Jesus’ Prayer For His Glorification
December 24, 2022
Commentary
John 17 is often referred to as the “Holy of Holies” of the New Testament. This has been referred to as the greatest prayer on earth and the greatest prayer recorded anywhere in Scripture. This wonderful prayer of our Lord closes the Upper Room Discourse and precedes His agony in the shadows of Gethsemane, the betrayal by Judas the traitor, His arrest, and the beginning of His trials. What a privilege it is for us to listen in as God the Son converses with His Father just as He is about to give His life a ransom for sinners. This is the longest recorded prayer of our Lord. It is the prayer of Christ for His disciples. He had taught them the Word, and now He prays for them.
First, He prays for Himself and asks that He may be glorified in and by means of the cross (vv. 2-5). We must understand what this term “glorified“ means. How is someone “glorified?” It means to make manifest hidden values, hidden riches. Here our Lord is praying that by means of the cross something that is hidden to the world will be manifested. In the cross Jesus was glorified, and His Lordship was revealed, but more than that, our Lord also states that through the cross He will gain the right to give eternal life to all whom the Father brings to Him. He defines eternal life as “knowing God.” That is really living. That is the eternal life everyone longs for deep in their heart. Jesus says that is what He gives through His redemptive life to those who come to Him (vv. 6-8).
Next, our Lord prayed for His eleven disciples. He prayed for them because they belonged to Him (vv. 9-10). These disciples are His. They are a gift from the Father. He has spent 3-1/2 years with them. He knows them intimately. He prayed that they might have unity with God and with each other (v. 11). He asked the Father to guard and keep them (v. 12) (also see John 10:29). And He asked that they might have joy fulfilled in themselves (v. 13). A miserable Christian is a contraction. If you are lacking joy, you are also probably lacking communion with the Father.
Application
I pray that the things I do will bring glory to the Father. It’s so easy for me to just pray for physical things and never really get concerned about my spiritual condition. Did you ever notice that when prayer requests are called for in a prayer meeting most of the requests are for physical things? I want my prayers to be more about the salvation of the lost and holy living after we are saved.
John 17:1– 13 (NET)
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— 2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life —that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created.
6 “I have revealed your name to the men you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they understand that everything you have given me comes from you, 8 because I have given them the words you have given me. They accepted them and really understand that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying on behalf of them. I am not praying on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me, because they belong to you. 10 Everything I have belongs to you, and everything you have belongs to me, and I have been glorified by them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. 12 When I was with them I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me. Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, so that the scripture could be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience my joy completed in themselves.