In the first five verses of John 17 the Lord Jesus takes His place. He does so on a double ground—first on that of being Son; and then on His work; so that we get the relationship and the title to being there. “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.” Next He says, “I have finished the work which thou gavest Me to do.”
First, He speaks of His Person in relationship to His Father: “Glorify thy Son:” not glorify thy servant, though servant He had become. He adds, then the work. Therefore, putting Christ into this place, you have the double ground of being there. He is looked at as Son and man, and is put there in virtue of the work He has accomplished.
Then we find what is true everywhere, but strikingly so in John, that, while the Lord speaks in familiarity with the Father, as an equal, He never goes out of the place of an obedient servant. You never find Him taking Himself out of the place He has taken as man. “He made Himself of no reputation,” He never goes out of it. He drinks of the brook in the way, and lifts up His head.
Then you see what eternal life is, the place that He had gone into and takes us into. The revelation of the Father and the Son, the Son going as man to the Father. He is that eternal life that was with the Father, and this eternal life is developed and unfolded from the Father by the Son. Thus He has given Him power over all flesh, that is, Christ’s authority over all men, and then, to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him.
He first speaks of His disciples (verse 6) who were actually they given Him, and then goes on to those who should believe on Him through their word. Of course this takes in all His people. The Father revealed in the Son is the complete absolute revelation of all God’s thoughts of the Son. The name and revelation we have in Christ carries eternal life with it. When I get the Father revealed in the Son, it is sending eternal life here; “that which was from the beginning... that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”
And, therefore, this name of Father and Son is eternal life come in man, in the person of Jesus Christ: no other revelation of God ever gave that.
It is, indeed, a very solemn thing to think that the Lord opens out everything that we have here in this chapter, not as spoken to us, but we have His mind and feelings about it with His Father; we are admitted to hear what He says to the Father. The object is to give “eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him,” and this is eternal life, knowing the Father and the Son. A person may obey Jehovah, and yet not have eternal life at all, because that is God’s government. Everything has come out, as it were, now. Things will not come out in the millennium as they do now: they will believe when they see, but “blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.” The veil was rent for us. In the millennium men will not be conformed to the image of His Son, nor be in heavenly places. It is the moment for us (all our spiritual state depends on it) to realize the place we have been brought into, under these names of the Father and the Son. Of the rest, “No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” And then when I receive it, that is eternal life; and “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” It came down from the Father and the eon, and it is revealed now. We stand in an eternal state in connection with Godhead, as Godhead is in itself.
Through incarnation the Son is become a man (Matt. 3). He is baptized with the baptism of John, which was a baptism of repentance: of course there was no need of it in Him, for with Him it was fulfilling righteousness. And Christ comes: that was the door for entering in, and He comes in by the door, though He had nothing to confess. He is doing His Father’s will, and He goes and puts Himself with these poor penitents, and takes the place with His people. The moment He does so, we see that the heavens were opened unto Him, opened to a man upon the earth, a thing which had never been before.
In Christ God did come out, and, now that He has gone up, man is gone in, the veil being rent.
See it marked in the last verses of Matt. 3. It is the first time the Trinity is revealed, and it is in connection with Christ being a man: the Holy Ghost comes and descends on Him, and the Father owns Him from heaven. This could not be for its without redemption. But Christ stood personally as man in it. He gives us our place with the Father and our place with the devil, for we have to do with both while on the earth. If the angels want to see God, He says “seen of angels” in a man. But with us now it is through the Holy Ghost come down.
“Him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27). As regards ourselves, of course, redemption was needed to get into that place: He was “the First-born among many brethren.” We are united to Him by the Holy Ghost, but then this is from heaven. He must take man into heaven, and then we by the Holy Ghost are associated with Him there, though still walking here.
You always find the person of the Lord: however much He is bringing us into the same place, His person is always kept safe. For instance, the heaven is as much opened to Stephen as to Christ, but the difference is that, with Christ, He does not need to look up to heaven to get an object to change Him into the same image, but He is the object for heaven. So again, Moses and Elias were talking with Him in glory; but when Peter puts them on a level, they disappear altogether, and a voice comes out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son.”
Till redemption was accomplished. He abode alone: “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” Christ did become a man, and was totally alone. Puseyism makes the sacraments the continuation of the incarnation, to communicate life to us. It leaves out the necessity of redemption. If all my sins are not put away forever, something must be done to put them away. It thus becomes looking at the work of the Spirit in us, instead of the sacrifice. But if I have Christ’s life, I have responsibility according to the new condition I am in, to walk as He walked (Phil. 2:15).
