Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadSpurgeon Verse Expositions - John 17:1 - 17:12
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_17:1. These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come;
This is in a very special sense our Lord’s prayer. What a word that is from the lips of Jesus, “Father”! This was the night of his deepest sorrow and his heaviest woe, but he begins his prayer with this tender expression, “Father, the hour is come;” the hour of darkness, the hour of his passion and death, had now arrived.
Joh_17:1. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
Did Jesus look upon his suffering as his glory? He does not merely pray, “Sustain thy Son,” but, “Glorify thy Son.” In truth, our Lord’s lowest stoop was his highest glory. He was never more resplendent than when he hung upon the cross, that was his true spiritual throne, so he prayed, “Glorify thy Son,” — Enable him to bear the agony, and to pass through it to the glory.” “That thy Son also may glorify thee.” The death of Christ was a great glorifying of God. We see his love and his justice rendered more glorious in the death of Christ than they would have been by any other method.
Joh_17:2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
In this verse you get the doctrines of general and particular redemption blended. By his death, Christ obtained power over all flesh; his death had some relation to every man, but the special object of it was the salvation of the elect. The purpose of the shower is to water one particular field; but the rain falls everywhere, so plenteous is the bounty of God. The object of Christ’s atonement is to purchase eternal life for those who were given to him by his Father; but he has also obtained power over all flesh.
Joh_17:3. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
To know God, is eternal life. If you know God, if you know Jesus Christ whom he has sent, you are spiritually quickened. That knowledge has brought to you, nay, it is, in itself, the new life: “This is life eternal,” — not life for a few years but life eternal. Mark the final perseverance of the saints, how they shall hold on and hold out for ever.
Joh_17:4. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
Jesus regards his work as already done, although he had yet to die, to pay the ransom price for his people, yet by a leap of holy faith he says, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”
Joh_17:5. 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 laid aside his glory for our sakes, now he asks that, his work being regarded as done, his glory may be given to him again.
Joh_17:6. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me: and they have kept thy word.
God’s people belong to him, he gives them to his Son, Christ gives them his word, and they keep it: “They have kept thy word.” Do we keep God’s word? Do we hold to it? Do we make it the guide of our whole life? Do we seek to obey it? This is the token of God’s chosen people.
Joh_17:7-12. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray far them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they way be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Christ always has kept his people, he still keeps his people, and he will keep his people for ever. The sheep shall be delivered into the hand of the Father in full number, there shall not be one of them missing in that day when they shall pass under the rod of the great Shepherd.
We cannot read all this prayer of our Lord tonight; we must now go, in the language of the next chapter, with the Master into the garden of his grief.
This exposition consisted of readings from Joh_17:1-12; Joh_18:1-14.