John 17 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Jesus Prays for His Disciples
1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people,[a] to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that[b] you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost,[c] so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.[d] 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.[e] 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,[f] so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Footnotes:
John 17:2 Gk flesh
John 17:12 Other ancient authorities read protected in your name those whom John 17:12 Gk except the son of destruction
John 17:13 Or among themselves John 17:15 Or from evil
Overview
Compared to Synoptic Gospels
Pericope Matthew Mark Luke John
The Intercessory Prayer 17:1-26
Themes
• Glorification
o 17:1 “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, \
o 17:4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
o 17:10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
o 17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
o 17:24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the
foundation of the world. • Rejection
o 17:12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that[b] you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost,[c] so that the scripture might be fulfilled.
o 17:14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.
• Incarnation
o 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
o 17:18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
o 17:21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,[f] so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
o 17:25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
• Discipleship
o 17:6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that[b] you have
given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost,[c] so that the scripture might be fulfilled.
o 17:13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.[d] 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.[e] 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
o 17:20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one.
Key Stories and Teachings
Overall
The Last Discourse: Chapter 17:1-26 The “priestly Prayer” of Jesus
The final prayer before Jesus’ crucifixion, there is no prayer in the garden of Gethsemane in John. It is often called a “high-priestly prayer,” but it makes little reference to Jesus’ sacrifice. Rather it shows how the Savior might intercede for his disciples before his departure.
There are parallels to The Lord’s Prayer: 17:11, 15, 17 Three main sections:
17:1-5 The Son and the Father
17:1-8 Jesus prays for glorification (i.e. the glory he had before creation) on the grounds that he has completed all that the Father has given him to do and revealed God’s name.
17:3 What is eternal life? “3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is defined by personal knowledge of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. What makes heavenly is not the presence of our loved ones – but rather the presence of God.
17:1-5 The Cross is the glory of God because self-sacrifice is the expression of love. The glory would be complete in itself even if there were no consequences. But in fact what is revealed in the Cross is not only the perfection of divine love, but its triumph.
The perfection of divine love, which before the world was united the Father and the Son, is precisely what sent the Son into the world; For God so loved the world that he gave…”
It is not the Cross as an isolated episode which is thus the focus of eternal glory; it is the Cross as a culmination of the life of love, as the achievement of the purpose of the Incarnation, as the projection of divine light across the spaces of the world’s darkness.
17:6-19 The Son and the disciples
17:9-19 Jesus prays for those whom the Father has given him that they may be kept safe with the name given to Jesus1. He refuses to pray for the world (which by rejecting Jesus has become the realm of evil),
for his disciples do not belong to the world. Unlike a gnostic savior, Jesus does not ask to have his disciples taken out of the world. But only that they are kept save for the Evil One (who is the Prince of the World). Praying that they will be consecrated as he consecrates himself, Jesus sends them into the world to bear witness to the truth.
1 The name of God has power. In Phil 2:9-11 the name “The Lord” is given by God to Jesus after his
Jesus has given this glory to the people on earth, where it takes the form of everlasting life, which is, in turn, the same thing as knowing the father and the son. Knowing them, not merely knowing about them. This is the goal of the prayer – the perfection of glory (that is, of divine power and beauty) through the sharing of it.
17:6-19 Jesus prayer for the unity of his disciples in a hostile world. Though these verses speak only of the disciples in Jesus’ lifetime, 17:20 suggests that the later Christian community saw itself in the prayer as well.
17:14-16 Despite 3:16, those in the Christian community for whom John was written seem to have felt alienated from the world. Their conflict with the synagogue authorities convinced them that the world hated them and also that Jesus did not belong in this world. John views the evil one as the ruler of the world. The world refers to humanity that rejects Jesus and therefore God.
As Jesus was in the cosmos as the full reality of God’s presence – now the believers must be too. To do this they must participate in the very life of God. This is the climatic message in the Gospel of John. Discipleship:
7:15-19 Discipleship in the world. We are surrounded by hate in the world. Jesus does not want us to withdraw from the world. Instead he prays that we are protected from the hate and evil. The spiritual battle is real – and Satan comes to steal and destroy souls.
17:13-16 – we are not taken out of the world by our faith. We are also not of the world. And there is no excuse for worldliness, compromise, moral slide or sinfulness. That is our balancing act, in the world but not of the world.
17:17 The key is not to be of the world spiritually. We must be sanctified like Jesus Christ. How can we be more holy? “By the truth: your word is the truth.” The person who wishes to be holy will be the one who reads the Bible, learns the Bible, trusts the Bible, and therefore has the mind and heart required by God’s word. The person who puts into practice the character of Jesus.
