SERMON: “The Son’s Prayer and Glory” (John 17:1–5)
“The Son’s Prayer and Glory” (John 17:1–5)
Series: “John:
Life in Christ’s Name” Text:
John
17:1–5
By: Shaun
Marksbury Date:
November
3, 2024
Venue: Living
Water Baptist Church Occasion:
AM Service
I.
Introduction
In this chapter, we read the longest recorded prayer of our
Lord Jesus, and we see in it a picture of sinless prayer from the sinless
one. There are many important truths to
take away from this chapter.
First, this is a prayer of intercession. Jesus is praying for His disciples (vv. 6–19) and, indeed, for all
believers (vv. 20–26). We might also see here a model if we want to
pray for others, but this is a prayer that reminds us that Jesus is constantly interceding
for us, even now. John 17 is often
called the “Holy of Holies of sacred Scripture,”[1]
it’s the prayer of our Great Hight Priest, standing in the gap between us and
the Father. There’s a tremendous comfort
in knowing our loving Lord intercedes for us.
Second, this is a prayer of preparation. After this chapter, we will begin reading
about the arrest and trials of Jesus. It
moves from Jesus’s shout of victory over the world in 16:33 to Jesus’s work on
the cross.[2] This prayer shows us how the Lord prepared
Himself (cf. vv. 1–5) and His disciples for His departure.
As we consider these verses, listen to the communion between
the Son and the Father. Here, Jesus
prays not only for Himself but also for His disciples and for all believers. Today, let’s focus on the first five verses,
which reveal four aspects of Jesus, the Son of God: His prayer, His authority,
His work, and His glory. Let’s consider the
first of these.
II.
First, Note the Son’s Prayer (v. 1)
Jesus spoke these
things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come;
glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,
This prayer comes at a critical moment — after Jesus has
taught His disciples extensively and prepared them for His departure. He now turns His attention to the Father. Christ’s prayers were consistently linked to
His teaching — serving as an essential reminder to us that we must intercede
for those we minister to. Let’s break
down this verse as we consider this.
First, what are the “things” Jesus just spoke? This is essentially His completed teaching, perhaps
everything He’s taught since chapter 13 or 14. This is a prayer after Jesus’s teaching as
well as other aspects of that evening such as the Lord’s Supper, [3] giving
us an example of seeking God’s guidance to apply His divine truth to our hearts.
It’s generally a good practice, then,
that we pray after each aspect of the worship service!
As Jesus prays, He lifts up His eyes to heaven. This was seen in that day as giving “one’s
full attention to God;”[4] as Psalm
25:1 says, “To You, O Lord, I lift
up my soul.” It’s a perfectly good
prayer position for us, among many that we can take.
With the simple word, “Father,” Jesus begins His High Priestly
prayer. It’s worth briefly considering
the Trinity again here. Jesus isn’t
praying to Himself; He’s praying to the Father.
However, that doesn’t make Him less God; He is only subservient in His incarnate
flesh.
To say this another way, this is a picture of the
relationship the Son has with the Father.
Just as we often reject phone calls from numbers we don’t recognize, Jesus
would not be able to approach the Father in prayer were it not for their
pre-existing relationship. It is on the
basis of belief in the Son that we, too, can approach the Father.
It’s important here to also note that Jesus’s prayer anticipates
His own sacrifice. He’s fully aware that
the “hour” has arrived. This is a time
appointed from eternity for Him to fulfill His mission on the cross. The “hour” He refers to is the culmination of
His obedience and faithfulness, an hour where His suffering will ultimately
result in His and the Father’s glorification.
This is the work we look back upon and place our trust in
for our own salvation from sin. Were it
not for the redemption Jesus won us on the cross and the new life He gained us in
His resurrection, we would still be in our sins. We’ll note more about this in a few minutes,
but it’s through our trust in the finished work of Christ we can gain eternal
life.
We might expect something different than what comes next: Jesus
prays for Himself, referring to Himself in the third person. He says, “Glorify Your Son.” This means to exalt a person to a place of respect,
but this prayer is not merely a plea for self-honor. He may be referring to His coming work on the
cross — the glory of Christ redeeming sinners from sin — or to the resurrection
— the glory of Christ’s victory over death.
