be strengthened and enabled to finish his work, to be faithful to the Father unto death, and then to be raised to life on the third day, to appear before the disciples in his new, resurrected body, to ascend and return to the Father, and to be seated at the right hand of the Father until his bodily return to earth—in short, to regain the splendour and glory that he once had with the Father. So verse 5:
17:5And now, glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you before the world came to be. […]
Jesus call here is, “Take me home.” This is Jesus’ version of “Beam me up, Scotty.” Father, take me back to your bosom, that closest place of intimate fellowship with you.
But notice that in verse 1, the reason for Jesus being glorified is so that the Father can be glorified. Jesus asks the Father in verse 1, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” Even when Jesus is asking about something for himself, he is still focused on the glory of the Father. Jesus sees himself as a means to an end—his Father’s glory. Jesus lives for the honour of the Father and he will also die for the honour of the Father. His whole ministry—whether in life or in death—can be described that way, as bringing glory to God.
In John 17:4 we read:
17:4I have glorified you on earth, completing the work which you have given me to do.
Jesus glorifies the Father by doing the work that the Father gave him to do. And that work is soon to be accomplished, as he prepares to go to the cross.
Jesus glorifies his Father through his obedient work. And guess what—it’s no different for you or me. We glorify the Father by doing the work he has given us to do.
The main work that the Father has given to the Son is to give eternal life to his sheep, to those who the Father draws to the Son. So Jesus looks to his death and resurrection and sees that this as how eternal life is given. Jesus’ flesh is given for the life of the world, and he is the light of the world, and he draws all people to himself in his death. That is the work that the Father has given to the Son to complete.
‘Eternal life’ for us is about living forever. It’s another word for ‘eternity’, about living on and on, and our lives never ending. But in verse 3, ‘eternal life’ is a ‘relationship’ word, and not a ‘time’ word. Or to put it another way, ‘eternal’ life is not just about ‘quantity’ or life, but it is also about ‘quality’ of life, life to the full (John 10:10). So we read in verse 3:
17:3Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, who you sent.
Real eternal life is not just ‘longevity’. It’s not just unceasing existence. You don’t have go to heaven to live forever. Hell is just as eternal as heaven. Eternal life is not just about the destruction of death. It is also about relationship with God, real and true relationship with our maker and sustainer and redeemer.
And you don’t have to wait for heaven to have ‘eternal life’. ‘Eternal life’ begins now, because relationship with the Father and the Son begins now. Believing in the Son brings us into that relationship. Being born from above starts that relationship. Remaining in the Son continues that relationship. The relationship is described as being children of God and disciples of Jesus. And because that relationship is with the eternal Father and the eternal Son, the Word incarnate, that relationship will never end.
But even though Jesus is praying that the Father glorify him, he is really asking the Father to glorify himself. Even in his prayer for himself, Jesus is other-person centred—the Son is always seeking the glory of the Father.
The reason why Jesus wants himself to be glorified is so that his Father will be glorified. Victory for Jesus is victory for the Father.
And here–as well as other places in John’s Gospel–we observe that every time we take a peep into God the Trinity, we keep seeing the way the Father is concerned for the Son, and the Son for the Father. Jesus’ glory is the Father’s glory, and the Father’s glory is the Son’s glory.
At this point, with Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection so close at hand, Jesus wants to complete the work that his Father has given him—he wants to remain on track to finish the mission of the Father, right to the very end.
Are you jealous for God’s honour? Do you pray that God would be glorified because you have done what God requires of you? If you understand that point, you understand the meaning to life. You can endure a boring job, a difficult marriage, and a sick body, if you just grab onto this one truth—our obedience brings God glory. And God’s glory brings us great joy.
But Jesus in his prayer moves beyond himself. He proceeds to pray for those whom he is leaving behind—his eleven disciples.
