Jesus Praying for Himself

By S. Lewis Johnson, Jr. *

An Exposition of John 17:1-5 

Introduction

In introducing the upper room discourse John commented on the ministry of the Lord in this way, “Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). Now, of course, this statement probably includes the work of the cross that He will accomplish in a very few hours. And in that work He will supremely demonstrate His love for His own. It is also true, however, that He has acted out His love in the discourse itself. He has washed the disciples’ feet in a magnificent demonstration of submissive love, and He has called upon them to do the same in His new commandment.

And He has spoken His love in this really thrilling discourse, in which He has prepared them for the future, supported by some of the greatest promises in the entire Word of God—the choice of the Holy Spirit, the promise of union with Christ and the issues of that important truth, and the promise that He will see them again (cf. 16:22).

And now in this beautiful and meaningful seventeenth chapter He will, as someone has said, “add yet another jewel” to His crown in the sublime prayer that followed His discourse to His apostles.

One of the old Scottish divines, Robert Traill, began his sermons on this prayer of the Lord by quaintly saying, “The best of all sermons, in chap. xiv, xv, xvi. is concluded with the best of all prayers in this chap. xvii.” [1]

When John Knox, the Scottish reformer, was lying on his deathbed in his house on High Street in Edinburgh, he insistently asked that the Bible be read aloud to him. He wanted to hear the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and he asked for the Psalms, and he even requested that some of Calvin’s sermons be read to him. But above all he asked for his beloved chapter from the Gospel of John, the seventeenth chapter, which he referred to as “the place where I cast my first anchor.” [2] It is a marvelous place into which to cast one’s anchor, for it will surely hold here.

The Synoptic Gospels speak frequently of the prayers of our Lord, but they are usually very brief and pointed references. Rarely do they give us the content of His petitions. We have some accounts of what He prayed, such as the contents of His prayers at Lazarus’ grave, of the three petitions in Gethsemane, and, of course, of the words He uttered when hanging on the cross. We have that remarkable prayer of Matthew 11:25–27, which Karl von Hase, Professor of Church History at Jena, Germany, in the 19th century and great-grandfather of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, tragic twentieth-century theologian, once called, “a thunderbolt fallen from the Johannine sky.” [3] It has been also called, “The Great Thanksgiving.” Both that prayer and this one in John seventeen indicate that theology was much upon our Lord’s mind, for they both are filled with fundamental doctrinal themes, such as divine sovereignty, divine election, and special distinguishing grace.

If someone should say, “But what about the so-called Lord’s Prayer of Matthew 6:9–13?” we need only reply that that is said by our Lord to be a model prayer. In fact, one popular Bible teacher likes to refer to it as “The Prayer our Lord Did Not Pray.” It might even more truly be said to be, “The Prayer our Lord Could Not Pray,” due to its references to the forgiveness of sins. Somewhere Forsyth points out that Jesus prayed “for” the disciples, but never “with” them. He gave them the Lord’s Prayer, but He never prayed it.

Thus, we conclude that John seventeen has title to being called, “emphatically the Lord’s Prayer,” just as Marcus Rainsford contended.

John seventeen has some special values for believers in Jesus Christ, and we must not fail to stress them. In the first place, it is an example of His method in prayer and, of course, He is the supreme example for His praying people. After He had been praying in a certain place, one of His disciples said to Him as He finished, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). He answered them with the so-called “Lord’s Prayer,” the model prayer, and then He told them “The Parable of the Persistent Friend” (vv. 2–13). Rich teaching, indeed, but no richer than His own example.

In the second place, He gives His readers a choice example of spiritual pedagogy. The teacher becomes the intercessor, as it always should be in the teaching ministry of believers. “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven,”—what a model for those who instruct in the things of God! The “these words” refer to the discourse, of course, and the lifting of the eyes to heaven represent the ideal action of the teacher following his instruction. Divine blessing in illumination alone can render the teaching effective.

Finally, the prayer provides the reader with the greatest incentive to prayer. What greater incentive could we have than the illustration of the God-man’s sense of the need of intercourse and petition with the Father? If He, the divine Son, considered prayer an essential activity, then we, human and fallible sons, certainly have greater reason to give ourselves to communion and petition with the Father. His praying, then, is a tremendous encouragement to us to “tell out our desires, across all mystery, to Him,” as Moule has put it. [4] He later exhorted his readers with these words, “So let us learn from our chapter at least this—to pray.” [5]

The Prayer Concerning His Messianic Office

The Content of the Prayer (John 17:1).