Yet, this looks even further to His ascension, when Jesus was exalted above
every name in heaven and on earth!
We know that this isn’t a self-centered prayer because Jesus
says there’s a point to His glorification.
He says, “Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You.” This is a
mutual glorification, for Jesus’s coming death, resurrection, and ascension reveals
God’s glory to the world. This glory, as
theologians note, includes both the revelation of divine grace and power
through His suffering and the eventual exaltation that will draw all men to God.[5]
That’s just the beginning of the prayer! Consider how this ties in with another prayer. This prayer follows aspects of what we often
call “The Lord’s Prayer,” or sometimes, “The Disciples’ Prayer.” That prayer begins, “Our Father, which art in
heaven,” and here, Jesus lifts up His eyes to heaven and addresses the
Father. That prayer also continues, “Thy
will be done,” and Jesus here says that “the hour is come” (referring to the
Father’s foreordained plan). That model prayer
also says, “Give us this day our daily bread,” a section for personal requests,
and Jesus here asks the Father to glorify Him.
The prayer concludes, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory,” and Jesus prays His goal to glorify the Father!
Now, there are key differences between Jesus and ourselves,
of course! He is the preincarnate Son of
God, and He came to earth with a special authority. Let’s consider that next.
III.
Second, Note the Son’s Authority (vv. 2–3)
even as You gave
Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have
given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may
know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Jesus declares that He possesses authority over “all flesh.”
His authority is divinely appointed, for
the purpose of granting eternal life to those chosen by God. Here, we see a clear connection between God’s
sovereignty in salvation and Christ’s role as the life-giver.
Jesus continues to refer to Himself in the third person. He says that the Father has granted Him
authority, something He’s said before. In
John 3:35, He says. “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His
hand.” This is an aspect of the glory that
Jesus Christ already had at this point.
That becomes clear as we note that this authority is over
all flesh. As one study notes, “Jesus
has performed miracles and exorcisms, and He even demonstrated His power to
raise someone from the dead. God also created the world through Him, which
means that He is the ruler of it (1:1–3).”[6] Even after Christ’s exaltation, we read that
He is “at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and
authorities and powers had been subjected to Him” (1 Pet. 3:22). So, this is an ongoing authority.
Yet, this is not simply an affirmation of Christ’s
sovereignty. There is a segment of “all
flesh” that the Father calls the Son to consider — “to all whom You have given
Him” Jesus is not accomplishing work for
Judas Iscariot, for instance, as v. 12 notes.
This is an aspect of the Father’s sovereignty in salvation because these
are the ones of all flesh which will receive eternal life.
Jesus came for His people, for His sheep. In John 6:37, 39, Jesus says, “All that the
Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly
not cast out. … This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has
given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” This is taught in other places in the New Testament,
such as Ephesians 1:3–6:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons
through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to
the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the
Beloved.
Those who receive eternal life are ultimately the ones the
Father gives to the Son. They are chosen
of the Father in love, elect before the foundation of the world. And Jesus says that His authority at this
point isn’t to condemn unbelievers, but to grant those that are the Father’s
eternal life (cf. John 3:17).
What is eternal life, though? Verse 3 gives defines it for us in a profound
way — “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You
have sent.” Eternal life is not simply
an unending existence; it is instead a deeply personal and relational knowledge
of God. It is life of communion with
Him. This means that eternal life is
something we experience now.
Jesus affirms that there is no other God besides God. Yet, He also claims pre-existence in this
verse and section. That is why it’s important
to work through basic Trinitarian categories — though Jesus is God, He is not a
separate god from God the Father. The
three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) exist in a perfect
harmony so that there is only one God.
The Father sent the Son.
Jesus’s apostleship from the Father is vital in this chapter (vv. 8, 21,
23, 25). He is the one through whom we
know the Father. Jesus calls Himself the
Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God.
As 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” We
don’t need anyone else — Jesus is the revelator of the Father and the one with
the authority to grant eternal life.
Knowing the only true God is the essence of eternal life,
and this is the reason the Father sent the Son.
He came as an apostle of the Father, fulfilling a certain created purpose. It is that work to which we turn next:
IV.
Third, Note the Son’s Work (v. 4)
I glorified You on
the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.
