Sunday AM Sermon, John 17, PRBC, 8/3/08

Christ’s High Priestly Prayer and the Deity of Christ

Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we ask that at this time, by your Spirit, you would be with us, that you would focus our minds upon your truth, that you would protect us from distraction. Indeed, as we handle this very holy passage, this passage wherein our Lord prayed that most high and priestly prayer before His sacrifice on the cross, and, Lord, that we would be especially aware of your presence with us, we ask these blessings in the name of Christ.

I think it was about 23 years ago now that I had the opportunity of starting a journey at the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I descended down, which for some of you who know, my fear of heights a couple of times was quite a challenge.

I remember once coming to a very, very precipitous cliff. The trail would go right along the cliff face, and unfortunately, this was also the trail used by the mule trains, which I would never take into the Grand Canyon.

Trust myself to that, rather than my English piece. And unfortunately, we came to a spot where the mules must have really liked this spot, and so you had to walk way out on the very edge, and I'm pretty certain it was at least 500 feet straight off the other side.

And I was really wondering whether I was going to make it, but since I'm standing here 23 years later, obviously I did. And I spent a few days at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, roasting and toasting down there, and then leaving about 2 o 'clock in the morning, ascended up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

While we were down there, you could not help but be highly impressed with the majesty and the size of the Grand Canyon. There is a long distance between the north rim and the south rim of that rather large hole in the ground.

And as I think about it, that may have been the last time I even saw the Grand Canyon. It was about 23 years ago, but I don't think it's gotten any smaller over that period of time. A massive chasm, and I remember witnessing to someone down at the bottom who had gone with the group that I was going with, who needed to know the gospel because she thought that basically, you just do the best you can, and that's good enough, God will accept what you have to offer.

And I utilized the size of the Grand Canyon as an example. I said, well, let me give you an example. What if God's standard of holiness was that we had to leap from the south rim to the north rim? There's a huge forest fire coming, and the only way to be saved was to leap from the south rim to the north rim.

I said, you know, we might have some tremendous Olympians who would get back, and they would run, and they would plow, and they would sail a great distance. And then you'd have people like me that just sort of fall to the edge and head toward the bottom.

But we'd all have the same fate. It wouldn't matter how far you got. The standard is too high. The chasm is too wide. Well, I was thinking about that Grand Canyon, the chasm that exists between the north and the south rims.

And there is another chasm that exists biblically, and that is the difference between He who is the creator and everything that is created. Mankind's a little bit of an odd part of creation. Because you see, on the level of creation, you have God who's the creator, then everything else, the greatest angel that's ever been created, mankind, the universe itself, the the huge galaxies, everything is on the other side of that chasm of the uncreated and that which is created.

But on the level of person, we, like God, are personal. He has made us personal. The vast majority of the creation exists on the other side of another chasm. It's impersonal. We are creating the image of God, but we always remain created.

There is a chasm between ourselves. And even though God has communicated to us, and God has made Himself known to us, yet the chasm between the uncreated and the created always exists. Now, we have begun a short series in looking at evidences of the deity of Christ.

We looked at John chapter 1, and we saw the testimony that the Logos, the Word, has eternally existed. We looked at John 8 and 13 and 18. We saw the I Am sayings of Jesus. But there is a huge amount of evidence presenting the deity of Christ to us that unfortunately, often, Christians ignore.

Part of the reason we ignore it is because if we've grown up in the church, which is a great blessing. If we've grown up in the church, we have so often been exposed to this kind of evidence, this kind of information, that it just doesn't strike us as having a great deal of weight.

We know how Jesus speaks. We know how Jesus talks. And so, when we read Jesus saying certain things, it doesn't strike us as being anything unusual. But you see, there is a great mass of information presenting the deity of Christ that comes from the Word of God where Jesus says and does things that no mere creature could ever say or do.

Remember that chasm? Over here, the uncreated God. Over here, all of creation. Jesus says and does things that no one or no thing on that side of the chasm could ever say or do. When you're in conversation with someone who denies the deity of Christ, you must always remember this evidence.

You must always make sure that they are explaining how Jesus could say and do these things if he is but a creature. Oh, maybe a highly exalted creature. Maybe the first thing God ever created. Maybe very powerful.