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

The prayer of our Lord is often referred to as His “high priestly prayer” and that is not incorrect, although some respected commentators have contended that the words do not do justice to the scope of the prayer. [6] The central purpose of the prayer, however, has to do with the well-being of the apostles and of those others who shall believe on the Son in the future. And their well-being is clearly connected with the priestly offering that He shall make for them on the soon-coming cross. Thus, the traditional description of the prayer is not without its justification.
Simply put, the prayer in its first division, or section, is a prayer for glory, first for His mediatorial and Messianic glory (vv. 1–2), and then for His essential glory (v. 5). We have called this opening study of the prayer “Jesus Praying for Himself,” but we must not understand that in a self-seeking sense. It is really a prayer concerning Himself, that is, that the Father’s will may be done in and through Him. It is not a petition that the Father should display His moral perfections in His coming suffering, although they were certainly manifested gloriously in His cross. Nor does He pray that the Father may grant Him persuasive power over the minds of men to turn them to Himself. He prays rather for the triumph of the mediatorial cross and the empty tomb and the ascension (cf. 12:23), and for these things that He may glorify the Father in His saviorhood. One thinks of Peter’s exultant words to the council. “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:29–31; cf. Heb. 12:2).

The Address

The prayer begins with the simple, yet profound, “Father.” It is the simple language of a child to its father, Dalman points out. [7] The intimacy of the approach to the Father is absent from Judaism, and it undoubtedly startled the disciples. Their use of the term later suggests they never forgot the thrill of it.

The meaning of the term “Father” for the children of God has never been expressed more truthfully and touchingly than by the late Bishop of Durham, Handley C. G. Moule, in his devotional commentary on the prayer.

When Jesus says ‘Father,’ and the Christian stands by His side and listens, then across a thousand subtleties and sophisms, nay, amidst innumerable mysteries impervious to his intellect, baffling the finite mind as it attempts to comprehend fully its own relations with the Infinite, he knows that the Eternal and Ultimate is Personal. The poor sinful man, looking up into the heights immeasurable, finds and touches, with trembling but real faith, close beside him, no mere abstract Cause, no blind Tendency, no soulless Nature personified and deified by fancy or by wish, but One who knows, wills, and loves, unspeakably and with a tenderness that cannot be imagined. He is the personally Holy, the personally Faithful, the personally Gracious. He is the Father, nothing less than all that can be denoted or implied by that dear and living word; the Father, first of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then of the praying, needing man in Him. He is Father, for He is living Author of our personal life; Father, for our very nature was made in His image; Father, for He has ‘begotten us again unto a living hope.’ He is Father, so that we are to Him immeasurably more than even the work of His hands: we are, to that eternal Love, His dear and precious possession; His ‘delights are with the sons of men’; He ‘pities’ the child of His mortal family with that ‘pity’ of which only parental hearts can quite know the sweet nature—the pity which is the outcome of a yearning affection, attracted by the very frailty of its object, and which also returns continually into that affection to quicken and kindle it yet more than ever. Listening to his Lord thus speaking, thus saying ‘Father,’ ‘Holy Father,’ ‘Righteous Father,’ ‘Thou lovedst Me,’ ‘I have known Thee,’ the man takes the great but perhaps almost too familiarly-known word up again, to study, and adore, and love. ‘Our Father which art in heaven,’ the first words of the first Lord’s Prayer, are lighted up into a new and tender glory by these first words of this wonderful last Lord’s Prayer; and the man says his Pater Noster as one who knows and feels that he can never be an orphan. [8]

“Can never be an orphan,”—what security and comfort!

