The Glory of the Church in Jesus Christ - Now and Forever

“Unity in Christ”

(John 17:1-24, Dec. 30, 2007)

John 17:1-24 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴ I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. ⁶ "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. ⁸ For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. ¹¹ And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. ²⁰ "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Introduction – The hour of His coming, but now another hour has come…

The entire Christian church has recently been rejoicing in the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Savior of the world. The hour of His coming was not random or purposeless. The Bible tells us that the Father sent His Son at the fullness of time. There are many things in the outworking of God’s great plans that were perfect for the birth of Jesus Christ. It was the right hour. That hour of His coming was followed some thirty years later by another hour that had been long decreed by God. When Jesus’ brothers wanted Him to go to Jerusalem in John 7, the Lord indicated his awareness that the time was not yet right for that second hour, the fulfillment of His mission. He said, “My time has not yet come.” Here in John 17 Jesus is well aware that the hour for the cross has now come. Therefore, he leads His disciples in a solemn prayer, as the most intense battle of His ministry is about to take place.

For the Father and the Son (1-5)

What does the Lord pray for in that hour? First He prays concerning His Father and Himself. He says, “Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.” The glory of God is God’s chief concern in all that He does, and it is clear that this should be the concern of all men. By the “glory” of God, we mean all the greatness and goodness of God made obvious before human beings. The glory of God changes people. That changing process is not just a one-time event at your conversion. The life that we have in Christ is a life of growing in the glory of God as we walk toward the day of our final glorification in the return of Christ. Christ was glorified both in the cross and the resurrection.

Many people stumble in their hearts at things like the resurrection of Jesus or the final resurrection of the dead at His return or the reality of eternal life in resurrection bodies. These have always been hard things for people to believe who can’t seem to hear the Word of God with faith. In the first five verses of this chapter, Jesus is praying about these things in the hearing of others. Does it help you to remember that Jesus believed in these things enough to pray about them when other people were listening? He is boldly asking the Father to glorify the Son. He refers to an earlier glory. Jesus was full of surpassing glory before the world existed.

What is all this glory, glorifying, and glorification? We in this world have a hard time even knowing what we are talking about when we use the word “glory.” Perhaps it would help to consider something by contrast that is all around us, something that is decidedly not glorious, something that Jesus had to face. We know that in just a short time the body of Jesus will be placed in a tomb. Can we all agree that a lifeless body in a tomb is not outwardly glorious? The glory that God has for His Son is different that that. This is a very obvious contrast, but now we can back up a step and remind ourselves that for all the years since Jesus spoke these words, billions of bodies have been made by God. Billions have lived their appointed years on this earth (Mathematicians and scientists today estimate that between 50 and 110 billion people have been born on earth), and billions of bodies have been placed lifeless in the grave or had some worse end. The mortal bodies we are currently blessed with are subject to disease and injury. Even if you lived as long as Methuselah, the evidence is that one day you will die. Glory is something more than that, and the ultimate glory that Jesus prays about is something wonderful, bright, and eternal, something having to do with God’s greatness and goodness and life being made wonderfully visible to us, something that the Lord set aside when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. He became subject to death for us.

There was a different glory that Jesus had while on earth. It was the glory of mission, and it can only be seen by faith. The glory of mission often looks like failure. Jesus glorified His Father on earth with the perfect accomplishment of the work that the Father gave Him, yet there was apparently a greater glory for the Son of God prior to His conception. Here He makes His prayer in the hearing of others for a return to His earlier eternal glory.

You and I did not have any prior glory or existence before our birth. This is a difference between us and Jesus Christ. If you consider the creation account, Adam did not exist spiritually prior to the creation of His body. It is God who breathed the spirit of life into Adam. Jesus, as the Son of God, had a pre-existent Spirit. This one God-Man was given authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him. What is eternal life? At least one aspect of it is to know the Father and the Son. If God has given you the gift of knowing Jesus as the unique Son of God and of knowing the Father, then you have Christ’s gift of eternal life. Romans 1 tells us that everyone knows God in a way, though people suppress the knowledge of God in unrighteousness, because they do not want to worship Him or obey Him, except in the most superficial or ceremonial way. This is obviously not a saving knowledge. The saving knowledge that is eternal life is to know the Lord, to love Him, and to follow Him.

For the Son and His apostles (6-19)

Beginning in verse 6, Jesus prays for His disciples. He first prays for those who have been with Him for His three years of ministry. Do you see the connection between Jesus and His disciples according to this prayer? They belong to Jesus – “Yours they were,” he prays, “and you have given them to Me.” Jesus is also the source of saving knowledge for them through the Word that He has spoken to them from the Father.

So many times in the gospels Jesus is said to go off to a private place to pray. When He does this we do not often have much of an indication of what He prayed. Here we get the actual prayer that He prays for His disciples. His prayer exposes that there is an intense spiritual warfare going on. In this warfare there is an evil one who is trying to destroy them. There is also a world that they can so easily slide into, like spineless jelly into a mold. Jesus prays for these disciples that they will be kept in the name of God, and that they will not be lost to the devil and to the world. The powerful weapon that is given from God to do this battle is the Word, which Jesus has given to His disciples. By using this glorious Word of truth, God can set apart these disciples from the devil and the world. This is what Jesus asks the Father to do. They have a job to do in the world, just as the Lord had a job to do in the world. He is almost finished with that job. He will soon consecrate Himself to a death that we deserved. This will be his one great act of obedience. Without this death, the disciples of Jesus cannot be sanctified in truth. With the consecration of Jesus to His death, these hand-picked followers will be set apart for the Word.

For the Son and for those who will believe (20-23)

Armed with this powerful Word, the disciples will go out into the world and do something that will last. There will be new disciples, centuries of disciples, who will hear the God-given Word of Christ that the disciples will preach. Millions like us will believe in Jesus through their Word. Then these millions will know the Father and the Son, which will be eternal life for them. Then the church will be one – one in the word of the death of the cross, and one in the life of Jesus the Son of God. On that day there will be perfect unity of the church in Christ, a unity that Jesus prayed for, and a unity that we seek even now.

All in Christ are made for glory. In Christ we have a surprisingly glorious mission and a more visibly glorious destiny. Christ has given us a certain glory now like the glory that the Father gave to the Son in sending Him. It is the glory of a Word to believe in and the glory of a work to be accomplished, a mission to perform. When we are one in Christ, then the world will know that the Father sent the Son, and that the Father loves us as He loves the Son.

Another hour is yet coming (24)

When Jesus was born, that was one hour – the hour of the Savior’s birth. When Jesus died that was another powerful hour – the hour of atonement for the sins of the world. The resurrection of Jesus assures us of the coming of yet another great hour – the hour of the greatest life for the church. Jesus had the glory of mission during His earthly ministry, and He has granted to us who are in Christ that glory. He asked His Father for another glory in this prayer and He has now entered into that glory. In the final verse of this passage He asked the Father that we all may be with Him where He is in that great final and visible glory. If we are in Him in that coming hour, then we will see Him who is the very glory of God. Let us be one in Christ in this church, and let us be One in Him with every other assembly who will love the Savior and His Word, that God might be glorified in our brief lives here, and in eternity.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What is the meaning of this petition: “Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You?”

2. What are the most significant “hours” or events for Christ? What are they for any Christian?

3. What were the petitions of Jesus’ prayer for His current disciples?

4. What were His petitions for later disciples who would believe in Him through the word of the earlier disciples?