But as long as he is a creature, there are certain things that a creature would never say or do, but Jesus does them all the time. We could, of course, go through the entirety of the Gospels, and we could find statement after statement, activity after activity, that Jesus engages in things he says that would fall into this category, but I want to instead look at one section.

The Lord’s Prayer in John 17

This high and holy chapter from John 17. We prayed the Lord's Prayer earlier, but of course, we need to realize it's really more the disciples' prayer. It's Jesus teaching us how to pray. This isn't how Jesus prayed.

If you want to know how Jesus prayed, here's John chapter 17. But there are things that Jesus says here that we could never say. The Lord's Prayer, the model prayer, is for us. Jesus wouldn't be praying for the forgiveness of his own trespasses.

And so that's a model for us about how we should pray. Here is how the Lord prays, and he prays in this particular fashion. Notice what verse 13 tells us. He says these things in the world so that the disciples, their joy might be made full.

His joy might be made full in them. And so here on the night before his betrayal, we have what's called the high priestly prayer. Now, obviously, as Pastor Fry is going through the Beatitudes, we could go through John chapter 17 and we could extend the study of this text out to many, many months without ever exhausting it.

Indeed, as I have been looking at this chapter, I've been struck once again at the depth that is found here in these words of the Lord Jesus. Rarely plumbed, I think, by most of us. And so it is not my intention in barely 35 minutes' worth of time that we have left to exegete all of this text.

It wouldn't even be possible to do. What I have done is I want to look at key phrases throughout the chapter, and I always want to be reinforcing the primary thing I want to communicate today, and that is hear these words from the Lord Jesus and ask yourself always the question, if He is not who we have always believed Him to be, if He is not the incarnate Son of God, the eternal Creator of all things, eternal in His preexistence, personally existing as a person, not just a thought in the mind of the Father, if He is not what our confession states Him to be, very God of very God, light from light, consubstantial with the Father, of the same kind of deity, not an exalted creature, not an archangel, not just a great prophet, if He is not these things, could He say these words?

Would it not be blasphemy to put these words in the mouth of a mere creature? That's what I want to try to emphasize as we look at these particular phrases. For example, in verse 1, what creature, Moses, Isaiah, a prophet, an archangel, could say, Father, the hour has come, glorify You, the Son, in order that the Son may glorify You?

Can you imagine that? A creature saying these words? Now, this is a request being made, but it's a request being made in the imperative voice. Glorify the Son. You glorify Me that I may glorify You. There is a, all through this prayer, a recognition of a reciprocal relationship.

If you go back in John, we can look at John chapter 5, and we can demonstrate this consistency all the way through John chapter 10, the Father and the Son there won the salvation of God's people. This has been a theme all the way through.

But think about what it means for Jesus to say, glorify Me that I may glorify You. Are those the words of a mere creature? He has been given authority over all flesh in order that in verse 2, He might give to all those given to Him eternal life.

Remember that phraseology from John 6? The Father has given a specific people to the Son, and what is the Father's will to the Son? That He lose none of those that have been given to Him, but that He raise them up on the last day.

What kind of authority, what kind of perfection, must the Son possess to be able to fulfill the will of the Father? Think about that. Do you see why it's important that we believe all that the Bible says about the deity of Christ?

What if Jesus is what the liberals say He is? What if Jesus was just a Mediterranean peasant who had no true supernatural knowledge of God, no supernatural relationship with Him? He didn't come forth from Him, verse 8.

What if He was just someone who was preaching peace and light and a common meal? And He gets caught up in the bad politics of Jerusalem and gets Himself crucified and He doesn't really rise from the dead.

We just all think that and we experience it in that way. Could that Jesus save? Do you see why it's important to believe the truth about Christ? You see, if you want to have eternal life, there's only one source.

And Jesus has to be able to fulfill the Father's will for Him that He might give to those who've been given to Him eternal life. This issue of the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, is not just some peripheral issue, a matter of speculation.

You can't preach a divine salvation without a divine Savior. And to use these kinds of words, we need to realize if Jesus didn't say these things, if He wasn't who is described in these words, whoever ascribed them to Him is a blasphemer.

