John 17:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the circumstances of this prayer, John 17:1. Christ made many solemn prayers during the days of his flesh, and sometimes he prayed all night. Yet none of his prayers are recorded as fully as this one.

Notice first the time of the prayer. It came after he had spoken these words, after he had given his farewell to his disciples, and he prayed in their hearing. So this was a prayer after a sermon. When he had spoken from God to them, he turned to speak to God for them. Those we preach to, we must pray for. The one who was to prophesy over the dry bones also had to pray, “Come, O breath, and breathe upon them.” The preached word should also be prayed over, because God gives the increase.

It was also a prayer after the sacrament. After Christ and his disciples had shared the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, and after he had given them fitting instruction, he ended the sacred meal with this prayer. He asked God to keep the good effects of the ordinance alive in them.

It was a family prayer as well. Christ’s disciples were his household, and he set a good example for heads of families. He not only taught his household, as Abraham did (Genesis 18:19), but also blessed his household, as David did (2 Samuel 6:20). He prayed for them and with them.

This was also a parting prayer. When we part from friends, it is good to part with prayer (Acts 20:36). Christ was parting by death, and that parting should be made holy and sweet by prayer. Dying Jacob blessed the twelve patriarchs, dying Moses blessed the twelve tribes, and here dying Jesus blessed the twelve apostles.

It was also a prayer that stood as a preface to his sacrifice. He was about to offer himself on earth, and in this prayer he named the blessings and gifts that would be bought by the merit of his death for his own people. It is like a deed that states the uses of an agreement, showing what it is meant to secure. Christ prayed as a priest offering sacrifice, and on that sacrifice all prayers were to rest.

This prayer also gives us a sample of his intercession, that is, his continuing work of pleading for us in heaven. That does not mean that, in glory, he speaks to the Father as a humble petitioner the way he did on earth. Rather, his intercession in heaven is the presenting of his merit to the Father, asking that its benefits be given to all his chosen people.

The outward sign of his deep desire was this: he lifted up his eyes to heaven, as he had done before (John 11:41). Christ did not need to do this to focus his own mind, but he was pleased to make this gesture holy for those who use it, and to defend it against those who mock it. It shows the lifting up of the soul to God in prayer (Psalm 25:1). “Up with your hearts” was an old call to prayer. Our desires in prayer must be directed upward, and from there we must expect the good gifts we ask for.

Now the prayer itself begins, and Christ first prays for himself. He lifted up his eyes and said, “Father.” Since prayer is to be made to God alone, it is our duty in prayer to look to him as a Father and call him our Father. All who have the Spirit of adoption are taught to cry, “Abba, Father” (John 17:25). It helps us greatly in prayer, both for direction and for comfort, to call God what we hope to find him to be.

Christ prayed for himself first. Though Christ, as God, was prayed to, Christ, as man, prayed. In this he fulfilled all righteousness. God had said to him, as he says to us, “Ask, and I will give you” (Psalm 2:8). If he had to ask for what he had purchased, should we expect to receive what we have never earned, and have again and again lost, unless we pray for it? This gives prayer great honor. It was the messenger Christ used for his own errands, the way he kept in touch with heaven.

It also gives strong encouragement to praying people, and reason to hope that even the prayer of the poor and needy will not be ignored. There was a time when the one who now speaks for us had a cause of his own to bring before the Father, a great cause. His honor as Mediator, his role as the go-between who brings God and people together, depended on its success. He sought that cause through the same way given to us, through prayers and requests (Hebrews 5:7). So he knows the heart of a petitioner (Exodus 23:9), and he knows the way.

Christ began with prayer for himself, and afterward he prayed for his disciples. Charity must begin at home, though it must not end there. We must love and pray for our neighbors as ourselves, and for that reason we must rightly love and pray for ourselves first. Christ’s prayer for himself is much shorter than his prayer for his disciples. In praying for the church, we should not crowd it into a tiny corner of our prayers. When we ask for all the saints, we have room enough to be full and earnest.

Christ makes two requests for himself, but they are really one, that he might be glorified. Yet this one request, “Glorify me,” is spoken twice because it looks in two directions. First, it looks forward to the rest of his mission: “Glorify me, that I may glorify you, by finishing what has been agreed remains to be done” (John 17:1-3). Second, it looks back on what he has already done: “Glorify me, for I have glorified you. I have done my part, now, Lord, do yours” (John 17:4, John 17:5).

