John 17:1–16

17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Summary

John 17 lets us hear the prayer of Jesus on the night before the cross. He lifts up His eyes to heaven and says, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (v. 1). The cross is now before Him. But Jesus does not speak as one defeated. He speaks as the Son who knows that through the cross the Father will be glorified and salvation will be accomplished.

Then Jesus gives one of the clearest definitions of eternal life in all of Scripture: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (v. 3). Eternal life is not merely unending existence. It is to know God through His Son.

Jesus then turns His attention to His disciples. He says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world” (v. 6). They belong to the Father, and the Father has given them to the Son. Jesus has given them the Father’s word, and because of that, the world now hates them. Still, Jesus does not ask that they be taken out of the world. He prays, “Holy Father, keep them in your name” (v. 11), and again, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (v. 15).

Meditation

I am amazed that one truth stands at the center of this passage: Our Lord loves His people and will do everything He can to keep them. I am consoled and comforted by that fact. On the night before His suffering, Jesus prays for His disciples. They will fail. They will scatter. Peter will deny Christ. God knows, and Jesus is already interceding for them. He says,

“I have guarded them” (v. 12).

And now He asks the Father to keep them- not because they are faithful but precisely because they are weak and frail. Their future does not depend on their grip on Christ, but on His grip on them.

That is still our comfort today. We live hurried lives. Our minds are scattered. Our hearts often deny Christ. Often, we measure our security by the strength of our devotion, the clarity of our thoughts, or the consistency of our prayers. But Jesus points us somewhere deeper. He says that His people are those whom the Father has given Him. He has made the Father known to them. He has given them the Father’s word. And now He prays for their preservation.

This is why the Christian life is not first about escaping the world, but being kept by God in the middle of it. Jesus says,

“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (v. 14).

And yet He does not ask that they be removed from the world. He asks that they be kept in it. So that we may live as the salt and light. We are to be witnesses of Jesus and live as disciples of Christ. That means our hope is not that life will become easy, but that Christ will hold us fast in the midst of it.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank you that our hope rests not in our strength, but in you. Thank you that Christ has made your name known to us, given us your word, and prayed for us. Keep us in your name. Guard us from the evil one. Help us to live in this world as those who belong to Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.