It’s worth noting that right up until his execution, and as he faces his own certain death, that Jesus is concerned for others. So Jesus now prays for his disciples, the eleven, but it is noteworthy that Jesus does not pray for the world.
(a) For Those Who Are His Own (vv. 6-8)
Jesus is praying for his disciples, not the world. And when it comes to the disciples, there is more to them than meets the eye. For Jesus says in verses 6 to 8:
17:6“I have revealed your name to those whom you gave me from the world. They were for you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 17:7Now they know that all things—as much as you have given me—are from you. 17:8For I have given them the words which you gave me, and they received them and truly know that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.
In verses 6 to 8, we are shown both sides of what it means to be a disciple. We are given both the perspective of human responsibility, and also the perspective of divine sovereignty.
From the human side, and from the perspective of human responsibililty, we notice in verse 6 that in his prayer to the Father, Jesus describes the disciples as those who “have kept your word”, and in verse 8, “they received” those words. The disciples have accepted the words of Jesus as being the words from the Father. They believe Jesus words, and where Jesus is from. In verse 8, Jesus says that they ‘believe’ and ‘know’ with certainty that Jesus came from the Father. Notice the three words used for the proper human response to Jesus’ words—they ‘accept’, ‘know’, and ‘believe’. This is what is required for a human to truly be a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship is not automatic, and it doesn’t just come from hearing Jesus’ words. But someone must ‘accept’, ‘know’, and ‘believe’ Jesus’ words.
From God’s side, and from the perspective of divine sovereignty, the disciples are described a different way. Jesus describes them to the Father in verse 6 as, “those whom you gave me from the world”, and “you gave them to me” (cf. v. 9).
That is, they are the ones who the Father has given to Jesus from before the creation of the world. Believers in Christ are part of the inheritance trhat the Father is giving to the Son. Jesus prays for those whom the Father has given him.
But that is not the only description of those the Father has given to Jesus. For they are also described as the ones who were “for” the Father (v. 6, cf. v. 9). They belong to the Father and are part of the Father’s inheritance. Their purpose is to be ‘for’ the Father.
The disciples are the one who Jesus has revealed himself to. The disciples can come to Jesus only because they first belong to the Father. Then the Father gives them to his Son.
Jesus is not embarrassed by predestination. Let me summarise this teaching for you. The Father chose you before you chose Jesus. You choose Jesus because the Father chose you. Those whom God chooses do indeed come to Jesus. And when they come to him, they give glory to Jesus.
People make a mistaken when they pit this truth against others. For example, some people think that if it is true that God chooses us, then we don’t have to believe. Or if it’s true that God chooses us, we don’t have to pray. But the truth is that God is the one who chooses people to become believers, and yet we are still really required to believe and accept Jesus. In our passage, God choses, but Jesus still prays to his Father.
(b) Not For The World (v. 9)
But Jesus explicitly says that he is not praying for the world. Verse 9:
17:9“I ask about them—I do not ask about the world but about those whom you have given me—that they are for you […]
We might have a problem with the limitation Jesus puts on the prayer. We might feel uncomfortable with Jesus ‘excluding’ the world from his prayer. But what happened to “God so loved the world”? I thought that when the Son of God was lifted up, he would draw all people to himself? I thought that God wanted all people to be saved?
Of course, those things are true, in their place. But Jesus here in verse 9 is distinguishing ‘his disciples’ from ‘the world’. Jesus is now praying for his sheep, those that the Father has given to him, those whom the Father has drawn to him—for no one comes to Jesus unless the Father who sent him draws them—and this is an important distinction for Jesus to make.
Those God has given to Jesus are also the Father’s, for the Father and the Son are one in being, as well as one in purpose. And the Father has chosen the disciples of Jesus out of the world as an inheritance for the Son, and to give them to him.
And so here Jesus will not be praying for the world. The world is opposed to God. The world hates Jesus and his disciples. The world remains under God’s anger. The world is under its ruler, the devil, or Satan. The world is perishing. And so here Jesus does not pray for the world.