The Time

There follows the fateful clause, “the hour is come,” reference to which has been made often in the gospel (cf. 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 16:32; cf. Matt. 26:18, 45; Mark 14:41). Leon Morris, commenting on the clause in 2:4, has said that it meant there, “It is not yet time for Me to act.” [9] It is striking that, when the time of the cross is at hand, Jesus says, “The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified” (cf. 12:23). I agree with Morris in thinking that the Lord is thinking of His messianic work of atoning suffering. [10]

The Request

The request, “glorify thy Son,” confirms the preceding conviction that He is thinking of His messianic ministry, for it is as the son of God that He carries it out. Only a Son of God may adequately represent both God and man in the Messianic work of representative, effective mediation. The use of the third person in “thy Son” points to His work as mediator between God and man, as Messianic King-Priest. The glory to which He refers in the first “glorify” is that of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (cf. 1:29).

The final clause, “that thy Son also may glorify thee,” makes it plain that not only is the glory of the Son closely connected with the glory of the Father, but also it is the glorification of the Son that leads to the glory of the Father. And, further, since the clause is a purpose clause, the work of the Son in His Messianic mediatorial sufferings is designed to glorify the Father in its manifestation of the grace, mercy, love, and justice of the Father, who planned it all.

Before we close our meditation on this magnificent text, let us notice how exalted it pictures the Son. What mere creature, however mighty and admired among men, could ever call upon the Majesty on high to glorify him? To pose the question is to answer it. The one who makes the request for glorification is the Son, but it is also clear that He is God the Son.

On the other hand, the one to whom He addresses His request is the one in whom God the Son delights, the one whom He “delights to reveal as the eternal Fountain of Himself the Eternal Stream,” [11] the one who so loved His creatures, both Jews and Gentiles, that He gave them His Son, the one whom the infinite and co-equal Son evidently regards as alone sufficient in might and power through His infinite and eternal deity to lay upon His head the diadem of glory. How majestically great is, then, the Father!

The Correspondence with the Eternal Covenant (John 17:2).

As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

The Comparison

The opening conjunction, “as,” a word of comparison, points to the fact that the glorification of the Son is in harmony with the grant to Him of authority to give eternal life to all given Him by the Father. In this sense the second verse is something of an explanatory addition to verse one, showing that the glorification of the Son lies in His sovereign authority to give life to the given ones, that is, the divine elect. That, in turn, leads to the glorification of the Father, who gave the authority and the given ones as well. So, the Son’s granting of eternal life to the given ones through the authority given Him by the Father is what is meant in verse one, “that thy Son also may glorify thee.” [12]

The Threefold Gift

Now we shall not understand this statement if we fail to notice the threefold gift mentioned here. First, the Father has given the Son authority to determine the final destinies of all men (cf. 5:27; Matt. 11:27). And, second, the Father has given the Son a definite people, called in a moment, “the men which thou gavest me out of the world” (cf. v. 6). And, third, it is the Son who is to give life to this people, and the life is eternal life.

Those Given to the Son

The word given is found about seventeen times in the chapter and about seventy-five times in the gospel. It is, therefore, a favorite word of John. In this context it refers to the body of men and women who shall believe through grace, that is, the elect. The given were given to Him before the ages (cf. Eph. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9). It was sovereign love for the Son by the Father, but sovereign grace for the ones given. It is, as Moule says, “the mystery, ‘dark with excess of bright,’ of a divine election.” [13]

In a sense there is a twofold giving of men to the Son by the Father, one from ages past and the other in time, when grace brings to faith (cf. 6:44–45). The former giving is in view here. We are given in ages past to the Son, to be redeemed by His blood and, in due time, to be drawn to Him for the gift of eternal life.

There are some things about this giving that should be stressed. First, that there were divine dealings between the Father and the Son in ages past concerning the saving of men. While details of these transactions may be a mystery, the fact of them is plainly revealed and should be the object of our belief, praise, adoration, and thanksgiving. And, second, the men given are a select company from mankind, to be distinguished from the world (cf. v. 9). Thus, the idea of universal election, as taught by Karl Barth for example, is a contradiction in terms. Election is of a fixed number, and there is no election if there is no passing by. For if all are taken, then none are chosen (cf. Rom. 11:7). And, third, since God’s counsels are unchangeable and immutable, it follows that the election is immutable and unalterable (cf. Psa. 33:11; Isa. 25:1).