In verse 3 He still speaks of Himself as the sent One (verses 4, 5); that is, having accomplished this work, He goes back as man into the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. This gives us (1) the person, and (2) the work, and (3) a man gone into glory. And now He comes making it known to us; He first lays the foundation in His person and work, and then He brings us into it.
“Thy name” (verse 6) is the Father’s name. Grace with us is always the Father and the Son. He has nothing to do with the world now; and “not of the world” is the Lord’s word about us.
If you keep the word “Father” in mind, it is simple (verse 7). The Jews were looking for Jehovah to do great things in and by the Messiah on earth, but it is not the Messiah now: the Father had given great things to the Son. We know it by the Holy Ghost. We have got into the place; the name of the Father has been manifested to us by Christ (verse 8), and now He gives us the communications belonging to that place. All that the Father communicated to the Son as a man on this earth He had communicated to them; afterward, by the Holy Ghost came out the other things as to His glory in heaven. All that the Father communicated to Him as a man on the earth, He passes on to the disciples.
“The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” When it is a question of the world, He says, “O righteous Father” (verse 10). Persons who really believe in the Father thus sending the Son, which is grace, are not of the world... The prayer here is to show the place of the Christian: no Jewish believer had an atom of that. He only prays for believers now. He sends out the message of “salvation” to the world, but He prays not for the world but for believers, and this in connection with the place they are brought into. It is when they are actually there that they become the true subject for Christ’s praying. It is very beautiful—wherever you find Christ bringing us in after that way, you find Him in identity with the Father.
There are two reasons: first, “for they are Thine” (verse 9), and secondly, “I am glorified in them.”
Verse 10. As a Father, if you care about My glory you must care for the children, because I am glorified in them. Their connection with the Father and Himself is the motive for praying for them.
Verse 11. This gave the actual position. He is in heaven and we are in the world though not of it. We are kept in the name of the “Holy Father;” we are sons, put in the place of Christ in this world, and He looks that we should be kept for this place as sons in holiness. Christians are holy brethren.
Verses 12, 13. He is putting thorn into His own place directly with the Father, “that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Of course Judas could not come in.
There are three unities here, but no church-unity. John never deals with the church, but with the family: first, the apostles; next, those who believe through their means; and then, the unity in glory. First, “as we are;” second, “in us;” third, the unity of the glory. The first is simply “that they may be one as we are” (verse 11), Having the same divine nature as Christ, and one Holy Ghost, there is the practical unity that flows from Him. The apostles were full of the Holy Ghost—no difference of counsel and mind; that did not go beyond them. Then the second unity (verse 21) is “that they may be one in us”—is what the apostle says in 1 John 1, “that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” They come into the same place through the means of the apostles, as brought into fellowship with the Father and the Son, That is what the world would believe. They see this unity as those that are gathered. There was the witness of a motive, and relationship which took them clean out of the world and left the world behind; and therefore “that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” This unity of the children of God was the witness that there was a power which brought together into relationship, and yet the world had nothing whatever to say to it... You get on with Christians first-rate in the train; but if you were out together, you might be walking on the other side of the road. If people walk together every day, they have all their corners knocking against each other: so much the better if grace act!
In verse 14 He takes the opposite position. Down to the end of verse 13 He had given them the words that the Father had given Him to bring them into complete communion with the Father and Himself; here He gives them the word and the place He had in the world; “the world hath hated them.” For privileges, it is “thy words:” for testimony, “thy word.” If Christ was in communion with the Father, He was in testimony to the world. He will eventually take the world for His inheritance; but the world now is neither His place nor ours.
The third unity is verse 23—the Father revealed in the Son, and the Son glorified in the saints. When we appear in the same glory as Christ, then the world will know that we have been loved as Christ is loved; it is in glory.
Thus we have seen, 1st, unity of the apostles, the Holy Ghost; 2nd, unity of faith, fellowship with the Father and the Son, not coming down, but going up to Him in spirit; 3rd, unity of glory, that the world may know. The unity of communion, is that the world may believe (verse 21); the unity of glory is that the world may know (verse 23).
Having this place we come out as it were from Christ, “as Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world”—the epistle of Christ.
Verse 14. We come out from Christ into the world, just as Christ came out from the Father into the world. He has put them in His own place with the Father; (all being accomplished now), He puts them in His place with regard to the world. Yet we are in it, and have natures susceptible to its defilements. Whenever the world affects our dress, tone, house, &c., it so far destroys our testimony. They come forth from Christ to testify that the works thereof are evil. Well, if I say that, and go and do the same, I destroy my testimony. We have ever to watch against the language of men, for the word is the index of the mind. The language of the world is formed on the spirit, feeling, and mind of the world. Not that we are taken out of it; we have to go through it as other people. But all this should come from Christ, and not from the world we are in; everything should do so, for a straw shows which way the wind blows.
