John 17
RESUMING from verse 6, the thread of the precious Saviour’s heavenly intercession, He declares that He had manifested the Father’s name to the men He had given to Him out of the world. He credits them with keeping the word that revealed the Father, and knowing that the Father was the divine Source of all things given to the Son in manhood here below, He judges of them according to the perfect communications which He had made to them rather than the measure in which they had apprehended those communications, in which indeed they were entirely defective. He presents them to the Father’s heart as fully recognizing that what had attracted them to the Son was the manifestation of the Father from whom He had come — He, the Son in manhood, obedient, dependent, and devoted, the Object of their faith.
In this blessed relationship and privilege the world could never share, nor does the Saviour demand it, but only concerning those who were given Him and are the Father’s. For they were the mutual objects of a love which found its source in the heart of the Father and of the Son who was glorified in them. They were left in the world for this purpose, but He was going out of it to the Father.
Observe that in manhood He could not remain in the world and go to the Father at the same time. The Father’s presence is outside of this time scene, in heaven itself.
But meanwhile, the Holy Father was to keep them in that relationship in which His own beloved Son had stood as Man on earth; so as to be in this world the one pattern family of men who are sons of the Father; while with them, the Son Himself had maintained them in the perfect blessedness of this relationship by virtue of His person. If Judas had been lost there were two reasons for it — his character corresponded with his fate; and the written Word of God was thereby fulfilled.
Hitherto the disciples had been kept in this divine relationship with the Father, but as babes unexercised and unintelligent; but now that Jesus was going to the Father, He made known these things in the world, so that the love of the Father intelligently perceived might fill their hearts with joy as it had filled His.
In chapter 15:11, His joy in them and their full joy is connected with the obedience of love. In chapter 16:24, it is the full joy of dependence — asking and receiving. In chapter 17:13, as we have seen, it is His joy in the love and relationship of the Father fulfilled in them. There only remains to add the full joy of communion with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:44And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. (1 John 1:4)).
The Word of God revealing the Father, given them in testimony, would bring the world’s hatred upon them; but in spite of this the world was to be the scene of testimony, and it was necessary that the witnesses should be kept from its evil. As Christ Himself, they were not of the world, but would need the power of the truth, revealing the Father, to separate them practically to Him.
Jesus sent them into the world to be living witnesses for Him, as He had testified of the Father. But in order that they might be sanctified in truth for this, He must set Himself apart on high for them, as the Object of their faith, and the heavenly pattern of their place and walk.
This passage (vers. 6-19), while its principles have a measure of application to all believers in the day of Christ’s rejection, has the eleven especially in view. But now Jesus expressly asks on behalf of believers in the apostolic testimony — first that there might be perfect fellowship together, and oneness in their place of testimony before the world, so as to produce the moral conviction that the Father had sent the Son; secondly, that they all might share the glory given Him, and thus be perfected into one, so that, each being glorified, the Christ-rejecting world might be compelled to recognize that the Father had sent His beloved Son, and had loved those who received Him as He had loved Jesus Himself. Their display in glory on high was the convincing proof that the rejected One whom they confessed was the Sent One of the Father of whom He testified, and that they, being with Him there, were loved as He was. They were the gift of the Father’s love to the Son, a gift which, because it was the Father’s, the Son desired to have ever near Himself and with Him where He was, so that they might behold His glory, the eternal glory of the Son, become now the heavenly display to these chosen ones of that eternal love of the Father to the Son, which otherwise could not be known.
The world had not known the Father, though Jesus had declared Him perfectly. On the other hand, Jesus, whom the world rejected, had known Him. Thus the break with the world was decisive and complete, and now its only possible relationship with the Father was as the Righteous and in judgment.
The disciples, feeble as they were, had known Jesus to be sent by the Father. This was the root of the matter, and the first principle necessary to the knowledge of the Father. In so far, therefore, and fully as regards Himself personally, Jesus had made known to them the Father’s name. But more, He would make it known to them from His heavenly place in a glorified Man, so that being in them, not now with them on the earth, the same love with which the Father had loved Him should be in them, for the character of the beloved Son would be in them to call it forth and respond to it.
This closes the revelation of the Father; then, personally, in Jesus; afterward, in testimony by the Spirit to the exalted and glorified Son in manhood. All that remained was for the world to consummate its iniquity, and the disciples to be established in their new position by a risen Christ.
Jesus now leaves Jerusalem. It was night; but the place to which He went was well known to Him. The city was given up to its fate; and He was going outside the gate to suffer.
W. T. W.