Chapter 17. It is not only blessedly true that we are a common object to the Father and the Son, but that Christ's, the Son's, interest is entirely in what belongs to the Father. This was His perfect place: " I pray for them; for they are thine." But this is part of the great truth that, while everywhere one with the Father, He in John takes the place of subjection and receiving (though He were Son). This is a very striking feature of this gospel, and of the Person of the Lord as with us; and even as to the truth (God is not the truth; He is the subject of it), though the truth be a thing in itself which the word tells, yet when applied to us. Christ sanctifies Himself, that we may be sanctified by the truth. Grace and truth came by Him; and now He sanctifies Himself, that it may be realized in us: “Which thing is true in him and in you; because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." God is true, but not the truth.
But other things are opening in the chapter, besides those heretofore found. What characterizes John's gospel in the most peculiar manner is the Son's being equal with the Father, one with Him, and yet at the same time subject to Him as Son upon earth; all His language that of equal with Him, yet doing nothing without Him; all in obedience, receiving all now. Evidences of this run through from the first chapter all on. Now, this is the case here. He is (though just going; the hour come) speaking in the world; and His disciples (save verse 24) looked at as in it. All the unities then are in the world, though the last be in glory. But the first is as the state from which the activity parts, not the activity itself; that begins verse 14. The Lord there looks that they may be one, “as we." Now, He is on earth, but one with the Father. Hence, through unity of nature and divine union in the Godhead, He has the purposes, objects, thoughts, way of feeling, seeing (to speak with human language), the same mind with the Father. He takes the place of service, but is one with the Father: “All mine are thine, and thine are mine." He looks for this for the apostles according to their places; not only one morally, as partakers of the divine nature, but through the Holy Ghost one and the same in all; and as filled with Him they should have complete unity, the Spirit being the source of a divine oneness in all their thoughts, mind, purposes, and way of thinking and feeling, as flowing from, and the mind given by, the Holy Ghost; several persons, but one in the Holy Ghost. Paul could say, “We have the mind of Christ" (the " nous ").
If all had this they were one; yet as receiving, of course, in their case, and in the place of service; but it was the mind for service that, as I said, comes in verse 14. In verse 21, as heretofore observed, those who believed through them are brought in, and it is in communion, not in the power that goes forth: " one in us." The same divine power of the Holy Ghost, but leading to this union in fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (compare 1 John 1:33That 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. (1 John 1:3)); one in worshipping, and conscious dwelling in God; for fellowship is also common thoughts, joys, feelings, mind, as to all we are occupied with. Only, as is manifest, all the fullness of this is in the Father and in the Son. We are in it to delight and worship and adore.
It is another thing to have the secret of the Lord, and go forth with it in power; yet here with no pretension, for in this unity it is common to all; yet hence evidently divine, for for fellowship one with another we must be in the light, as God is. The last is evident in the display in glory: " I in them, and thou in me " is the form it takes. The glory is the same. Still in it the Son displayed the Father, and He will be displayed in us; but then for that it must be the same glory, His glory, or He is not displayed; and then perfectly in result. They are kept in the name in which Christ knew the Father. They are kept in immediate relationship as children with the Father, and in the holiness of the divine nature; and so in the power of the Holy Ghost are one, nothing diverse entering in.
John 17 is a very remarkable chapter, not only for the rich food saints have long found in it, but for the place it puts the disciples in in connection with that Christ Himself was in (partly noticed in a previous paper in this volume). If we take the true reading to be “whom thou hast given me” (v. 9), as it seems all do (changed, doubtless, because they could not understand it) this becomes still more evident.
We have seen the special place of Christ in this gospel, one with the Father; God; the Word; but more, when the actual, present, concrete fact is brought forward, the Word is made flesh, and dwelt among us, was the Shechinah amongst us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of an only begotten para patros ("with a father"); von Sieten des Vaters ( from the side of a father). He represented the Father. He who had seen Him had seen the Father. The Father dwelt in Him, as He was always divinely in the Father. So John 1:1818No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18); chap. 3: 13; chap. 14: 20. But this is the other side of the truth, the divine side, so to speak. He stood there, however, recipient as Man, now and in glory (though He had had it before the world was). The Son represented Him personally, as He was in Him, and declared Him, as in His bosom, yet Son down here in Manhood. Words, glory, life, all is named; and so the Son is seen in John, though with reference to His eternal Sonship, in which He was one with the Father. “He hath given the Son to have life in himself"; "the words which thou gavest me," and so on.
