March 31, 2014: John Chapter 17

The Gospel According to John Chapter 17

Originally posted Friday, April 25, 2008

John Chapter 17:1-26 Jesus Prays for the Disciples

This chapter is entirely devoted to Jesus' prayer with his disciples, his last moments with them before he is arrested. Although the usual printing of this chapter does not show its arrangement, it is written in poetic form much like the Prologue. How the verses are divided into stanzas has been the subject of debate. The best division can be determined by finding a common introductory verse in each stanza followed by the prayer related to the subject. Using this approach there seems to be a natural division into three stanzas: vss. 1-8, 9-19, and 20-26. Each has a similar opening and each has a different subject.

The common introductory phrasing opens each stanza, at vss. 1b, 9 and 20, with a petition offered to God which includes the subject of the prayer.

In vs.1b Jesus petitions God that God glorify (honor) the Son so that the Son may glorify (honor) the Father. That God should glorify the Son is first of all because the Son's "hour" has come and Jesus has completed the work God sent him to accomplish. By doing so he has glorified (honored) God on earth. He has appropriately used the authority he received from God to give eternal life to those whom God has given him. His work completed, Jesus prays that God will invest him with the glory he had as the Word in God's presence before creation. The completion of the work he was sent to do on behalf of God consisted of making God known to the disciples whom God gave to him. They know that everything Jesus has said and done is the truth from God and that Jesus has been sent by God to bring life.  

In vs. 9 Jesus petitions God on behalf of the disciples whom God has given him. He is not praying on behalf of the world but for those that were God's to give. That God has given them to Jesus has glorified him (brought him honor). The disciples are still in the world and Jesus is going to the Father. He prays that God will protect them as he has protected and guarded them so that none were lost except the "son of perdition." Even though they do not belong to the world and the world hates them Jesus does not ask that the disciples be taken out of the world but that God keep them from the evil one (Satan). Finally Jesus asks that God consecrate the disciples, to set them apart in the world into which Jesus has sent them just as God has sent him into the world, (The Old Testament understands that those who are selected to do God's work must be holy just as the God they serve is holy.

In vs. 20 Jesus petitions God on behalf of those who will believe in him and be in unity one with the other because of the missionary work of the disciples. He asks that this unity be extended to a unity with him and God as well. By this unity the world will know God has sent Jesus and that the community will know God loves them just as he loves Jesus. Even these who will come to believe, Jesus asks that they will be with him and behold his glory which God gave to him before creation.

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Chapter 17 stands as a fitting end to what is called the Last Discourse, spanning Chapter 13:31through Chapter 17. This entire section is written as a farewell speech. It is a major and often repetitive summary of the teaching and preaching developed by the evangelists of John's community in the five decades following Jesus' death. If the Synoptic Gospels honor the message of the coming Kingdom of God and one's readiness to enter that Kingdom as delivered by the messenger, Jesus, then John as a whole, with this discourse in particular, honors the messenger. It would not be inaccurate to conclude that in John the messenger has become the message, making John unique among the Gospel writers.