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Joh_17:25-26. Conclusion of the prayer: Appeal to the justice of God, for, after that which Jesus here states of Himself and of the disciples in opposition to the world, it becomes the righteous Father not to leave ungranted what Jesus has just declared, Joh_17:24, to be His will ( θέλω , ἵνα , κ . τ . λ .). Otherwise the final recompense would fail to come, which the divine justice (1Jn_1:9) has to give to those who are so raised, as expressed in Joh_17:25, above the world; the work of divine holiness, Joh_17:11, would remain without its closing judicial consummation and revelation.
καὶ ὁ κόσμος , κ . τ . λ .] The apparent want of appropriateness of the καί , from which also its omission in D. Vulg. et al., is to be explained, is not removed by placing, with Grotius and Lachmann, only a comma after Joh_17:24, and allowing καὶ ὁ κόσμος σε οὐκ ἔγνω to run with what precedes, since this thought does not fit into this logical connection, and the address πάτερ δίκαιε , according to the analogy of Joh_17:11, leads us to recognise the introductory sentence of a prayer. According to Bengel and Ebrard, καὶ … καί , et … et, correspond to one another, which, however, does not allow either of the antithetic character of the conceptions, or of the manifest reference of the second καί to ἐγὼ δέ . Following Heumann, De Wette, Lücke, Tholuck make καί correspond to the following δέ , so that two relations occurring at the same time, but of opposite, kinds,[204] would be indicated: “whilst the world knew Thee not, yet I knew Thee.” Not to be justified on grammatical grounds; for τέ … δέ (Kühner, II. p. 418; Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 92 f.; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 741 f.), but never καί … δέ , is thus employed, and the passages of that kind adduced by Lücke from Plato, Menex. p. 235 E (where καὶ ἄλλους means also others), and Eryx. p. 393 E (where καὶ ἐλάχιστα is only even the least), are not in point; in other passages (as Soph. Ant. 428) καί is the simply connective and, without reference to the subsequent δέ . The καί in the present passage is rather the and serving to link on an antithetic relation (and notwithstanding), and is of very frequent occurrence, particularly in John, see on Joh_7:28. Had Jesus said: πάτερ , δίκαιος εἶ , καὶ ὁ κόσμος , κ . τ . λ ., then καί would have been free from any difficulty. Nevertheless, the connection and its expression is the same. Christ is, in the address πάτερ δίκαιε , absorbed in the thought of the justice of God now invoked by Him, the thought, therefore, of this self-revelation of God, which was so easily to be recognised (Rom_1:18 ff.), in spite of which the world, in its blinded security, has not known Him (comp. Rom_1:28), and gives expression to this latter thought in painfully excited emotion (Chrysostom: δυσχεραίνων ), immediately connecting it by καί with the address. After πάτ . δίκαιε we may suppose a pause, a break in the thought: Righteous Father—(yea, such Thou art!) and (and yet) the world knew Thee not![205] Luthardt also, with Brückner’s concurrence, takes ΚΑΊ as and yet, but so that it stands in opposition to the revelation of God through Christ previously (see Joh_17:22) stated. Too indefinite, and leaving without reason the characteristic πάτερ δίκαιε out of reference.
ἜΓΝΩ ] namely, from Thy proofs in my words and deeds; ἜΓΝΩΝ , on the other hand (Nonnus: ΣΎΜΦΥΤΟς ἜΓΝΩΝ ), refers to the immediate knowledge which the Son had in His earthly life of the Father moving in Him, and revealing Himself through Him. Comp. Joh_8:54-55. Not without reason does Jesus introduce His ἘΓῺ ΔΈ ΣΕ ἜΓΝΩΝ between the ΚΌΣΜΟς and the disciples, because He wills that the disciples should be where He is (Joh_17:24), which, however, presupposes a relative relation of equality between Him and them, as over against the world.
ΟὟΤΟΙ ] Glancing at the disciples.
ὍΤΙ ΣΎ ΜΕ ἈΠΈΣΤ ]. The specific element, the central point of the knowledge of God, of which the discourse treats; ΔΕΊΚΝΥΣΙΝ ἘΝΤΑῦΘΑ , ΜΗΔΈΝΑ ΕἸΔΟΤΑ ΘΕῸΝ , ἈΛΛʼ Ἢ ΜΌΝΟΝ ΤΟῪς ΥἹῸΝ ἘΠΕΓΝΩΚΌΤΑς Chrysostom. Comp. Joh_17:8; Joh_17:23; Joh_16:27, et al.