Now, the-first unity in John 17 is connected with this: “Keep them in thy name" (that is, "Holy Father") "which thou hast given to me." Now, it is not that Christ was called Father, but that this blessed Man, the Lord from heaven, the Son, bore and presented that name (not Himself; the Father would glorify Him, He the Father), glorified it; He that had seen Him had seen the Father; had manifested this name to the men given to Him out of the world; would have them go directly to the Father, as themselves sons (of course in His name; that was the very power of it); so, "Because ye are sons, God hath put the Spirit of his Son-into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
This name, then, the Father had given to Him. All He did was in it, as He came in His Father's name. (The band came from the chief priests, and acted, not for themselves in anything, but wholly in the name of, and their actings were the actings of the chief priests.) “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." This was direct; the disciples dearly through Him, but as kept directly by the Father, whom they now knew: “Keep in thine own name which thou hast given me," and in which they were thus directly kept in immediate relationship and as conscious sons in communion, as filled with the Holy Ghost. Only the Son now, who once had kept them in the Father's name, now went up as Man ("I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee") into the glory He had with the Father before the world was, so as to be objectively with the Father, with whom He was always one. "I come to thee"; and they stood in His place, kept by the "Holy Father," in the name given to Christ to-make good, and which He had made good at all cost and perfectly in His Person in the world; and by this they were to be one.
"Thine are mine, and mine are thine," and He now, Christ the Son in Manhood, was now to be glorified in them in the power of the Holy Ghost, who was the Spirit of sonship, hence of association with Christ, [the] Son; but directly with the Father, because they were sons,-and represented Him whom the Father would glorify. And as they knew the Father, so the Holy Ghost took the things of Christ, and showed them to them. And all that the Father had was 'His, not as Christ, but as Son; more, “All that thou hast given me is of thee"; that is, the Father, not Jehovah, and He accounted as such. Thus they, representing Christ, would be one (in the power of the Holy Ghost), kept in the name given to Christ in this world; that is, to hear, reveal, and glorify by acting for it and its glory in everything. They were to glorify Christ, but then Christ bearing this name, as come in His Father's name; yet all that was the Father's His, and His the Father's; those He had specifically given Him by the Father; for all here is received, and the Father glorified by Him, and He to present them along with Himself (for we have not union here), "the Firstborn among many brethren."
Now, the first disciples were to carry this work on in this world; and as Christ, always in communion with His Father in His work, revealed Him, and carried His name before the world, so they would His Father's, and the Son's, the knowledge of which is life eternal. Being wholly this and in this, by and according to the power of the Holy Ghost, they were one (only in grace by the Holy Ghost); as we are in their place of service, and as led by the Holy Ghost. That was their place, though receiving all.
Now, the Lord directly connects it all with what He had, before the world was, with the Father, both at the beginning and end of the chapter. This gives a wonderful place to the disciples in the Lord's mind. It was noticed before, in the former part of the paper: their starting-point, Stellung (position), not the service itself, and a prayer that it might be their Zustand (condition); their place down here, and what was needed to connect it with Christ's place in heaven, with what went before; He being glorified is in what follows (vv. 14-19).
In the first unity (vv. 9-11), I find much more distinct Persons in Christ and the Father (though ever divinely one); but here, as Mediator, “I pray for those whom thou hast given me." Hence “Mine” and “Thine"; though all Mine Thine and Thine Mine. "They are Thine, and I" (not those that had been in Christ) "am glorified in them." “I am no more in the world." “I come to thee." Thus, though one, the distinction of the Persons (Jesus being as One that had been on earth, and had His place there as Man) is distinctly brought out; I do not mean merely in Godhead, but in the accomplished order of events. But then with this there was no difference or duality of counsels, work, whose were the Father's, whose (Christ's) all were; one and the same in thought, purpose, mind, and carrying out of work; though each had His place in carrying it out; and so by one Spirit, by the Holy Ghost come down, was it to be with the apostles. The unity of the person is merged in the community of work and mind.
In the second unity it is more absolute, what doctors call intercession. “As thou, Father, art in me." There was display and manifestation on earth in Christ. “I in thee." That was simply divine (compare chap. 14:10, both; verse 20, only the divine part). Here it is more absolutely divine in both parts, yet preserving Christ's personal place. Christians are to be one in them, Christ being gone on high so as to make it to be by faith and communion, not manifestation here. In this sense it is the highest, less earthly (and in one sense Jewish, and miraculous display on earth) than the first. “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."
The third comes to be manifestation again, only in glory; and only thus the Father in the Son: “I in them, and thou in me." This is not so simply divine, “Us," but it is divine in glory; for the Father is again seen in the Son, His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and His in us. The world will then know that the Father sent the Son, even the Lord Jesus.
In verse 24 we get it, not in unity of the Father and Son, but in heaven, and His personal glory, though now still given to Him; but as loved before the world (that rejected Him) was.