Anyone who would ascribe these words to a mere creature would be violating the truth about the one true God. You cannot stand in the middle. You can't be a middle-of-the-road type person in regards to who Jesus is and the authority of Scripture.

You either accept it or you don't. What is eternal life? What is eternal life? Notice what Jesus says in verse 3. What is eternal life? It's knowing the Father and the One He sent, Jesus Christ. Now some people just completely tear verse 3 out of John 17 and say, see, the Father is the only true God.

Jesus is a deity. Well, isn't it odd, even if you allow verse 3 just to be torn out of John 17, ignore its relationship to everything else, even if you allow that, isn't it odd that eternal life is knowing both the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ?

You don't have eternal life apart from knowing Jesus Christ. How does everybody know a mere creature? If knowing the one true God is worship and relationship with Him, which is acceptable because God is omnipresent, we can have relationship with Him whether we're on this part of the planet or another part of the planet or wherever we live, whatever time, whatever language, so on and so forth, well, knowing Jesus Christ is likewise necessary for having eternal life.

Can you imagine Moses saying, eternal life is to know me? Of course not. An angel? No. You hear the majesty of the one speaking there? And remember, this is a prayer. This is a prayer. What kind of a person can pray this way?

That's why this text reveals so much to us about the glory of Jesus Christ. Notice Jesus says, He has glorified His Father upon the earth, verse 4. He has finished, He has perfected the work which was given to Him to do.

He knows exactly what God would have Him to do. And He has finished that work. Can any mere creature, especially the sinful creature, just a prophet, have this kind of knowledge? Verse 5 sets quite the standard.

Once again, Jesus says, Glorify Me, Father, with the glory which I had literally by Your side before the world began. What an amazing statement. The glory which I had at Your side before the world began.

The Jews picked up stones to stone Him when He said, before Abraham was, I am. Thankfully, they're not standing there during this prayer. Because if it was really clear what Jesus was saying in John 8, it was enough to make the Jews pick up stones to stone Him.

Clearly because He was claiming deity in John 8. What's this? Glorify Me with the glory which I shared in Your presence before the world came into existence. Well, we've had some pictures in the Bible about what happens in heaven, haven't we?

Have we not been able to see? In Isaiah chapter 6, for example, the cherubim, the seraphim, surrounding the throne, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And this worship has been going on back into eternity.

And here Jesus says, glorify Me with the glory I had before the world was. This is someone who is claiming pre-existence, glorious, divine pre-existence. Yahweh said in the same book of Isaiah, I will not share My glory with another.

So here's one who thinks He was sharing the very glory of the Father before the world was. And He clearly sees Himself as distinct from the Father. There's no confusion of the Father and the Son here.

All those Jesus-only folks who try to say that the Father is the Son, the Son is the Father, and Jesus is actually both the Father and the Son, all of a sudden, no, there's absolutely no way to fit that in the text of Scripture.

Jesus prays to be glorified with the glory that He had before the world was. In the next verse, He talks about those who have been given to Him out of the world. And yes, the Father has the authority to distinguish some from others.

In fact, if you just sort of on the side of this topic, look at how many different ways the word world is used just in this one chapter. Just in this one chapter. When people want to just get their volume way up and say, world!

And then say, that means every single person! It's a little bit difficult to make that definition fit, especially in John 17 as we'll see. But the Father, yes, He has the authority to take some and to give them to the Son, but think about what even that means.

How could we begin to understand that as the primary means of glorifying Himself, the Father takes a people, He's going to be glorified with the redemption of His people, and then He entrusts all of them for their salvation to a mere creature.

A mere creature. Surely not. The very idea that God's people have been given into the care of Jesus Christ is once again one of those evidences that we see that Jesus is not some mere creature. So He has these disciples.

He has taught them. He has delivered them what the Father would have delivered to them. And they, in verse 7, it's hard to find the numbers in the Greek text, verse 8, they have received these things.

And notice it says, they have known truly. What is it they've known? A lot of people like to ask, what's the nature of saving faith? What do you need to believe? Well, something that these men have truly known is that Jesus came forth from the Father.

