Text — John 17:9-26
Subject — The Lord Christ
Theme — The Lord Christ’s Long Prayer
Proposition — Consideration of the Lord Christ and His requests in His long prayer will reveal to us the heart of Christ for His people.
Purpose — Therefore having considered the Lord Christ and the requests of His long prayer let us take comfort and rejoice in the great salvation by which we have been saved.
Action — Therefore having considered the requests
Introduction —
Upper Room Discourse
Preparing His legates for their task
As we shall see His departure and looming ascension is upon His mind I13)
Longest recorded prayer we have of Christ
Unspeakably shame, dishonor, and cruelty lies before Him and yet the Lord Christ’s time is spent asking for His company.
Great Johannine themes here — “Word,” “World,” “Truth,” “Joy,”
Background / Context
“World” — used 13 times in this text.
The word “world” here is used of mankind as it lies in Adam … as it is in opposition to the Lord Christ.
Herman Sasse rightly spoke of the word “world” here as
“the sum of divine creation which has been shattered by the fall, which stands under the judgment of God, and in which Jesus Christ appears as the Redeemer… The “world then is in some is in some sense personified as the great opponent of the Redeemer in Salvation History.”
World then does not have to do with locale or geographic setting but rather it has to do with opposition to God’s saving work. The “world” is a realm that is activated and motivated by the intent to cast God off and to arise to god’s place. Christ will speak, in John, of the evil one as “the prince of this world.” (12:31, 14:30, 16:11). This does not mean that Satan is over planet earth but only that Satan is the one who rules over that aspect of fallen creation that opposes God.
When Christ says, “My Kingdom is not of this world,” He is NOT saying that His Kingdom does not impinge upon planet earth or the affairs of men outside the Church walls. What He is saying instead is that His Kingdom does not find its source of origin in this fallen world.
Having said that we know that John’s Gospel does not leave us with a picture of ceaseless enmity between God and “the world.” John makes it clear that the world is not interested in God’s agenda but it is not true that God therefore has no interest in “the world.”
God loves the world (3:16)
Christ takes away the sins of the world (1:29)
Christ is the savior of the world (4:42)
Christ gives life to the world (6:51)
This is at cost for Christ gives His flesh for the life of the World (6:51)
So, we see here that while the world hates God, there is, in the depths of God’s intent, the purpose of reconciling the world unto Himself.
So, as we deal with the world we deal with it as ones who were ourselves part of that world. A world that seeks to create itself by its own fiat word independent of God. We know that this world is opposed to us as disciples of Christ (John 17:14. cmp. 15:18-19) and yet for the sake of Christ we take that Hatred the world has for God’s people and hold out to to the world the command for all men everywhere to repent.
I.) The Work of Christ mentioned in this Prayer
A.) He exegeted the Father (vs.6,8)
The Son came to make the Father known. Much as a minister is required to break open the meaning of a text so that the text might be understood, so the Son was the one who opened the meaning of the Father that the Father might be understood. To say that the Son was the interpretation of the Father is much akin to saying that the Son is the the brightness of God’s glory or to say that the Son is the express image of the Father.
It remains even so today. If we want to know the Father we must needs see the Father in the character of the Son. And the only place that can be known is as found in the Scripture. It is only in the Scripture that we see the Son as the exegesis of the Father. Apart from the Son no one ever gets to know the Father. The Father’s name … that is the Father Himself is not apprehended apart from the words and works of the Son. This explains why Biblical Christians have always held that there is no salvation apart from a known Son… no intimacy with the Father apart from the Son making the Father known.
We get in significant trouble today in the Church because we don’t spend time understanding the exegesis of the Father by the Son as communicated by Scripture. Instead we envision what we think the Father must be like.
“My God doesn’t haven’t wrath…”
“My God wouldn’t do that…”
“My God indiscriminately loves everyone … ”
The “God” the Church serves today is more often then not a god of their imagination. It is not the God as exegeted and made manifest by the Son.
In His work of manifesting the Father the Son was doing the work of someone who restores old paintings. Meticulously and with great care the restorationist cleans the original painting of all that has worked to mar it over the years, with the result that the painting is now seen again for what it originally was.
In the same way, the Son stripped off the accretions of dirt and filth put upon the character of God by the Pharisees and made the Father known in keeping with His original splendor and beauty.
Christ as Image of the Father’s face,
Bore the flesh of Adam’s race,
Yet, in that Flesh was manifest
The Character of God confessed
B.) He Kept and Guarded His people (12)
Here we must note the explicit language that belongs to the Biblical Christian… to the one called “The Calvinist.”
