Ep. 121: Jesus prays

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JOHN 17

We see the great High Priest first solemnly offering up himself and then consecrating and interceding for his Church and for her work. The final hour had come. In praying that the Father would glorify the Son. He was really not asking anything for himself, but that ‘the Son’ might ‘glorify’ the Father. For, the glorifying of the Son - his support, and then his Resurrection, was really the completion of the work which the Father had given him to do.

And then he claimed what was at the end of his mission; his return to that fellowship of essential glory, which he possessed together with the Father before the world was. The gift of his consecration could not have been laid on a more glorious altar. Such a cross must have been followed by such a crown. And now again his first thought was of them for whose sake he had consecrated himself. These he now solemnly presented to the Father.

He introduced them as those whom the Father had specially given to him out of the World. As such, they were really the Father’s and given over to Christ. And now he brought them in prayer before the Father. He was interceding, not for the ‘world’ that was his by right of his Messiahship, but for them whom the Father had specially given him. They were the Father’s in the special sense of covenant and mercy and all that in that sense was the Father’s was the Son’s and all that was the Son’s was the Father’s. He sought not now his blessing on them, but on those whom, while he was in the world. He had shielded and guided.

They were to be left behind in a world of sin, evil, temptation and sorrow and he was going to the Father. And this was his prayer; ‘Holy Father, keep them in Your Name which you have given Me, in order that they may be one as We are.’ Those whom the Father had given him, by the effective drawing of his grace within them. He guarded and none from among them was lost, except the son of perdition - and this, according to prophecy. But now he went to the Father. He prayed that in this unity of holiness the joy that was his might be ‘completed’ in them.

In its last part, this intercessory prayer of the Great High Priest covered the work of the disciples and its fruits. As the Father had sent the Son, so did the Son send the disciples into the World, in the same manner, and on the same mission. And for their sakes he now solemnly offered himself, ‘consecrated’ or ‘sanctified’ himself, that they might ‘in truth’ be consecrated.

We remember the unity of the Church - a unity in him and as that between the Father and the Son as we listen to this; ‘those whom you have given Me, I will that, where I am, they also may be with Me, so that they may gaze on the glory that is Mine, which you have given Me; because you loved Me before the foundation of the world.’ And we all would place ourselves in the shadow of this final consecration of himself and of his Church by the Great High Priest.

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)