Now, it's pretty hard to try to limit these words to, well, that just simply means that like all the prophets of old, Jesus was commissioned by God to give His message. They couldn't believe that about all the Old Testament prophets.

There's something more. He has come forth from Him, from the Father, from that position which He had before the world was where He shared the very glory of the Father. They have come to believe that Jesus came forth from the Father and they have believed that You sent Me.

It's not enough to just believe that Jesus was a prophet. It's not enough just to believe that Jesus was a great historical figure. There are certain elements of Jesus' own self-revelation that the people in His days simply said, too much!

I won't do it! Jesus' response to them, remember we saw last Sunday evening, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. We cannot edit Him down and make Him more comfortable, especially to modern men.

But then notice verse 9. Jesus says, I'm asking, but I'm being specific in my asking. I am not asking concerning the world, but concerning those that You've given to me. There is a distinction drawn by the Lord Himself.

Again, one of the many uses of the term world. He is being specific in His requests. This isn't what we used to call when I was younger, a peanut butter prayer where you just sort of slather it all on and all the Lord bless all your precious children in the world.

Amen. This is specific. Jesus knows who His own are. That's what's so terrible about those theologies that would in essence make the people of God a nameless, faceless group, unknown to Jesus. Well, I'm just stating the elect.

Whoever they are, it's all up to you whether you get in or out, you know, whatever. There is a very high level of specificity in the Lord's words. He says, I'm not asking these things for the world. I am asking these things for those You've given me out of the world.

A specificity. Is that not exactly what the High Priest did? This is called His High Priestly Prayer. He's about to go to the cross. He's about to give Himself as a sacrifice. Is that not what the High Priest did?

When the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies, that offering He was given wasn't for the Egyptians. It wasn't for the Babylonians. It wasn't for the Assyrians. It was for those who had drawn near to worship God.

The High Priest did not offer some universal type of sacrifice. He offered a specific sacrifice for a specific people. And the Son does the same thing. Then notice verse 10. Once again, remember our theme.

I have been glorified in them. What creature seeks His own glory? Remember, there's a little phrase right up in verse 1 that you need to keep in mind because this may sound so strange to you. You might be saying, you know, Jesus, in the rest of His ministry, He's dressed like we're dressed.

Other than the Mount of Transfiguration, there doesn't seem to be a period of time where His glory shines forth. This just seems so out of place. But remember verse 1 says, Father, the hour has come. What was the theme all through John?

Couldn't touch Him because the hour hadn't come yet. Now the hour has come. There's been a change. And now Jesus speaks in light of that hour. In light of the fact He is about to bear the sins of God's people upon Himself.

Everything up to this point has pointed to the cross. Everything afterwards is going to point back to the cross. Now we're at the very crux of human history. The hour has come, and now Jesus speaks and He says, I have been glorified.

I have been glorified in them. Their faith in Me, their coming to understand who I am, has been glorious to Me. I have been glorified in them. Then there is a prayer for the oneness, the unity of those people.

And you know, it's very common that this text be cited. It's very often cited in sort of my direction. You're always dividing people! It's interesting, this is the same text a little bit later on is going to say, sanctify them in the truth.

Thy Word is truth. There is no unity outside of truth. But this text is often emphasized. You see, there needs to be unity. And all of that is true, but is that all Jesus is talking about? Is this unity, this being one in the Father and the Son, is that just merely some kind of lack of disagreement?

I don't think so. I think this unity, being one, is directly connected over and over again in these statements to the fact that Jesus is keeping us. And He's praying the Father would keep us. It is that keeping of us.

Is it not indeed in our own experience, as we grow older in the Lord, as we have more experience, that we gain great encouragement from seeing people who persevere in faith. Over time, over years, over decades, we see that God has kept His people.

And we see that as evidence of His faithfulness to us. There's a prayer that they would be one. Not that their individuality would be wiped out, but that they would have one mind, one goal in the glorification of God and Jesus Christ.

And as I noted earlier in verse 13, He speaks these things in the world so that His joy might be made full in them. He wants them to hear and to understand the things that He is saying in this prayer.

