John 17.
JESUS now turns His regard heavenwards. The world, and even His disciples, as being yet among them, disappear from His view. His gaze is fixed alone upon His Father, and exclusively to Him His words were spoken, though in the hearing of His disciples.
The hour was come to present man in heavenly glory as the beloved Son with the Father. This He had already been in manhood on the earth, but to be with the Father, both in presence as well as place, He must needs be glorified on high. Moreover, this was necessary if the Father was to be glorified in respect of those whom He had given to the Son, and to whom the Son would give eternal life.
For this purpose the Father had given Him authority over all flesh, not confined to His humbled and rejected state on earth, or to the earthly promises and the narrow limits of Judaism, but to be exercised especially on high. For He would exercise this authority in grace by giving eternal life; and the form which this must take would be the knowing the only true God as the Father and Jesus Christ the Sent One as the Son.
This was a relationship quite foreign to the Jew, and, of course, more so to the Gentile, who was without God in the world. It was the deity known according to its own essential relationships, a revelation which the first man, innocent or guilty, never had until the Sent One came, and then only to reject it; or, as in the disciples’ case, fail to perceive it. Yet, as to these last, grace dealt with them, as the passage shows (vers. 6-8), according to its own thoughts, and not according to their perceptions.
But Jesus must now be glorified in order that this blessing might be extended to all those given Him by the Father. For eternal life was not especially for Jews, even though believing, nor in this form was it peculiar to earth, nor were earthly distinctions recognized in it. Dispensations were a thing apart. It was essentially heavenly and that which was with the Father.
The legal system, therefore, must be disowned; the earthly promises and Messiah’s rights passed by, merged in that which was ever His proper and divine relationship as the eternal Son, though now in manhood, with the Father.
If as Son of the Father He desires the place of heavenly glory, it is that He may glorify the Father in accomplishing the counsels of His grace. As in humiliation on the earth, He had already glorified the Father personally in all His character and nature, so that in seeing Him the Father had been seen. Moreover, He had finished the work which the Father had given Him to do on earth. As divinely as the Father who dwelt in Him had given the words and works, so perfectly had He in obedience uttered them from first to last. It is not here, God glorified and in consequence the Son of man glorified straightway according to His counsels concerning man; but the Father glorified, and the Son gone back in manhood into His own proper personal glory and place which He had in the presence of the Father before the world was.
Thus far (vs. 5) Jesus had spoken solely of Himself, and in dependence asks for that glory which was eternal and essentially divine at His Father’s hand, on account of what He personally was to the Father — His Son; and of what He had done for the Father in completing the work given Him to do. His thoughts now turn towards His disciples — the men whom the Father had given Him out of the world. Up to verse 19 the apostolic company is specially in question; first as a pattern of Christian oneness kept in relationship with the Father — one as the Father and the Son; secondly, as in testimony before the world. After this the Saviour (vs. 20) provides also for those believing on Him through the word of the apostles. Here it is not so much a pattern company in which divine oneness and relationship with the Father are displayed, but rather a perfect oneness among themselves of nature and communion, deriving its character from the Father and the Son, in testimony before the world; so that it should believe that Jesus was the Sent One of the Father.
But another scene opens to the eyes of Jesus, not an opposing, ruined world, and a testimony in the midst of it to what heavenly grace can do. It is now the glory given Him that shines before His heart, precious as His Father’s gift. This He bestows upon His loved ones, in order that a divine oneness might be realized as to them in glory. It is not nature and communion that is here the special point, as previously; nor a realization, in a pattern company, of the special Christian and divine relationship with the Father and the Son, as in the case of the apostles. It is not position on high in the life and relationship of the exalted Son, true as that is. He says not, “I in My Father and ye in Me and I in you”; but, “I in them and Thou in Me.” The believers are viewed here on high indeed, but before a world, not believing, it may be, but astonished and convinced that the rejected Christ was the Father’s Sent One; while those who through grace received Him were loved as He was loved. The glory in which each was personally perfected was the public proof that Christ was in them and the Father in Him. It is not the heavenly position known only to faith by the Spirit, but the unmistakable, because glorious, display of this, which every eye must needs take cognizance of; for the saints are individually perfected into one manifested company.
One more desire fills up the Saviour’s requests; viz., that where He is they also whom the Father has given Him may be with Him, so as to behold His glory — a glory which has been given Him doubtless as in manhood, but not connected with this world, for it is the manifestation of a love which existed before its foundation and was eternal.