Note when He speaks of His men here he distinguishes them very clearly from those who are not His own. Christ makes a clear distinction between those who are His and those who are not His. Here is that stout Biblical doctrine of Election.
Article 7. Election is the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby, before the foundation of the world, he hath out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of his own will, chosen, from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault, from their primitive state of rectitude, into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ, whom he from eternity appointed the Mediator and Head of the elect, and the foundation of Salvation.
Now the context here may have more to do with the idea of these disciples being elected to their office as disciples but the larger matter of election to salvation is not far removed when we consider the language when used as applied to Judas, as the Son of perdition.
In Christ insisting that He is only praying for His people we find the same impulse that we heard in John 10 when Christ could speak of “His sheep” and speak of those who do not believe, because they were not of My sheep.
Christ prays for His particular disciples just as He will die for a particular people. There is particularity all over the Gospel. A Christianity that lack particularity is a different Christianity then the one expressed from Genesis to Revelation.
This particularity though is not only unto privilege but also unto mission (18).
The keeping and guarding that our Lord Christ
C.) He is One with the Father (10, 11)
Purpose and Essence
When the Lord Christ prays, “All thine are mine,” and “All mine are thine,” there is a clear expression of ontological unity being expressed. When the Lord Christ asks that His disciples would be kept by the Father and prays that they were kept by Him we see a “unity of purpose.” When the idea is communicated that just as the Father sent the Son so now the Son was sending His Disciples (Disciples who were given to Him by the Father) (cmp. vs. 18) there is the clear idea of this trinitarian perichoresis intimated in the text.
D.) He Consecrates Himself (19)
The Consecration (set-apartness) spoken of here is certainly a reference to His looming death. Christ sets Himself apart by His death so that they may be set apart for the purpose of being heralds of that death.
In His consecration we see the work of
propitiation, expiation, atonement, reconciliation, active & passive obedience, redemption, ransom, substitution,
II.) The Requests of the Lord Christ For His Company In this Prayer
A.) Request #1 — The Lord Christ asks that His and the Father’s Disciples will be Kept (Protected) (11-12, 15)
B.) Request #2 — The Lord Christ asks that His and the Father’s Disciples might be One (11)
C.) Requests #3 — The Lord Christ asks that His and the Father’s Disciples May Have Joy (13)
Christ here speaks of the Disciples having His joy made full in themselves.
This idea of joy becomes a sub-theme in the upper room discourse. It is mentioned in 15:11, 16:20, 21, 22, 24 and here. Obviously our Lord Christ is concerned with His people knowing His joy.
It is interesting that our Lord Christ is on the cusp of the Cross work and yet He can ask that the Disciples might have His joy made full in themselves. Obviously, the kind of joy that He is speaking of has the ability to not be extinguished by either sorrow or trauma.
It is to be expected that the Lord Christ might ask for this joy for the Disciples since, per the OT, joy was to be characteristic of life in the Kingdom. In the Kingdom even, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose and those dwelling in the Kingdom shall go out with joy.
In contrast to the old Covenant that was characterized by fasting the presence of Christ now is the time of celebration (Mk. 2:19). There is joy unspeakable and the Lord Christ’s prays for His little company that they may have His joy in them.
Well, how might we assess this joy our Lord Christ speaks of? I think when we look at this joy our Lord Christ speaks of we needs to go out of our way to distinguish it from pleasure. This joy is not equal to giddiness or a lack of seriousness. Rather, we might say that this joy that the Lord Christ repeatedly speaks of arises out of the satisfaction that comes from a finished work. This is why, in the shadow of the Cross, the Lord Christ can speak of His joy being made full in His disciples. His joy is driven by His satisfaction in the completeness of His work.
In his commentary on John R. H. Strachan put it this way,
“The joy of Jesus is the joy that rises from the sense of a finished work. It is creative joy, like the joy of the artist. It produces a sense of un-exhausted power for fresh creation. This joy, in the heart of Jesus, is both the joy of victory (15:11) and the sense of having brought His Church into being.”
If this is accurate then the joy that the Lord Christ is interested in having is the joy that comes from a job well done.
It is the joy a parent finds in letting go of well trained children.
It is the joy that comes in the last few breaths of a life well lived.
It is the joy of a battle well fought.
D.) Request # 4 — The Lord Christ asks that His and the Father’s Disciples might be Consecrated (17-19)
Conclusion – recap