The Purpose of This Gift

To demonstrate God’s sovereignty. And we should not pass on without a word or two concerning the designs of this election. First, God demonstrates His absolute sovereignty in His act of election. Proud and arrogant man cannot abide this and regularly objects. Paul in Romans 9:14, 19 offers up man’s complaints and decisively indicates the divine reply to human rebellion against the sovereign good pleasure of God. In these verses the apostle lays as the foundation of God’s counsels about man’s eternal state His sovereign will and pleasure (cf. vv. 19–23; Job 32:12–13).

The natural man, like the Arminian theologian, likes to think and say that God loved Jacob, because He foresaw that he would be a holy wrestler with God and a great believer, and that He hated Esau, because He foresaw that he would be a profane man, would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage, grieve his father with an unholy marriage, and seek to slay his brother, the holy-to-be Jacob. How contrary to Paul’s reasoning in verses ten through thirteen!

In basing election upon foreknowledge the evangelical Arminian makes a fatal concession that destroys his case. For, if God foresees the faith of the elect, He also foresees the unbelief of the nonelect. Why, then, does He create those who He foresees and knows will be lost? He is under no outside power to force Him to create them. If He desires the salvation of all men and is earnestly desiring to save them, He could at least have refrained from creating those who should be lost. Why does God, then, create those He knows will go to hell? Even a man knows enough not to try to do what he positively knows he will not, or cannot, do. But if the Arminian in this impasse should deny the foreknowledge of God, then he would have only a limited, ignorant, finite God, one in reality not a God at all in the true sense of the term God.

Further, if election is based on foreknowledge that some will elect to believe, then why elect the ones who will believe? What sense is there in God’s election of those who He knows with certainty will elect to believe, that is, will elect themselves? Thus, one can see the hopelessness of the Arminian case, the saddest feature of which is the fact that it is the prevailing view of evangelicalism today, taught in evangelical seminaries and preached in their pulpits. To what a sad end evangelicalism is on the way to coming. May God arrest the course of things in His sovereign grace!

To glorify God’s love. A second design of the election, the giving of men to Christ by the divine sovereign determination, is to glorify His free, infinite, and everlasting love to those whom He gives to Him (cf. Eph. 1:4–6). Traill says:

The love of the Father shines in giving us to Christ to be redeemed; the love of the Son shines in His receiving of us; and these two loves (if I may call them so) do not eclipse, but enlighten one another, and make a glorious light to the eye of the believer. Election is always in love, and from it, or with it. And this love hath no cause, but in the heart of the lover: He loves because he loves, Deut. vii. 7, 8. It had no beginning, it hath no intermission, and it shall have no ending. [14]

These sentiments should do the heart of us all good.

To give us a sure salvation. A third design is that we may have a sure and glorious salvation, given in the divine sovereign pleasure, one that more than restores that lost by the first Adam in his rebellion.

To bring glory to the name of Christ. And, finally, the design of the election of the saints of God includes the rendering of great honor and glory to the name of Jesus Christ, the repairer of the gap which sin made between God and man. All the concerns of the redeemed for salvation, and all the roadblocks to their salvation—their sin, the broken law, the holy justice and righteousness of God, the power of hell and death, and the eternal wrath of God—are laid upon Christ, and He has removed them by taking them upon Himself completely (cf. Heb. 1:3; 9:26; Gal. 3:13; 4:4–5). And all the “parts and pieces of salvation are in Christ’s hand, and do come to us by him” (cf. Eph. 1:6–7; 2:4–6). [15] And the distinguished Scot, denounced in his own country as a “Pentland rebel,” concluded that eternal life “is too great, and too good a gift, to be given by any but blessed Jesus.” [16]

