John 17:6–26

"I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me." The whole of this chapter speaks of the Father's name. It is not the Almighty, Jehovah, or Most High, the names He will bear in the millennium, "most high over heaven and earth." It is the Father, putting us in the place of sons.

What is manifested is meant to be seen. What is declared is meant to be heard. Jesus both manifested and declared the Father's Name. What He did showed what the Father is, making visible what His Name represents. Those in whom the Spirit has worked can appreciate the heavenly grace of God made visible in the Lord Jesus.

They are described as "the people whom you gave me out of the world." So from the very start they stand clearly apart from the world. The Father took them out of it and gave them to the Son. They were the Father's according to His purpose before time began. But He gave them to the Son, so that the Son might bring them to know the Father by manifesting His Name to them.

They were poor and despised and of little account in the world. People despised them all the more because they had been drawn to Christ. They were not the great and noble of the earth, but the Father considered them a good gift for His Son. Their being drawn after Jesus was no mere accident. The Father had drawn them to His Son and had given them to Him, and He had received them. He loved them and gave Himself for them, and He never intended to part company with them.

The revelation of all that the Father is, as expressed by His Name, and these communications, are not given to the world. Nor are they given simply to a Jewish remnant out of Israel. They are given to the men that the Father gave to Christ "out of the world." Such belong to the great company of God's elect, for the Lord can say "Yours they were." So the language He uses leaves the way open for others, besides the godly remnant of Israel, to come into all this blessedness.

Though they had been the Father's possession, only the Son had made the Father known to them. Of them He says, "they have kept your word." He is not speaking of how fully they kept it, but of the fact, which is true of every believer.

"And they have kept" — not My, but "your word." All this is the grace that ties the disciples to the Father, and shows Him as their Servant… This was not Christ, the Son, acting apart from or separate from the Father.

He showed the disciples the Father in all His attributes, and passed on the Father's words. His aim was to bring them into the same position before the Father that He as a Man enjoyed. So the Lord makes it possible for us to walk knowing the Father's love, revealed in the Son. He also makes it possible for us to share the mind of the Father through what the Father told the Son.

At first glance this looks like a repetition, but the thought is "from you" as Father. Martha had said, "even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you," but now He had declared the Father's name, and they were to know that all He had was the Father's gift: relationship was brought out.

They had entered into the secret of which the world knew nothing: the Father was the source of all that was given to the Son. Some wondered at His works and His words. Others hated Him, and said that what no man could do came from Satan — a blasphemy. The disciples had learnt that all these things were from the Father, as the Son wanted them to.

This is more than knowing Him as Messiah. They knew the Father, and Christ the object of the Father's heart, and all the counsels of God about Him.

They saw the Father's glory in the hands of the Son. The Father was shown to them, and that was enough. Nothing more could be, except the actual glory itself. They knew that they were really the Father's. It was glorious knowledge.

When they received the Father's words from the Son, the disciples knew that the Father was the source of all the things given to the Son. The Son came to carry out everything for the Father. He came to carry out all the wonderful things in the Father's heart for the blessing of those the Father had given Him. All that we have been called to enjoy at the present moment springs from the Father's love; He is the source of all.

"I have given them the words that you gave me." He had put them into the same place and relationship He Himself was in as a man on earth with the Father. So whatever the Father had told Him in that relationship, He passes on to them. He brings them into all the blessing — into all the brightness of the hope — and brings us now into the full awareness of that relationship.

The Lord handed over to His disciples the intimate communications of grace that the Father gave to Him. It was no longer a question of the ten commandments given through Moses — the measure of man's responsibility, given to prove his sin and ruin, which he neither admitted nor felt.

They were able to trace things to their source, however little they might have been able to put their knowledge into words. They had received the words that the Father had given to the Son, and had known for certain that He had come from the Father, and that the Father had sent Him. This the Lord could say of them, though they might not have been able to say it of themselves.

It is true that before they received the Holy Spirit they gained little from what He told them about the Father. But what they might have gained from was there in front of them. Sadly, they never once understood what the Lord said to them. He does not speak here of how little they understood. He speaks of the revelation itself that He had made to them, and He credits them with all its value.

Not only had the Lord declared the Father, but He had given to His disciples the "words" which the Father had given Him. He shared with them the messages He had received from the Father. So they learn not only who the Father is in all His love and holiness. Through the "words" they also learn the Father's mind. If the "word" reveals who He is, the "words" reveal His mind and thoughts.

Notice in verse 8 how far He goes with us. "I have given them the words that You gave Me." That is, He had put them into the very place and relationship He Himself was in as a man on earth with the Father. So whatever the Father had told Him in that relationship, He passes on to them. He brings them into all the blessing — into all the brightness of the hope. He brings us now into the full awareness of that relationship.

