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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Christ's Great Sacerdotal Prayer.
Christ prays for His own glorification:
v. 1. These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son that Thy Son also may glorify Thee,
v. 2. as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.
v. 3. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.
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.
Jesus had finished the words of His last great charge to His disciples. And now He lifts up His eyes to His heavenly Father and pours forth His soul in a most wonderful and inspiring prayer of intercession. It has fitly been called the great sacerdotal prayer, for here Jesus appears in His work as Mediator, beseeching His heavenly Father first for Himself, then for His little band of disciples, and finally for all those that would be gathered by the proclamation of the Gospel. There is so much beauty, comfort, and power in this simple prayer that its main thoughts at least, if not the entire text, should be memorized. Jesus prayed in the presence of His disciples; what He wanted to tell the Father, what He wanted to ask of the Father, was in their interest, and in the interest of the faithful of all times. "But this is the summary and reason for this Chapter. Upon a good sermon there should follow a good prayer, that is: If one has sent forth the Word, he should begin to utter prayerful sighs and to desire that it may also have power and work fruit. For since Christ the Lord has now enunciated all His doctrine and office and completed it, and has blessed His disciples with the fine, long, comforting sermon, He finally felt constrained to speak a prayer, both for them and for all Christians, in order that He might fully bring to end His office, as our one High Priest, and omit nothing that would serve to strengthen and keep them, since He wanted to leave them behind Him in the world. " Jesus addresses His Father in just that one word, thereby giving to His prayer a tone of intimacy and confidence which should characterize every true prayer. The hour is come, that one hour which was to be the climax and culmination of His life's work, the hour in which He was to go to the Father through His death. Therefore the Father should glorify the Son, He should have the purpose of His life carried out through His Passion, death, resurrection, and session at the right hand of God. This glorification concerns the human nature of Christ; according to this nature He was to be endowed with the unlimited exercise of all the divine attributes. And the object of this glorification would be, in turn, that the Son should glorify the 'Father. The fulfillment of the will of the Father, the reconciliation of the world, the imparting of the redemption to all believers, all these facts would redound to the glory of the Father. The entire work of Christ in His state of exaltation is a continuous glorifying of the Father: its aim and object is the praise of God for His grace and mercy in Christ Jesus. The glorification of the Father is therefore in accordance with the measure of power given to Christ with respect to all flesh, that God, on account of the work of Jesus, might have the Savior give to everyone that belonged to Him eternal life. The Son has the authority and power to give eternal life to them that God gave Him as His own. Through His suffering and death Jesus has power over all flesh, since He earned all men, gained them for Himself, by His redemption. There is none excepted: whosoever belongs to the category "flesh" is included in the number of those for whom Jesus paid with His blood. And out of this whole number God has given certain ones to Jesus. They are the ones that actually receive the salvation of Jesus by faith, they are the only ones that actually become partakers of the grace of God in Christ the Savior. The object of salvation, intended for all men, is realized only in the case of the believers. But this life eternal, which the believers receive at the hands of Jesus, consists in the true knowledge, in the right understanding of God as the only true God, as the one and only Lord, and of Jesus Christ, the Savior, in both His person and office, as the one sent by God to accomplish the salvation of the world. The knowledge and belief in both the Father and the Son are necessary for the obtaining of eternal life, for the two are on the same level: the Father has revealed Himself in the Son, and the Son has made known the Father. Eternal life is the intimate union and communion with the Father and the Son. This happiness and bliss begins even here in time; here on earth, indeed, only in part, but in the future life in all its fullness and glory. 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.