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THE HIGH-PRIESTLY, INTERCESSORY PRAYER OF CHRIST ON BEHALF OF HIS PEOPLE. A PRAYER FOR THE GLORIFICATION OF HIS NAME EVEN TO THE GORIFICATION OF HIS PEOPLE AND THE WORLD, OR UNTIL THE VANISHMENT OF THE WORLD AS WORLD. CHRIST, IN HIS SELF-SACRIFICE FOR THE WORLD, THE TRUTH AND FULFILLMENT OF THE SHEKINA AND ALL THE MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD IN THE WORLD. GLORIFICATION OF THE PRAYER, OF DECISIVE CONFLICTS OF SPIRIT, OF SACRIFICE. THE HEAVENLY GOAL
6I have manifested [I manifested] thy name unto the men which [whom] thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them [unto] me; and they have kept thy word. 7Now they have known [they know] that all things whatsoever [even as many as] thou hast given me are of [from] thee. 8For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known [they received them and knew] surely that I came out [forth] from thee, and they have believed [and believed] that thou didst send me. 9I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which [those whom] thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10And all mine [all things that are mine, ôὰ ἐìὰ ðἀíôá , neut.] are thine, and11thine are mine; and I am [have been] glorified in them. And now [omit now] I am no more [longer] in the world, but [and, ÷áß ] these are in the world, and I come [am coming] to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom [keep them in thy name which ἐí ôῷ ὀíὁìáôß óïõ ᾧ ] thou hast given me, that they may be one 12[even] as we are [omit are]. While I was with them in the world [omit in the world] I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept [I kept them— ἐôÞñïõí —in thy name which thou hast given me, and guarded, watched over— ἐöýëáîá —them], and none [not one] of them is lost, but the son of 13perdition; that the Scripture might [may] be fulfilled. And [But] now come I [I am coming] to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might 14[may] have my joy fulfilled [made full] in themselves. I have given [ äÝäù÷á ] them thy word; and the world hath hated [hated, ἐìßóçóåí ] them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil [the evil one, ἐ÷ ôïῦ ðïíçñïῦ ]. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17, Sanctify them through thy truth [in the truth]: thy word is truth. 18As thou hast sent [didst send] me into the world, even so have [omit even so have] I also sent 19[or, even so I sent] them into the world. And for their sakes [or, for them, in their behalf] I sanctify myself [mine own self], that they also might [may] be sanctified through [in] the truth.
20Neither pray I for these alone [Yet not for these alone do I pray], but for them also which shall believe [but also for those who believe, ôῶí ðéóôåõü íôùí ] on [in] me through their word; 21That they all may [may all] 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 [didst send] me. 22And the glory which thou gavest [hast given, äÝ äù÷áò ] me I have given [ äÝ äù÷á ] them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in [perfected into, ôåôåëåéùìÝíïé åἰò ] one; and [omit and] that the world may know that thou hast sent [didst send] me, and hast loved [didst love, or, lovedst] them, as thou hast loved [didst love, or, lovedst] me. 24Father, I will that they also, whom [that what] thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
25O [omit O] righteous Father, [and (yet), ÷áß ] the world hath not known thee [knew thee not]: but I have known [knew] thee, and these have known [knew] that thou hast sent [didst send] me. 26And I have declared [I made known] unto them thy name, and will declare it [make it known]; that the love wherewith thou hast loved [didst love, or, lovedst] me may be in them, and I in them.
A. The time of the High-priestly prayer of Jesus. It is indicated with the going forth over the brook Kedron [18:1]. The crossing of the brook Kedron was the act and sign of final decision. It is not necessary to understand the going forth as a going forth from the Supper-room, for the precincts of the city probably extended, in single residences, down into the valley.
B. Worth of the prayer. The highest estimation was accorded it by ancient theologians. Luther: “It is, verily, an exceeding fervent, hearty prayer; a prayer wherein He discovereth, both unto us and to the Father, the abysses of His heart and poureth forth its treasures.” Spener, according to Canstein (Spener’s Leben, p. 146), would never preach on this chapter; he declared that a true understanding of it mounted above the ordinary degree of faith which the Lord is wont to communicate to His people on their pilgrimage. The evening before his death, however, he caused it to be read to him three times in succession. Chytræus called it precatio summi sacerdotis. Similarly, Melanchthon (see Lücke, II., p. 692), Lampe, Bengel [see quotation on p. 511], Herder and others have expressed their admiration of the prayer.