Christ asks to be glorified in order to glorify God. “Glorify your Son according to your promise, so that your Son may glorify you according to his purpose” (John 17:1). Here he asks to be glorified in this world. The hour had come when all the powers of darkness would join together to dishonor the Son, and now he says, “Father, glorify him.”

The Father glorified the Son on earth even in his sufferings, through the signs and wonders that surrounded them. When those who came to arrest him were struck down by a word, when Judas confessed him innocent and sealed that confession with his own guilty blood, when the judge’s wife asleep and the judge himself awake declared him righteous, when the sun was darkened and the temple curtain was torn, the Father did more than clear the Son. He glorified him.

Indeed, he was glorified even by his sufferings. When he was crucified, he was magnified, he was glorified (John 13:31). It was on the cross that he conquered Satan and death. His thorns became a crown, and Pilate wrote more in the sign over his head than he understood.

But he was glorified much more after his sufferings. The Father glorified the Son when he raised him from the dead, showed him openly to chosen witnesses, and poured out the Spirit to support his cause, plead for him, and establish his kingdom among people. This is what Christ asks for here and presses for strongly.

He supports this request first by appealing to their relationship: “Glorify your Son, your Son as God, your Son as Mediator.” Because of this sonship, the nations are given to him as his inheritance, for the Father has said, “You are my Son” (Psalm 2:7, Psalm 2:8).

The devil once tempted Christ to give up his sonship by offering him the kingdoms of this world. But Christ rejected that offer with contempt, trusted his Father for his honor, and now turns to him for it. Those who have received adoption as sons can pray in faith for the inheritance of sons, because if we are sanctified, we will be glorified too: “Father, glorify your Son.”

Second, Christ pleads the time: “The hour has come.” This was the appointed season, fixed in God’s purpose. He had often said that his hour had not yet come, but now it had arrived, and he knew it. People do not know their own time (Ecclesiastes 9:12), but the Son of Man did. He speaks of “this hour” (John 12:27), and here simply “the hour,” compare (Mark 14:35; John 16:21). The hour of the Redeemer’s death, which was also the hour of his triumph, was the most striking and important hour that had ever come since time began.

It was the hour when this great matter came to its turning point. After many smaller conflicts, the decisive battle between heaven and hell was about to be fought. The great cause in which God’s honor and human happiness were both involved had to be won or lost forever. David and Goliath, Michael and the dragon, were now stepping into the fight. The trumpet sounded for a battle that would end in lasting defeat for one side. Christ is saying, “Now glorify your Son, now give him victory over rulers and powers, now let the bruising of his heel become the crushing of the serpent’s head, now uphold your Son so he does not fail or lose heart.” When Joshua went out “conquering and to conquer,” the Lord magnified Joshua, and so he glorified his Son when he made the cross his triumphal chariot.

It was also the hour when Christ expected to be crowned, the hour when he would be glorified and set at God’s right hand. A bloody scene of suffering stood between him and that glory, but because it would be brief, he speaks of it lightly. The hour had come when he must be glorified, and he did not expect that glory until then. In a hard hour, especially in a dying hour, good Christians may pray in the same way: “Now the hour has come, stand by me, appear for me, now or never. Now the earthly tent must be taken down, and the hour has come that I should be glorified” (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Third, he pleads the Father’s own honor in this matter: “That your Son may also glorify you.” He had given his whole work to the Father’s honor. He wanted to be carried through his suffering and into his glory so that he could glorify the Father in two ways. First, by the death of the cross, which he was about to suffer. “Father, glorify your name” expresses the main purpose of his suffering, to restore his Father’s wounded honor among people and, by his payment for sin, bring man back to the glory of God that sin had caused him to miss. He is saying, “Own me in my sufferings, so I may honor you by them.”

