John 17:1–4

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."

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!

"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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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).

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.

"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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

Ten times over in this chapter Jesus says the words "I have," declaring the fullness of all He had accomplished. The first two are in verse 4, where He presses the completeness of His work in support of His request for glory... The work of the most eminent servants of God has been fragmentary and incomplete. And even if it were otherwise, not one of them would have dared to come to God, who searches hearts and ways, and pronounce on their own work. To declare its finished perfection would have been the worst kind of presumption. But here the Son is speaking, and for Him it was no presumption.

What had the first Adam done? He had refused to recognise either the power or the goodness of God; he had denied all that God was towards him... What is precious is that it is man who has perfectly glorified God: He set out to do it, and He has done it. It needed to be done in man, for it is in man that God was dishonoured. It is there that Satan reigns and governs. It is there that the image of God is spoiled. It is there that God has been dishonoured in front of the angels. But it is there too that He has been glorified in Jesus — man — not by avoiding the evil but by placing Himself in the middle of it all.

The work is viewed as already accomplished, and He says so... He had done all that He had come to do on earth. This is the position He takes. When He spoke these words He still had to accomplish the mighty work of redemption. The bitter cup was still full to the brim, and He had to drink it. But it was as certain to be done as though it had been done.

What had He finished? Compare this last clause with the words "the works that the Father has given Me to finish." We take it to be His life-work in service, which had now come to an end. It does not include His death, which was not yet accomplished. We are aware, of course, that this is not the view commonly held. We put it before the reader, with the ground for our conclusion, so that he may judge for himself.

If the Son gives eternal life, He gives it righteously... He gives it on the basis that He has glorified the Father here on earth and has finished the work the Father gave Him to do; that would take us to the cross... Here, being in His own spirit beyond the cross and looking back, as it were, taking account of some of the blessed results of it, He said, "I have glorified you on the earth; I have finished the work that you gave me to do."

Here the whole path of Christ on earth, giving Himself up to obey and please His Father, is summed up. That is why it was all the more necessary to state its completion: "having finished the work which You have given Me to do."... And on that basis He asks the Father to glorify Him. He asks it not only because of His personal glory and relationship, but because of the work completed to His glory here below. In this way He might lay a valid and sure title for us to join Him in the same heavenly blessedness.

The distinguishing feature of His service was not its extent. The sphere could hardly be smaller — Galilee of the Gentiles, Jerusalem, Samaria — while its effects take in the heavens, the earth, and all creation. But the great feature of it was that He always did the things that pleased the Father. He would not leave His place with the Father except to do His will, and could not return to it without having accomplished that will.