And I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one as we.
Hours from the cross, Jesus prays aloud: He is leaving the world, the disciples stay in it, and He hands them into the Father's keeping. The verse turns on two things — the Name that guards them, and the oneness that Name is meant to produce.
One writer traces three motives behind the prayer:
First, the Lord says they are given to Him, but He can still say to the Father, "they are yours." Second, the Lord can plead, "I am glorified in them"... Third, the Lord pleads, "I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you." The Lord had kept them while He was with them. Now the time had come when He would no longer be with them. The first motive concerns the Father, the second has the glory of the Son in view, and the third the safety of believers.
The phrase "keep them in your name" draws on a picture the Old Testament already used:
He is thinking of the uncleanness, the impurity of the world where He would leave the disciples — the world we live in... In Proverbs the writer says, "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe." For Israel the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, was a refuge. When they were in it they were kept: guarded and safe. The Father's Name is the Name of the One who has made us His children. That Name keeps the believer, who will not be lost.
Both words in the address matter.
Then Jesus shows the name by which the Father was to keep them: "Holy Father" — to keep them with the affection of a Father, and according to the holiness of His nature. He had kept them Himself in this name while He was here. Now He gives them over to the direct care of the Father... Christ was here below the Son of the Father, and as such He answered to the Father's holiness in all His ways and thoughts. The Father's will was shown in His life; He revealed the Holy Father in Himself.
Later in the same prayer, when the Lord speaks of the world, He changes the address:
In this prayer in John 17, when He speaks of the world He says, "O righteous Father, the world does not know you"... When He prays about the saints, He says, "Holy Father." He wants the holy character and affections of the Father Himself to surround them.
Older translations read "keep those whom you have given me," making the disciples the gift. The ESV, like several of these writers, makes the Name the gift.
The comparison is startling. One writer names the oneness in view:
He hands them over to the care of His Father to keep. "Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one" — that is, in counsel, aim, and object. Kept in the Father's name — and there is but one Father — that would result.
This prayer was answered. One writer points to the twelve apostles themselves — men with well-known faults:
Yes, they were men with the same passions as ourselves or anyone. Yes, they showed serious weaknesses even under their Master's own eyes and teaching on earth. Yes, from first to last they betrayed petty prejudices, narrow hearts, and no small jealousy of each other. All this only adds to the wonder of what God worked in these very men by His Spirit, in answer to the Lord's asking. The power of the Father's name, which the Lord knew so well while here, showed in them. The twelve were one even as the Father and the Son.
Jesus asks for oneness more than once in this chapter. One writer keeps the three apart:
First there is the apostolic, essential unity. They were of one mind and purpose, as the Father and the Son, by the Holy Spirit (John 17:11). Second comes the unity of divine fellowship, and the witness to the world around that flows from it in grace (John 17:21). This was seen at the first moments of the church's history, at Pentecost. Third comes the perfected unity of glory, still to come.
- Departure. Christ goes to the Father; His own stay behind. The care He gave them in person now becomes prayer.
- Name. The Father's Name is the shelter. Israel ran into the name of the LORD and was safe; that refuge is now held out to His children.
- Holy. He asks the Holy Father, so the keeping carries a Father's tenderness and the purity of His nature. Of the world He says "righteous Father" instead.
- One. The oneness sought is agreement in counsel, aim and object — the very harmony of the Father and the Son.
- Answered. Men full of jealousy became one — proof that the Name keeps what it holds. Writers set this first unity apart from the unity of fellowship seen at Pentecost, and from the unity of glory still to come.
When I was with them I kept them in thy name; those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Near the end of His prayer, Jesus tells the Father how He cared for the men given to Him. Two questions follow: what keeps them now that Christ has gone, and how did Judas perish if the Son loses no one?
The verse looks back on what Christ did while He was on earth. He says it aloud so that we may hear it. One writer draws out what changes when He goes to the Father.
While He was in the world He had kept His disciples in the Father's name, and guarded them from all the power of the enemy. Now that the Lord was going to the Father, He permits us to hear His words so that we may know His guardianship does not cease, though its method is changed. Before He goes to the Father He would have us know that we are put into the Father's loving care.
The word behind "kept" carries the sense of a guard set over something valuable. One writer, quoting an older translation, brings that out.
In verse 12 we read, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them." The word is "guarded them" — guarded them "in Your name." He laid His preserving hand upon them. His preserving presence was always with them. But now He was going away. He was leaving them, but He leaves them in the care of the Father up there, and in the care of the Spirit down here.
The verse also shifts tense, and one commentator draws out what each half is doing:
In verse 12 you have the difference of the preterite (imperfect) and "have." "I kept" is historical. "I have kept" up to now, so that none (save Judas) is lost.
The one loss looks like a break in the promise Jesus has just made. Commentators answer that Judas never belonged to the group Jesus describes. Older wording calls him "the son of perdition."
He was not one of those given to Christ by the Father, though called to be an Apostle: of those so given He had lost none. Judas was an apparent, not a real, exception, as he was not a child of God, but the son of perdition. What an awful lesson! Even the constant presence of Jesus fails to win a person where the Spirit does not bring the truth home to the conscience.
