“These words spake Jesus, and lifted His eyes to heavenward, and said, ‘Father…'” John 17:1
Dear Ones:
That which makes this prayer of Jesus so very important, and life-changing, is the fact that it is being prayed just before His betrayal and crucifixion. What would one pray if he or she knew that only a short time remained before their death? What is that which is foremost in the mind of Christ?
Predominantly revealed to us is this most exquisitely beautiful relationship that He had with His Father. Here is the Son, who has lived before His Father, doing all things to please Him during His entire Life, knowing that in a short time He will forfeit His life, being rejected by those He came to save. This beloved Father, upon whom He has relied fully, has never ceased to reveal His love and care for the Son, not only by virtue of His constant presence, but by the revelation of the Father’s LIFE and LOVE for the Son on a moment by moment basis. The Son had known the reality of basking in the light and warmth of the love of the Father, abiding constantly in that love on this earth. Now, with His gaze heavenward, and in His selflessness, the Son turns to the Father to seek Him concerning the mission that He had, and in particular, the disciples who had been given Him. It will be on their behalf, for the glory and honor of the Father, that Jesus would pray.
Couched in the great issue of glorifying the Father, and the fulfillment of the Son’s mission to “seek and save,” the Lord Jesus would pray: “Holy, Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are.” (Jn. 17:11) Why did He pray this? It is a fact that the believers in this world are as sheep in the midst of wolves, and that they have an enemy of their souls, who is always prowling like a lion, seeking whom he may devour. This keeping power of God, of which the Lord Jesus speaks, not only speaks of an eternal “keeping,” and blessing, but of a present realization of fellowship derived from the believer’s union with Christ. The Lord speaks of oneness, a oneness that the Father and the Son knew. He prays to the Father that these disciples, believers, should be kept in the position and the spiritual experience of oneness with Himself. In addition to this sort of keeping, He adds specifically: “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from evil, or the evil one.” (v.15) Our Eternal Keeper is that one who keeps our souls eternally, but He is also that one who keeps us in this world from being overwhelmed by the enemy, providing not only an escape from temptation, but the power to overcome all the power of the enemy, and the opposition to the truth, and the testimony of Christ’s life.
Next, the Lord prays: “Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth.” (v.17) Why does He pray this, and what does it mean? The word “sanctify” means to set apart, specifically, unto God. It speaks of the “spirit, soul, and body,” being Christ’s, under His control, and filled with His Spirit. Though the believer is sanctified in Christ, by Jesus’ finished work on Calvary, yet his experience of God will be determined by the knowledge of Christ, and the appropriation of Him according to the truth.
The Lord comes back again and again in His prayer concerning “oneness.” Why? He says, “…that they may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” (v.21) The knowledge of our oneness with Christ is essential, if the Life of Christ would be revealed in us by the Spirit. It is the revelation of Christ by the Spirit that awakens the world to believe in Him.
Lastly, Jesus prays: “…Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.” (v.24) The highest blessing of the believer, and ultimately that for which Christ died, was that we should not only BE His but that we should live in communion with Him, be WHERE He is.
Dear Father, by what we see in Jesus’ prayer before He died, give us grace to believe Him for the realization of it in our lives. Also, enable us to pray this for others in the body of Christ, that we all shall know this blessed communion with the Son of God, and Thee, by the Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad