John 17:1-5. The Prayer of Jesus (1), for Himself
A group of medical students were on a ward round with their consultant and were introduced to a patient. After examining the patient they withdrew to a teaching room and the consultant said to the students,
“This man will probably choke on his food and die within six months. Can you tell him what the meaning of life is?”
What do you think of that consultant? Was he overstepping the mark? Or are we unconsciously under-stepping the mark by not talking about wider issues?
A short while ago I was in Glasgow. The city motto used to be emblazoned on its trams and buses,
“Let Glasgow flourish.”
This is an anaemic truncation of the original motto chosen by the city fathers,
“Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word and the praising of his name.”
Those city fathers were boldly confident about the truths they lived by. Today we have largely lost this confidence in our society, even in Christian society.
It is significant that Jesus faced this very same tension near the beginning of his public ministry. Mark 1:32-39 describes a day when crowds of people came to Jesus to be healed and he was working on into the evening. Yet Jesus was bothered. So the following morning he rose early, while it was still dark, and went out alone to pray. This is where the disciples found him later as further crowds were collecting. “Everyone is looking for you”, he is told – the presumption is that the news about his healing skills was travelling fast.
“Jesus replied, ‘Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come.’” Mark 1:38
We know what Jesus preached about – the Kingdom of God and eternal life were his constant themes. After talking this over with his heavenly Father he concluded that the news about eternal life was his priority. He keeps telling people that eternal life must be everybody’s priority.
Just after Jesus has miraculously fed the 5,000 he warns his listeners about having wrong priorities.
“I tell you the truth, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” John 6:26
He then says,
“Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” John 6:26-27
Jesus taught that eternal life was his priority and that this should be the goal of all people.
John 17 is the great final prayer of Jesus in the upper room, given just before his arrest and execution. This passage really shows what was at the forefront of his mind. It is divided into three sections, he prays for himself, then for the twelve disciples and finally for subsequent generations of Christians. This article deals with the first section.
Jesus’ Own Priority
This section begins,
“After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed.” John 17:1
Looking upwards was a common form of prayer, as lying prostrate on the floor also was. When Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus ‘looked up’ and prayed (John 11:41). However in this situation John clearly intends us to see there was more in this. He was looking up to his Father, from where he had come and where he was now looking forwards to returning to.
Jesus knew of the awful time that lay ahead of him.
“Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.” John 17:1
The glory of God is closely associated with the glory of the Son. Jesus recognised that his being ‘lifted up’ referred to his execution but also that his death would be the glory of his whole life. The sacrifice of his own life would not only glorify him but would also glorify his Father who allowed this. His death would lead to many people being saved from the consequence of the sin that separated them from God. Oh the glory of that cross! In another sense the death of Jesus will be the pathway to his return to live again in the glory of heaven.
Earlier in John’s gospel we repeatedly read that his ‘hour has not yet come’ (2:4, 7:6, 7:8, 7:30, 8:20) but when he meets some Greeks he realises that his ‘hour has now come’.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:23-24
This ‘hour’ clearly refers to his execution. His death would be his ‘glorification’ and every Christian acknowledges just that. However all Jesus did was to bring glory to his Father and consequently all we do should be to bring glory to our heavenly Father.
The realisation that he was shortly to be tortured to death led Jesus to pray, just as impending difficult times should lead all of us to pray. He comforts himself with the relationship he has with his Father and the fact that he had fulfilled all he had been sent to do.
“For you granted him (the Son) authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” John 17:2
This is Jesus’ focus and is can be ours too. Christians have this same relationship with God because of Jesus. Today, in Western society, people have much to live with, but little to live for. Our society behaves as if physical and material well-being are all-important and that spiritual well-being is much less important. Jesus does not agree, death is the route to eternal life both for him and for his people.
Someone may be saying,
“I can see that was Jesus’ priority but he was on a somewhat different plane to the rest of us and he did live in a different era after all.”
Today many ask the question, ‘Is eternal life even possible? Isn’t this just a fairy tale?’ They follow the thinking of Bertrand Russell who said,
‘When I die, I rot!’
This brings us to the question of authority. Jesus is very clear, there is eternal life available and he goes on to say in his prayer what this is and how it may be found,
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you . . .” John 17:3
Eternal life is to be in a relationship with God who created the universe. But this begs the question, ‘How can we know an infinite God that we cannot see?’ Jesus goes on to answer this; he equates himself with his heavenly Father, and again states that he is the door to eternal life.
“ . . . that they may know you and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” John 17:3-4
To be in a relationship with Jesus is to be in a relationship with his Father. This is very similar to his response to Thomas’s question,
“How can we know the way?”
Jesus replied,
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Jesus is saying that the only way to be given ‘eternal life’ is to be committed to himself, God’s Christ, God’s chosen king. He then expalins to Philip, who has asked to see the Father,
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9
Jesus finishes this section of his prayer by remembering the close relationship he had with his heavenly Father in the past and looks forwards to his return to this state in the near future.
“And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” John 17:5
Jesus is God
When the first missionaries went to Japan, a young Japanese man, who wanted to learn English, was given the Gospel of John to translate into his native tongue. In a short time he became very restless and agitated. At last he burst out with the question, "Who is this Man about whom I have been reading, this Jesus? You call him a man, but He must be God."
This is the message of the whole New Testament, just as it is the focus of John’s gospel. If he is not God he cannot forgive our sin and his death would have been a meaningless sacrifice. Here are some of the passages in John’s gospel that emphasises this fact.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made . . .” John 1:1-3
“No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (Son), who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” John 1:18
“’I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was (born), I am!’ At this they picked up stones to stone him. . .” John 8:58-59
“’I and the Father are one.’ Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him. . . . ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.’ ” John 10:30-33
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9
“Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God.’ John 20:28
Jesus knows that he is about to return to live with his Father in heaven where the glory of God will also be his.
Application for all of us
In the Old Testament God is usually referred to as LORD. Capital letters are used when the tetragammon, the four Hebrew letters often translated Jehovah or Jahweh, is in the original. In the New Testament, Jesus is called Lord more than 700 times. In the Book of Acts alone Jesus is referred to as Lord more than 90 times. If the apostles put such an emphasis on worshipping Jesus as Lord of the universe, shouldn’t we?
In 1991 a Gallup poll showed that 78 percent of Americans expect to go to heaven when they die. However, many of them hardly ever pray, read the Bible, or attend church. They admit that they live to please themselves instead of God. Why would these people want to go to heaven?
In an article titled, ‘Are We Ready for Heaven?’ Maurice R. Irwin points out that only 34 percent of the American people who call themselves Christians attend church at least once a week. He says,
“We sing, 'When all my labours and trials are o'er, and I am safe on that beautiful shore, just to be near the dear Lord I adore will through the ages be glory for me.' However, unless our attitudes toward the Lord and our appreciation of Him change greatly, heaven may be more of a shock than a glory.”
The only way to a life in heaven is to know Jesus personally and the proof of that is a life committed to obeying him. We all know whether we have made that decision and are proceeding down that path.
There are many who hope they will go to heaven but are unsure. Jesus was certain of his destinay and this gave him courage to fulfil his Father’s wishes. The Bible wants all Christians to be just as certain about our destiny as this clarifies how we should live in the meantime. The following verses on ‘assurance’ are some that all Christians should know by heart and understand:
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” John 3:36
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” John 5:24
“I tell you the truth, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.” John 6:47
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:27-28
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13
A patient of mine, who had recently committed her life to Christ, had advanced cancer and was moved to the local hospice. I visited her there and wanted to remind her of the promises of God that all who have truly believed in Jesus, which means who are committed to obeying him, have eternal life. She was shown the following promise in the Bible:
“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
I then wrote her name boldly on a piece of paper and placed this in the centre of my Bible and then explained,
“Let this Bible represent the Lord Jesus. You have committed your life to him, so in a very real sense you are ‘in him’. So when God looks at you, he doesn’t see your sin, he only sees the righteousness of Christ. Furthermore the Lord Jesus has returned to heaven so because you are ‘in him’ you will go to join him there. For the Bible encourages us with this promise, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’”
That lady was so excited she asked a nurse to read the whole of Romans 8, a wonderful chapter on assurance, to the others in her unit in the hospice! They read,
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Romans 8:35
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39
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