John 17:1-5

Glorify the Son

Intro

When I say the word glory, what do you think of? Now, as Christians, we are conditioned to think God. But naturally we often think of glory in terms of grandeur and splendor, things like the glory of a landscape, or a beautiful sunset. The glory of nations is their impressive military power, or their economic prosperity. Technically, the term means weighty, and to glorify something or someone is to give them praise and honor by acknowledging their glory.

Jesus’ closes his farewell discourse fittingly with a prayer to His father. Often called his high priestly prayer, which is fine, although that is most associated with his post-ascension ministry of intercession, which this prayer may include hints but that’s not the main point. Others call it his prayer of consecration, as he prepares to offer himself up as a sacrifice for sin. That I think, is closer to the purpose. Over the next three weeks, we are going to unpack this prayer, which can be structured around the various things Jesus prays for. First, today we will look at His prayer for himself. Then next week his prayer for his disciples. Finally, in three weeks, his prayer for those who will believe through them, namely, all of us.

In many ways this farewell prayer is a summary of the whole gospel of John. As His ministry began by bringing the glory of God to a lost world, by accomplishing the work the Father sent him to do, he now brings that to a close, returning to the Father. And as he closes in prayer, he asks first that the Father would glorify Him, but why? Why was this important for His disciples to hear? Since Jesus enjoys a unique intimacy with the Father, it was not necessary for him to pray out loud for His disciples to hear, and record for us to hear too. So we must ask, why does Jesus ask His father to glorify Him?

As we consider these first petitions, we begin to understand that the hour has come for the Son to be glorified because he has accomplished the work the father sent him to do. And because that work is glorious, Jesus is worthy of being glorified.

Because the Hour has come.

After finishing giving them some final instructions as they make their way from the upper room, the foot washing and institution of the Lord’s Supper, to the Garden of Gethsemane, the sight of His betrayal, Jesus begins to pray. Jesus has at other times signaled he is praying by lifting His eyes up to heaven and beginning by addressing His words to the Father.

But up until now, Jesus has often drawn attention to the fact that the hour is not yet come. For instance, when His mother pressed him to help when on attending a wedding the host ran out of wine. Jesus told her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” (Jn 2:4). John also interjects into the story several times to teach us that although he faced open hostility from the Jews for his teaching, no one arrested him “because his hour had not yet come” (7:30; 8:20). This doesn’t change until he says at the beginning of the Farewell discourse that “before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (Jn 13:1).

He has also taught them what was meant by “this hour” when in another prayer he prays,

““Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” (Jn 12:27–33).

The hour that has been approaching is the hour of His death. In some sense, all his lifelong ministry on earth, and really all that has come before in history, was prep for this hour. Indeed, the very purpose of the Sons coming into the world was for that hour. For then Jesus would unite heaven and earth again. He would vanquish that enemy who spoiled the garden-paradise, separating the crown of God’s creation from communion and fellowship with Him. He would deal the death-blow to death itself, that most pernicious and inescapable of problems facing the world.

The surprising thing upon the arrival of the hour is Jesus’ first petition. “Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you” (1). We are so accustomed to thinking of glory as you know, glorious. I don’t know castles and kings, power, awe-inspiring power, and pomp and show, regalia, and like Rome at the peak of its history, that’s glory. No doubt as Jesus prayed this, some of the disciples had these kinds of images lighting up their imaginations. The kingdom of God coming in glory, Christ the king seated high upon a throne dispensing judgement on Israel’s gentile oppressors, and expanding His kingdom from the river to the ends of the earth. Now that’s the postmil. Jesus we can get behind. I mean, he did say we would sit on twelve thrones judging Israel. Now that’s glory. Amen, Father, glorify your Son, so we can share in His glory. That must have been what they thought as they nodded along with Jesus’ prayer.

But a cross? A cross is not glorious. I mean, it was intentional designed not to be glorious, to strip one of glory. It was an instrument of cruel torture that was meant to dispel any notions from the population of attempting to do something similar, lest you face the same fate. It was the ultimate deterrent to keep unruly populations under Roman control. There, hung naked, exposed to ridicule and humiliation, bleeding and gasping for breath, no one looked and thought that man has been glorified.

But Jesus very clearly prays that God would glorify the Son because the hour has come, meaning that the events of that hour would not only glorify the Son, but would also be the way that the Son glorified the Father. Now, to be fair, if the events of the weekend ended with death and burial, I doubt we would see a mere crucifixion as glory. But that doesn’t mean we rush past the cross to fix glory only in the resurrection. Paul says, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Co 2:2).

The cross, which was the wisdom of God, and foolishness to the world, was the Father glorifying the Son, and the Son glorifying the Father. With the hour at hand, Jesus’ prayer for the Father to glorify the Son resonated with the profound sense of a mission fulfilled, the work given to him now complete. Why does Jesus ask His Father to glorify Him because the hour has come and because the work is done?

