John 17:1-5

       For four chapters Jesus has been talking to His disciples.  As an essential part of His provision for His disciples, and for us, He now lifted up His eyes to heaven (v1).  What is before us has sometimes been called “the real Lord’s prayer”.  It is the intercessory prayer of the High Priest who forever intercedes for the believers (Heb. 4:14-16).  It is the prayer of our Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5) wherein He touches both God and man.

            Matthew Henry called it “the most remarkable prayer following the most full and consoling discourse ever uttered on earth.”  Luther concludes, “It sounds so honest, so simple; it is so deep, so rich, so wide, no one can fathom it.”

            John Knox, the eminent Scottish Reformer, had this chapter read to him every day during his last illness, and in the closing scene, the verses that were read from it consoled and animated him in the final conflict,

            Bishop Ryle says the chapter “is the most remarkable in the Bible.  It stands alone and there is nothing like it.”

            The layout of the prayer is simple.  Jesus prays for Himself (v1-5), for His disciples (v6-9), and then for us (v20-26).  What He prays is profound.  In essence Jesus now prays for what He has promised in the previous discourse.

            In John 13:31-32 Jesus had announced, “Now is the Son of Man glorified”.  He now prays for this:  “Glorify Your Son” (17:1).  He is praying that the Father will now honor Him as He comes to the deepest humiliation of His incarnate life.  This prayer is valid for several reasons.

            1. For the Father to glorify the Son will enable the Son to glorify the Father (v1).  Jesus is not being selfish in this request.  He has lived His earthly life for the glory of the Father and this is no different.

            2. For the Father to glorify the Son is to fulfill the will of the Father (v2-3).  The plan of salvation is God’s will set from eternity past.  In that plan the Father would grant eternal life through the work of His Son.  Christ’s death would be required to pay the price of redemption and to satisfy the Father’s holiness (Rom. 3:21-26).  Thus He prays to be glorified that He might have this authority to give life to all the Father gives Him.

            3. For the Father to glorify the Son is to acknowledge the earthly life of the Son (v4).  Christ says He has finished the work God the Father gave Him to do.  There is a principle in Scripture that God humbles the proud and exalts the humble (Psalm 75).  A study of Phil. 2:5-11 shows this worked out in Christ.  He left heaven, humbling Himself, even to death on the cross.  We then read:  Wherefore God has highly exalted Him.  Christ is merely praying that God do as He promised.

            4. For the Father to glorify the Son is to return Christ to the glory He deserves (v5).  That same Philippians passage says Christ did not consider it robbery to be equal with God (Phil. 2:6).  Christ is God come in the flesh.  Yet even in this He submits Himself to His Father, requesting to be glorified. 

            Let us bow in humble worship of this One Who humbled Himself and died for us that He might have authority to grant eternal life.  This is the glorified Son of God.