Since He had given them the words the Father gave to Him, the disciples did receive the truth, though no doubt imperfectly. So they came to know for certain that Christ the Son came out from the Father. And they believed as well that the Father sent Him. This is how grace reckons: it does not measure degrees, but makes much of what is real. He can well do this, for His love gives, deepens, and secures from first to last.

This was very touching, for think what these men had been, how slow, how dull, how unresponsive! And think what they were on the point of showing themselves to be. What cowardice, what denials, in a few hours! But the Son saw them in the light of God's purpose. He knew that the Father had power in the end to bring about in them all that He had purposed. So He credited them with having in fullness what they as yet realized only in a very feeble measure. And does He not treat His saints today, and pray for them, in just the same way?

They had received them. In some cases this came with confusion and questions, yet they had done so in real, living faith. That gave them absolute confidence that Christ had come out from the Father (v. 8). Notice that this wording shows the Son's own energy and initiative in coming forth. Then He adds, "they have believed that You sent Me," and this shows the Father's initiative. Both are true, for Father and Son are One.

To know for certain that the Son came out from the Father does not satisfy His heart. That alone would prove no more than His own love in coming. But the disciples believed the further truth that the Father sent Him — the proof of His own love to them.

It is most comforting to us that our Lord bases all these glorious desires for the saints on one thing alone. They had received the Son's testimony about the Father, and they had firmly believed in the Father's love.

Our blessed Lord would have us share with Himself "the words" — the divine communications — which the Father gave Him. He also gives us His own peace — that calm, untroubled state which always flowed from confidence in the Father's love… And, to crown it all, He will share His glory with us.

If we study the word "pray" in this verse, we will see its force. It is the word of someone wanting or demanding something from another who is His equal. In the prayer of this chapter we are listening to a Divine Person, the Son, addressing the Father.

"I request for them." The preposition is peri, not huper, "on behalf of"... which occurs in verse 19. It is not intercession, but the Lord putting forth a claim.

Had He no interest in the world? The deepest interest — He died for it. But at that time He did not want the world as the place to display His power and rule as Son of Man. That will come in due time. This is the very opposite of a prayer He will yet pray, in answer to God's decree: "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession" (Ps. 2:8).

His priestly work now will one day end. That is, He will first receive His own to Himself in glory. Then He will ask for the world and receive the kingdoms of this world.

First, the Lord says the Father has given them to Him. Even so, He can say to the Father, "they are Yours." He is praying to the Father concerning those who belong to the Father. Secondly, the Lord can plead, "I am glorified in them."... Thirdly, the Lord pleads, "and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You."... The first motive concerns the Father. The second has the glory of the Son in view. The third is the safety of believers.

If You care for Your own, You must keep them. And if You care for My glory, You must keep them, for He adds, "and I am glorified in them."

They were His Father's gift to Him and so are we. "You gave them to Me," He said, but in giving them to His beloved Son the Father did not give them away or lose them... The Father and the Son have this mutual interest in all who are Christ's... They are more precious to the Lord than crowns and kingdoms and far-reaching fame.

A mere man may say, "All mine are Yours." But no mere man could say, "All Yours are mine." If he did, he would be guilty of unforgivable and blasphemous presumption. But the Son could so speak with fitness and truth; for He is One with the Father.

Then He prays, and first for the eleven. Further on He says, "I do not ask for these only" — all Christians are the gift of the Father to Christ... Intercession is only for those who actually believe... It is in this verse that He begins to pray.

And who are these? ...Believers, children of God, Christians. They are passing through this sinful world now, and they can fail and become defiled at every step of the way. These are the subjects of Christ's priestly ministry. He died to make them clean. He lives to keep them clean.

And though they were given by the Father to the Son, they were still the Father's, yet the Son's as well. What a revelation for them! Then, too, the Son was glorified in them. How clearly that showed in later years when they preached Christ! They must be precious to the Father, for they were His. Precious to the Son too, for they were His Father's gift to Him. Men on earth give, but they do not keep what they give. The Father gave them to the Son, yet they remained the Father's. The Father can never drop them. The Son will never relax His grasp of them.

"All mine are yours, and yours are mine." Think about these words. An ordinary man may say, "All mine are Yours." But no ordinary man could say, "All Yours are mine." He would be guilty of unpardonable and blasphemous presumption. But the Son could say it, and it was fitting and true, for He is One with the Father.

He prays for them as His own possession that no one can take away. His Father gave them to Him, and they still remain the Father's. For all that the Son has is the Father's, and all that the Father has is His. Think about that great fact for a moment. It brings out His equality with the Father. It shows the perfect oneness of mind, interests, and affections between the Father and the Son. And we too are Their joint possession!

Then, as a second great reason for praying for His disciples, the Lord adds, "I am glorified in them." We are left in this world to represent the One who has gone to glory. How much people see Christ in His people is how much He is glorified before the world.

"I am glorified in them." He does not say the Father is glorified in them; it is Christ, whose character we bear, who is to be glorified in us. We have the Father's word and the Son's place on earth... He has brought them into the intimacy of all those things He received from the Father as a man. He puts them into His place as sons by redemption. So He gives them the Father's testimony to carry back into the world — the place where they are set. Christ was the perfect expression of what the Father is, and in the same way a faithful person is the perfect expression of the One he speaks for.

Jesus says, "I am glorified in them"; and those who do not show Him do not glorify Him.

How wonderful that we belong to the Father! But He has given us to the Son, and now the Son says, "They are Yours." What joy for us to know the place of affection we have in the heart of the Son and the heart of the Father! All the features of this blessed Man come out in the company the Father has given Him. In a coming day, all the traits of the Son will be on public display in those the Father has given Him. But even now the Father finds pleasure in seeing the features of His Son in those who are His own. This is how the Son is glorified in those He loves.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is not, as in verse 8, "the words" the Father gave to the Son, which the Son passed on to the disciples. Those were the communications of love. By them the disciples knew truly that He came from the Father, and believed to their joy that the Father sent Him. It is here (as in verse 6) the Father's "word," the expression of His mind. … In the world they were to be witnesses of Him, and He has given them the Father's word. The world hated them — not only for that word, offensive as it is to the world, but because the disciples who had it were not of the world, just as their Master is not. This is the true measure of unworldliness. The world cannot bear it, and the religious world least of all.

And now He puts them in His own place, not with the Father, but in respect of the world. … It is in the same place of testimony that He had been in. … There I learn that He has made their place what His was, and has given them His testimony, the Father's word — not words here. The world will not bear it. If you get into this place the world will not stand it. The world will bear a great deal of religion, but not the Father.

The Father's name is revealed to them. The Father's word is given to them. The Father's care is assured to them. Christ's joy is their joy. Christ's reproach and Christ's place as a stranger are their portion in this world.

Now this is what drew upon them the hatred of the world. Their presence represented the Father in testimony. It told the world that not everything belonged to it — that what was of God did not. There were men in relationship with the Father. But the result was that they were not of the world. No judgment was carried out, but the separation was made.

We are left in the world on the distinct understanding that we are not of it. We are not part of the world-system that surrounds us, and for that reason the world hates the Christian. Notice that the Lord here makes Himself the standard. We are identified with Him in this.

It is much to be feared that few grasp the depth and meaning of our Lord's words, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." … The measure of a believer's separation from the world is nothing less than Christ's — that is, the principle of it. In practice, sadly, it is quite another thing. But in principle there is no difference.

What joy it must have brought to the heart of Jesus when His own received the Father's word from Him! That word shaped them after Christ. It also drew the world's hatred upon them, as it had drawn that hatred upon the Son. They received the Father's word in their hearts, and that is what separated them from the world. The world could not stand it. The more room the Father's word has in our hearts, the more we shall be apart from the world and its ways in daily life.

The disciples were taken out of the world in order to represent God in it. They were to walk in His ways, not the world's ways. They were to draw their life and all their conduct from Him, and to live as Christ did. The world is an immense system that Satan built around fallen man, to keep man unaware of his ruin. The Lord does not pray we should be taken out of it, but kept from the evil.

Some confuse two different thoughts. Being kept from or out of the evil is a moral thought. Being kept out of the world is a physical thought. There is no difficulty here. The disciples were physically in the world, as real men. But their spirits were to be kept from the corrupting influences around them.

Someone may say, "What are we to do? Are we to go out of the world?" Not at all. Our Lord says plainly, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." In it, but not of it, is the true principle for the Christian. To use a figure, the Christian in the world is like a diver. He is surrounded by an element that would destroy him. He survives only because he is protected from its action, and sustained by unbroken contact with the scene above.

He longed deeply to have us out of the world with Himself. But the time for that had not come, and He would be, as always, subject to the Father's will — "but that you keep them from the evil one." Our business here was now to fill the place of the Lord Jesus in testimony for God. We spoil and ruin this to the degree that we give place to the flesh or the world.

This is not just physical keeping. He does not ask for a hedge of outward separation from the world to be put around them. He does not ask for them to be taken out of it. He asks instead that the truth sanctify them — the truth His word contains, which shows Christ set apart. Christ is set apart from the world for His people, so that we too might be separate from it in heart.

We do not think the promise, "The LORD will keep you from all evil," applies apart from the state of the soul. As said before, faith is the living link between the soul and God. God works through it to bless and protect the believer... How careful we should be, then, to answer to His mind in this. And all the more, because both His love and His power are engaged to keep us undefiled as we walk in His ways.