Second, by the teaching of the cross, which would soon be preached to the world and would restore God’s kingdom among people. He asks his Father to honor and confirm his sufferings so fully that the cross would not only lose its offense, but become to those who are saved the wisdom and power of God. If God had not glorified Christ crucified by raising him from the dead, the whole work would have failed. So he says, glorify me, so that I may glorify you. This teaches us what to aim at in prayer, in every plan, and in every desire: the honor of God. Since our chief purpose is to glorify God, all other things must come under that aim and serve it. “Do this and that for your servant, so that your servant may glorify you. Give me health, so that I may glorify you with my body. Give me success, so that I may glorify you with my possessions.” “Hallowed be your name” must be our first request, and it must shape every other request (1 Peter 4:11).

It also teaches us what to expect and hope for. If we sincerely aim to glorify our Father, he will give what we need to be able to do it. He will give the grace he knows is enough, and the opportunities he sees fit. But if we secretly honor ourselves more than him, it is fair for him to leave us to our own plans. Then, instead of honoring ourselves, we will bring shame on ourselves.

Fourth, he pleads his commission (John 17:2, 17:3). He asks to glorify his Father in line with, and in carrying out, the commission given to him. “Glorify your Son,” meaning, “glorify him as you have given him authority, glorify him in carrying out the authority you have given him.” Or, “Let your Son glorify you according to the authority given to him.” Here we see the power of the Mediator, the one who stands between God and man. The source of his power is this, “You have given him authority.” He has it from God, to whom all authority belongs. Fallen humanity, in order to be restored, had to be brought under a new form of government, and that could not be set up except by a special commission from heaven, given to the one who would carry out this glorious work. He was appointed as the sole judge of the great dispute between God and man, and the sole guarantee of the great peace that was to be made between them. So his power came to him in this office, and it was to be carried out in a way different from his power and rule as Creator. Christ is no usurper, like the prince of this world. His right to rule cannot be questioned.

The extent of his power is this: he has authority over all flesh. That means over all humanity. He also has authority in the world of spirits, and the powers of the unseen world are subject to him (1 Peter 3:22). But here, as he stands between God and man, he especially speaks of his authority over all flesh. These are the people he came to conquer and save. From that race, the Father had given him a remnant, and so that whole order of beings was put under his feet. He has authority over mankind as corrupt and fallen, because that is what “flesh” means here (Genesis 6:3). If he had not been, in this sense, connected with flesh, he would not have needed a Redeemer. Over this sinful race the Lord Jesus has full authority. All judgment concerning them has been given to him. He has power to bind or loose, to acquit or condemn, and power on earth to forgive sins or not. As Mediator, Christ has the government of the whole world in his hand. He is king over the nations. He has authority even over those who do not know him or obey his gospel. He does not rule every person directly, but he rules over them all (Psalm 22:28; Psalm 72:8; Matthew 28:18; John 3:35).

The great purpose of this authority is that he should give eternal life to as many as the Father has given him. Here the mystery of our salvation is opened up.

Here is the Father handing over the chosen people to the Redeemer, giving them to him as his charge and trust, and as the crown and reward of his work. Christ has sovereign power over the whole fallen human race, but he has a special claim on the chosen remnant. All things were put under his feet, but they were given into his hand.

Here is the Son taking on the task of securing the happiness of those given to him, promising to give them eternal life. See how great the Redeemer’s authority is. He has lives and crowns to give, eternal lives that never end, and immortal crowns that never fade. Think, then, how great the Lord Jesus is, since such gifts are in his power, and how gracious he is in giving eternal life to those he saves.

He gives them spiritual life in this world, and that spiritual life is eternal life in its first stage, or beginning, as in John 4:14. Grace in the soul is heaven already placed in that soul. He will also glorify them in the next world. Their joy will be made complete in seeing God and enjoying him. This last part is mentioned because it includes everything else in his work, his teaching them, making satisfaction for them, sanctifying them, and preparing them for eternal life. In truth, all the other parts point toward this. We are called to his kingdom and glory, and born again to receive the inheritance. What comes last in practice came first in purpose, and that purpose is eternal life.

Here is how Christ’s rule over all things serves this great design. He has authority over all people so that he may give eternal life to the chosen number. Christ’s rule over human beings is meant to bring salvation to God’s children. All things are for their sake (2 Corinthians 4:15). All of Christ’s laws, ordinances, and promises, which are given to everyone, are meant to carry spiritual life and secure eternal life for all who were given to Christ. He is head over all things for the church. The governing of providence, God’s care over the world, and grace are placed in the same hand, so that everything may work together for the good of the called.