17:18 The growth of sanctification is mission.
17:19 Jesus gave himself fully to his mission, and so should we, having a devoted commitment to God.
17:20-26 The Son, the disciples and the world
17:20-26 Jesus prays for those who believe in him through the word of his disciples – a prayer that they may be one just as the Father and Jesus are one.
17:20-26 It is hard to improve on an interpretation of this passage. Here are the core themes:
• Insistence that the unity of the believers with one another is nothing less than the unity of the father and the son before the creation of the world. On the Prologue John wrote that the logos was with God and the logos was God.
• Even if this unity is identical with the glory that Jesus had with the Father before the foundation of the cosmos, it is also something to be brought about in a new way through Jesus ministry – and equally through his followers.
• The unity of which Jesus speaks here is not, as in some mystical writings, a union simply of the worshiper and God. It is also equally the unity of worshippers with each other. It is not
organizational unity as if a single worldwide Christian organization would be an effective witness for the Gospel.
• The unity Jesus is praying for is a divine unity not a humanistic/organizational unity. All things issue from the original glory of God. But the cosmos has not known and loved its creator. To call the creation back, God has sent the Logos, who is with God and is God, who participates in God’s original glory and communicates it to creation.
The creation, by rejecting its creator, had become a dark and sinful cosmos; the incarnate logos has entered it with love to recall it to its true light. The way to that light is love: God’s love to us through the logos; ours to God through the logos; ours to one another through the logos. This love is the divine unity, reaching out in power and in beauty to make all of creation on with God. And it is freely given to us. Catholic/Universalism
17:20-26 Catholic means universal. Jesus is praying that we may be one holy and universal, founded on the teachings of the apostles. Jesus is calling for us to be one in faith and worship.
His followers are to be with him to see his glory. (12:26, 14:3) They are to know and experience the fact that the father has exalted him as the sovereign of the world. That he is the loving Lord of all.
This point is controversial in today’s society. (See commentary on 14:6) Many Christians draw back form the statement because it sounds arrogant to them. The rejects giving themselves special status.
But this is to misunderstand the message of the Gospel. When Jesus is exalted, the reason Is nothing other than love. This is not the sort of sovereignty that enables people to think themselves better than others. It is the sort of sovereignty that makes them commit themselves to Jesus in loving service.
Reflections
1. Glory – how does glorification work and why does it matter? 2. Discipleship – are we called to be in the world of the world? 3. Unity – do we value identity over unity in our faith?
4. Love – As Tina Turner would say, “What love got to do with it?” in this chapter.
Bibliography
• Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament • The Harper Collins Study Bible
• L. William Countryman, The Mystical Way in the Fourth Gospel • Josh Moody, John 13-20 For You
• The Oxford Bible Commentary
• William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel • Tom Wright, John for Everyone Notes
Detail
Raymond E. Brown Notes
2The Last Discourse: Chapter 17:1-26 The “priestly Prayer” of Jesus
17:1-8 Jesus prays for glorification (i.e. the glory he had before creation) on the grounds that he has completed all that the Father has given him to do and revealed God’s name.
17:9-19 Jesus prays for those whom the Father has given him that they may be kept safe with the name given to Jesus3. He refuses to pray for the world (which by rejecting Jesus has become the realm of evil),
for his disciples do not belong to the world. Unlike a gnostic savior, Jesus does not ask to have his disciples taken out of the world. But only that they are kept save for the Evil One (who is the Prince of the World).Praying that they will be consecrated as he consecrates himself, Jesus sends them into the world to bear witness to the truth.
17:20-26 Jesus prays for those who believe in him through the word of his disciples – a prayer that they may be one just as the Father and Jesus are one.
17:26 “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” With this assurance the Johannine Jesus goes on to be lifted up on the cross in his return to the Father.
The Harper Collins Notes
4The final prayer before Jesus’ crucifixion, there is no prayer in the garden of Gethsemane in John. It is often called a “high-priestly prayer,” but it makes little reference to Jesus’ sacrifice. Rather it shows how the Savior might intercede for his disciples before his departure.
There are parallels to the Lords prayer: 17:11, 15, 17
17:1-5 A summary of Jesus’ mission and his relationship to God.
17:6-19 Jesus prayer for the unity of his disciples in a hostile world. Though these verses speak only of the disciples in Jesus’ lifetime, 17:20 suggests that the later Christian community saw itself in the prayer as well.