"That the Scripture might be fulfilled" is not an excuse tacked on. It answers the doubt that Christ lost a man He could not hold. It also clears God of making that man what he was.
Had He failed them in His care? Had He not been able to keep that miserable man? Was it any question of His failing? Not for a moment. It was no failure on Christ's part, but "that the Scripture should be fulfilled." It was not that God made that miserable man what he was. He never made any man bad. He made men, not sinners. But Judas, going on in sin so near to Christ and against Him, becomes a son of perdition. And this is what all men would be but for the grace of God.
Judas heard the teaching and travelled with the Lord for years. His case stands as a warning next to a real believer's failure.
It makes a tremendous difference what you do. If you do not behave yourself, it shows that you are not a real Christian. I know that a real Christian may fail, but the difference can be seen in Peter and Judas. Peter failed, and he failed badly. But he was genuine, and one look from Jesus sent him out weeping bitterly. But Judas kept company with the Lord for almost three and a half years, and he was a devil the whole time. At last remorse overtook him, not genuine repentance.
The same sentence that records one loss records that Christ kept all the rest. One writer reads it as the Good Shepherd's pledge for the whole flock.
Here the Good Shepherd pledges Himself and the honour of His glorious name. The weakest sheep in the flock can never perish, by any means at all. So, speaking to His Father about His twelve disciples, He says, "Those that you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost (same Greek word) but the son of perdition."
- Kept — the word means guarded; Christ set His preserving hand and presence over the men given to Him.
- Kept in a Name — Christ guarded them in the Father's name, a name the Father gave Him.
- Kept, then handed over — His care does not stop when He leaves. Its method changes: they pass into the Father's keeping.
- Kept, except one — Judas is only an apparent exception. He was never among those the Father gave, and closeness to Christ never made him a child of God.
- Kept, and not by accident — Scripture foretold the loss, so no one can charge Christ with failure. Every man the Father gave Him is still safe in His hand.
And now I come to thee. And these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in them.
Jesus prayed John 17 out loud, on the edge of the cross, with the disciples listening. So why did He let His own hear Him speak to the Father about them? And what is the joy He wants filled up in them?
The opening words are easy to misread as meaning that Jesus is now turning to the Father in prayer. One writer describes changing his mind:
For a long time I thought that this meant the Lord Jesus Christ was coming to the Father in the prayer. But a careful look at the passage makes it clear that this is not what He means. He means: "These are in the world, but I am leaving the world and I am coming to You, back to the place I left." So it was very important that before He left the world He should leave on record such words as these. They are the very last thing that is to be said.
He speaks "in the world" — to the Father, but where men can hear. The gift is not only what He asked, but that He let them hear Him ask it:
John 17 brings us, as it were, into the council chamber of heaven. There we listen to the innermost secrets of the heart of God… Out of the resource of His love He wants His disciples to know not only what He said to them, but what He said to the Father about their happiness.
This joy is His own, and it comes with the Father's name He passes on to His people:
Here Jesus speaks of the relationship of love, the Father's name which He had given Him. No man had ever known or received that name until the Son became Man. Now, leaving the world, He hands it over to His own. He prays the Holy Father to keep them in its power, and He speaks that name in the world. His aim is that the joy which was His own alone — impossible to any being but Himself — might be fulfilled in us.
Sharing His joy also means gladness at His own gladness, not only at what He has done for us:
Further, they had the right to joy in His joy. That is, they could rejoice because He Himself was happy, not only because He had made them happy. It is a high and blessed privilege. It shows how He wants us to be one in heart with Himself.
His joy never came from the world. It came from the Father, and that is the joy we are called to share:
The love with which the Father had loved Christ should be in the disciples. They should enjoy it… This is what we are called to: to enjoy in this world the love that Christ knew here below — His Father's love… He was walking in the world, but while He was here His place and character were those of the Son of the Father. There was His joy; not from the world, no more than He was of it, but from the Father.
The Father's words kept His joy full — and He hands those same words to us:
He has been as a Son away from home in this heartless world before us… His joy was full, not because of His circumstances, but despite them. What was the power of it? His Father's words held Him up, keeping Him in the unclouded awareness of His love… Think of a child away from home. He watches for the letters from home and treasures them. They keep him going, because they remind him that his place in the family's love has not changed. Just so the Lord Jesus meets our need. He leaves us the words that made everything bright for Him. Without them, that place would have been at its darkest.
The joy comes with a task. He puts them where He stood:
Now, as going out of the world, He puts the disciples in His own place, as verse 13 shows. He had been here in His Father's name, finding His joy in serving His interests. From now on they were to be here in His Name. They would have that same joy fulfilled in themselves as they served the Father and represented the Son.
- Departure. "Now I am coming to you" means He is leaving the world. First He puts these words on record, as the last thing to be said.
- Overheard. He prays out loud, so His own hear what He tells the Father about their happiness. The council chamber of heaven stands open to them.
- His joy. What He hands over is the joy peculiar to Himself as Son, so that we rejoice in His gladness and not only in His gifts.
- Its source. That joy came from the Father's love, never from the world — so circumstances could not empty it.
- Its supply. He leaves us the Father's words that kept Him bright in the dark. He gives us the place He held too, so His joy fills us here and now.