Here, Jesus testifies that He completed the work given to
Him. Though the cross lies just ahead,
He speaks with certainty, knowing that His obedience will fulfill God’s
redemptive plan. This statement is a
precursor to His declaration on the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). In completing His work, Jesus glorified the
Father by revealing God’s character, His compassion, and His justice.
Jesus switches from the third person to the first, even using
an emphatic pronoun of Himself here in the original language. He
came to accomplish the deeds of Scripture and the Father (Luke 22:37; John 4:34).
It’s through this work that the granting of eternal life is possible.
How is that? John MacArthur explains that in his commentary:
Though Jesus was sinless, God treated Him as if He had committed the
sins of everyone who would believe in Him, so that believers, though
unrighteous, could be treated as if they had lived Christ’s perfect life.
Again, 2 Corinthians 5:21 succinctly summarizes that glorious truth: “He [the
Father] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Christ’s willingness to be a
sin-bearing sacrifice on the cross was the ultimate demonstration of His
complete commitment to obey the Father, as well as the ultimate expression of
His love for sinners (cf. John 15:13).[7]
So, for us, we must trust in the finished work of Christ. Both His active obedience (fulfilling
all righteousness on our behalf) and His passive obedience (bearing our
sins on the cross) are complete. There
is no work left for us to accomplish for salvation; rather, we are called to
live in light of His completed work.
Jesus followed the Father’s will perfectly. Now, because Judas is already betraying the
Lord (or has betrayed Him), Jesus can already speak of the rest of His work as
having been accomplished. Thus, He looks
forward to what comes next. Let’s also
consider that now.
V.
Fifth, Note the Son’s Glory (v. 5)
Now, Father,
glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before
the world was.
In this final verse, Jesus returns to what He prayed in v. 1. He looks beyond the cross to His return to
heavenly glory. This is the glory He
shared with the Father before creation. This
statement affirms Christ’s preexistence and deity.
This glory may refer to the path to the cross, but it
ultimately looks forward to His ascension into heaven. Scripture records that after the Lord bore
the shame of the cross, He “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”
(Heb. 12:2). This is the thought that Jesus
focused upon before the pain and suffering of the cross.
This reflects back not just to v. 1 of this chapter, but the
first verse of this book. In John 1:1, we
read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.” Jesus is asking not just for
restoration but for the return of the unmediated divine splendor He enjoyed
before taking on human flesh. He wishes to
return to the state He had in fellowship with the Father.
Again, this only makes sense when we understand that that
He’s pre-exists creation and that there was a certain enjoyment that He had
with God the Father before that point. As
Philippians 2:6–11 explains, Jesus, though in “the form of God,” emptied
Himself to take on human form, humbling Himself to death on the cross. Yet His exaltation to glory shows that His
sacrifice has accomplished exactly what God intended. The promise of restored glory reinforces our
hope.
Let’s wrap this up now.
VI.
Conclusion
We’ve only scratched the surface of this important prayer. We’ve seen the heart of our Savior here as He
approaches the cross. His prayer for
glorification is not self-centered but is deeply intertwined with His purpose
to reveal the glory of God. The cross,
which seemed a moment of defeat, was the very means by which God’s glory was
displayed to the world.
Let’s hold firmly to the truth of Christ’s completed work. It’s through this work that we have the access
to eternal life. If we trust in Him, we
can know that He chose us in love to have knowledge of Him. Simply hold fast to the finished work He
accomplished on your behalf.
[1] John F. MacArthur Jr., John 12–21, MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (Chicago, IL: Moody
Publishers, 2008), 243.
[2] Edwin A. Blum, The
Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, 1985, 2,
330–331.
[3] Matthew Henry, Matthew
Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume,
(Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 2027.
[4] Gerald L. Borchert, John 12–21, The New American Commentary, (Nashville: Broadman &
Holman Publishers, 2002), 25B:190.
[5] Ronald L. Trail, An
Exegetical Summary of John 10–21, Exegetical Summaries, (Dallas, TX: SIL
International, 2018), 309.
[6] John D. Barry, Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Michael
S. Heiser, Miles Custis, Elliot Ritzema, Matthew M. Whitehead, Michael R.
Grigoni, and David Bomar, Faithlife Study
Bible, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Jn 17:2.
[7] MacArthur, 254.