17:6 “I have made your name known”. Jesus bears the divine name himself “I Am” (Phil 2.9; Heb 1:5; Rev 19:2)
17:12 Fulfillment of the scripture is also a significant theme in the passion narrative (19:24, 28, 36-37). 17:14-16 Despite 3:16, those in the Christian community for whom John was written seem to have felt alienated from the world. Their conflict with the synagogue authorities convinced them that the world hated them and also that Jesus did not belong in this world. John views the evil one as the ruler of the world. The world refers to humanity that rejects Jesus and therefore God.
17:20-24 The prayer for the disciples is extended to the church beyond them, suggesting that the preceding prayer applies to the church as well.
17:25-26 Jesus’ concluding summary.
2 Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament
3 The name of God has power. In Phil 2:9-11 the name “The Lord” is given by God to Jesus after his
crucifixion; in John Jesus already has the divine name “I AM” before his death.
L. William Countryman Notes
517:1-5 The exchange of the glory between father and son reaches back to God’s initial gift to the son before the creation of the world. The son’s work on earth has been an act of returning that glory, so that the father may give it again to the son and the son to the father.
Jesus has given this glory to the people on earth, where it takes the form of everlasting life, which is, in turn, the same thing as knowing the father and the son. Knowing them, not merely knowing about them. This is the goal of the prayer – the perfection of glory (that is, of divine power and beauty) through the sharing of it.
17:6-11 The disciples are the principle subject of Jesus’ prayer, and he prays for his own glorification because of what it means for them.
The believers now recognize that they are from God, not from the cosmos. Yet they are remaining in the cosmos while Jesus leaves it.
The oneness here is between the group of believers. It is the living expression of Jesus commandment to love one another. And it is analogous to the unity of the father and the son. It is a divine quality.
17:12-19 The believers face a difficult existence, exposed to the hatred of the cosmos and deprived of Jesus immediate protection. They will be safe as long as the father keeps them and consecrates them in the truth.
This truth is God’s word, that is, Jesus himself and also his message in this Gospel, which leads one along the mystical path.
As Jesus was in the cosmos as the full reality of God’s presence – now the believers must be too. To do this they must participate in the very life of God. This is the climatic message in the Gospel of John. 17:20-26 It is hard to improve on an interpretation of this passage. Here are the core themes:
• Insistence that the unity of the believers with one another is nothing less than the unity of the father and the son before the creation of the world. On the Prologue John wrote that the logos was with God and the logos was God.
• Even if this unity is identical with the glory that Jesus had with the Father before the foundation of the cosmos, it is also something to be brought about in a new way through Jesus ministry – and equally through his followers.
• The unity of which Jesus speaks here is not, as in some mystical writings, a union simply of the worshiper and God. It is also equally the unity of worshippers with each other. It is not
organizational unity as if a single worldwide Christian organization would be an effective witness for the Gospel.
• The unity Jesus is praying for is a divine unity not a humanistic/organizational unity. All things issue from the original glory of God. But the cosmos has not known and loved its creator. To call the creation back, God has sent the Logos, who is with God and is God, who participates in God’s original glory and communicates it to creation.
The creation, by rejecting its creator, had become a dark and sinful cosmos; the incarnate logos ha entered it with love to recall it to its true light. The way to that light is love: God’s love to us through the logos; ours to God through the logos; ours to one another through the logos. This love is the divine unity, reaching out in power and in beauty to make all of creation on with God. And it is freely given to us.
Josh Moody Notes
617:1-5 Jesus is praying for himself.
17:1 The “hour” is the hour of the cross – the great test and climax of his mission.
17:2 Indicates the Trinity – the different roles of the one God in three Persons. God the Father granted authority to the Son; the Son gives eternal life to all of those who the Father has given him. The Father gives the authority to the Son to give his people eternal life.
17:3 What is eternal life? “3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is defined by personal knowledge of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.
What makes heavenly is not the presence of our loved ones – but rather the presence of God. 17:4 The completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross gives glory to God – therefore ministry should preach Christ crucified and the cross – because that points to the glory of God.
17:6-19 Jesus prays for his disciples.
17:6 emphasizes God’s sovereignty and our human responsibility to obey God’s word.
17:8 St. Anselm wrote “I believe that I might understand.” The principle of faith seeking understanding. True knowledge requires a paradigm of faith for that knowledge to move past cynical disdain or detached apathy. Knowledge of God, as rational as it is, also requires faith to receive the evidence, the word of God.
God’s desire is not for our begrudging obedience, but for us to be as joyful as it is possible to be. 17:13 Jesus intention is for our joy to be as joyful as it is humanly possible to be.
7:15-19 Discipleship in the world. We are surrounded by hate in the world. Jesus does not want us to withdraw from the world. Instead he prays that we are protected from the hate and evil. The spiritual battle is real – and Satan comes to steal and destroy souls.