There is no way but the truth (verse 17). How am I to run but by Him? Then I get “sanctify them through thy truth,” etc. It is the Father’s truth, “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, etc., is not of the Father.”
People say, “Did not God create these things?” But that is not my relationship with Christ and the Father. The Spirit is the opposite of the flesh, the Son of Satan, and the Father of the world. Christ comes forth from the Father, and comes into the world, and the world rejects Him, and He goes back as rejected by the, world into the Father’s house, and sets up anew by His own person. The Father’s truth is what comes from the Father as having glorified Christ, when the world rejected Him. “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me,” and again, as regards the world, “righteous Father:” you must choose between Him and the world. The world and the Father came to a direct question in the cross, besides redemption. The Father’s delight He had to take out of the world, because the world would not have Him; and we have now His place both before the Father and before the world. Blessed privilege: solemn responsibility!
“The truth” is the Father’s mind revealed in Christ, and the word of God, and come down to us to form us into this place into which we are brought by redemption. It is “the truth.” There is no truth anywhere but in the WORD of God. I don’t call the law truth in this way. It was perfectly right, but truth is not what ought to be, but what is, Christ says what is, He reveals what the Father is. This full truth, that has come out through Christ who is the truth, is the thing that separates us from the world. Did not God give the things in the world? To be sure He did, but where do you find that here? It is the use I make of the things, not whether God gave them.
Cain went out from the presence of the Lord: it was all over with him. He had nothing more to say to God; but he cannot have a dull, stupid city, so he must have musical instruments, and he makes the city pleasant “without God.” “What is the harm?” The world is using these things to make itself as comfortable and as pleasant as it can “without God.” This is the harm. I could not be in fellowship with that and the Father’s truth, the place He has put us in Christ, and Jesus Himself, as the only One God can recognize.
You must get the Father’s “truth” to run the right path through the things in which we have to live.
There is a blessed and beautiful thing added to this, Christ saying (verse 19), “for their sakes I sanctify myself,” etc. I see a person as well as a revelation, in whom all truth is—a person who is separate from all the evil, in the blessed full result of all the good, and in a place where His perfect love to me has brought a man. I see this heavenly man to give a spring to the truth. All the blessedness of Christ is what my soul is formed to in the truth. All this is upon earth, both parts of it, our fellowship with the Father, and our testimony too.
It is only four times that He speaks of our having anything to do with heaven (verse 24). To behold His glory is a deeper blessing and joy than to share the glory. The point Christ takes is this, I have come into the world, I have revealed Thee, and the world won’t have it. Well, the world must be judged, and now He says, I want to have them where I am. I get two things: first, the world in question, “are You going to approve the world and let Me be put to death? or are You going to put your seal upon me?”
It is not merely a question of right, but He was the object of the Father’s delight before the world came into existence at all, and we are to see Him in that glory. Glory before the world was (verse 5), and loved before the world (verse 24). He brings us into this knowledge of the person of Christ where He is now gone, just as you see in Prov. 8. Before ever the world existed, He was the Father’s delight, and His delight was with the sous of men. In giving the world up, He takes them into that place where He was the object of the Father’s delight before ever the world was: — “That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me, may be in them, and I in them.” When Christ appears to the world, then the world will know that we are loved as Christ is loved. But when I am taken into glory, I see Christ loved, and His glory that He had before the world was; and meanwhile I don’t wait till the world knows about the love (verse 26), but even now and here I know that I am loved as Christ was loved. We do know we are loved as Christ was loved when here. The world will know it when we appear in the same glory, but I know it now by the relationship in which He has set me, and by the Holy Ghost. Ours ought not to be a religion of regrets, but a rejoicing of heart continually, the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
The moment I get it all grace, I have dropped the question of what I am except as exalting the love. You see it in the poor prodigal. It was not a question of how he had behaved, but just what was in the Father’s heart. Till he got to his Father, he was reasoning about the fact of what he was, mixed up with the Father’s love. He hoped to get some kind of place. He was only reasoning from himself; he had set out, but he had not met his Father yet. When people are reasoning and thinking how they will be received, it proves they have not got to the Father at all. Souls in that state have not got to the Father. I do not say they are not on the way, or not quickened. The moment you get what the Father is, and giving all, it is a question of what is in the Father’s heart, His inclination and mind, what He likes to give and nothing less. Eph. 2. If God has shown “the exceeding riches of His grace,” it is not a question of what we deserve. “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26).