The Divine Chain of Salvation

Not long ago I received a call from an editor of a Christian paper, who receives our Believers Bible Bulletins from a member of the church here. The editor is a member of a denomination that believes in a generally Arminian approach to biblical teaching. For example, he does not accept the doctrine of unconditional election, or election grounded in the sovereign good pleasure of God, just as we have been expounding it in this article. Nor does he believe in the perseverance of the saints, or the security of the believer in Christ. And yet, in spite of this, he occasionally prints our studies in his paper, apparently thinking that they might do his readers good, even though free grace is stressed. It was on a Saturday afternoon when he called me, and I was in our family room without a Bible before me. He introduced himself over the telephone and explained what he did with the studies. But he had a bit of a problem, he said. In the study on John 6:34–40, which he wanted to use in his paper, there were some strong words on sovereign grace and divine election. He told me that there was one particular paragraph that, if I did not mind, he would like to eliminate from the study, because it might be offensive to his readers. It was a paragraph in which I had cited John Calvin and had added some words myself. I asked him to read the paragraph to me, which he did, and it had to do with God’s gift of us to His Son. We discussed it for a few minutes, and then I suggested that it would be satisfactory to me for him to print the paragraph, but add a footnote to the effect that he, the editor, did not necessarily endorse all said in the paragraph. I thought that might satisfy both of us, and he agreed to do that. But then he added that He believed that those given to the Son would come, as John 6:37 says, but that there were other things that might be said about it. “I believe that those given will come to the Son,” he affirmed, but he added, “but we believe that others might also come, who had not been given.” I said to him that I did not have a Bible with me and, therefore, would he read John 6:65 over the telephone. And he read, “Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” And he was wise enough to put together John 6:37, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me,” the sufficient condition for salvation, the divine giving, with John 6:65, “no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father,” the necessary condition for salvation, the divine giving, and then confess, “Well, that looks like an iron-clad case!” I said, “Yes, it is.” We must be given to come to Christ, and all of the given shall come. That is the divine chain of salvation.

Authority to Give Eternal Life

Coming again to John 17:2, we notice that Jesus has been given power (lit., authority) over all flesh (cf. 5:21, 22, 27). It is for the purpose of giving eternal life to the given.

And all authority is for the purpose of conveying to the given “eternal life.” What security! If the Father has given the Son absolute power to give life to those given to Him, how can they possibly fail to possess it forever? As Ross says, “Nay, it is impossible; though earth and hell should combine against the Lord and his Anointed, Jehovah’s purpose shall be accomplished. All attempts to thwart it are weaker than a cobweb before the loaded cannon’s mouth.” [17]

The Parenthesis about Eternal Life

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent (17:3).

Eternal life is a Qualitative Life (John 17:3).

What we have in this text is John’s footnote explaining what eternal life is, and how we get it. It is knowing the Father through Christ (cf. 1:18; 14:9). One should note that the word rendered “know” here is the Greek word γινώσκω (ginōskō), which generally has the sense of an experiential knowledge rather than of a reflective or theoretical knowledge.

It is the common view that eternal life means unending life and, of course, it does include the concept of an unending life. Even the unbelievers, however, have unending life, for they have unending life in the lake of fire. It is plain that eternal life is more than unending life. It is unending life in the knowledge of the true God and Father of Jesus Christ. And, incidentally, the word “true” is a word that means genuine, and it is used probably to draw a contrast between the God of the Bible and the false gods of heathenism. In fact, as Jesus’ words clearly imply, there is only one genuine God, and He is the Father of Jesus Christ. All other “gods” are not gods at all. Thus, the genuine God is a trinitarian God. The term God to be a reference to the true God must be defined in trinitarian terms. In other words, the “god” of the Moslems and the “god” of Judaism are not really God at all, if the use of the term is accompanied, as it generally is, with a denial of the eternal Trinity of three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Thus, true spiritual life is to be defined as unending life in the knowledge of God the Father and God the incarnate and now glorified Son. And this knowledge, as Jesus indicates in this same discourse, comes only through the illuminating ministry of the third person, the Holy Spirit.

Different levels of existence and life may be illustrated in this way. One might think of a stone and concede that it has a form of life, or existence. Our comic pages often have such inanimate objects as stones (witness the cornerstone of the school building’s speech at the beginning of school in Peanuts) and even leaves as living and speaking things, but of course that is only true on the comic pages. They have existence, although not unending existence. Plants have a form of life, which can be called plant life. And animals have a higher form of life, being programmed by their creation to see and do many things that remind one of the powers of human beings. But the difference between a thinking animal, or man, and the unthinking animals is vast and distinct. In fact, the Scriptures speak of both animals and men as having living souls, but it is man who thinks and knows mentally. And, finally, there is the man who has mental life and spiritual life. All men have unending mental life, but only the saved have unending spiritual life, life in the knowledge of God. That is the meaning of eternal life biblically. It is more than eternal existence; it includes that saving knowledge of God in Christ, the Savior, and Jesus says here that it is given by Him to the ones whom the Father has given to Him.