[Barnes: “It is perhaps the most sublime composition to be found anywhere.” Owen: “It is Christ’s almighty fiat, addressed to the Father, as Him from whom He came forth, and as the one that had covenanted to save and bless all who by the drawing of His ineffable love had come to Jesus.” Tholuck: “If in any human speech divinity is manifest, and sublimity is joined to condescending humility, it is in this prayer.” De Wette: “Here all the parting discourses are summed up and raised to the highest pitch of thought and feeling. It is beyond a doubt the sublimest part of the evangelical tradition, the pure expression of Christ’s lofty consciousness and peace of God (unstreitig das Erhabenste was uns die evang. Ueberlieferung aufbewahrt hat, der reine Ausdruck von Jesu hohem Gottesbewusstsein und Gottesfrieden).” This testimony has all the more weight on account of the skeptical tendency of De Wette. Luthardt (II., 354): “Neither in the Scripture nor in the literature of any nation can there be found a composition which in simplicity and depth, in grandeur and fervor may be compared to this prayer. It could not be invented, but could proceed only from such a consciousness as the one which speaks here. But it could be preserved and reproduced by a personality so wholly devoted and conformed to the personality of Jesus as the Evangelist.” Ewald (p. 386 f.): “A prayer such as the world never heard nor could hear … For Himself He has little to ask (Joh_17:1-5), but as soon as His word takes the character of an intercession for His own (6–26), it becomes an irresistible stream of the most fervent love … Sentence rushes upon sentence with wonderful power, yet the repose is never disturbed.” Meyer (p. 587) calls it “the noblest and purest pearl of devotion in the New Testament (die edelste und reinste Perle der Andacht im N. T.).”—P. S.]
Bretschneider, on the other hand, has opened the way for the most unfavorable opinions of modern, negative criticism. He calls it an “Oratio frigida, dogmatica, metaphysica.”
[Rationalists and the advocates of the mythical and legendary hypothesis of the life of our Lord can do nothing with this prayer. Renan (Vie de Jésus, p. 275, 12th ed.) disposes of all the parting discourses, John 13-17, in a short footnote, categorically declaring that they cannot be historical, but must be a free fiction of John in his own language. So also Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Scholten. Such a view, which stands and falls with the whole fiction-theory of the Johannean discourses of Christ, is not only revolting to all religious feeling, but plainly incompatible with the depth and height, the tenderness and fervor of this prayer. If John, or whoever was the author of the Gospel, invented it, he must have been conscious of his own fiction and intention of deceiving the reader. That a person in such a frame of mind and heart could produce such a prayer as this, is a psychological and moral impossibility. That the prayer, as the discourses of Christ generally, was not only translated from the Hebrew into the Greek, but freely reproduced in John’s mind, and received his peculiar coloring, may be admitted without impairing the faithfulness as to the thoughts and spirit, especially if we take into consideration that the Paraclete reminded the apostles of Christ’s words and opened to them their full meaning (Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26; Joh_16:13-14). Godet (II., 367) justly remarks against Reuss, that the internal miracle of a faithful reproduction of the long discourses of Christ is less inexplicable than the artificial composition or fiction of such a master-piece.—P. S.]
C. Historical truth of the prayer and its relation to the agony in Gethsemane. The modern criticism of Bretschneider, Strauss, Baur pretends to discover a contradiction between the triumphant mood of Jesus in this prayer and His dejection in Gethsemane. This rests partly on the false assumption that in Gethsemane Christ petitioned for the averting of His death. See, in opposition to this view, Comm. on Matthew [p. 481, Am. Ed.] Since there can be no question of a change of resolve, but only of a change of mood, we have simply to recognize the profundity and gloriousness of Jesus’ psychical life in the great contrasts presented by His mental frames. [Sudden transitions of feeling belong to human nature, and cannot appear strange in Christ who was peculiarly sensitive and sympathetic, yet in all these changing moods retained equilibrium and self-control, comp. Joh_11:33 ff. On the apparent inconsistency between the calmness and repose of the sacerdotal prayer and the subsequent agony in the garden, which was but the anticipation of the sufferings of the cross, comp. also the sensible remarks of Meyer, p. 588, Hengs-tenberg, III. 143, and Godet, II. 507 f.—P. S.]
D. But why did not John append the psychical combat of Jesus in Gethsemane to this prayer? A presentation of that was, like a presentation of the Supper, foreign to his plan, and the omission must be justified by that plan. The victory of Jesus, in His spiritual sorrow, over Judas (Joh_13:31), involved the victory in Gethsemane, as also His victory on the cross. Moreover, John had related the prelude consisting of the suffering of Jesus in the circle of disciples, and the scene in the Temple-precincts (Joh_12:27), and could assume the Church’s familiarity with the conflict in Gethsemane, to which familiarity Heb_5:7 also bears testimony. [Besides Christ Himself points to the agony, Joh_14:30, in the words: “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.”—P. S.]
E. Symbolism of the prayer: With eyes upraised to heaven. An evidence that He seeks His home above, where the Father is. The observation that, in an astronomical sense, there is no above or beneath, is a worthless one here. Heaven, as the place where the Divine glory is manifested, constitutes the above, in antithesis to earth. Christ prays aloud, in order to the consolation and elevation of the disciples, for here, too, the rule holds good, that the human reference and design of prayer does not vitiate its directness and subjectivity. See Joh_11:42. Augustine: Tanti magistri non solum sermocinatio ad ipsos, sed etiam oratio pro ipsis discipulorum est ædificatio.
F. Progression of the Prayer:
1. Christ first prays for His own glorification, Joh_17:1-5.
2. Then for the preservation of His disciples, Joh_17:6-19.
3. Finally for the congregation of believers, which they are to lead to Him; for their unity and perfection in the kingdom of glory, that the whole world may believe through them, may attain unto knowledge and, as world, vanish out of existence, Joh_17:20-24.
4. The conclusion sums up the whole in the thought that Christ’s love in the disciples shall become the full presence of Christ in the world. [The connecting idea of the three parts is the work of God, as accomplished by Christ, carried on by the apostles, and to be completed in the church, to the glory of God.—P. S.]
Joh_17:1. These words spake Jesus and having lifted up His eyes, etc. [ ÔáῦôáἐëÜëçóå ὁ Ἰçóïῦò , êáὶ ἐðÜñáò ôïὺòὀöèáëìïὺò áὐôïῦ åἰò ôὸí ïὐñáíὸí åἶðå . The double êáß (text. rec.) is not carelessness (De Wette), but solemn circumstantiality of expression (Meyer). But ἐðÜñáò without êáß is better authenticated than ἐðῇñåí with êáß —P. S.].—With this expression the Evangelist connects the prayer of Jesus with the farewell discourses, making it the sealing of the same. Prayer the blossom of holy speech; meditation the root of prayer. [Christ prayed aloud, partly from the strength of emotion which seeks utterance in speech, partly for the benefit of His disciples (Joh_17:13), that He might lift them up to the throne of grace and reveal to them and to the church the love and sympathy of His heart. Such reflection, especially in a prayer of intercession for others, is quite consistent with the deepest spirit of devotion (comp. on Joh_11:42). The occasion made an indelible impression on the mind of John, who depicts here also the gesture and heavenward look of the praying Lord.—P. S.]
To heaven.—Calvin: Quia cœlorum conspectus nos admonet, supra omnes creaturas longe eminere deum. See the beginning of “Our Father.” We could not absolutely infer from this remark by itself, that Jesus offered up His prayer in the open air, as Rupert and others affirm. Since that fact, however, is otherwise established, the expression gains in significance.
[In prayer the eye of faith is always instinctively directed to heaven, as heaven is everywhere open, and angels are ascending and descending. Heaven is the abode of the Hearer of prayer and Giver of every good gift. Every prayer of faith is a spiritual ascension. Christ addresses God here as “Father,” ðÜ ôåñ , simply, six times in this prayer, not “Our Father,” as in the Lord’s Prayer, which is intended for the disciples, nor “My Father,” where He prays for Himself only. Bengel: “Talis simplicitas appellationis ante omnes decuit Filium Dei.” He is the Only Begotten Son of His,. Father, we the common children of our Father (comp. Joh_20:17). The name of Father is the most endearing under which we can know and address God, and which calls out all our feelings of filial trust and gratitude. Christ probably used the Aramean word àַáָּà , Abba, which passed into the devotional vocabulary of Christians, Rom_8:15; Gal_4:6.—P. S.]
The hour is come [ ἐëÞëõèåí ἡ ὥñá ].—The great, unique hour of decision by death and resurrection, which are inseparable; the hour whose aim and consummation is the glorification [12:23; 13:1, 32].
Glorify Thy Son [ äü îáóüí óïõ ôὸí õἱüí — óïõ placed first to give force to the petition which, being the prayer of the Only Begotten Son, can not be refused— ἵíá ( êáὶ ) ὁ õἱüò ( óïõ ) äïîÜ óῃ óÝ .—P. S.]. äü îáóïí , conduct Him into the state of äüîá of glory. See Joh_17:5. This glorification of the Son was fulfilled in the Resurrection and Ascension, the “unbounding” of Christ; similarly, the thence-issuing glorification of the Father was fulfilled through the outpouring of the Holy Ghost and the establishment of the Church and of the gospel ministry. The interpretation of Didymus [De Wette, Reuss]: Manifest Me to them who know Me not, is expressive of but one consideration: the effect of Christ’s exaltation. “The communication to mankind of the true consciousness of God” (Baur) is, apprehended monotheistically, a glorification of the Father. [Stier: “These words are a proof that the Son is equal to the Father as touching His Godhead. What creature could stand before his Creator and say, ‘Glorify Thou me, that I may glorify Thee?’ ”—The Son glorifies the Father, not by adding to His glory, but by making it known to men through the Holy Spirit, who makes known and thus glorifies the Son.—P. S.]