17:13-16 – we are not taken out of the world by our faith. We are also not of the world. And there is no excuse for worldliness, compromise, moral slide or sinfulness. That is our balancing act, in the world but not of the world.
17:17 The key is not to be of the world spiritually. We must be sanctified like Jesus Christ. How can we be more holy? “By the truth: your word is the truth.” The person who wishes to be holy will be the one who reads the Bible, learns the Bible, trusts the Bible, and therefore has the mind and heart required by God’s word. The person who puts into practice the character of Jesus.
17:18 The growth of sanctification is mission.
17:19 Jesus gave himself fully to his mission, and so should we, having a devoted commitment to God. 17:20-26 Jesus prays for all believers and for the unity among his disciples.
17:20 Jesus prays for his disciples and for those who believe in him through the message the disciples deliver. This includes praying for people who are not yet Christians. This also means we are to tell non-Christians about Jesus.
17:21 Jesus prays for unity among his disciples. – he is asking for a personal delivery of the message. It is our job to tell the message and it is God’s job to convert.
Jesus is also not praying for uniformity. Just as there are three persons in the trinity – there can and should be variety in faith.
We should celebrate our organic unity that we do enjoy.
17:26 Knowledge of God comes from knowledge of the Son – and this is the knowledge the disciples have through Jesus.
The Oxford Bible Commentary Notes
717:1-5 Glorification and eternal life are themes that are intertwined.
17:6-11a Two verbs punctuate Jesus’ prayer: “protect” (7:11) and “sanctify”(7:17).
Now the unity between the Father and the Son is the fountainhead of the unity among the disciples. 17:17-19 The truth that comes from the Father through the Son will be the disciples weapons in missionary work. The word of God protected the disciples, and now the spirit of truth sanctifies them.
William Temple Notes
8Three main sections:
17:1-5 The Son and the Father 17:6-19 The Son and the disciples
17:20-26 The Son, the disciples and the world
17:1-5 The Cross is the glory of God because self-sacrifice is the expression of love. The glory would be complete in itself even if there were no consequences. But in fact what is revealed in the Cross is not only the perfection of divine love, but its triumph.
The perfection of divine love, which before the world was united the Father and the Son, is precisely what sent the Son into the world; For God so loved the world that he gave…”
It is not the Cross as an isolated episode which is thus the focus of eternal glory; it is the Cross as a culmination of the life of love, as the achievement of the purpose of the Incarnation, as the projection of divine light across the spaces of the world’s darkness.
Our high priest, Jesus, enters the immediate presence of God in and by the very act of offering his own consecrated life; for to make that offering and to be in that presence are not two things, but one. 17:6-8 The apostolic mission of the Son reveals the divine purpose – from it flows the Church and the ministry. God sent the Son, and the Church is a witness to that as well as a disciple to continue the mission .
17:9-11 The Lord is no longer in the world. He has shared all of our human limitations and experiences, but that is ending.
17:20-23 Jesus prays for the disciples and those whom the disciples win over to discipleship.
Tom Wright Notes
917:1-8 Jesus is praying. And for Jesus praying is a living embodiment of an intimate union between God and himself, between father and son. This section is a celebration and a request: Jesus is celebrating that his work is cone. He then requests that he may now be exalted, glorified, lifted up to that position
alongside the father. In Jewish tradition, the Messiah, the Son of Man, is supposed to be seated next to the father. It would usher in eternal life, and age to come at the end of the present age, a time of new life, qualitatively would begin according to Jewish prophets.
17:9-19 Jesus prays for his people. He is entrusting his disciples to the father he has known and loved throughout his earthly life. Jesus is very much aware that the apostles are very much at risk after he leaves.
7 The Oxford Bible Commentary
8 William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel 9 Tom Wright, John for Everyone
The world, which hated him, will now hate them. This is not just the physical universe, it means the cosmos/world that rebelled against God, chose darkness rather than light, and has organized itself to oppose the creator. And though Jesus has been in the world, he is not of the world, and neither should the disciples be.
17:20-26 Catholic means universal. Jesus is praying that we may be one holy and universal, founded on the teachings of the apostles.
Jesus is calling for us to be one in faith and worship.
His followers are to be with him to see his glory. (12:26, 14:3) They are to know and experience the fact that the father has exalted him as the sovereign of the world. That he is the loving Lord of all.
This point is controversial in today’s society. (See commentary on 14:6) Many Christians draw back form the statement because it sounds arrogant to them. The rejects giving themselves special status.
But this is to misunderstand the message of the Gospel. When Jesus is exalted, the reason Is nothing other than love. This is not the sort of sovereignty that enables people to think themselves better than others. It is the sort of sovereignty that makes them commit themselves to Jesus in loving service.