Because the Work is done.

The next few petitions are so rich with descriptions of Christ, His person, and His work. As we look closer, we see the authority of Christ, His mission, and the goal of that mission. Here Christ teaches us about himself, and when we consider the scope of his work and his confidence that it has been accomplished, our faith is strengthened and we are emboldened to see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ.

The Authority of Christ

The comparison Jesus makes in v. 2 with last half of v. 1 is somewhat hidden with the word since. It would be better translated just as. “Glorify your Son, with the purpose that your Son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all flesh with the purpose that he might give them eternal life.” His glory is the ground of His authority to grant eternal life. When did Jesus receive this authority from the Father? Are we to think this is Jesus anticipating the authority he would receive at the successful completion of His work when he returns to the Father? Such as we see just prior to his ascension when he commissions the disciples saying, “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Mt 28:18). I don’t think that’s what Jesus is referring to.

Rather, we should see this as the covenant the Father and Son made together before the foundation of the world. There, they agreed the Father would send the Son to be the savior of the world. And there Christ was given authority to accomplish that mission. For who sends someone on a mission without first empowering him to accomplish it? That plan was set in motion long before Christ appeared in the incarnation.

This has been something John has been keen to show us in His gospel. Jesus is in charge. He begins his ministry at that first Passover by cleansing the temple. Jesus is the true temple of God, and he has authority to cleanse because it images Him. The clearest example that Jesus is in charge will come in Ch. 18 with the betrayal of Judas. Rather than presenting Jesus as someone passively sprung upon by Judas, he comes forward and presents himself. Then when he identifies himself as the man they seek by saying “I Am he” they all fall to the ground as dead. Then he asks again, who do they seek? Jesus is in control of the whole situation. Even as he is led like a lamb to the slaughter, he is a lion ready to roar in victory over the ruler of this world.

But note also that the word translated as authority is exousia, meaning power. If you have authority to carry something out but not the power to see it through, what kind of authority is that? Sadly, this is often how complementarians define headship–authority, but no power, or at best shared power. Some models of servant leadership do the same. Authority for a task, but only to empower someone else to accomplish it. Power must accompany authority if your are to carry out a mission.

Jesus’ success lies in this deed of authority which grants him the power to accomplish his mission? Which is what?

The Mission of Christ

“To give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (2). Of course that reminds us of that well know mission statement of Jesus in John 3:16.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (Jn 3:16–17).

When God promised Adam in the garden that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, he would surely die, in a world teeming with nothing but life, a world that had not known death, that would have been the most startling thing to hear. We are so downstream from that, for now, death has spread to all. Everything is touched by the presence of death, which is much more than just the absence of life. Death is more than physical, it is spiritual and moral. To portray this to Adam, God gave him a sacramental tree of life, as a sign and seal of the life Adam had through his obedience to God. When he sinned, he lost access to that sacramental tree so that he would begin to understand that what that tree signified was his communion bond with God. When Adam died, he lost fellowship with God, that communion bond was severed and he was banished from the presence of God.

As further consequence for his sin, Adam lost his original righteousness and became morally corrupt. Now he was no longer able to will what was good, but was wholly inclined towards evil. He was totally depraved in his nature. He would still know what was right, the law being written in His heart, but he would not have the power to do it.

Death has always been the last and greatest enemy. If we could deal with death in its threefold nature, physical, spiritual, and moral, it would seem we could return to the glory we originally had at the beginning. But in God’s providence, he had an even greater plan than that. Not just to return man to the garden to start all over again, but to bring man into a new, more glorious state, one where Adam’s original mission is accomplished. That is to be fruitful and multiply and to rule over and subdue the earth.

Jesus’ mission was to do both. To restore the image of God in man, and to accomplish man’s original mission. Put simply, he came to give you eternal life. First, before we begin to unpack that further, notice that this is for those given to Him (2). He did not come to give eternal life to everyone; he did not come to bring universal salvation for all. He came to save His own people. Those the Father gave Him to save from before the foundation of the world. And this is because Jesus, on His way to the cross, does not want the disciples left with any notion that what he was going to do would make salvation possible. Possible is not good enough.

Jesus did not come and die so that sinners could decide to believe in Him and then find salvation. That puts the onus on sinners, who, by the way, are dead in sin, and unable to choose Christ on their own. But doesn’t it say Jesus came to save the world? Yes, it does. But that does not at all mean that he came to save everyone in it. Those are not the same things. Jesus very clearly makes a distinction between those he came to save, and those he didn’t. Judas being the clearest example.