Joh_17:2. According as Thou gavest Him, etc. [ Êáèὼò ἔäùêáò áὐôῷ ἐîïõóßáí ðÜóçò óáñêü ò ].—The power over all flesh, received by Christ, in His divine-human person, from God, 13:3], and in spirit exercised by Him through His spiritual victory, is the measure and index of His hope of glorification. The infinite power of His personality over mankind, the infinite verification of that power in the self-humiliation of His love, shall be the measure of His infinite glorification.—Over all flesh [ ðÜóçò óáñêü ò ].—An Old Testament expression [col basar=all mankind], not found elsewhere in John. A solemn emphasizing of the universalism of His destination for the whole human race; the designation applied to mankind is significant not only of its antithesis to the spiritual life of Christ, but also of its susceptibility of salvation. This power over all flesh is expressive, therefore, of the magnitude of His expectations with regard to the spread of His gospel. See Php_2:6 ff.
That all which Thou hast given Him, to them He should give, etc. [ ἴíá ðᾶí ὅäÝäùêáò áὐôῷ , äþóῃ (al. äþóåé ) áὐôïῖò æùὴí áἰþíéïí ].—A select number is not here meant by this; the peculiar expression ( ðᾶí , áὐôïῖò ) brings out the fact that the Father has given Him a great, unitous collectivity in the creation;—a mass limbing and sundering into individual members, as men, successively exercising, and departing in, faith, come into possession of eternal life. The collective mass of created beings, souls destined for salvation, is necessarily broken up into individual members, for every man must singly attain to saving faith; this individualization, however, is but conducive to a higher unity. See Joh_17:21. His glorification is, it is true, an end in itself; nevertheless, it also aims at the bliss of believing humanity; and the one design is inseparable from the other. The design of the creation of the world is the glorification of God and Christ in the blessedness of men; such, likewise, is the design of the redemption. The Father is to be glorified by the diffusion of salvation in Christ, the dissemination of eternal life.
Joh_17:3. Now this is the eternal life [ áὕôç äÝ ἐóôïí ἡ áἰþíéïò æùÞ ].— Æùὴ áἰþíéïò see Joh_1:4; Joh_3:16; Joh_3:36. According to the Prologue, the Logos appears in the fundamental forms of light, life, and love; and His absolute life (1Ti_6:19) is communicated to believers, through the Holy Ghost, as the fundamental impulse and might of eternal life. Life is an appearing from within outwards, in the form of self-development; eternal life is an eternal self-rejuvenating and appearing; it is life in the eternity of God, inclusive of all times and spaces; the eternity of God in the power of life; an unobstructed self-developing beyond the æons. The believer has the unity of eternity in the manifoldness of life and the manifoldness of life in the unity of eternity “If we define life as the undisturbed self-development of the idea implanted in the being, the term signifies, subjectively, self-gratification, bliss,—objectively, the glorification of the finite life in the divine.” Tholuck. Joh_15:1-3. This is, áὕôç äÝ ἐóôéí Not metonymically: hoc modo paratur (Beza, etc.), but by way of explanation: heroin it consists, in respect of its principle.
That they must know Thee [ ἵíá ãéíþóêùóß ( ãéíþ óêïõóß ). óÝ ôὸí ìüíïí ἀëçèéíὸí èåὸí ]—the distinctive truth of the O. T.— êáὶ ὁí ἀðÝóôåéëáò Ἰçóïῦí ×ñéóôü í —the distinctive truth, of the N. T.]. ἵíá . Eternal life at the same time an eternal unobstructed striving or further striving, toward a goal continually attained and as continually set afresh. See the Textual Notes. The tendency toward the knowledge of God is not distinct and separate from that toward the knowledge of Christ; they are in reality one; the essential, true tendency of man. To this bias there is an objective and a subjective definitiveness.
I. The objective. Meyer after Lücke: A (confessionally distinct) summary of belief in antithesis to the polytheistic ( ô . ìüíïí ἀëçè . èåüí ), and Jewish êüóìïò (which latter rejected Jesus as the Messiah). The distinction of the true God and His Ambassador emphasizes the personality of God and Christ, and lays stress upon the knowledge of it as the condition of life and development for the human personality (in opposition to Pantheism). The objective definitiveness of the expression requires that Christ should speak of Himself in the third person; He subsequently returns to ἐãþ —The only true God [ ôὸí ìüíïí ἀëçèéíὸí èåὸí comp. ìü íïòóïöὸò , Rom_16:27; ìüíïò ὅóéïòêý ñéïò ., Rev_15:4.—P. S.]. The only essential, real God;— ἀëçèéíüò in antithesis to the unreal, symbolical and mythical gods of the world, not of the Gentile world alone, but also of later Judaism in its estrangement from the faith of revelation, 1Jn_5:20; Rev_5:7; 1Th_1:9. It is the God of revelation in Christ, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Eph_1:3; not in antithesis to the Old Testament idea of God or to the idea of Christ, but in antithesis to all false and obscured belief in God; hence God as He reveals Himself in Christ, distinct as to His divine consciousness and distinguished from Christ.—And Him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. Tholuck: Not Moses, not a prophet, could have been named in this co-ordination, by the side of God, but He only who could say: “he that seeth Me, seeth the Father.” Calvin: Sensus est, Deum mediatore tantum interposito cognosci. At the same time, however, the modification of God’s and Christ’s personality must be observed. Where God is rightly known, He is known as the ìüíïò ἀë ̇ çèéíüò where Jesus is rightly known as the Sent of God, He is known as the ×ñéóôüíò . In opposition to this, Tholuck says: According to the Christological view, the Father is not known along with the Messiah, but in Him, Joh_10:38; Joh_14:7-8; Joh_18:19. But it is just in the distinction of the two personalities that true knowledge of God in Christ is consummated.
Several explanations present themselves:
(1) Augustine, Ambrose [Hilary] and others: As though it were written: Ut te et, quem misisti, Jesum Christum, cognoscant solum verum deum. This is contrary to the text, though from the distinction of Christ from God the Arians and Socinians draw an unjust inference against the divine nature of Christ, the knowledge of God being indissolubly connected with the knowledge of Christ.
(2) The two terms are nomina propria in undivided unity (Tholuck, Luthardt). In such case, however, too great a portion of the weight of the passage would be transferred from the objective to the subjective side, the knowing.
(3) Ôὸí ìüíïí , etc. is predicate to óå , ×ñéóôüò is predicate to: “Whom Thou hast sent,” Jesus (Clerikus, Nösselt and others).
(4) ×ñéóôüò is the subject; the predicate is contained in ὅí ἀðÝóôåéëáò (De Wette).
The last two interpretations lay too great stress upon the ideal on the objective side. We must not apprehend the modifications as predicates, declarative of doctrine, but as definitions, explanatory of the nature of Father and Son, or definitive nomina appellativa.
II. Subjective definitiveness of the sentence. “The schools, after the precedent of Augustine, held ãéíþóêåéí to be a proof of the beatitudo intuitiva æternitatis; in the Hegelian period it was considered to prove the dignity of speculative science. But even Greek exegesis recognizes the practical value of the term; Cyril: ôὴí ἐíἕñãïéò ðßóôéí , Calov.: notitia practica, better: experimental knowledge. See Joh_6:19.” Tholuck. Still, we cannot overlook the fact that the whole experience of faith is teleologically leveled at its consummation in contemplative knowledge (Mat_5:8; 1Co_13:12). John recognizes no knowledge that is not practical, but also no practice whose aim is not seeing. The term knowing is so centrally poised between believing and seeing, as to embrace both, as well as mark the transition from the first to the second.
Joh_17:4. I glorified Thee on the earth [ ἐãþóå ἐäüîáóá ἐðὶ ôῆò ãῆò , ôὸ ἕñãïí ôåëåéþóáò (rec. ἐôåëåßùóá ). The aorists are proleptical and should not be rendered as perfects as in the E. V.—P. S.]—Foundation of the foregoing petition. This not in the sense of urging His claims to being, glorified by the Father on the score of legal merit, but in a sense that presents Him as intimating that, by His glorification of the Father, He has prepared the moment of His own glorification, and that He may now expect such glorification as a recompense agreeable to the fundamental law of the kingdom of love and righteousness. In Joh_17:1 He modified the succession thus: Father, glorify the Son, that the Son may glorify Thee; now He says: I glorified Thee, now do Thou glorify the Son. To avoid a mingling of the conceptions, we must admit the question to be here of a preliminary glorification of the Father through the Son. And this is Christ’s meaning; He says: I glorified Thee on the earth, and in elucidation of these words He acids: I have finished the work, etc. In His doctrine and life Ho had manifested the Father conformably to the grace and truth of the latter, Joh_1:17. He could lay this work before the Father as finished and complete. Augustine and Gerhard understand by these words the sacrifice of Christ’s death, of which He speaks, say they, as from the stand-point of its consummation. “Most commentators, even Grotius, at least consider it (the death-sacrifice) to be jointly included by prolepsis; Socinian exegesis alone absolutely excludes it. The fact that Joh_17:6-9 speak exclusively of Christ’s doctrinal ministry is not decisive in favor of such exclusion.” Tholuck. It is more decisive, however, that Christ here reckons His death as comprising one point in the Father’s glorification of the Son. Hence it is doubtless in the more limited sense that He has been speaking of the work which the Father has commanded Him to do; in a sense similar to that of the words: I must work as long as it is day; the night cometh, etc., Joh_9:4. Now, however, this work is brought to a conclusion; He makes His high-priestly offering of Himself and seals that with His Passion. The Passion comes under consideration as the conclusion of His obedient doing. See also the êáὶ íῦí äüîáóïí ìὲ óý
Joh_17:5. And now glorify Me, Thou, Father, with Thyself [ êáὶ íῦí äüîáóüí ìåóý , ðÜôåñ , ðáñὰ óåáõôῷ ôῇ äüîῃ ᾖåἶ÷ïí ].—Although the mortal suffering of Jesus should indirectly conduce to the glorification of the Father (see Joh_17:1), it must be primarily a glorification of the Son; His glorification by death, resurrection and ascension. Christ henceforth conducts Himself passively; the Father assumes the active. With Thyself, i.e. not simply in heaven, but in His submissive resignation to God, in His going to the Father, in His being in God (Col_3:3), in antithesis to His life in the world hitherto. He has glorified the Father in this world and from this world; the Father is to glorify Him in the other world and from the other world. [ ðáñÜ denotes closest proximity and equality with personal distinction, “with Thyself as Thy fellow;” comp. 1:2.—P. S.]