They are not of the world, as Christ is not of the world. It is a fact, not just a duty — though it is the firmest ground of duty. They are not of the world; it is not merely that they ought not to be. And if they are not, it is a serious inconsistency even to look as if they belong to the world. That is being false to our relationship, for we belong to the Father and are given to the rejected Son, who is finished with the world.

Notice these words of our Lord about His people: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world!" He is not giving them a command to try to be heavenly. He says, "they are not of the world!" By birth, by being, they are heavenly — "born from above!" ... The man who receives this breath of heaven is made a heavenly person. Jesus often said to the Jews, "I am from above," "I am not of this world," "you do not know where I come from." He knew where He was from and where He was going. Others did not. So it is with the saints.

Even more plainly He says, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." To emphasise this He repeats it twice (verses 14 and 16). His separation from the world — and who can measure how deep it goes — is the measure of ours.

I am afraid that few really grasp the true nature and practical results of their position as joined to the crucified and risen Jesus. Few really enter into the depth and meaning of our Lord's words, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." ... The measure of the saint's separation from the world is nothing less than Christ's — that is, the principle of it. In practice, sadly, it is quite another thing; but in principle there is no difference.

The world was not Christ's aim. Through His whole life, though He had not left the world, He was no more of the world than if He had been in heaven. When practice is in question, He says, "They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through your truth." Truth is not of the world: this world is a vast lie.

He repeats this thought as the basis of their position here below. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." What then were they to be? By what rule, by what model, were they to be formed? By the truth, and the Father's word is truth. Christ was always the Word, but the living Word among men. In the Scriptures we have it, written and settled: they reveal Him, bear witness to Him.

Sanctification implies that we are, not only set apart from evil, but set apart in heart and life for Christ. The Lord's words show us that this devoted life of practical sanctification to Christ comes about in two ways. First, by the truth... On the one hand, the word exposes and judges our words, our ways and our walk. It judges even the secrets of our hearts, all that may spoil a life of devotion to Christ. On the other hand, the Father's word reveals to us the Father in all His love and grace and holiness as set forth in Christ.

The root idea of sanctification is setting apart. The Son has given the Father's word, which introduces us to all His love, His thoughts, His purposes, His glory. All this is truth; that is, reality of the most divine kind. The world lives so much in a region of unreality and make-believe. It works to set up systems that have no solid ground and that must pass away in the end. If we know divine realities, we must stand apart from the world's unrealities.

It is easy for people to misunderstand the Saviour's words, as those do who lower and narrow them to a setting apart for ministry. But He had at heart a deeper, more personal desire. He wanted the disciples themselves to be filled with the truth, shaped and formed by it... "Your word," the Father's word, "is truth." Truths had been made known before, but never the truth itself, until Jesus came, for He is the truth. He was the first, and He alone, to show openly what everyone and everything really is: God, man, even Satan; heaven, earth, hell, and all things in them.

"Sanctify them in the truth." It is the word of God applied to judge every thought and feeling in me. He does not say, "Sanctify them by the law," but by the word. Persons take the law as a rule, but you want power; you want an object that seizes your affections. What object does the law give you? Where is the thing, the One, you are to love? Where is He? Who is He? The law tells me of nothing but a Judge. It sets no object before my soul to give me blessed and holy affections. The Father's word does give me this.

This is a saying much to be remembered. It teaches us that we are not the judges of what sanctification or holiness is. God's word decides that. Holiness is the character, or mind, that God's word — the truth — forms in us.

Christ is the truth: the word of God is truth about everything. Do I want to know what my heart is? The Word tells me. Do I want to know what God is? The Word tells me. What Christ as a Saviour is? What Satan and his schemes are? The Word will tell me. And therefore I have the Word to make all plain, when I want to go through the world, which is a labyrinth for anyone else.

All the Scriptures are truth. But one truth in particular makes the child of God separate from the world: the revelation of the Father's name to his heart. That revelation sanctifies him, or sets him apart, to the love of the Father... he has, in the infinite kindness of God, the love that Christ dwelt in for his portion. So long as that love is filling his heart, there is not room in him for the world.

The Greek word apostolos means "a messenger," "one sent"... It is also used in a much higher and stronger sense. It implies a divine commission in the one sent — first of the Lord Himself, and then of the twelve disciples He chose to be with Him during His ministry here... He was the Sent One.

It is remarkable how many times this Gospel calls the Lord the One whom the Father sent into the world. In slightly different words it says this more than forty times... He was, therefore, not native to the world, as though He sprang out of it. He came from above, and all that He was He brought with Him... Now something new comes about. In setting it up, the Lord was fulfilling His own words in His prayer to the Father — see John 17:18. He was departing, and they now were to be sent as from Him.

