2019.09.20 Hopewell @Home ▫ John 17:20-26

Read John 17:20-26

Questions from the Scripture text: Who are not the only ones for whom Jesus is praying (John 17:20)? For whom also is He praying? Why is He praying for them (John 17:21)? How are believers made one? What is this unity in Christ used by God to do to the world? What has Jesus done with the glory His father gave Him (John 17:22)? What does this glory do for believers? Who is in believers (John 17:23)? Who is in Jesus? What impact does this have upon the world—what two things does the world learn about the Father from this? Where does Jesus desire His disciples to be in John 17:24? What does He want them to behold? For how long has the Father loved the Son? What does Jesus call God in John 17:25? Who has not known the Father? Who has known the Father? What else have Jesus’s disciples known? What has Jesus declared to His disciples (John 17:26)? What does this cause to be in the disciples? Whom does this cause to be in the disciples?

Jesus has been praying for us throughout John 17, but now He specifically lets us know it. Aren’t you one of those specifically named in John 17:20? Someone who has believed in Him through the words of the apostles?

Let us marvel at the astonishing—blasphemous, had it not been the Lord Himself who said them—things that Jesus prays specifically for us!

That we would be one in God, as God is One in Himself (!!!, John 17:21). This of course cannot be a oneness of substance. We cannot be God, and God cannot change. So what is it?

It is a oneness of glory. Jesus has given us His glory (John 17:22), even as HE prays that we would behold that glory (John 17:24). We have no glory of our own. The more He makes us to be like Himself, the more His glory is seen upon us. And, ultimately, what we come to know as glorious is to belong to Him, to be with Him, to behold Him.

It is a oneness of understanding. Jesus has given unto us to believe (John 17:20) in Him. Jesus has given us to know that He sent from the Father (John 17:25). That is to say: He has given us to know the Trinity and to know the eternal Son who is also now true man forever—not just theoretically (though at least that) but experientially (cf. John 17:3).

It is a oneness of love. We do not come to know (to understand and experience) only the love of God within Himself from before the world began (John 17:24). We come to understand and experience that God loves us with that very love that He has within Himself (John 17:23). In fact, that love comes not only to be upon us, but even within us (John 17:26, cf. Romans 5:5), because Christ is within us!

This is the greatest of the miracles of the gospel of John—a gospel that has been uniquely focused upon the “signs” that “manifest the glory” of Jesus. Sinners who are brought into a oneness of understanding with the Triune God. Sinners who are redeemed into a oneness of glory with the Triune God. Sinners who are redeemed into a oneness of love with the Triune God.

This redemption is the great sign through which the world (all those who are born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God, cf. John 1:13) come to believe (John 17:21, John 17:23). Truly, as Jesus said, He has given to the apostles—and even to contemporary believers—to do “greater works than these.”

And these are the things that we must pray for, even as He has modeled for us the praying for them—even as He is even now in glory interceding for us!

By what means are you seeking for yourself what Jesus, in heaven, is seeking for you?

Suggested songs: ARP1 “How Blessed the Man” or TPH522 “Behold the Throne of Grace!”