The Knowledge of God Cannot be Severed from the Knowledge of Christ (John 17:3).

One cannot speak of knowing God without also speaking of knowing Christ. To know the only genuine God and Jesus Christ brings eternal life, we are told here. In John 20:30–31 we are told that to believe in Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Son of God, brings life. The same result follows from the knowledge of God in Christ as from the knowledge of Christ as Messiah and Son (cf. 2 John 9; 1 John 2:23).

The Knowledge of God Has an Objective and Factual Side (John 17:3).

The knowledge of God involves the knowledge of God as the only genuine God. That knowledge is objective and factual, revealed in the ministry of Jesus Christ in time and space.

The Prayer Regarding His Eternal Sonship

The Foundation (John 17:4).

There follows our Lord’s statement to the Father, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”

One should notice, first of all, the absence of the term Son in the fourth and fifth verses. In verse one it is found, for there the thought involved emphasis upon the Messianic office and dignity of Jesus Christ. Here we move farther back in time to the ages past, before the beginning of the self-humiliation of the eternal Son. Jesus will refer to the glory that He had “with thee before the world was” (cf. v. 5).

The clause, “I have glorified thee on the earth,” is probably related to the statement of the prologue in 1:14, as well as to the work of the cross that is soon to transpire. The word rendered, “I have finished” (AV), is an adverbial participle, and the entire sentence may be rendered more accurately as, I have glorified thee upon the earth by finishing the work that thou hast given me to do. The finishing of the work is related to the statement of 19:30, “It is finished,” although the verbs are not identical. Thus, the fact that the earthly work is now finished and the Father glorified in it is the basis for the petition that follows.

The Content (John 17:5).

“And now, O Father,” Jesus continues, “glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” As we have mentioned above, Jesus does not use the term Son, or thy Son, here, for the petition has moved beyond the glorification of the Messiah due to the successful completion of His divinely appointed task. It is now, “glorify thou me,” and the glory is to be that which He had with the Father before the world came to be.

There are, then, two things that indicate that the request of verse five, although verbally quite close to that of verse one, is distinctively different. First, it is the glorification of “me” instead of “thy Son.” The one suggests the person, and the other the Messianic position. The one suggests the pre-incarnate glory, the other the postredemptive work (including resurrection, ascension, second advent, reigning, etc.) of the Mediator-Savior.

And, second, the first request is made with a view to the future, while the second is made with a view to the past. One sees this in the verb “I had,” which is in the imperfect tense in the original and may be rendered used to have. [18] Here, then, is the full restoration of all that was veiled through the self-emptying, the kenosis, of the Second Person in His incarnation.

Two times the Lord uses the Greek preposition παρά (para, “with thine own self,” “with thee”). It means with, but it is fully compatible with the idea of the glory of the essential fellowship that existed within the Godhead in ages past, before the plan of the ages in redemption began to take shape. The preposition has the fundamental force of by the side of. It, of course, should not be overly pressed, but the thought of fellowship in communion is compatible with it. [19] It is clear, too, that Jesus regards the relationship that He had with the Father in ages past as something unique and very desirable. He wishes to resume it (cf. 1:1).

One can hardly read this request without reflecting upon Paul’s words in the great kenosis passage in Philippians 2:5–11 where the Son is pictured as laying aside the insignia of His majesty at the incarnation for the accomplishment of the work of the cross in redemption. Theologically speaking, He surrendered the voluntary use of His divine attributes without surrendering the attributes themselves. Putting it exegetically, as Paul does, although He was in the form of God, that is, possessing all the essential attributes of deity, He became a servant (cf. v. 7, “servant,” δοῦλος), that is, one who surrenders the voluntary disposition of his powers to a master. (When we remember that Paul was speaking of a slave in his day, the meaning becomes clearer). In fact, Paul may have in mind a connection with the great Suffering Servant of Jehovah, the Messianic figure so beautifully portrayed in Isaiah forty-two, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-two and fifty-three. It is the reversal of the sentiment expressed in that stanza of the beautiful Christmas hymn, “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” that is the sense of our Lord’s petition. It is not now, “Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die,” but the reverse. He prays for the return of His glory and the enjoyment of the spoils of His great redemptive victory.