To carry what? Christ made known by the Father's word. I cannot be sent into the world if I am in it and of it. And I can only go there as sent by Christ if I am fully joined with Him in the spirit of my mind.

As the holy and perfect One, Jesus had been sent into the world by the Father, that He might represent Him and make Him known. Now He sends His disciples into the world in similar manner. They were to represent Him and make Him known. What qualified them for this was the sanctification of which the previous verse had spoken. If His plan had been to shut them away from the world, no such mission could have happened. It also could not have happened if the truth had not sanctified them.

It flowed from One apart from the world and above it, whom the Father had sent into it on an errand of infinite love for the Father's glory... So the Son sent the disciples, joined with Himself in heaven and charged with the Father's testimony to the world. Had they been of the world, they could not be sent into it; but, as taken out of it by grace in Christ, they were not of it, and could be sent.

Notice here again that He, Christ Himself, is the standard. Our separation from the world matches Christ's own separation from it. And our being sent into the world, in verse 18, follows that same standard. The Lord takes us out, breaks our links with this world, and then sends us back that we may be here for Him.

He does not merely say, "Sanctify them in your truth"... but further He says, "As you sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." It was no question of the land of Judea now. The world was before them. So, if there was the intimacy of setting apart to the Father, there is also a universality of mission.

This separation from evil, and sanctification to God, is in view of the disciples' service — that they may be morally fit to carry out their mission... Already the Lord has viewed the disciples as in His position before the Father; now He views them as having His place before the world.

The basic idea of sanctification is "to set apart." The only way we can understand it here is this: the Lord Jesus Christ set Himself apart from the world by being present in heaven in His body. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself" — I am taking a position so that I can be the object their whole heart is set on. The more we learn of our oneness with Him in that place, and of our shared life with the Father and the Son, the more we will be set apart in heart, mind and spirit from the evil world we live in.

Things without life — altar, basin, vessels — were sanctified under the law. No inward change happened in them, and no increase in holiness. But they could be put in a separate position, given over completely to the service of God. The Lord Jesus Himself was "sanctified, and sent into the world" (John 10:36). And again, as He left the world, He said, "I sanctify Myself" (John 17:19). There could be no inward change in Him, no sanctification in the sense of growth. Holiness of the most intense kind, divine and absolute, was always His.

He is holy in Himself, holy as God is holy. So the only sanctification possible for Him was a setting apart like this. And notice: according to this verse, He does it Himself. That is another witness to His Deity, for no mere man could set himself apart in the glory of heaven!

He was in the world as Surety for His people. So it is for their sakes that He separates Himself from the world, by death and resurrection. Our Lord was holy, innocent, undefiled and separate from sinners. He needed no moral separation from the evil in the world. But His own people, who were in the world, needed the practical sanctification that nothing but His grace could give.

The Lord does not sanctify Himself for them simply by becoming man. Nor does He do it by dying as a sacrifice, as Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria taught, and many after them. For on the cross God made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us. It is as glorified, after death and resurrection, that He becomes the pattern of His own.

Now I get something more than the word; it is Christ Himself who is the substance of all that the word speaks about... He has gone up to glory, and there sets Himself apart as the object for our hearts... I have now got an object: it is the truth, which will judge everything that is in my heart. This it is that sanctifies me, by showing me the One whom I love, and who has said that I am going to be like Him.

He is set apart to God as the pattern Man in heavenly places, so that the Holy Spirit may take it and apply it to us here. I see this perfect Christ set apart for me in heaven, and I say I must walk according to that pattern. I will walk in love, because Christ also has loved us, and given Himself for us... The starting-point of all my measure of conduct is the place in which I am already set in Christ.

Verse 20 is really the start of a new paragraph. Here the Lord Jesus clearly extends His request from the eleven men before Him to all those down the ages who would believe on Him. What a mercy of God that these words occur in this prayer. We are certainly among those who later believed on Him through the words of these disciples. So — wonder of wonders — you and I clearly find a place in these words from the Son to the Father.

Now the Lord looks down the coming ages and embraces in His prayer all those who would believe in Him through the word of the Apostles. This leads the Lord to unfold in our hearing three further desires of His heart: firstly, that all believers may be "one in us" (v. 21); secondly, that they "may be one" in the coming Kingdom glory (vv. 22-23); thirdly, that they may be with Christ where He is (v. 24).

Erotao, on the other hand, carries with it a certain equality or familiarity between those of whom it is used, as of king with king (Luke 14:32). The Lord uses this word of His own asking of the Father (John 14:16; John 16:26; John 17:9, 15, 20) — never aiteo. Martha uses this last word of Him (John 11:22), and so shows that she does not grasp the dignity of His Person. He never uses it of Himself.