Joh_17:26. Whereby this ἔγνωσαν has been effected (comp. Joh_17:7), and will be completely effected ( ΓΝΩΡΊΣΩ , through the Paraclete: ΚΑῚ … ΚΑΊ , both … and also), that (purpose of the γνωρίσω ) the love with which Thou hast loved me (comp. Joh_17:24) may be in them, i.e. may rule in their hearts,[206] and therewith—for Christ, communicating Himself through the Spirit, is the supporter of the divine life in believers (Joh_14:20 ff.; Rom_8:10; Gal_2:20; Eph_3:17),
I in them. On ἀγάπην ἀγαπᾶν , see on Eph_2:4. So rich in promise and elevating with the simply grand “and I in them,” resounds the word of prayer, and in the whole ministry and experience of the apostles was it fulfilled. As nothing could separate them from the love of God in Christ (Rom_8:39), Christ thus remained in them through the Spirit, and they have conquered far and wide through Him who loved them.
[204] Hence also the reading: εἰ καὶ ὁ κ . σ . οὐκ ἔγνω , ἀλλʼ ἐγὼ , κ . τ . λ ., which is found not merely in Hippolytus, but also in the Constitt. Ap. 8. 1. 1.
[205] This interpretation is followed also by Hengstenberg. But Ewald places καὶ ὁ κόσμος to γνωρίσω , ver. 26, in a parenthesis, and then takes ἵνα ἡ ἀγάπη , κ . τ . λ ., still as the contents of θέλε , ver. 24. How broken thus becomes the calm, clear flow of the prayer! According to Baeumlein, the parallel clauses would properly be καὶ ἐγὼ σὲ ἔγνων καὶ οὕτοι ἔγνωσαν ; but there is interpolated before the first clause an opposite clause, which properly should have μέν , so that then the main thought follows with δέ . Alike arbitrary, but yet more contorted, is the arrangement of Godet.
[206] Comp. Rom_5:5. Bengel aptly remarks: “ut cor ipsorum theatrum sit et palaestra hujus amoris,” namely, διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου , Rom. l.c. According to Hengstenberg (comp. also Weiss, p. 80), Jesus merely intends to say: “that Thou mayest love them with the love with which Thou hast loved me.” But this does not suit the expression ἐν αὐτοῖς ᾖ , neither in itself nor in the parallel relation to κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς . An inward efficacious presence must be thereby intended.
NOTE.
The originality of the high-priestly prayer stands upon the same footing with that of the longer discourses of Jesus generally in the Evangelist John. The substance of the contents is original, but the reproduction and vivid remodelling, such as could not come forth from the Johannean individuality, with which the recollection had grown up, otherwise than with quite a Johannean stamp. Along with this, however, in reference to contents and form, considering the peculiarly profound impression which the prayer of this solemn moment must necessarily have made upon the spirit and memory of that very disciple, a superior degree of fidelity of recollection and power of reddition must be assumed. How often may these last solemn words have stirred the soul of John! To this corresponds also the self-consciousness, as childlike as it is simple and clear in its elevation, the victorious rest and peace of this prayer, which is the noblest and purest pearl of devotion in the whole of the N. T. “For so plainly and simply it sounds, so deep, rich, and wide it is, that none can fathom it,” Luther. Spener never ventured to preach upon it, because he felt that its true understanding exceeded the ordinary measure of faith; but he caused it to be read to him three times on the evening before his death, see his Lebensbeschr. by Canstein, p. 145 ff. The contrary view, that it is a later idealizing fiction of a dogmatic and metaphysical kind (Bretschneider, Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Scholten), is indeed a necessary link in the chain of controversy on the originality of the Johannean history generally, but all the more untenable, the more unattainable, the depth, tenderness, intensity, and loftiness, as is here sustained from beginning to end, must have been for a later inventor. But to deny the inward truth and splendour of the prayer (see especially Weisse, II. p. 294), is a matter evincing a critically corrupt taste and judgment. The conflict of soul in Gethsemane, so soon after this prayer which speaks of overcoming the world and of peace, is indeed, considering the pure humanity of Jesus (which was not forced into stoical indifference), psychologically too conceivable, not, indeed, as a voluntarily assumed representation of all the horrors of death from the sin of the world (Hengstenberg), but rather from the change of feelings and dispositions in the contemplation of death, and of such a death, to be made to pass as an historical contradiction to chap. 17 See on Matt., note after Mat_26:46. John himself relates nothing of the crisis of the conflict of soul; but this is connected with his peculiarity in the selection of the evangelical material in general, and he might be determined in this matter particularly by the account already given of the similar fact, Joh_12:23 ff., which he only adduces, whilst that conflict of soul was already a common property of Scriptural tradition (comp. also Heb_5:7), which he as little needed to repeat as the institution of the Lord’s Supper and many other things. That that conflict of soul had not for John the importance and historic reality which it had for the Synoptics, is considering the free selection which he has made out of the rich material of his recollection, a hasty conclusion (in answer to Baur, in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 224). The historic reality of the Gospel facts, if nothing essential is otherwise opposed to them, is not affected by the silence of John.