These things Jesus spoke, and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee;
The hour He had spoken of has come, and Jesus turns from His disciples to His Father — letting them listen. He asks not for rescue but for glory, and He asks for it so He can give the glory back.
One writer points to what is missing from it:
It has been well said: "This prayer stands alone among all the prayers of mankind... it has no voice of confession, no plea to be spared...; no echo, however faint, of any owning of sin, no tone touched by a sense of fault or failing. There is no hint of weakness, no begging for help."
The privilege belongs to the hearer. The Son is at last free to say everything, and He says it out loud:
To the Father He lifts His eyes (v. 1) and pours into His ear what had long pressed to be said, but could find no way of being said to us. But we, beloved, may draw near and know what passes in the closeness of communion between the Son and the Father. We find that we ourselves are the subject of it all!
This is no ordinary hour. Earlier in this Gospel it held His enemies back, and it troubled His own soul:
"The hour has come." What hour is this? It is the hour singled out of eternity as the hour of the Son of God's existence. Again and again it seemed to cast its dark shadow across His path on earth. Twice in this Gospel no one could lay hands on Him, "for His hour had not yet come." He too has spoken of it: "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour." But then, as though He would not say it: "For this purpose I have come to this hour." ... For sorrow, and joy, and glory alike, that was indeed "the hour," the like of which there never has been, nor can be again.
Lifting His eyes was His habit whenever He acted for others, and it marks the place He had taken:
Throughout the Gospel of John we see the Lord's glory as a Divine Person. He is the Son, yet always seen in the place He had taken as Man. So He stands on earth and looks up to heaven, as suits the dependent Man... When meeting the needs of the five thousand, "He looked up to heaven." When meeting our sorrows He "lifted up His eyes" to the Father. And now, in expressing His desires to the Father, He still lifts up His eyes to heaven. He never ceases to be the Son. Yet, having become flesh, He never leaves the place of subjection and dependence that suits Him as Man. So throughout the prayer, and throughout the Gospel, He looks to the Father as the Giver, while He Himself always takes the place of the receiver.
This is not a plea for a favour but a claim, and Scripture records how God answered it:
There is a Man before us who has established a claim upon God for glory — "Glorify Your Son." The first chapter of Ephesians gives us God's answer to that claim. He comes in to raise Him from the dead and set Him at the highest point of heavenly glory... So we see "the second man" "raised from the dead by the glory of the Father." God has set Him "at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named."
Notice where the glory is heading:
Notice the bent of His mind even here. If He asks for glory, what was the object? What was still the desire of His heart? "That the Son may glorify You." Never such a thought as that the glory should stop even with Him, the Son.
That glorifying goes on in heaven, and it reaches us now:
Here the Son has done everything for the Father's glory on earth. Now He asks to be glorified, so that He may go on glorifying the Father in heaven. This He is doing now, by a ministry of life and righteousness to us.
Verse 1 sets a pattern that widens through the chapter:
Notice the underlying motive. In the first part of the prayer, it is that the Father may be glorified in the Son. In the second part, that Christ may be glorified in believers (v. 10). In the closing part, that believers may be glorified with Christ (v. 22).
- The hour — the one hour His whole path moved toward. It holds sorrow, joy and glory together, and He names it without flinching.
- The eyes — lifted to heaven, as always. Even here the Son takes the receiver's place, never the giver's.
- The claim — "Glorify Your Son" is a right, not a favour asked. God answered by raising Him and seating Him above every name.
- The purpose — the glory never stops with the Son. He asks for it to hand it back, and He is doing that still from heaven.
- The reach — first the Father glorified in the Son, then Christ glorified in believers, then believers glorified with Christ. The prayer that starts here ends with us inside it.
as thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that [as to] all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal.
Hours before the cross, Jesus speaks to His Father about authority. The first thing He says about it is why He holds it: to give life. The verse holds two circles at once: a rule that reaches every human being, and a gift that lands on a named company.
Jesus does not claim this power as His own. He speaks of it as handed to Him, and one writer ties that to the place He took as man.
Though God, He exercises no power in His own right. He is true to the place He was pleased to come into, and as man He receives authority from the Father. Yet that authority would be unthinkable — so wide in its sphere, so special in its object — if He were not God.
The verse moves from the widest possible circle to a narrower one. The two must stay distinct. (Where the ESV says "authority," the older wording in the quotes below says "power.")
"As You have given Him power over all flesh" (John 17:2) — here the Father gives the Son whom He loved a title over more than the chosen nation, and more than the elect in general: over "all flesh." Then comes the inner circle of blessing: "that He may give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." So we have concentric circles on the earth. There is the universal one of "all flesh," and the special one of all Christians — those who have eternal life in the Son through faith.
That outer circle also marks a change from what came before.
It was no longer authority given to Christ as the Messiah in connection with the Jews, but the far wider authority over all flesh — Jew and Gentile alike. And the blessing has in view not only a godly remnant from the Jews, but that far greater company that takes in all believers gathered from "all flesh" and given to the Son by the Father.
At the time, the claim looked absurd. One writer presses that objection, then answers it.
Power or authority over all flesh! Who would have supposed that, when the Jews were plotting against His life? Who, on the next day, would have guessed it — unless God taught them? They saw Him stretched out, seemingly helpless, on the cross, put to death by His creatures, His body then hidden in the dark tomb. How would He display the power? How has He displayed it, but in giving everlasting life to as many as the Father has given Him?
This authority is also a comfort. The flesh has real power in this world, but a greater power overrules it.
In this world we see the terrible power of the flesh energised by Satan. Yet this prayer comforts us. We know from it that the Lord has been given a power above every other power. So no power of evil, however great, can stop Christ from carrying out God's purposes: to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given to the Son.
Being "given" to the Son is not a bare transaction. One writer traces where the giving is meant to end up.
There are those whom the Father has given to the Son. It is the thought and settled purpose of the Father. They are given to the Son. The Father has committed them to His hands. His aim is to bring them into the glory, and to fit them for the presence, the nature and the glory of God... and that He may place them, according to God's infinite love, in a position which answers that love — the position of the Son, become Man for this very purpose. Marvellous grace, of which we are the objects!
If some are given to Him for life, the wider circle is still His — and that is not neutral.
Some are given to Him that He may give them eternal life; but He has power over all flesh — all is His. He has not redeemed all, but He has purchased all, the lost as well as the saved... His rights, because of the cross, reach to all, and all must bow the knee to Him. The redeemed own it in grace; those who reject grace must own it in judgment.
- Given — the Son does not seize authority; as man He receives it from the Father, and receives it for a purpose.
- Wide — the sphere is "all flesh," no longer one nation; every human being stands under His rule whether they own it or not.
- Narrow — inside that circle is a company the Father gave to the Son; they receive eternal life, a life that knows and enjoys God.
- Unstoppable — His power outranks every power of evil, so nothing can block the gift of life.
- Owned — every knee bows in the end: the redeemed in grace, those who reject grace in judgment.
And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.