There is an infinite gap between the world and the disciples. God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son for it, and then God will send his disciples back into the world, to point the world to Jesus, and draw people out of the world to the Son. But God’s focus and emphasis is upon his own—Christ’s sheep, those he draws to Jesus out of the world, and who separate themselves from the perishing and hostile world. The Christian not only loves the people of the world—for he or she was one of them—but also has an implaccable enmity and hostility to the ‘world’—that is, the ‘world’ as humans organized against God and pursuing their anti-God and anti-Christ agenda. We were committed in our baptism to fighting against “the world, the flesh, and the devil”, and rightly so. There can be no peace with such enemies. There is no quarter or mercy in our conflict with them. They will have us sinning ourselves to death and burning in hell if they can. So there can be no truce nor armistice.
Likewise, there is no hope for those who do not choose to come out of the world. And so here, if you decide to remain in the world, as ‘worldly’, and do not choose to come out of the world, Jesus doesn’t regard you as worthy of his prayers—Jesus is not praying for you.
So come out of the world and let the Son of God pray for you. Make chapter 17 of John a chapter where Jesus prays for you individually and personally, and not just those Christians “over there”. Why not? Anyone who comes to him, he will never cast out. Anyone who is thirsty may drink of the water he offers without any cost. Why not you? The world’s cactus anyway. It’s dying. Abandon that sinking ship, and come to Christ.
But some of you Christians here might ask, “So can I still pray that my non-Christian friends will come to follow Jesus? Can I pray that my family members become Christians, or that my children might be born from above?”
Yes, not only can you pray for them, but you must pray for them, because you don’t know whether God has chosen them or not. God can do all things, including softening hard and stubborn human hearts. Look at Paul, someone implacably opposed to Jesus and his gospel—who was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man—yet God had mercy on him, and he became Jesus’ chosen witness to the world.
But just don’t ask God to save people who permanently reject him. There is still only one way to God, and that is through the gate of Jesus Christ. Do not pray for another gate—because there ain’t going to be one. Pray instead that your loved ones, as long as they are above ground with a pulse and breath in their lungs, go through the gate that is there, come to the light that shines, hear the voice of their shepherd that calls, drink the water he offers, feed on his flesh and drink his blood that he gives for the life of the world, and be born from above by the Spirit. This is prayer in accordance with God’s will. And it is the sort of prayer that God loves to answer. Maybe God has predestined your prayers, to be the means for the salvation of your family and friends. But don’t pray to God asking him to break his own promises, go against his own word, or contradict reality with the fiction, the fantasy, that salvation can come to anyone without faith in Jesus Christ, light of the world, lamb of God, the way and the truth and the life apart from whom no one can come to God.
(c) Keep Them In Your Name (v. 11b)
In verse 11, Jesus prays for the disciples that the Father keep them and protect them in his name:
17:11 […] Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me […]
The prayer is that the Father protect them by the power of his name. Jesus himself promised that he will not cast out any who come to him (John 6:37), and that it is the Father’s will that he not lose any which he has given him (John 6:39). Jesus is able say that he has lost none except Judas, the man headed for destruction—a fact which Jesus had known from the beginning. So that means that Jesus has had a 100% success rate in keeping his own.
It is true that people who have once called themselves ‘Christian’ or have once looked to us like they had believed in Jesus have, from our perspective, ‘fallen away’. And this reality, this phenomenon we see, is explained by determining whether the person really had true faith, or whether the fall is final—questions that we fellow humans and travellers cannot finally answer, because we aren’t God. But what we can say is that not one of those who was chosen by the Father for eternal life has ever ever fallen away. They may have sinned, and lied, and given way to cowardice, and acted inconsistently, and stumbled into sin, like Peter, who denied his Lord, but they come back every time. They may have grievously ‘fallen’ for a time, like David, but they have not utterly ‘fallen away’, for they also repent, like David (Pss 32, 51).