The Lord's words, "I do not ask for these only," show that the desires He has already expressed apply just as much to all believers. And the last requests, by their very nature, must include the disciples.

When we come to John 17:20 we find this blessed Person praying for us in particular. Verses 6-19 were spoken of those who were with Him at that time. Now He adds, "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word." The testimony the Apostles gave has come down to us in the written word. In accepting it, we have believed in the Son of God through their word.

Those believing on Him through their word are now presented to the Father, "that they may all be one." So room is left for multitudes of believers, for all who confess His Name — Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. There is room for those who had until then clung tightly to legal forms, whose substance they refused because they would not believe in Him. There is room for those who had been almost as stubborn in holding to the dreams of the pagan world and its degrading immorality, knowing nothing of the only true God, who is truly known through Him whom He sent.

He prayed, not just that apostolic labour might be successful. There was no doubt about that. He prayed for those who should believe on Him through their word. So now each truly converted soul can say, "He prayed for me." All such were included in His prayer that night. Who can count the numbers that have been saved? Who can say how many more will be brought into the one flock, before Christian testimony reaches its appointed end?

This is not exactly "one as we," that is, as the Father and the Son, which verse 11 had said of the disciples… Here the saints at large are in view, those who believe through their word. What is asked for them is that they should "all be one" — not "as we," but "in us," in the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit brings us into this communion. It rests on the Father made known in the Son, and on the Son as the object of the Father's love and delight. With the Father we share the Son; with the Son we share the Father.

When we come to John 17:20 we find this blessed Person praying especially for us. In verses 6-19 He spoke of those who were with Him at that time. Now He adds, "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word." The testimony the apostles gave has come down to us in the written word. In accepting it, we have believed in the Son of God through their word.

It is not exactly "one as we," that is, as the Father and the Son, which verse 11 had said of the disciples... Here the saints at large, those who believe through their word, are in view; and the thing sought is that they should "all be one," "just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us" — not "as we," but "in us," in the Father and the Son. It is communion that rests on the Father made known in the Son, and on the Son as the object of the Father's love and delight. The Holy Spirit brings us into it. With the Father we share the Son; with the Son we share the Father.

Oneness in real fellowship of communion was His desire, and the burden of His petition. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father; so there must be full communion between Them. The thoughts, the wishes, of the Father are the thoughts and wishes of the Son. No difference of view, no conflict of opinion, can possibly exist between Them. ... People once Jews, or Gentiles, or from far-off nations, or slaves, or free, all united in one fellowship, owning and serving the same Lord — what but divine power could do this? And if divine power could do it, what a testimony that would be to the divine mission of the Son!

Here, then, the special object for which the Lord desires this oneness is that it may be a testimony to the world. No invisible unity can be this. The world can receive no evidence except what it is shown. Unless the oneness of believers is something the world can see, the testimony spoken of here is not given.

It is a unity of practical life, oneness of heart and mind, such as exists between the Father and the Son... It is not, of course, that the world as a whole will believe, but it has at all times worked on people of the world... "one in Us" shows it to be a life of fellowship with the Father and the Son.

The oneness of which our blessed Lord spoke to the Father, recorded in John 17:21, is that all His own might know in present communion oneness in the Father and the Son. In contrast to this, Scripture shows again and again how completely religious-minded people fail when they try to produce uniformity... It is the living communion of persons and not the harsh uniformity of mere religion.

The prayer of our Lord, "that they may all be one" (John 17:21), will yet be answered in glory. Thinking about this with joy would do much to give us a longing of heart now, by God's Spirit, for the unity of God's people. It would also make us long that nothing in our spirit and ways should add to the confusion and weakness of the present.

Now the Lord speaks of a glory the Father has given Him. This is not the glory He had with the Father before the world began, for that glory belongs to God alone. It cannot pass to man. But there is what the Father has given Him for His great work as Man — His willing humbling of Himself and His sacrifice. This He is glad to share with those He died for. He gives this glory to believers now, but it will only be seen when we are with Him.

Everything we can share, He shares with us, and there is a "glory" He gives us to share. This connects with the inheritance. We can well understand that the whole vast universe is His by right as Creator. But since it became defiled, He has acquired it all by His death, by right of redemption. All that He has gained He shares with us, and in that way we share His glory.

He has given His disciples, ourselves among them, the glory the Father gave Him. Time does not enter into the fellowship of the Divine Persons, so He does not say, "I will give," but, "I have given." When we look at things from the standpoint of God's counsel and purpose, we find other statements just as absolute — Romans 8:30 and Ephesians 2:6, for instance. It is a wonderful fact that the glory the Father gave Him as Man is now ours by His gift, and it can never be taken back.