There is then a fuller explanation of this great plan in John 17:3: “This is eternal life,” the life I am authorized and have taken on to give. This is both what eternal life is and the path that leads to it, to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, as Mediator, the one who stands between God and man, along with the teachings and commands of that holy religion he established to rescue people from their fallen condition.

The Christian religion sets before us the great goal, eternal life, the happiness of an immortal soul in seeing and enjoying the eternal God. Christ was to reveal this to all and secure it for all given to him. By the gospel, life and immortality are brought to light and brought near. It is a life far greater than this present one, both in worth and in duration.

It also shows the sure way to reach this blessed end, namely, the right knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. “This is eternal life, to know you” can be understood in two ways. First, eternal life is found in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. The present form of that life is believing knowledge of God and Christ. The future perfection of that life will be direct, face-to-face knowledge of God and Christ. Those who are united to Christ and live in fellowship with God through Christ know in some measure, by experience, what eternal life is. They can say, “If this is heaven, heaven is sweet” (Psalm 17:15).

Second, the knowledge of God and Christ leads to eternal life. This is the way Christ gives eternal life, through the knowledge of him who called us (2 Peter 1:3), and this is the way we come to receive it. The Christian religion shows us the road to heaven by directing us to God, the source and happiness of our being. Christ died to bring us to God. To know him as our Creator, and to love, obey, submit to, and trust him as our owner, ruler, and benefactor, to devote ourselves to him as our sovereign Lord, depend on him as our chief good, and direct everything to his praise as our highest end, this is eternal life.

God is called the only true God to set him apart from the false gods of the heathen, which were only counterfeits and pretenders. This does not deny the person of the Son, since it is clearly said that he is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20), and in this verse he is set before us as the proper object of the same religious honor as the Father. There is only one living and true God, and the God we worship is that one God. He is the true God, not a mere name or idea. He is the only true God, and all rivals are emptiness and lies. His service is the only true religion.

The Christian religion also directs us to Jesus Christ as the Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ whom the Father sent. If Adam had remained innocent, the knowledge of the only true God would have been eternal life to him. But now that humanity has fallen, something more is needed. Now that we are under guilt, to know God apart from Christ is to know him as a righteous Judge whose curse rests on us, and nothing is more deadly than that. So we must know Christ as our Redeemer, through whom alone we now have access to God. To believe in Christ is eternal life, and this is the life he has taken on to give to as many as were given to him. See John 6:39, John 6:40. Those who know God and Christ are already standing in the outer courts of eternal life.

Christ then prays to be glorified because he has already glorified the Father, in John 17:4 and John 17:5. The meaning of the earlier request was, “Glorify me in this world.” The meaning of the later one is, “Glorify me in the next world.” “I have glorified you on earth, and now glorify me.” Notice the comfort with which Christ looks back on his life on earth: “I have glorified you, and finished my work.” It is as good as finished. He does not complain about the poverty and shame in which he lived, or about how weary a life he had on earth, though he was a man of sorrows. He passes over that and takes comfort in looking back on the service he gave his Father and the progress he made in understanding.

This is recorded, first, for the honor of Christ, to show that his life on earth fully answered the purpose for which he came into the world. Our Lord Jesus had work given him by the one who sent him. He did not come into the world to live in comfort, but to go about doing good and to fulfill all righteousness. His Father gave him his work in the vineyard, both appointing it and helping him in it. The work given him to do he finished. Though he had not yet gone through the last part of his mission, he was so near being made complete through suffering that he could say, “I have finished it.” It was as good as done. He was giving it its final stroke, and he could say, “I have finished.”

The word means that he carried out every part of his mission in the fullest and most perfect way. In this he glorified his Father, because he pleased him and honored him. God’s glory is seen in a work that is complete, and the same is true of the Redeemer. What Christ begins, he also brings to completion.

It was an unexpected way for the Son to glorify the Father by lowering himself, since that might seem to bring him down instead of honor him. Yet this was exactly how the Father was glorified. “I have glorified you on the earth” means that he revealed God’s glory on earth in a way people could bear to see.