(d) That The Disciples Might Be One (vv. 11, cf. v. 21)
Jesus also prays for the unity of his disciples, in verse 11, “so that they might be one just as we are one”, and verse 21, that those who believe the apostolic word “that all might be one, just as you Father are in me and I am in you, so that they also might be in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me.”
We have a unity that comes from our common faith in a common Lord through a common gospel. We cannot have that unity without it being based on the gospel and the faith. But when it is, we need to preserve and keep that unity (cf. Eph 4:3). Sometimes that unity is disrupted by sin or heresy, and the disunity is necessary. Expulsion is a form of disunity that is hopefully temporary, in the hope that the sinner or the false teacher will repent and return to the grace and truth of Christ (1 Cor 5:13), demonstrated by the person’s return to the fellowship of the community of faith. And Paul even says that there must be divisions among the church at Corinth so that we can know who has God’s approval (1 Cor 11:19). But the final vision of the church around the Lord Almighty and the Lamb is of all creation singing and celebrating in one voice. And that is the unity we anticipate, as it is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ.
(e) That The Disciples Are Kept From Evil (v. 15)
Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to fall away, but neither does Jesus want to molly coddle them, put them in cotton wool, or hide Christians away in a monastery, keeping them safe from the nasty world. Verse 15:
17:15I do not ask that you take them from the world, but that you keep them from evil.
Jesus explicitly says that he will not pray for them to be taken out of the world. Rather, he prays that the Father protect them from the evil one.
The constant challenge is that the believer be “in the world but not of it.” If the ‘boat’ is the church, and the ‘water’ is world, then the boat needs to be in the water, but the water must not be in the boat. We live in a world where our daily prayer is “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”.
Jesus prays for his disciples because they are still living in an evil world. In verse 11, Jesus prays mindful that he will not be in the world for much longer, but “they [the disciples] are in the world”. And the world is a place of evil, from which the disciples are not immune.
The ‘evil’ concerning which Jesus prays might be ‘sin’, which is something that everyone who is a slave to sin does. Or it might be Satan, the devil, who in one sense is the source of all evil. The devil makes lies sound like truth and truth sound like lies. Yet with the coming of Christ and his imminent glorification, Satan is now under the judgement of God (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). Nevertheless, there are still dangers from the world, the flesh, and the devil, though Satan is thrown out, Christ has had victory over the world (John 16:33), and Christ condemned sin in his own flesh (Rom 8:3).
Jesus is preparing for the time when he is no longer with his disciples in the flesh, but his bodily presence is away from them. Jesus is speaking about a time when the battle lies behind him but ahead of the eleven disciples.
Now it’s easy to throw stones at the monk who hides from the world in a Christian monastery, but perhaps it is possible for us to live in a Christian bubble also. Perhaps we can so arrange our lives that we do not meaningful interact with any non-Christian ever. But on the other hand, just because you attend a Christian school or live in an Anglicare nursing home, that doesn’t mean that everybody there is Christian. In fact, many of the staff, students, and families of so called Christian institutions often are not Christian at all.
And of course every Christian parent desires to keep the world from their children. The world can chew up and spit out us and our children. But the fact is, we can’t do it! We cannot create for ourselves a Christian bubble.
Indeed, Paul speaks of that reality in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10, that actually, to not associate with sinners, one has to leave the world.
5:9I wrote to you in my letter to not associate with those engaging in sexual sin, 10not at all meaning those from this world who engage in sexual sin, or the coveteous, or the ravenous, or idolators, since then you would have to leave the world.
What we have to learn is how to be ‘in the world but not of it’. We have to engage with the people of this world, but still be people of Christ, different, We have to be salt in an insipid and corrupting world, and light in a dark world.