The Lord can say, "The glory that You have given Me I have given to them." The glory given to Christ as Man, He secures for His own and shares with them. This glory He has given to His own that they may be one. This unity is so perfect that nothing less than the unity of the Father and the Son can be its pattern.

In our Lord's wonderful prayer in John 17 we read of three glories. There is a glory He had with the Father before the world was, v. 5. There is a glory given to Him which He shares with His own, v. 22. And there is a glory which cannot be shared, but which His own will see, v. 24. There are also three unities in this prayer of our Lord: unity in witness, v. 11; unity in fellowship, v. 21; unity in glory, v. 22.

When the Son was down here, the Father was in the Son, and all that the Father said and did was through the Son. But the world refused this testimony. So it is no surprise that the world refuses our testimony today. In the display of the coming day, the Father will be seen in the Son, and the Son will be seen in the saints. The purpose of this is, "That the world may know that You have sent Me." What the world refused in testimony, it will have to accept in the display of that day.

So the special glory given to believers — indeed the very glory given to Christ Himself — is tied, as far as outward display goes, to the visible unity of His disciples. How it grieves His spirit, then, and how it dishonours His name, that those He trusted with this great charge are now divided!

This is not the simple, perfect oneness of verse 11, nor the two-way communion of verse 21. It is Christ in all believers, and the Father in Christ — a unity put on display in glory, not just an inward communion — a oneness in which everything is perfectly linked to its source. And Christ, whom alone they were to show, is in them; and the Father, whom Christ had perfectly shown, is in Him.

The Greek word teleioo (from teleios, 'perfect') means 'to make perfect, complete,' not just to bring to an end. See John 17:23; Heb. 2:10; Heb. 5:9; Heb. 10:1; Heb. 11:40; James 2:22.

What has spoiled the unity, and scattered and divided God's people on earth? Is it not that we allow so much in our lives that is not of Christ? Yet even so, suppose every believer on earth expressed Christ alone at any given moment. That would still fall short of the unity the Lord speaks of in these closing verses. It will take nothing less than the whole company of God's people in glory to set out the full greatness of Christ.

If Christ is in us now the hope of glory, He will be in us then the display of glory. He will be glorified in His saints, and admired in all who believe. This is not mutual communion here, but display. The display comes through the fullness and excellence of the One shown living in the one who shows Him: the Father in Christ, and Christ in us.

So only then will they be "perfected into one," and only then will the world "know" that the Father sent the Son. For how else could people who were once sinners stand in heavenly glory, except by the Son He sent to save them? And how else could the world learn that the Father loved them even as He loved the Son, except by seeing them shown with Him in glory? Today the question is whether the world will "believe." In that day the world will "know," because it will see the glory in which Christ and the church shine together.

When the world sees Christ displayed in glory in His people, they will know that the One they despised and hated really was the One the Father sent. They will also realise that the Father loves the people of Christ, whom they threw out and persecuted, with the same love He has for Christ.

Yes, the Lord Jesus wants the world to know our wonderful link with Him. It reaches even into the deepest thing of all — His place in the Father's love. We do not wait till then to know it. We know it now, "to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." (Eph. 1:6)

We are told that the Father loves us as He has loved Jesus… The Father's love for the Son is infinite, eternal and unchanging. That love is the measure of His love for us, His children.

"Father, I will," He says. This is no prayer. It is the assertion of the same will that, moments later, would give way to the Father's will and the necessity of the cross, when He prayed in the shadows of the garden: "Not My will but Yours be done"... The "will" of verse 24 goes beyond prayer, or petition, or demand. It is a claim. Demands had come before. This one matches the Father's own good pleasure. It is a righteous title to those who are "His own," resting on everlasting love. The result is sure.

He has finished everything, accomplished everything, glorified His Father in everything. Only one thing remains: to have us with Himself... And this is because love never tolerates absence. That is one of love's distinct marks. Love may bear absence, and have to endure it, but it is impatient with it.

It is wonderful grace that the Lord Jesus should come down to us where we are. It is even more wonderful that He should take us up to be with Him where He is. When He comes down to us He supplies our wants, and meets the needs of our hearts. When He lifts us up into His own home to be with Him, He goes beyond all the needs and desires of our hearts, and meets the deep longings of His own heart.

Some things will be displayed in the world to come, but some things will never be displayed... The glory given to Christ as man is given to the assembly, and they will show that glory to the universe. But in verse 24 we come to something beyond display. In Christianity there is always something hidden that the world will never know... The secret joys known in the Father's house will never be put on display.

How wonderful this is — that Jesus counts on the delight of our hearts in seeing His glory! Think of Him counting on us like that! We know what we are, how easily selfish and cold; and yet He counts on this — our joy in seeing His glory! He keeps the best wine for last... No one else's eye will be there. No one will interfere with that joy.