He's not praying just for His own benefit. He's praying for theirs as well. And in verse 14, Jesus has been the faithful teacher. He's delivered the Word that God Himself has given them. But there's a result.

As a result of their receiving that Word, the world hates them because they are not of the world just as Jesus is not of the world. This Word that He has taught are not just the words of men. The very Word which He's received the Father and has faithfully given to those given to Him, that is a divine Word.

It's so divine that the world senses it. The world knows it. The world recognizes that when a person receives this Word, they are no longer under the authority of the world. The world hates those that have escaped its tyranny, its control, and its power.

Jesus is not of the world. Those who are given to Him by the Father are not of the world. They are of God. Therefore, the world hates those. It expresses its natural detestation of those who are free from the tyranny of sin.

So Jesus prays not that the Father would take us out of the world. That has always been an impulse amongst people. You know, we want to get up to the mountaintop. We want to get away from the world. Just stay in that place.

The world can't get to us. That's not Jesus' prayer. His prayer is not that the Father take us out of the world instead. His prayer is that the Father keep us from the evil one. The Father protect those who are His own.

And since Jesus Himself is going to talk about guarding us, Jesus talks about being in us, how does His presence manifest within us today? Remember John 14? I and my Father will take up our abode in them.

How does He do so? By the presence of the Holy Spirit. So He prays for us. He reminds us that we are not of the world. And then this great prayer, sanctify them, verse 17, in the truth. Set them apart.

Sanctify them. That's what sanctification means. Something that was set apart as holy. The instruments in the tabernacle, in the temple, were made holy. They were set apart for a specific purpose of service.

And He asked that we be set apart. That we be set apart in the truth. The very idea that truth doesn't exist is utterly disruptive of the Christian faith. You cannot begin to understand the Christian faith if you do not have the belief that truth exists and that God intends us to know it.

And yet, is it not the very essence of our society today to question that very thing? You are considered arrogant. You are considered hateful if you say you know the truth and someone else doesn't. But Jesus says, sanctify them in the truth.

Where do we find that truth? Your Word is truth. Now in context, that would be the Word that Jesus has delivered to the disciples. But we have access to that as well. This Word is the message about what God is doing in Jesus Christ.

And our sanctification, our being set apart, our being made different from the world, which the world will see and hate us for, is all connected to our holding to this Word that will sanctify us in truth.

Indeed, so important is this idea of sanctification that Jesus Himself says in verse 19 that He sanctifies Himself in their behalf. He sets Himself apart for in their behalf. How so? In what He's going to do on the cross.

I think this is connected with what we see in Hebrews 10, verse 29, where He is the One who is sanctified. Jesus has set Himself apart. Here we have He who was before the creation of the world glorious giving Himself in our behalf.

And for what purpose? Just to try to save some? No. In order that they might be sanctified in the truth. It is truly a heresy of our day. There are people who say, well, you know what? All Jesus did is He made it possible for us to be saved.

And we get our tickets punched and we get to go to heaven. Now, if you want to become a super Christian and do all that sanctification stuff and that obedience stuff and that holiness stuff and being conformed to the image of Christ and all that stuff, you go ahead and do that, but it really isn't necessary.

There are many who preach that. But Jesus said the reason He sanctified Himself there was a purpose for it. There was a reason for it in order that they might be sanctified. They might be made holy in the truth.

That is His purpose. To try to say that it was His purpose for some people is to once again demonstrate the gross and biblical nature of those who preach in that fashion. And I'm so glad verse 20 is there as well.

Because He doesn't just ask concerning those who are around Him at that time. Judas has now left to go get his ill-gotten gain. He doesn't just ask concerning those men. But He asks concerning those who will believe in Him through their word.

That's all of us. That's where the connection is made. Jesus knows the church is going to be built. Jesus has every intention in going to the cross and creating that people of God by His work. That's why the liberals just say, oh, Jesus never said anything like this.

He couldn't have known these things. But Jesus prays for those who will believe in Him through their word, through their preaching, through their proclamation. That means He prayed for us. Once again, He prays for our unity.

That we would have the same mind. That we would have the same message. So the world might believe that Jesus was sent by the Father. That unity exists. We in Christ. Christ in us. In order that the world might see, the world might know, the world might understand that the Father sent the Son and the love of God has been demonstrated.