Christ Jesus does ask the Father to keep the disciples from evil. This doesn’t mean not dealing with sinful people. After all, we are all sinners. But it does mean not being dragged back into the world, able to say no to ungodliness and not being polluted by the world, but yes to sharing Christ with the dying world and loving the world.
(f) Sanctify The Disciples In The Truth (vv. 17-19)
But even though Jesus wants them in the world, and not to be taken out of the world, Jesus does in a sense what them to be sanctified, and thus separated in another sense from from the world. Verse 17:
17:17Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.
To ‘sanctify’ something is usually to set apart someone for God and his purposes, to regard that person as ‘holy’, ‘different’, and ‘special’.
These eleven disciples have been chosen out of the world by Jesus for the special purposes God has planned. They were chosen with the express purpose of being sent into the world as messengers who have the truth. Their sanctification, or consecration, is for the purpose of mission, verse 18:
17:18Just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world.
The mission that Jesus has prepared them for and will send them out on after his resurrection is and requires the eleven’s sanctification. They must be holy dedicated to it. And it is the word, the instruction, that both Jesus their teacher and advocate has given them, and that the Holy Spirit their coming counselor and advocate will give them, which is both the Father’s word and is also able to sanctify them for the task.
So here is the paradox. The disciples are to be different from the world, and it is by being different from the world, that they will fulfill God’s purposes for the world as messengers of the truth. By listening to the truth, they are different to the world, that rejects the truth.
Without being ‘sanctified’ and thus in a sense ‘different’, they won’t be able to serve the Father’s word of truth. But in another sense, they are from the world (John 17:6). But the sanctification of them by the word has in another sense removed them from being ‘from the world’ (John 15:19, 17:14, 16).
There have been in the history of the church some strange attempts by Christian ascetics to separate themselves from ‘the world’. The men of the past who wanted holiness would physically withdraw from the world. The ‘pole saints’ or ‘stylites’ were a particularly notorious example. These men would preach, fast and pray from the top of pillars or poles, where they lived. Simeon Stylites the Elder seems to have started this craze, and remained on a pole for 37 years until his death (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylite). Sometimes, stylites with different theological opinions would have pillars close enough to call out to each other, and they would conduct their theological discussions from their poles.
That is not what Jesus wanted of his disciples. Instead, the eleven are set apart to be ‘in the world’. They are found in the world, witnessing to the truth about Jesus Christ. And indeed, this is the reason why Christ sanctifies himself, in verse 19:
17:19And for them I sanctify myself, so that they also might be sanctified in the truth.
Christ’s ‘sanctification’ is his determination to do his Father’s will. When Jesus says that he is sanctify himself, he is saying that he is determined to submit to the Father’s will and to commit himself to his Father’s exclusive service. That service for the disciples is the service of the cross, of being lifted up as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, being resurrected, and then sending the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit to them. Without Christ fulfilling each of these steps—which involves his full dedication and consecration to his Father’s mission—the disciples will not be able to fulfill the mission for which they are sanctified and set apart.
We can read about the eleven disciples for whom Jesus is praying, and think, “Well, that’s all well and good for them! They are apostles, and who am I, living the best part of 2000 years later! I am an irrelevance to Jesus’ plans. It doesn’t matter what I do, for I am far away in time and space, an accidental appendage to his plans and mission.
But this is not true. We have relatives who live five hours away, as well as relatives that live an hour away. So it is a bit of a trip to get there. But when you’ve spent an hour or five in the car, whether its across the city or across the state, it is really nice to go into mum’s or granddad’s or the cousin’s house, and see the photos of you there, on display, on the fridge. There are photos of me not just in this house, but on the walls. I belong. I am part of this family. It says that even though you live far away, this is my family.
As Jesus goes off to the cross, he says something that tells us that he has photographs of us—you and me—on his fridge. Verses 20 to 21:
17:20“I am not asking only about them, but also about those who believe in me through their word, 17:21so that all might be one, just as you Father are in me and I am in you, so that they also might be in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me.