The truth is the world will be saved by Christ, and by no other. There is no other savior that the world can look to, to find salvation. But not all will look to Him, but only those who are sovereignly drawn by the Spirit and given new hearts to believe, those who are born from above. We’ll talk more about this as Jesus’ prayer unfolds over the course of the next few sermons. We commonly call this the doctrine of limited atonement. The ‘L’ in TULIP. But I prefer particular redemption, which doesn’t sound so…limited.

Notice what this eternal life consists of? “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (Jn 17:3). Knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ, or perhaps better, knowing God through Jesus Christ. Since it was for that reason that he came. “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” (Jn 1:18). “And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” (Jn 12:45). Jesus came to make the Father known. Meaning that if you receive Christ, you receive God, if you believe in Christ, then you have access to the Father through Him.

But knowing God is not just knowing of him, as if learning certain facts about God is the equivalent to eternal life. Even demons know God in that way, as James said, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (Jas 2:19).

Knowing God is experiential, it’s based on a relationship with him, a lived experience of who is. Much as we would say of a marriage. For a husband to know his wife, he doesn’t know of her, he “knows” her intimately through their one-flesh union. Going back to the story of Death with Adam in the Garden. When Adam sinned, that communion bond was severed, and Adam was cast out of the garden. God, in His grace, still made it possible for Adam and His posterity to know the Lord, but not on the level of intimacy as before, and always through a mediator.

Jesus’ mission was to restore that communion bond, by joining in His own flesh, God and man, and through His death, reconciling all those given to him for salvation to the Father. Eternal life is experiencing that communion bond again. Which has begun now, with access to the throne room of God through Christ, but will be finally realized when Christ returns again and ushering in the new heavens and the new earth. All that Jesus summarizes by saying he came to give them eternal life.

Again, granting eternal life is a form of judgement reserved only for someone with the authority (power) to grant such. Plenty of people have been duped by charlatans who claimed they would give them heightened abilities, or power, or even grant them new (better) life. Think of the Jim Jones, and other cult leaders, whose members’ lives often ended in mass suicides. Or think lately of Bryan Johnson and Don’t Die. This man is on a mission to reverse aging, and possibly end death, or at least significantly extend his life. But to be honest, dying might be preferred to what he puts himself through just to try to extend his life. You see, Bryan is trying to tackle the physical problem of death, and in some of his YouTube videos it seems he tries to tackle the moral problem as well, but obviously not from a biblical framework. The problem Bryan misses is the Spiritual problem. Death is the wages of sin. Bryan doesn’t have a biological problem so much as he has a sin problem. And asceticism and bio-hacking your body won’t deal with sin. Bryan will die, I don’t wish death on Bryan, but like us all he will die, sooner probably than he hopes, which is also true for most of us. And then Bryan Johnson will be confronted with the awful truth that eternal life comes by knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent (3).

What stands these cult leaders, and modern technological methods apart from Jesus, is he proved he could give eternal life by rising again from the dead. He died and defeated death. He showed himself to His disciples, and to other witness, who could testify that the same Jesus who was crucified on Friday afternoon, walked out of the grave on Sunday morning. His resurrection was the prototype of all those he came to give eternal life to. He has the authority/power to raise them up on the last day (Jn. 6:40).

That’s what Jesus came for, that was his mission, and he so boldly claims in v. 4, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” (Jn 17:4). And what could be more worthy of glory than a Son who accomplished His mission and is returning to the Father? What is more glorious than salvation accomplished? That is exactly what Jesus prays for in this next petition. It’s as if he said, Father, accept my life for theirs and raise me up to glory, that I may be with you again, as I was before the world existed. Which, by the way, is also a clear defense of the eternal preexistence of Christ.

Conclusion

Prayer, as the Westminster catechism teaches us, is a lifting up to God our heart’s desires, which is precisely what we see Jesus doing here today. So on full display is the heart of Jesus, and the expression of His deepest desires. Which to begin with, is for the glory of God. Jesus has a passion for the glory of God, since he is God, he has a passion for His own glory. And so should we. Chief among our petitions should be the glory of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For that is what it means to pray Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Along with his desire for the glory of God, we see also Jesus’ heart for His people. He came on a mission, and he has accomplished that mission, the goal of which was to restore His people to fellowship with God. The hallmark of the new covenant was that all would know the Lord from the least to the greatest. Jesus came to make that possible, securing for all His people eternal life. But when he ascended to his father, he gave his disciples a mission, too. That was to go, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them all that Christ had commanded (Mt. 28:16-20). So among the many things we should pray for, is the successful completion of our mission. We will talk more about this type of prayer in the coming weeks.

Jesus asks the father to glorify him because the hour has come, and the work is done. Front and center to all our prayers should be a passion for the glory of God. Amen.