With the radiance of glorification [ ôῆäüîῃ , the glory].—It is the real glory which Christ, as the Son of God and the ëüãïò possessed, as the medium of the world, before the existence of the world; at once the ideal radiance of glorification which He then, as the future divine-human Lord of glory, had in the view of God, and the ideo-real radiance of glorification of His eternal nascency and advent from the beginning. For Christ in His glorification, did not merely receive back that which He once possessed in the ìïñöὴ èåïῦ (Php_2:6; Joh_1:1); He also newly received a glory destined Him from the beginning and from the beginning in embryo, as the ideo-real fundamental impulse of the world (see the Prologue). Accordingly, the interpretation which apprehends this äüîá ideally alone, as significant of the destinatio divina (the Socinians, Grotius, Baumg.-Crus.), is inadequate; and inadequate is also the view which would limit the reference of the words to a re-reception of the original real glory (Meyer after some ancients). Be it observed that the future divine-human glory was assured to the Son along with His eternal Logos-glory. It is a question how the äüîá which, according to Joh_1:14, He manifested even in the state of humiliation, must be distinguished from that other äüîá . The divine highness or majesty consists in the limitless, unobstructed self-manifestation of God in omnipotence and omnipresence or in creative working and appearing; the divine lowliness, or self-divestment of Christ, consists in a self-limitation within the divinely appointed limits of judgment and suffering,—limits actualized in the counter-operations of the world against the Holy One; this self-limitation is carried to impotence, as the antithesis to omnipotence, and to death, as the antithesis to omnipresence:—only, however, that it may thus be all the more gloriously manifested in the äüîá of grace and truth. First, omnipotence and omnipresence stood forth, limitless, and grace and truth were, as yet, hidden; then grace and truth advanced; so boundless these, that omnipotence and omnipresence appeared to vanish behind them. The new condition of Christ, however, will consist in the glorifying of His grace into omnipotence, and of His truth into omnipresence, or of His self-divestment into majesty. Dogmatically defined: At first, alone the “physical” attributes of God are, in the Logos,’ exhibited in the creation of the world. In the redemption of the world, the “ethical” attributes are exhibited in the self-humiliation of Christ. In the glorification of the world, the “ethical” and “physical” attributes are to shine united, as a manifestation of the majesty of Christ. And so the new glory of Christ shall be an eternal synthesis of the gloria mediatoria (which Lampe considers as the sole meaning of the text) and the primordial majesty (Heb_1:3); this latter, however, must not be described as the quality “by which God is God,” unless we are prepared to understand by it the glory of God as the sum of all His attributes.
Joh_17:6. I manifested Thy name to the men, etc. [ ἐöáíÝñùóÜ óïõ ôὸ ὅíïìá ôïῖò ἀíèñþðïéò ïὓò ἔäùêÜò ìïé ἐê ôïῦ êü óìïõ ] Here begins the intercession for the disciples. He introduces it with a rationale; they are not simply worthy of His intercession; God’s eyes must be fastened upon them as bearers of His name and Christ’s work. The great work of manifestation must in them be protected and secured.—Manifested Thy name.—Such, in one word, was Christ’s work hitherto. The name of God, its specific self-manifestation in the Son, and, with that name, the God of Christ, the personal, heavenly Father, was distinctly manifested to men by the word, work, and life of Christ. The prophetic office of Christ is completed in an absolute manifestation of God. Though the disciples were not yet enlightened to gaze into this revelation, it, nevertheless, was finished, as regarded its objective elements.—The men whom Thou gavest me.—[ ïὕò ἕäùêÜò ìïé ἕê ôïῦ êüóìïõ ] The disciples (see Joh_17:8; Joh_17:11, and Joh_16:30). God gave them to Him through His election, through the attraction drawing them to the Son, and through the power of His calling.
