The Gospel of John: Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer (2)

First Baptist Church Leominster

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But Vermont's not allowing any Massachusetts residents from Worcester County to travel up there so their family couldn't get away for the week, and so he's here to read the

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Epistle of Jude. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the

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Father, and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

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Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our

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God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

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Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

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Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal life, of eternal fire.

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Yet in a like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.

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But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the

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Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

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Woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.

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These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, and they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

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It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the

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Lord comes with 10 ,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

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These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires.

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They are loudmouth boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions.

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It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the spirit.

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But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our

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Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt, saving others by snatching them out of the fire.

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To others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garments stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only

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God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.

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Amen. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the work of Jesus Christ.

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We're thankful for his sacrifice. We're thankful for the fact that he is sitting on the throne, that he is over all things, that he is in control.

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And Lord, we're thankful that we can trust in him because he is faithful, he is just.

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And Lord, we rejoice that we belong to him. And we thank you, Lord, for this passage that we read here.

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And we pray that you would have mercy on those who doubt. We pray that you would have mercy on those who are without any fear of you.

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We pray, Lord, that you would grant them the repentance that leads to saving faith. We pray that you would use your church to accomplish this end as we proclaim the word of truth.

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We pray, Lord, that we would not fall into the air of false doctrine.

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We pray that we would not fall into the air of sinful living. But we pray,

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Lord, that we would be holy and just in our behavior, in our thoughts, in our actions.

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We pray, Lord, that you would purify us. We pray that we would live as Christ Jesus lived, that we would follow his pattern.

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And we pray that we would do all these things in the power of your spirit. So help us, Lord, walk in a manner that is worthy with our calling.

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And help us now as we continue to study John 17. As we read about the prayer of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, we pray that our prayers would be consistent with his prayer. So, Lord, we pray that you would teach us and instruct us.

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We pray that you would comfort us, encourage us. We pray that you would warm our hearts to the things eternal.

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Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's turn in our

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Bibles to John 17, please. We lost to this world a great servant of Christ the other day.

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J .I. Packers with the Lord now. He has written so many books over the years.

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Knowing God, you know, is a classic. It's up there in the top ten probably of most people's lists.

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I was surprised to learn yesterday that I believe it was a general editor of the Translation Committee for the

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English Standard Version, the SV, that we just read. I didn't know that. And he regarded that ESV translation as really his greatest achievement or work in his very fruitful ministry.

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Last Lord's Day, we began to consider this prayer of our Lord Jesus to his

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Father in heaven. And here, of course, our Lord interceded on behalf of his people as a high priest, praying to his

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Father on our behalf. He represented his people before his

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Father, those, again, who were chosen or elected by the Father in eternity.

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There's a great deal of information about the sovereignty of God in election in this passage.

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And upon the Father choosing them before creation, he had given to Jesus Christ his people, his chosen people, with the assignment that he, the

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Son, would become incarnate and redeem us from our sin. And so this prayer, which encompasses all of John 17, as we pointed out last week, may be understood to have three major divisions.

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First, Jesus prays for himself, verses 1 through 5. And then the most lengthy portion of this prayer is

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Jesus prays for his apostles, verses 6 through 19. And then in the last seven verses, verses 20 through 26,

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Jesus prays for all true believers. And last week, we cited a book of John Bunyan.

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They're all online. They're public domain. He wrote a book on the subject entitled

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The Intercession of Christ. And Jesus Christ serves his people before the presence of his

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Father, requesting four aspects of their salvation. And so these include the following petitions that he offers to his

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Father on behalf of us, we who believe on him. First, he prays that all the elect may be brought home to him, that is to brought to salvation, brought to faith in Christ, involving repentance and faith.

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Secondly, Jesus prays that their sins committed after conversion may be forgiven them, thankfully.

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We're here to confess our sins, and we cannot, of course, be damned for our sins, but we can suffer consequences for our sin, lose the joy of our salvation, lose a sense of fellowship with the

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Lord. Well, the Lord prays that we're forgiven of our sins. Third, he prays that their graces, which they receive at conversion, may be maintained and supplied.

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And so that's a continual ongoing work of sanctification in the life of the believer. And then fourth, he prays that their persons may be preserved to his heavenly kingdom, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.

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It's because of the intercession of Jesus that he doesn't lose one of us. Thank God for that.

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Well, we began to address the first five verses of this chapter last week, and today we'll complete our consideration of these five verses.

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We have to address verses three, four, and five in some detail before we move into the second division, which we'll probably only touch upon today,

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Lord willing. And so I want us to read this entire second section, but I want to do so in the context of verses one through five.

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And so we'll read John 17, one through 19. Jesus spoke these words, lifted up his eyes to heaven and said,

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Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son also may glorify you as you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.

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And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

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I have glorified you on the earth. I finished the work which you have given me to do.

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And now, oh, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which

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I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world.

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They were yours. You gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you, for I have given to them the words which you have given me and they have received them and have known surely that I came forth from you and they have believed that you sent me.

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I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

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And all mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world.

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And then I come to you, Holy Father, keep to your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are.

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While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me,

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I have kept and none of them is lost except the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.

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But now I come to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

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I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

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I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but you should keep them from the evil one.

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They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth.

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Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

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And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

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You can't help but, you know, as you read over those verses, just all kinds of ideas and thoughts just flood your mind.

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It may take us a while to get through this passage because there is much that's misunderstood and there's much that is not understood that needs clarification about what our

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Lord prayed. So in verses one through five, we read our Lord Jesus had prayed first for himself before having prayed on behalf of his people.

