Gospel of John [17:1-3]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 4. 1Co 9:24-27; Heb 9:12, 27; 10:10.

Title: Gospel of John [17:1-3]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 4. 1CO 9:24-27; HEB 9:12, 27; 10:10.

 

 

JOH 17:1 These things Jesus spoke; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee,

 

JOH 17:2 even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life.

 

JOH 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God [as opposed to all false gods], and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

 

To know Christ is far more than to know of Him. It is to know His person and work but also to know His suffering and glory as an experience in our own lives.

 

To know Him is to submit to the will of the Father as He did. He has given us a life to live that is His life and by living His life we come to fully know Him.

 

In this verse is contained the sum and essence of the Christian way, as it is distinguished from all the schemes of idolatry and philosophy, and all the false plans on which men have sought to obtain eternal life. The Gentiles worshipped many gods; the Christian worships one-the living and the true God; the Jew, the Deist, the Muslim, the Socinian, profess to acknowledge one God, without any atoning sacrifice and Mediator; the true Christian approaches him through the great Mediator, equal with the Father, who for us became incarnate, and died that he might reconcile us to God.

 

Eternal life is more than "outside of time" but it is a way of life that is only in Christ. "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

 

God has no beginning or end and has a manner of life that only a person which such eternity could live. He has given this life to all who believe in His Son. So we live on the earth but we are not of the world. We also live in time but walk in a manner that is outside of time.

 

The Father and the Son know each other in a mutuality of love, and through a knowledge of God, believing men are admitted to the mystery of that divine love.

 

We call it a mystery as it is unknown to the world nor has it been revealed before the ascension of Christ.

 

Eternal life is given at salvation, but walking in that life comes with the wisdom of God and His Son through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Eternal life is a part of the essence of the Trinity and the believer must come to know what it is, beyond some weak mathematical definition of infinity. Knowing one another, being in one another, the Father and the Son share a divine love with one another.

 

TIT 1:16

They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed.

 

Php 3:10-11

that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

 

EPH 3:19

and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.

 

One cannot separate God's eternal life from the divine love and the divine truth. This life gives them unity as they are in one another. This basis of unity, Jesus prays for in vv. 20-23.

 

JOH 17:20 "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;

 

JOH 17:21 that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.

 

JOH 17:22 "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one;

 

JOH 17:23 I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.

 

Vs. 20, the entire Church; unity through the indwelling of Christ and the Father and the manifestation of the love that the Son and the Father shared with one another.

 

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JOH 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God [as opposed to all false gods], and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

 

 JOH 17:4 "I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.

 

JOH 17:5 "And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

 

Christ is so committed to His last act of obedience on earth that He speaks of it as already accomplished.

 

He has been obedient to the Father the entire time as humanity upon the earth. It would be unthinkable that He would balk at the last and greatest obedience.

 

All of us as believer's have tasks to do that are the will of our Father. He has given us the insight to understand them, the ability to accomplish them, and the time to complete them. The lazy believer who leaves his work to be done later in procrastination, or leaves his work unfinished  due to apathy or selfishness is not walking in the manner of his Lord. How happy is the man who hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

 

There is also here a view of a life's work. As Paul stated, he had run the course and had finished the race. Nothing was left for him to do but die and go home to the Lord. Let us not be lazy with our time and let us finish the course that is set before us.

 

1CO 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

 

1CO 9:25 And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

 

1CO 9:26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;

 

1CO 9:27 but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

 

JOH 17:4 "I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.

 

JOH 17:5 "And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world [kosmos] was.

 

There could not be a more distinct and clear declaration of the pre-existence of Christ than this.

 

It means before the creation of the world; before there was any world. This is equivalent to saying that He existed from eternity. The Church was infected with the false doctrine that Christ began existence at His birth in the 4^th century.

 

JOH 6:59

"What then if you should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before?

 

The glory which He had then was that which was proper to the Son of God before time, before time demanded a human Savior. Once accomplished, no other Savior is necessary.

 

HEB 9:11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;

 

HEB 9:12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

 

HEB 9:24 For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

 

HEB 9:25 nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own.

 

HEB 9:26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

 

HEB 9:27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

 

HEB 9:28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

 

HEB 10:10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

JOH 17:5

"And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world [kosmos] was.

 

This is likely the reason why He says "before the world was," instead of before the incarnation. This is difficult for our minds that think so chronologically. When the Trinity created time, angelic and human history, there was in that time a known rebellion and so a need for a Savior, a human Savior. After His cross, that Savior is a reality, and once accomplished He can return to the glory He shared with the Father before time and the rebellion that it brought. He has squashed the rebellion. Just because time is still not over is a formality. He sits at the right hand of God and so all rebellions are as good as done, and are done. Time does have a beginning and an end. At the end, time will be gone forever. At the time of the virgin birth the Son of God laid aside the use of His deity for a while.

 

Php 2:5-8

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.