Day 142: What Did Jesus Pray for Us?
John 17:23
“I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.”
This week, we listen to and explore one of our Lord Jesus’ last prayers during His earthly work. In it, we hear both the Lord’s heart and desire for His people. He prays this prayer to prepare His first disciples for the work that would be entrusted to them as they would lay the foundation for The Church, the Body of Christ. Since we have come to know Jesus through these men’s work, it is important for us to understand what Jesus wanted for them because He desires those same things for us.
This week, before we continue our discussion of the Church, we are going to focus on Jesus’ prayer in John 17. This powerful passage records what Jesus prayed for His disciples just before he was betrayed by Judas and arrested. It is important to keep that context in mind as you work through this prayer. This prayer sets the context for understanding the significance of the witness and work of The Church. First read through this section of the prayer and then work through the questions.
WORDwork:
John 17:1–5
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— 17:2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that He may give eternal life to everyone you have given Him. 17:3 Now this is eternal life —that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. 17:4 I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created.
17:6 “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. 17:7 Now they understand that everything you have given me comes from you, 17:8 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. 17:9 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.
What is the first thing Jesus asks the Father to do?
What do you think that means?
What has The Father given to Jesus according to 17:2?
For what purpose did The Father give this to Jesus?
How does Jesus define Eternal Life in 17:3?
What does Jesus ask The Father to do in 17:5?
What do you think this means?
What did Jesus reveal to his men according to 17:6?
What did Jesus give to his men according to 17:8?
Who is Jesus praying for in this prayer (17:9)?
In this passage we have the longest prayer of Jesus recorded for us in the Gospels. Since Jesus prays these things in the hours before His Crucifixion, we get great insight into what were the most important things on His mind at this crucial stage in His earthly ministry.
First, Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him, so that He might glorify the Father. We have discussed that root term “glory” a couple of times at this point.
To Glorify someone is to proclaim or show why that person is worthy of praise, respect, honor. We glorify people that we delight in and have a deep relational attachment to.
There are many implications in this very basic definition. If we look to Jesus’ own example, we see that He affirmed that He did not seek His own glory, but the glory of the One who sent Him—The Father (see John 7:18). A very helpful exercise is to look up the variations of the world “glory” in John’s Gospel; that will give you more insight on Jesus’ use of the word in this prayer but it is a larger issue than what we are focusing on here.
To glorify someone also implies that we defer to that person or make that person first in our thoughts and actions. Jesus also touches on this:
John 6:38
“For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.”
In His earthly life, Jesus glorified the Father. Now He prays that the Father would glorify Him. Notice that Jesus does not ask this just for His sake; He asks the Father to do this so that Jesus can in turn glorify the Father. In short, Jesus acts in way that focuses on the worthiness of the Father for praise and adoration. The Father in turn holds up Jesus in a way that magnifies His worthiness for praise and adoration. Each glorifying the other, forever.
Next Jesus states that the Father had given Him authority over all humanity, literally all flesh in the Greek text. This is a subject that we have covered before, but one that is worth being constantly reminded of: Jesus has been given all power/authority in Heaven and on Earth (see Matthew 28:18). This is why Jesus is LORD – the King, the Rule over all that exists.
Now take note of the next idea: the Father has given Jesus this authority so that He might give eternal life to those the Father has given Jesus – His people, you and me.
In the next statement, eternal life is defined for us. This may not be the definition that we would expect. Jesus does not define eternal life in terms of never ending existence, but in terms of knowledge, personal knowledge of the Father and the Son. As we explored in the last unit, this “deep” knowledge—an experiential, personal relationship with Father God in Christ—makes all things possible for us.
Jesus now asks the Father to “glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created.” You should now have a better idea of what this means. In this prayer, Jesus reveals two things about His “time” with the Father before the World was created: there was glory and there was love. We have been created out of that glory and love and now Jesus is calling us back to it.
Finally, Jesus says that He had given the “name” of the Father to His men which is most likely the 12 Apostles. A little later we will see that Jesus is also praying for all His people. First, He prays for the 12 men given to Him by the Father to be His witnesses and representatives after His ascension back to Heaven. These are the men that Jesus had entrusted with His words, His teaching that He Himself had received from the Father. These men would lay the foundation of the Church—the Body of Christ—that would be built on the work and teaching of Jesus.
It is interesting to note that Jesus says specifically that He is not praying for the “world” but only for the people given to Him by the Father. The “world” is a shorthand way to refer to everyone and everything that is opposed to the One True God. It is not that Jesus is unconcerned with the World; as we know these are the people He came save. He even affirms that His people have been chosen “out of the world”(John 15:19).
Instead, if you consider the rest of the context and what Jesus is going to pray next, He knows that His (and the Father’s) purposes will now be worked out and carried on by His people. From this point on, the only way that the World will come to know Jesus is through His people. For this reason, in this prayer, Jesus focuses on His people’s security and Oneness. We will see this in the rest of this prayer.
What caught your attention in today’s reading?
Why did it do so?
*You can find a complete list of all the MilktoMeat readings here.