There is a glory we will neither see nor share: that is in verse 5. There is a glory we will share: that is in verse 22. There is a glory in verse 24 which we will see but not share... We will be given to look at Him in all the sweetness of His lasting place in the Father's affections, but we will not share that place... and we will not be jealous, but we will thankfully own that He alone is entitled to it.

This is the love of the Father for the Son; He speaks of that love being set on Him before the world was brought into being. It seems almost superfluous to have to say that we cannot have the love of relationship without the relationship.

It is a glory that flows from love, the Father's personal love to the Son, but which of necessity includes in that all that are His.

The world was sunk in ignorance of the Father. When Jesus prayed that His disciples would be kept safe in the world, He called the Father "Holy" (verse 11). His holiness was to govern how they were kept separate from the world. In verse 25 He looks at the world itself in its sin and blindness, so He calls the Father "Righteous." So the divine righteousness stands over against the world's sin.

Now He says "Righteous Father." The Father was to decide between two sides: Christ with those who had received Him, and the world that had rejected Him. It was a solemn moment for the world. He had come in pure grace. He had faithfully shown the Father and glorified Him. And now He asked the Father Himself to decide in righteousness between Him and the world. The answer very soon followed, when Jesus sat down on the Father's throne.

Christ had declared the righteous Father, but the lawless world had no heart for that revelation. There was no affinity between the righteous Father and the unrighteous world. The world waits and looks for the man of sin; it will recognise him when he arises, and it will hurry to his banner; but the righteous Father — it will have none of Him.

That world, with all its triumph, all its frightful sin and cruelty and all its darkness, is passed by in one phrase: "the world has not known You." Write that over all the exhibits of history, over all its kings and conquerors and empires. It comes to just this: the world is nothing in this setting.

There is no knowledge of the Righteous Father in this world. So we would look for Him in vain in the schools of this world. But the Son could add, "But I have known You." Here is One who holds the full and perfect knowledge of the Father. That Father is the Righteous Father, the source of all, and righteous in all that He does.

Does He here say, in speaking of His own in contrast with the world, that they had been true to Him? No. He says, "But I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me." After all the heights of this chapter, how blessed to find that He comes down so far. He speaks this way for a reason. Our hearts could get lost comparing what He says of us with what we are. Instead, He wants us to know that He comes down to the very least perception the Christian has of what He is.

Earlier, in verse 8, He had said, "They have believed that You sent Me." Now He can say, "These have known that You have sent Me." How blessed for us not only to believe, but also to know that the Father sent the Son. Now the Son has gone to heaven, and the Holy Spirit has been given to us. The Spirit is the power within us that gives us the knowledge of the things of God.

Again, in Scripture a name always expresses the truth of what the person is. For example, when believers gather to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 18), it means they gather to the truth of all that Christ is — Christ as both Jesus and Lord. So the name of the Father is the revelation of all that He is in the relationship that name expresses.

This clause applies to what was then future — the resurrection. It found its blessed fulfilment in the message sent to the disciples through Mary: "Go to My brothers and say to them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God." ... No one doubts that, once they had grasped this in some measure, they would go on to learn more of the Father's name. But the Name had been made known, and nothing more could be added to it.

He had been already doing so through His life, but it does not stop there — quite the opposite. It was to be declared with still greater fulness afterwards. There were many things He had to tell them, but their condition would not allow it. They could not bear them then. When the Spirit of truth came, He would guide them into all the truth.

We can well imagine someone saying: "But surely that love with which the Father loves the Son cannot be the same love with which He loves me." Yet that is exactly what the Scripture says, as though to shut out any other possibility... Our capacity is limited. How many an earthly cloud rises to hide Him from our eyes! But we are told that the love is the same.

Notice that it says "in" them, not "on" them. This shows at once that we are not simply the objects of the Father's heart — which we surely are. What is in view here is that the love should be known and enjoyed inside us. How we need constant watchfulness and self-judgment, then, so that nothing robs us of our heavenly portion!

It is certainly meant to be the present portion of God's children. Only their own state and capacity can limit it. This is the joy of the Father's house, and we enter it now, in a world where we must have trouble.

...so that the love with which the Father had loved Him might be in them — that their hearts might have it in this world. What grace! And Jesus Himself in them, the One who passes that love on, the source of strength to enjoy it. He carries it, so to speak, in all the perfection in which He enjoyed it, into their hearts, where He dwelt. He is Himself the strength, the life, the capacity, the right, and the means of enjoying it in this way.

If we are enjoying this love, Christ will dwell in our hearts and show in our lives, as the Lord can say, "I in them." So the great prayer closes with the purpose behind all the Lord's last instructions to His disciples, and behind the prayer to the Father itself: that His people should represent Him in word, in acts, and in manner while He is away.