You see that in verse 23. God's love has been demonstrated in Christ. The world will often say to us, well, I just don't know. There's so much evil in the world. How can you really believe that God loves?

Well, if you don't allow God to have the same kind of love we do, if you force God to be the omnivenevolent grandfather of the sky, who cannot have distinctions in His love, who has just as much love for the little pollywog as He has for mankind, that kind of strange, odd, subhuman creature that people try to turn God into, well, that kind of love's pretty hard to defend.

There's no two ways about it. But if you allow God to have at least the kind of love that we have, where we make distinctions in our love, if you're to love your wife, not your neighbor's wife, in the same way, pretty obvious there's different kinds of love that we're to have.

And if God can at least do that and then in fact, because of His holiness, love even more purely, then God has demonstrated His love. Even in the midst of all the pain and suffering, He's entered into His own creation.

He has demonstrated His love. He has proven His love. That fact is not up for debate. God has shown His love. The Father for the Son, the Son for His people, God's love has been demonstrated. Then Jesus has a desire.

I remember in discussions with various people, people like to argue about where Heaven is. I guess they want me to get out a GPS and give them the exact location. Where is Heaven? They start arguing about, well, is it going to be a new heavens and a new earth or is it a renewed heavens and a new earth?

And that picture of Jerusalem, it's pretty big. I'm not sure how that would really fit in Israel. You've got all the rest of that kind of stuff. And when people ask me, where is Heaven? I like to say, Heaven for me is where Jesus is.

Notice what Jesus' prayer is in verse 24. He wants those who have been given to Him, He wants those who believe in Him to be where He is. But once again, remember, listen to these words. In order that what?

They might see My glory. Which You gave to Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Now please, how could any mere creature ever utter such words? How could any archangel put those words in the mouth of any created thing and it could be nothing but blasphemy?

I want My people to be where I am so they might see My glory. The glory which You gave to Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Do you realize what you're hearing here? You are hearing the second person of the Trinity praying to the first person of the Trinity, discussing the loving relationship that existed before anything else came into existence.

God didn't have to give us this level of revelation. He didn't have to give us this level of insight. But He does so to help us to have a firm foundation to trust that God's love is real. It's not just a myth of men.

And the very next verse. Jesus said the world does not know the Father, but Jesus has knowledge that's supernatural. It sounds a lot like Matthew 11. Remember what Jesus said there? No one knows the Son except the Father.

No one knows the Father except the Son of those to whom He wills to reveal Him. There is that connection, that interrelationship. Jesus says He has knowledge the world does not have. I can't help but think through this text whenever I read from the Koran in Surah 5, that someday Allah is going to say to Jesus, did you ever teach men to worship yourself and marry in derogation of Me?

Jesus allegedly responds, I would never do such a thing. You know all things. You know my heart, though I don't know yours. Muhammad didn't know the Testament. Jesus says the world has not known you. I have known you.

This is the one described. Remember verse 18? Just last Lord's Day. John 1 .18. Who makes the Father known? Who explains the Father? But the Son. So He ends His prayer. His name has been made known. Jesus has made known the Father.

He's made known that name to His disciples. He has revealed what the Father is truly about, what the Father is truly like, what His real character is. You see, that's not just some intellectual thing because notice it's connected in this last verse.

The love with which the Father has loved the Son might be in those who follow the Son. That's divine love. Love that knows no end. Love that knows no limits. Inexhaustible love it is. The prayer of the Lord Jesus.

That that kind of divine, inexhaustible, almost undefinable, that kind of love would be in us as He would be in us by the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Could any of these words ever be attributed to a mere creature?

Sure. Sure. So we see that while we can go, and very often I realize this is how it happens, you go to one text, you go to this text, this text teaches the deity of Christ, somebody comes along and says, well, this one doesn't, and you go back and forth.

But in reality, the entire text contains in its very essence an inability to be understood outside of the divine truth of who Jesus Christ truly is. That's why once a belief in the inspiration of this text collapses, immediately a true belief, the deity of Christ, the cross, the resurrection will collapse along with it.