This is also written as an example for us to follow. We must make it our business to do the work God has given us, according to our gifts and the place where we live and serve. Each of us should do all the good we can in this world. We must aim at God’s glory in everything. We are to glorify him on the earth, which he has given to human beings, asking from us only this kind of rent, and we are to do it while we are here in a time of testing and preparation for eternity.

We must keep going in this until the end of our lives. We should not rest until our work is finished, and until we have done our day’s work like a hired worker who has completed his task. This is also written for the comfort of all who trust in him. If he finished the work given to him, then he is a complete Savior and did not do his work halfway. The one who finished his work for us will also finish his work in us until the day of Christ.

Now see with what confidence he looks for the joy set before him, saying, “Now, Father, glorify me.” This is what he depends on, and it cannot be refused to him. Notice, first, what he prayed for: “Glorify me,” as he had said before. Repeating words in prayer is not always empty repetition. Christ prayed the same words again, and yet he prayed with greater urgency. What the Father had promised him, and what he already knew he would receive, still needed to be asked for. Promises are not meant to replace prayer, but to guide what we ask for and strengthen our hope.

Christ’s being glorified includes all the honor, power, and joy of his exalted state. It is glory with God, not just glory on earth. He asks, “Glorify me with yourself.” To be with his Father was paradise, it was heaven (Proverbs 8:30; Daniel 7:13; Hebrews 8:1). The brightest glory of the risen Redeemer was to be shown within the heavenly veil, where the Father displays his glory. In the world above, praise is given to the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb together (Revelation 5:13), and in the world below, prayer brings grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ together. In this way the Father has glorified him with himself.

This is also the glory he had with God before the world began. This shows that Jesus Christ, as God, existed before the world, equal in eternity with the Father. Our faith tells us of one who was before all things and through whom all things hold together. It also shows that his glory with the Father is eternal, just as his existence with the Father is eternal. He was from eternity the brightness of his Father’s glory (Hebrews 1:3). When God made the world, he only showed his glory, he did not add anything to it. In the same way, Christ took on the work of redemption not because he needed glory, since he already had glory with the Father before the world, but because we needed glory.

It also shows that in his time of humiliation, Christ set aside this glory and covered it. He was still God, but he was God shown in human flesh, not in open majesty. He laid down this glory for a time as a pledge that he would carry out the work given him by the Father. It also shows that in his exalted state he took up that glory again and put on his former robes of light. After finishing his work, he, as it were, asked back the pledge by saying, “Glorify me.” He prays that even his human nature would be raised to the highest honor it could receive, with his body made glorious, and that the glory of God would now be shown in the person of the Mediator, the one who stands between God and people, Emmanuel, God with us.

He does not ask to be glorified with the rulers and great men of this world. No, he knew both worlds, and if he had to choose where to be honored, he chose the glory of the world to come. That glory is far greater than any glory here. He had already refused the kingdoms of this world and their splendor when Satan offered them to him. Because of that, he could more boldly ask for the glory of the other world. Let the same mind be in us. “Lord, give the glory of this world to whom you will, but let me have my share in the world to come. It does not matter if people speak badly of me, but Father, glorify me with yourself.”

Next, notice what he pleaded: “I have glorified you, and now, because of that, glorify me.” There was fairness in this, and a beautiful fittingness. If God was glorified in Christ, then it was right that Christ should be glorified in God’s presence, as he had said before (John 13:32). What Christ did to glorify his Father was of such great worth that it deserved all the glory of his exalted state. If the Father gained glory through the Son’s humiliation, then the Son should not be left with less in the end.

This was also according to the covenant between them. If the Son would make his soul an offering for sin, he would divide the spoil with the strong, and the kingdom would be his (Isaiah 53:10, Isaiah 53:12). Christ kept this in view in his sufferings. He endured the cross for the joy set before him, and now in his exalted state he still waits for the full completion of his exaltation, because he finished the work given to him (Hebrews 10:13). It was also the clearest sign that his Father accepted and approved the work he had done. When Christ is glorified, we know that God was satisfied. That gives a real proof that the Father was pleased in him as his beloved Son.

From this we are taught that those, and only those, who glorify God on earth and keep doing the work God has given them, will be glorified with the Father when they are no longer in this world. We do not deserve that glory as Christ did, but our glorifying God is required as proof that we belong to Christ. Through him, eternal life is God’s free gift.