Christ then defines the process of development exhibited in their conversion:—
1. Thine they were [ óïὶ ἦóáí ]. Not merely in the general cense in which all things belong to God (Cyril), but as Israelites without guile (see Joh_1:47; Joh_3:21); per fidem Veteris Test. (Bengel.)
2. Thou gavest them to Me.—[ êáὶ ἐìïὶ áὐôïὺò ἕäùêáò ]. The before-mentioned considerations of this giving became manifest and realized in the calling, Joh_10:27.
3. And they have kept Thy word. [ êáὶ ôὸí ëüãïí óïõ ôåôÞñêáí ]. Though it is still necessary that they should be sifted, they have stood the main test, and have not suffered themselves to be entangled in the apostasy of Judas. To Christ’s eyes, they do already issue victorious out of temptation (see Joh_8:51).
4. Now they know that all, etc. [ íῦí ἕãíùêáí (Alexandrian form for ἐãíþêáóéí ) ὅôé ðÜíôá , ê . ô . ë .]. Their fidelity has been rewarded by the beginnings of a higher faith-knowledge, or cognition of faith, as they have already testified. See Joh_16:30. Their knowledge is the knowledge that everything which has been given to Christ, i.e., His doctrine (De Wette), and particularly His work (Luthardt), is of God; i.e., they know God in Christ. They know the words of Christ to be divine by the works, the works by the words; the latter method Christ brings out with special prominence (as the higher way of knowledge, see above, Joh_14:11), in order to explain how they have attained to their faith-knowledge. They have received in faith Christ’s words which He gave them. From this trust in the divine words confided to them by Him, there has sprung a true cognition of the divine nature of Christ (they truly knew that I am come forth from Thee, Joh_17:8), and thereby a belief in His divine mission to the world, in which mission theirs should now be rooted, has been mediated (they believed that Thou didst send Me). The Aorists [ ἕãíùóáí and ἐðßóôåõóáí ] jointly serve as an elucidation of the Perfect: íῦí ἕãíùêáí .—Such are the reasons why He prays for them.
[Joh_17:8. For I have given them the words which Thou gavest me, ὅôé ôὰ ῥÞìáôá ἅ ἕäùêÜò (gavest; so A. B. C. D.) Lachm., Tischend., Alf., Westc. versus äÝäùêÜò , hast given, which is supported by à . L. X. and text. rec.) ìïé , äÝäùêá áὐôïῖò . “On the truth of this saying stands the whole fabric of creeds and doctrines. It is the ground of authority to the preacher, of assurance to the believer, of existence to the church. It is the source from which the perpetual stream of Christian teaching flows. All our testimonies, instructions, exhortations, derive their first origin and continuous power, from the fact that the Father has given to the Son, the Son has given to His servants, the words of truth and life.” Bernard, Progress of Doctrine in the N. T. (1867) p. 25.—P. S.]
Joh_17:9. I pray (am praying) for them; I pray not (am not praying) for the world, etc.—[ ἐãὼ ðåñὶ áὐôῶí ἐñùôῶ • ïὐ ðåñὶ ôïῦ êüóìïõ ἐñùôῶ , ἀëëὰ ðåñὶ ὥí äÝäùêÜò ìïé , ὅôé óïß åἰóéí ]. The grand stress of this intercession is contained, 1. In the ἐãþ ; 2. in the fact that the proposition, I pray for them, is first simply laid down, then 3. negatively expressed: not for the world; 4. positively expressed: but for them; the motives assigned being: they have been given Me by Thee, and they are Thine. The expression: not for the world, is doubtless of dogmatic moment (which Meyer denies); it is, however, destitute of a predestinarian import (Calvin, Lampe; pro quibus Christus non orat, pro iis non satisfecit, and others; see Joh_17:20; Mat_5:44; Luk_23:34).” It is significant of the purely dynamical view of the world and arrangement of the Gospel. By means of this dynamical principle, first concentrated in Christ and henceforth to be concentrated in His apostles, the world, as world, is to be clean done away with. Christ does not work by a fire of sparks, sprinkling them incidentally, one here and one there; His working is a concentrated central fire of absolute, positive resurrective force, which fire takes hold of the world in the centre of her receptive susceptibility, in order to her transformation. It is the strict vital law of the concentration of the divine power of the Gospel, archetypally declared in the calling and isolation of Abraham, typically set forth in the separation of Israel, and still continuing in the regulations which Christ has made for the development of His church (see Act_1:4; Act_1:8). But the expression of Christ does not bear simply an ideo-dogmatical emphasis; it has, resulting from the ideo-dogmatical, also an affectionate emphasis: I pray, above all things, for these, who are Thine as the fruit of the Old Testament, and Mine as the firstlings of the New Testament; similarly, the expression has a religious force: the äüîá of Thy name is concerned; that äüîá is henceforth entrusted to them; it must be secured in them, must, through them, become universal in the world as the principle of the world’s glorification. This expression of supreme entreaty, however, is simultaneously the expression of confidence: in them Thy divine work and Mine shall be made secure in the world.
