John 17:20-26, Our Lord Prays for His Own

From Our Lord Prays for His Own: Thoughts on John 17, by Marcus Rainsford.

Commenting on John 17:21-22:

“Union with God Almighty is the greatest and fullest of all conceivable blessings, and the source and spring from whence all other blessings must flow.

“There are four unions revealed to us in the Word of God …

First, the incomprehensible union … the mutual union and indwelling of the three Persons in the Godhead; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the triune Jehovah, immortal, invisible, possessing all divine attributes – eternity, omniscience, omnipotency.  The second, the mutual union and indwelling of the Man Christ Jesus with the second Person of the blessed Trinity, the Son of God, making one glorious Person, God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Captain of our salvation, the Author and Finisher of our faith.  The third is the mutual union and indwelling between Himself and His believing people; as the members of His mystical Body, He having taken our nature into heaven, we are one with Him there, and He with His Holy Spirit dwelleth within us evermore, He is one with us here.  The fourth is the union and mutual membership and intercommunion of all of the believing people of God one with another; and this union obtains, whether we speak of those who have gone before, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, etc., or those who are at present upon the earth, believing, or of the future ingathering of all who shall at any time believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; for He says, ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one.’” (p406)

Commenting on the “union binding the children of God to each other,” he says there are seven grounds for this union.

1.    In Eph. 4:3, “the unity of the Spirit.”  The same Holy Ghost dwells in all.

2.    In Eph. 4:13, “the unity of faith.”  All the children of God have their trust, hope and confidence fixed on the same Father; all speak of the same righteousness, all plead the same blood; they are all born of promise, and are ‘children by faith.’

3.    In Acts 4:32, we read of the early believers (a picture of the case as it ought to be), “they were of one heart.”

4.    In Col. 2:2, “knit together in love.”  Love united the children of God, wherever they meet; whenever they recognize each other they cannot help loving one another, notwithstanding all their peculiarities, and all their differences.

5.    In Eph. 4:3, “the bond of peace;” sweet peace, of which our Lord said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.”

6.    In 1 Cor. 1:10, “perfectly joined together in the same mind.”

7.    And in the same judgment.