Three distinct periods are embraced in these few verses. The first (Irv. 20, 21) is that of the Church—from Pentecost until the Lord’s return; and the prayer of our Lord is, that all His people might be one, “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us;” and He desires this exhibition of oneness as a testimony to the world; nay, as a means of convincing the world that the Father had sent Him.
The second period is that of the display of the saints in glory with Christ, sharing with Him, by His grate, the glory which the Father had given Him, “ that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one;” and thus to certify to the world, as they behold this wondrous display, that the Father had sent the Son, and that He had loved the saints, whom the world had despised, in the same way as He had loved the Son when He was upon the earth. We know this now; and the world will know it when the Lord Jesus comes to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that have believed. (2 Thessalonians 1) The twenty-fourth verse embraces eternity; and what a precious unfolding of grace and truth it contains! The saints have, been given to Christ by the Father; the Lord wills that they shall be with Him where He is, that they may behold His glory—the glory given to Him of the Father (see v. 5), because He had been the object of the Father’s heart from all eternity. What blessed fields of meditation! And what an anticipation of eternity is permitted us as we traverse them with reverent adoration! And what abounding grace that has admitted us to listen to these intimate communing’s of the Son with the Father!
E. D.