[Bengel, Meyer, Stier, Luthardt, Alford, etc. explain in substance: I am not praying for the world now and in this manner (hoo loco, tempore, et his verbis), but I shall do so afterwards, Joh_17:20-21. But this appears somewhat trivial, and does not give the exclusion the full force. The words ïὐ ðåñὶ ôïῦ êüóìïõ ἐñùôῶ , are intended to justify and to emphasize the intercession of Christ for His own. The whole sacerdotal prayer is not offered for the outside world at all but only for His disciples, first for those whom He had already called out of the world (6–19) and then for those who should hereafter come out of the world and believe in Him ( ðåñὶ ôῶí ðéóôåõüíôùí , Joh_17:20 ff.). The world appears, even in Joh_17:20-21; Joh_17:23, not as an object of intercession, but as a hostile force, against which He asks the protection of the Father. Yet by the preservation and perfection of Christ’s church in holiness and unity, which is the direct object of this prayer, the world itself is at last to be brought to believe in the divine mission of the Son, ἵíá ὅ êüóìïò ðéóôåýῃ ὅôé óý ìå ἀðÝóôåéëáò , Joh_17:21; Joh_17:23. Hence the exclusion of the world is not absolute (in the sense of supralapsarian commentators), but relative. On proper occasions Christ did pray for the ungodly world, even His murderers (“Father forgive them,” Luk_23:34, adding, however, as a motive not, as here, “they have known,” Joh_17:11, but on the contrary, “they know not what they do”); and He especially commands us to pray for our enemies (Mat_5:44), as Stephen prayed for the persecuting Saul (Act_7:60). For Christians we should pray that God may preserve them from the world and the devil, for the ungodly world, that it may cease to be worldly and believe in Christ.—P. S.]
Joh_17:10. All things that are Mine are Thine.—[ ôὰ ἐìὰ ðÜíôá óÜ ἐóôéí , êáὶ ôὰ óὰ ἐõÜ . The E. V. “All Mine is Thine” may be understood of persons only, while all things, the Godhead itself included, are meant. Comp. Alford.—P. S.] He gives prominence to the worth possessed by the disciples as the objects of His intercession. As Christ’s property, they are the property of God; as God’s property, they are the property of Christ; and since He is glorified in them, the äüîá of Christ, which is the äüîá of God, must be protected in them.
Joh_17:11. And I am (henceforth) no more in the world [ êἀé ïὐêÝôé åἰìὶ ἐí ôῶ êüóìῷ ]. This is the motive for His urgent, provident petition. He is departing out of the world, they remain in the world and so will be needing special protection. The words: and I come to Thee [ êἀãὼ ðñὸò óὲ ὲñ÷ïìáé ], cannot be regarded as a mere repetition of the declaration: “I am no more,” etc. On the contrary, the position and task of the disciples in the world shall be assured by Christ’s coming to the Father with His intercession. In the first place, the going away of Christ is expressed, as perilous for the disciples who remain here; and, secondly, His going home is intimated, as the indemnification for the disciples, whose position and task are here.
Hence the apostrophe: Holy Father [ ðÜôåñ ἅãéå ]. God is to be the holy Father to Christians in this world when Christ has gone away. God, in His holiness, is entirely separated from the unholy world, in order that He may belong entirely to the world that is to be sanctified: so, the Holy. He is the holy Father (Joh_17:11) of the Son who sanctifies Himself for His own, i.e., goes away from both them and the world, in order to be entirely devoted to them and, through them, to the world (Joh_17:19), that they too may in this sense be sanctified in His truth, Joh_17:17. The petition itself: keep them in [better than through of.—E. V.] Thy name, etc. [ ôÞñçóïí áὐôïὺò ἐí ôῶ ὀíüìáôß óïõ .] In the revelation for Christian knowledge, as in Christian knowledge of revelation,—in that consciousness of God which Christ entertained.
Which (whom) Thou, etc. [ ᾧ ( ïὕò ) äÝäùêÜò ìïé .] The reading ᾧ (see Text. Notes) is by Meyer and others, supported by Cod. D., considered to stand by attraction for ὅ and to relate to the name of God [ ἐí ôῶ ὀíüìáôßóïõ ]. We must acknowledge that we have difficulty in reading: “Thou hast given me Thy name,”—the name of the Father and that of the Son not being mingled. From this difficulty the Recepta [which reads ïὔò , whom] has doubtless arisen. We, therefore,