John Part 36
Notes
Transcript
For tonight, we are going to read the prayer Jesus prayed
On the night before he was crucified.
Let’s start with ch 17, 1-3…
1 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.
Now, to understand this prayer,
We have to look at it from the point of view
or perspective of the incarnation
Many people get confused about the fact that Jesus is praying to God.
Some argue that Jesus cannot be God if he is praying to God
Others assume that Jesus is another God praying to a higher God
And many believe that Jesus is one divine person
praying to another divine person.
But the correct way to understand this prayer
is to remember that Jesus is both a man in the flesh
and God in the Spirit.
The Dual Nature
The Dual Nature
Jesus is both God and Man
As a Man he:
got tired and had to sleep
got hungry and had to eat
got thirsty and had to drink
got sad and wept
felt physical pain and hurt
and ultimately would die on the cross
God doesn’t need to sleep, eat, drink,
and can’t feel physical pain, or die.
So, Jesus is clearly a man
However, We see him forgive sins.
heal the sick
raise the dead
walk on water
do many miracles
and be resurrected from the dead himself
And this is evidence that Jesus is also God
So, then the question remains
Is Jesus another God
or the Same God
And it becomes clear by taking all of Scripture together
That Jesus is the same God
The Great IAM
The Word made flesh.
As a man, Jesus prayed
as God, Jesus answers prayers.
5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
This verse to me is the Key to understanding the incarnation
There is only one God
And then there is all of us
And between all of us and God
There is one mediator
and that mediator is the MAN Christ Jesus
Remember, Jesus is both Man and God
and Paul tells us here
that the “man” part of Jesus
is the only thing between all of us
and the one true God
So, there is not another god between us
and there is not another divine person between us
There is simply the one God
and the Man Christ Jesus
and then us.
But, Jesus is not merely a man.
We can’t forget that.
16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
So, God was revealed to us in the flesh
or in other words, as a human
That is the Man Christ Jesus.
Which is why we can say…
9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So, when you are looking at the face of Jesus
You are seeing the glory of God the Father.
This is why the first line of the prayer says…
1 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,
So, What does this mean?
The hour of glorification
is referring to a few things
It is the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross, literally
recall when we were talking about the verse
“If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me”
In that verse Jesus was talking about the Cross
and at the same time, the ascension
So, the hour of glorification of Jesus has come
The hour he will be lifted up on the cross
and a few days later, lifted up from the grave
and a few weeks later, lifted up to the heavens
So, a reversal of the incarnation of God
The God who came down from his throne
to the earth
to become a man, lower than the angels
and down to the grave
now, we are about to reverse the process
and go back up.
So, the glorification of the Son
is his moving from lower to higher
and that process is going to ultimately glorify the Father
In other words
If you glorify Jesus
You are glorifying the Father.
How is it glorfying the Father?
Well vs 2 says why.
He says…
2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
So, Jesus is saying that the Son has all authority over all flesh
which is all humans
And that authority includes
the ability to give or grant eternal life to all of us.
In other words, Jesus is God.
because only God can give eternal life to humans
And what is eternal life?
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
So, the Father is the only true God
And eternal life is knowing the Father
and recall earlier
Jesus said, if you know me
you will know the father
So, if you want eternal life
You must know Jesus
which will in turn, allow you to know the Father
To know Jesus, then,
is the only way to know the Father.
That’s really the point of this entire book of John.
And he stated that thesis back in John chapter 1.18
4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
So, Jesus brings Glory to the Father
by what he did on earth
and what he is going to do on the cross
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
now, this verse is a confusing one
and it is partly due to how it is translated IMO
The ESV, and other translation add the word “presence”
which I think makes it confusing
It is an attempt to push the doctrine of eternal Sonship
but the litteral translation is..
5 ‘And now, glorify me, Thou Father, with Thyself, with the glory that I had before the world was, with Thee;
Now, the YTL has some Thees and Thous in it,
If you convert those to modern English
it would look like this:
5 ‘And now, glorify me, you Father, with yourself, with the glory that I had before the world was, with you;
Now, the version is still hard to read because the word order is not the same
as modern English.
So, if we use the NASB
We get something similar
but with a more modern word order
5 “Now, Father, [You] glorify Me [together] with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
The only addition here is the word “together”
This is not in the original Greek.
Also, I’ve added back in the first “you” that was omitted
It is implied, and often left off in English
But, it still makes sense in English to add the “you” back in.
Now, this reading is a bit less confusing to me.
It is closer to the KJV wording, too
And it doesn’t appear to be pushing some extra-biblical doctrines.
This literal reading says…
Father, glorify Jesus with yourself.
In other words, the glory that Jesus has
Is coming from the Father.
And then it says
That same glory which I had with you
Now, this word “with”
can also be tranaslated as “by” or “from”
So, it can mean… the glory which I had from you.
And that is the glory that has always existed.
Even before God created the world.
So, there is really only one glory here.
And that source of all this Glory is God the Father.
Which is why Paul said in 2 Cor 4.6
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
that phrase “let light shine out of darkness”
is a reference to the creation of the world
That is the glory that existed before the world was formed
and God the Father is the source of that glory
but to see that glory
you need to look at the face of Jesus Christ.
And so, in John 17.5
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Jesus is saying…
I’m about to go back to how it was before I came into the world
Back when there was only one source of Glory
Back when there was no physical face of God on earth.
Where you could look and see the Father’s glory in person.
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.
Now, not only did Jesus reveal God’s glory to us
He also manifested, or revealed God’s name to us.
So, when we speak the name of Jesus
we are speaking the name of God the Father
The name that is above every one of his other names
And God has done this before
He told Moses that Abraham only knew about the name
God Al Mighty, or El Shaddai
But Abraham did not know God the Father as YHWH
Which means “HE IS”
So, Moses and the children of Isreal
were able to have a deeper revelation about God’s name
that Abraham did because of the LAW
And now, we have an even deeper revelation about God’s name
While he might have been known as
YHWH:
Provider
healers
banner
etc.
We now know him as YHWH Saves
Which is what the name of Jesus means.
So, Jesus has manifested the name above all names to us.
In return, Jesus now has authority over all humanity
Which is why he is able to grant us Eternal Life
According to verse 2
7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
So, again, the source of all the authority and glory
is God the Father
And so, Jesus doesn’t have a separate authority
or a separate glory
It is the authority from the one True God
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.
Here we see Jesus reminding us that if we hear him
we are hearing the Father
This is has been said a few times in this book
Jesus said his words were not his own
but they were the words of the Father
This can only make sense if you properly understand
That Jesus is a manifestation of God the Father
He came from God the Father
meaning God’s Spirit is the source
He is not a coequal, coeternal divine person
who has always existed beside God
instead, Jesus came FROM God the Father
You cannot be equal to someone that came before you
This is something that scholars must admit
when they write Systematic Theology books
but they will dance around it when they are teaching verbally about it.
But, it is pretty simple to understand
that coming FROM someone
and being SENT FROM someone
logically implies that this someone
is the source of the other
