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Joh_17:22-23. What He on His part ( ἐγώ ) has done in order to bring about this unity of His believing ones and its object—a newly introduced and great thought of the power of His kingdom—not still dependent on ὅτι (Ewald).
τὴν δόξαν ] The heavenly glory. Comp. 1, 5, 24. This, once already possessed by Him before the incarnation, the Father has given to Him, not yet, indeed, objectively, but as a secure possession of the immediate future; He has obtained it from God, assigned as a property, and the actual taking-possession is now for Him close at hand. In like manner has He given this, His δόξα , in which the eternal ζωή , Joh_17:2-3, is consummated, to His believing ones ( αὐτοῖς ), who will enter on the real possession at the Parousia, where they συνδοξάζονται (Rom_8:17), after that they, up to that time, τῇ ἐλπίδι ἐσώθησαν (Rom_8:24) Comp. on Rom_8:30. They are in Christ already His συγκληρονόμοι , and the Spirit to be received will be to them the ἀῤῥαβὼν τῆς κληρονομίας (Eph_1:14; 2Co_1:22; 2Co_5:5), but the actual entrance on the inheritance is first accomplished at the Parousia (Joh_14:2-3; Rom_8:11; Col_3:4). But this relation does not justify us in interpreting διδόναι as destinare (Gabler, B. Crusius), or at least δέδωκα as constitui dare (Grotius), while the explanations also which take δόξα of the glory of the apostolic office in teaching and working miracles (Chrysostom, Theophylact, and, but with intermixture of other elements, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Vatablus, Grotius, and several others, including Paulus and Klee), or of the inner glory of the Christian life (Olshausen, comp. Gess, p. 244), of the life of Christ in believers, in accordance with Gal_2:20 (Hengstenberg), of sonship (Bengel, comp. Godet, who refers to Rom_8:29), of love (Calovius, Maldonatus), of grace and truth, Joh_1:14 (Luthardt, Ebrard, a part also of Tholuck’s and Brückner’s interpretation), are opposed to the context.[199] See immediately, Joh_17:24.
ἵνα ὦσιν ἓν , κ . τ . λ .] For what a strong bond of unity must lie in the sure warrant of fellowship in eternal δόξα ! Comp. Eph_4:4.
ἐγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς κ . σὺ ἐν ἐμοι ] Not out of connection with the construction (De Wette), since it fits into it; not even beginning a new proposition, and to be completed by εἰμί (Augustine, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Beda, Beza, Bengel, and several others, including Luthardt), since thus the discourse on the δόξα would be, in opposition to the context (see Joh_17:24), interrupted; but an appositional separation from ἡμεῖς , from which it is therefore, with Lachmann and Tischendorf, to be divided only by a comma. In ἡμεῖς is contained: ἐγὼ καὶ σύ , and both are pragmatically, i.e. in demonstration of the specific internal relation of the ἓν εἶναι of believers to the oneness of the Father and the Son, thus expounded: I moving in them, and Thou in me. In accordance with this appositional, more minute definition, the ἵνα ὦσιν ἕν is again taken up with liveliness and weight (“see how His mouth overflows with the same words,” Luther), and that in the expression containing the highest degree of intensity: ἵνα ὦσι τετελειωμένοι εἰς ἕν , that they may be completed to one (to one unity), be united in complete degree, εἰς in the sense of the result. Comp. passages like Plato, Phileb. p. 18 B: τελευτᾶν τε ἐκ πάντων εἰς ἓν ; Dem. p. 368. 14 : εἰς ἓν ψήφισμα ταῦτα πάντα συνεσκεύασαν .
ἵνα γινώσκῃ ὁ κόσμος , κ . τ . λ .] Parallel to ἵνα ὁ κόσμος πιστεύσῃ , Joh_17:21, adding to faith the knowledge connected therewith (conversely, Joh_17:8), and then completing the expression of the happy result to be attained by the designation of the highest divine love, of which the believer is conscious in that knowledge. We are not even remotely to think of the “forced conviction of rebels” (Godet); against this Joh_17:2-3 already declare, and here the entire context. Note rather how the glance of the praying Jesus, Joh_17:21-23, rises up to the highest goal of His work on earth, when, namely, the κόσμος shall have come to believe, and Christ Himself shall have become in fact ὁ σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου (Joh_4:42, comp. Joh_10:16). This at the same time against the supposition of metaphysical dualism in Hilgenfeld.
κ . ἠγάπησας , κ . τ . λ .] and hast loved them (as a matter of fact, through this sending of me) as Thou hast loved me, therefore with the same Fatherly love which I have experienced from Thee. Comp. Joh_3:16; Eph_1:6; Rom_5:5; Rom_8:32.
[199] The δόξα is explained away also by Weizsäcker in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1857, p. 181. It is said to be substantially the same as the λόγος , ver. 14.