The unity Jesus is praying for is between us and the apostles. We are an ‘apostolic church’. That means that we are a Biblical church. We follow the apostolic teaching that is found in the New Testament, and thus we are united with the apostles in their gospel. John in fact writes so that we can be united with him, and that being now dead, John continues to bear witness to us through what he has written.
And it is only through the apostles that we have access to the true Jesus. The only Jesus that can be believed is the one who comes through the eleven, and only this Jesus brings us to the Father.
But along the way Jesus points out the love of the Father for both the eleven, and those that believe their message. For in verse 23, Jesus says of the disciples, both the eleven and the rest, that “you [the Father] loved them just as you loved me.” What a high privilege! That God the Father would love us sinful ruined humans just as he loves God the only begotten and beloved Son.
Jesus finally prays for all that have been given him, the church, to be with him. Verse 24:
17:24“Father, I want that which you gave me, so that they also might be with me where I am, so that they might see my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
Jesus wants us to be with him, to see his glory, and share in it. Every time you take a peep into the Trinity you see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are concerned for each other and us. The Father glorifies his Son. The Son glorifies his Father. The Son is glorified by his apostles, and we also give glory to the Son by believing in him. We get to see and share in his glory
Jesus’ prayer is for himself, the eleven disciples who are with him, and for us, who believe in the apostles’ message. He prays for himself, that the Father would glorify him—a prayer for strengthening as he goes to the cross, and through death to glorious resurrection life.
Jesus’ prayer is for the eleven, whom the Father has given him. Jesus has not lost any of them. Jesus doesn’t want to take the eleven out of the world, but that they be kept from evil. Jesus is sanctifying himself for them—he is going to the cross. Likewise, he asks that the Father sanctify the disciples, that they might be sent into the world for mission.
And Jesus prayer is also for us, those who believe the apostolic message, that we would be one with them, and know that the Father loves us in our union with the beloved Son.
My Translation
17:1Jesus said these things, and then, lifting his eyes to heaven, said, “Father, the hour has come; Glorify your Son, so that the Son might glorify you, 17:2just as you gave him authority over all flesh, that he might give eternal life to everyone you have given to him. 17:3Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, who you sent. 17:4I have glorified you on earth, completing the work which you have given me to do. 17:5And now, glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you before the world came to be.”
17:6“I have revealed your name to those whom you gave me from the world. They were for you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 17:7Now they know that all things—as much as you have given me—are from you. 17:8For I have given them the words which you gave me, and they received them and truly know that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.
17:9“I ask about them—I do not ask about the world but about those whom you have given me—that they are for you, 17:10and everything that is mine is yours, and your things are mine, and I have been glorified in them. 17:11I am no longer in the world, and they are in the world, and I am coming to you.
“Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me, so that they might be one just as we are one. 17:12When I was with them, I kept them in your name which you gave me, and guarded them, and none of them perished except the son of perdition, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 17:13But now I am coming to you, and I spoke these things in the world, so that they might have my joy fulfilled in them.
17:14“I have given them your word, and the world hated them, because they are not from the world, just as I am not from the world. 17:15I do not ask that you take them from the world, but that you keep them from evil. 17:16They are not from the world just as I am not from the world. 17:17Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. 17:18Just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world. 17:19.And for them I sanctify myself, so that they also might be sanctified in the truth.
17:20“I am not asking only about these, but also about those who believe in me through their word, 17:21so that all might be one, just as you Father are in me and I am in you, so that they also might be in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me. 17:22And I have given them the glory which you gave me, so that they might be one just as we are one: 17:23I in them and you in me, so that they might be completely brought into one, that the world might know that you sent me, and you loved them just as you loved me.
17:24“Father, I want that which you gave me, so that they also might be with me where I am, so that they might see my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
17:25“Righteous Father, also the world does not know you, but I know you, and these people know that you sent me. 17:26And I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me might be in them, and I in them.”