When He resumes His place, however, it is not simply as the Second Person, the eternally generated Son, it is also as the God-man, the representative Head of the company of the redeemed, the Firstborn among many brethren (cf. Rom. 8:29).

In Paul’s words God has given Him as now victorious in heaven “a name that is above every name,” which he goes on to define as “Lord,” the Old Testament covenant name of Yahweh, who dealt with Israel through the centuries.

We heard a lot of the names of royalty at the birth of Prince William of Britain. For example, Prince Charles, his father, has this name, “Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor, Knight of the Garter, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland.” A great human name, but as nothing in comparison with the name of the Son of God, “Lord,” who is King of Kings (thus, King Charles and others) and Lord of Lords. He is the only one worthy of worship, and may He have ours.

Incidentally, since we know that Jesus’ prayers are always answered, as He Himself has said (cf. John 11:42), He is sure to have His glory again. Therefore we see that it is not wrong to pray for something that is sure to happen! Prayer is compatible with the determinate purposes of God, with the doctrine of divine predestination.

Conclusion

As we conclude the opening section of our Lord’s prayer several things come to mind. In the first place, what a contrast exists between the contents of His prayers and ours! We generally make ourselves the primary object of our petitions. It is our problems, our needs, our pressures that come to mind as we commune with our Father. Of course, there is justification for prayers that are directed to our needs. And there is justification for prayers concerning our sins and our growth in the graces of submission and holiness. But one cannot help noticing that His prayers are primarily directed to the glory of God and the divine plans of the ages. He does not clutch for personal self-esteem, self-fulfillment, as the world does. His prayer is that God’s interests may come to successful fruition and that eternal life may come to the family of God.

And just as striking is the fact that He, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Eternal Trinity, prays! And if He, the Messianic Head of the redeemed found it necessary and desirable to pray in His ministry as the Suffering Servant of Jehovah, how much more ought we?

* Bible teacher Lewis Johnson has been associated for many years with Believer’s Chapel in Dallas, Texas. He is Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at Dallas Theological Seminary and also served as Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This is the fourteenth in a series of expositions on The Upper Room Discourse.

Notes

1. Robert Traill, “Sermons concerning the Lord’s Prayer: Sermon I, John 17:24, ” The Works of Robert Traill, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1975 [= 1810]), 2: 7.
2. Geddes MacGregor, The Thundering Scot: A Portrait of John Knox (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1957), 224.
3. Cited in Joachim Jeramias, The Central Message of the New Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965), 24.
4. H. C. G. Moule, The High Priestly Prayer: A Devotional Commentary on the Seventeenth Chapter of St John (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1907), 16.
5. Moule, The High Priestly Prayer, 21.
6. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 2d ed., (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 500.
7. Gustaf Dalman, The Words of Jesus, (Minneapolis: Klock & Klock, 1981 [= 1902]), 191–192. Cf. Matt. 6:9; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6.
8. Moule, The High Priestly Prayer, 17–19.
9. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, NICNT, (rev. ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 159.
10. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 159–160.
11. Moule, The High Priestly Prayer, 28.
12. Bernard points out that the construction in verses one and two, beginning with the first hina clause in verse one and concluding with another hina clause in verse two, is found also in 13:34 and 17:21, and in each case the intervening comparative clause is parenthetical and the second hina is reiterative, the clause following being identical in meaning with that introduced by the first hina (AV, “that”). Consequently the final words of verse two, “that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him,” is simply another way of saying, “ἳνα ὁ υἱὸς δοξάσῃ σέ of v. 1” [that the Son may glorify thee]. J. H. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, ICC, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), 2: 560.
13. Moule, The High Priestly Prayer, 32.
14. Traill, “Sermons concerning the Lord’s Prayer,” 2:28.
15. Traill, “Sermons concerning the Lord’s Prayer,” 2:30.
16. Traill, “Sermons concerning the Lord’s Prayer,” 2:30.
17. Charles Ross, The Inner Sanctuary: An Exposition of John 13–17, London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967 [= 1888], 205.
18. The εἴχον (eichon) is a customary imperfect.
19. Sometimes the preposition παρά with the dative has the sense of in the house of (cf. BAGD, “παρά” II. 1. b, p. 610). Can that be the sense here.