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That begins with verse six. And Jesus requested that his father would grant him sovereign authority over all humanity.

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He is Lord of lords and King of kings. He wanted this supreme, uncontested, undiminished authority over all humanity for two purposes that we addressed last week.

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One, first of all, to glorify his father. That's why he wanted to be glorified, to glorify his father.

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And secondly, that he might bring salvation to his people, the ones that were chosen by the father and given to him as his possession.

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And so before we move on to verses six and following, where Jesus prayed for his apostles, we want to consider more carefully, clearly our

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Lord's statement of verses three, four, and five. And so we addressed the first two verses in some detail last

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Lord's day. And today we want to consider first verse three, how Jesus defined and described the true nature and essence of eternal life.

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Jesus had prayed, father, the hour has come glorify your son, that your son also may glorify you as you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.

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And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

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Eternal life is not merely a temporal matter, an unending existence.

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That's probably what we immediately think about when we speak about eternal life.

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But eternal life is set forth in particularly in John's gospel as a quality of existence, rather than just an unending existence.

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And clearly that is stressed here in verse three. Eternal life is a quality of existence, one in which the people of God had come to know and enjoy fully the true nature and presence of God.

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As one wrote, this was Donald Carson, otherwise put the glorification of the son entails the glorification of God.

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Verse one, in other words, God is clothed in splendor in the eyes of those who perceive what has been achieved by God himself on the cross resurrection and exaltation of his son.

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To see God's glory to be given eternal life, these are parallel. And lest the reader missed the point, the two themes are drawn together in verse three.

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Eternal life turns on nothing more, nothing less than knowledge of the true God. Eternal life is not so much everlasting life as personal knowledge of the everlasting one.

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And so it's a quality of life is knowing God and knowing his son,

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Jesus Christ. And it's a sad thing that oftentimes salvation and a so -called gospel proclamation is set forth just as a means to escape hell and get to go to heaven and, you know, to be happy.

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But, you know, the really at the heart of eternal life is to know God in him, his life and his son.

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We can only know God the father through his son. And so eternal life is a qualitative existence and experience.

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And it's an emphasis in John's gospel in the synoptics as Matthew, Mark and Luke.

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The synoptic gospels, there's an emphasis on the unending blessed existence of eternal life.

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And so there it is speaking about quantity, everlasting life. But in John's gospel, eternal life is experienced now.

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In the synoptic gospels, eternal life is most often presented as something that we're yet to inherit.

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We're traveling a narrow way that leads to life in the end. And so eternal life in Matthew, Mark and Luke more often than not is talking about an unending existence, but not in John's gospel.

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In John's gospel, there is the emphasis of the nature of that life. It's a quality of life.

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And in John's gospel and his epistles also, life is a present possession, not a future inheritance, but a present possession.

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He who has a son has life. And here Jesus is declaring the very essence or nature of eternal life.

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And so Jesus declared the essence of eternal life was to know God. Now, when we were working through John 15, not long ago, we addressed what it is to come to know

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God and to be a friend of God. And it involves, this involves two arenas of knowledge, as well as a right response to that knowledge.

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First, we may know God through understanding what he is like, you recall. And what we mean by that is a knowledge of his attributes set forth in the scriptures.

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This is what God is like. You know, he's all -knowing, he's omniscient, he's all -powerful, and he's infinite in being, his spirit, all of his attributes, what he's like.

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But secondly, knowledge of God also includes an understanding of what

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God is doing through history. The history of redemption is recorded in the Bible.

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It's not enough just to know God's attributes. To really know God and be a friend of God, you need to know what he's doing, what his purpose to do, what he intends to do.

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But this knowledge, this knowledge that involves these two aspects of knowing

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God, must also be coupled with a resolve to obey God, or it's not true knowledge of God.

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And so, this knowledge of God must be coupled with a resolve to obey God, working together with him to advance his purposes in the world.

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And so, we learn what he's like, we learn what he's doing in the world, and then as his disciples, disciples of Jesus Christ, we try and get involved and engaged in furthering his purposes in history.

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And that's what it is to be a friend of God. And every true Christian is a friend of God.

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Now, we may not be as close of friends as, you know, as others in the

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Lord may be, but this is what it is to be a friend of God. To know what who God is, what he's like, what he's doing in the world, and then participating with him, working with him to further his cause, his purposes in the world.

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Granted, no one of us knows God fully in these arenas, but each one of us as Christian knows him in a measure.

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And every one of us who is truly a Christian is committed to this great calling to know

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God and live for God. That's the very essence of eternal life. If you don't care about knowing

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God, and you go days without pondering him, thinking about him, or desiring him, there's something seriously flawed or weak, maybe even missing, because the very essence of eternal life is a desire and delight in knowing

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God and knowing his son, Jesus Christ. And so our Lord here declared, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true

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God. But again, our Lord added a second aspect of what it is to have eternal life.

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Jesus said, this is eternal life, that they may know you, Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

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Coming to know God the Father is only possible through coming to know his son, Jesus Christ.

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Jesus Christ is not only the only mediator for us in order to bring us to God, but he's the only mediator and able to bring

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God to us. It goes both ways. We can only know

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God the Father through his son, Jesus Christ. And any religion and any presentation of Christianity, so -called, that refuses or fails to mention

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Jesus Christ is not truly Christian, as the scriptures point out.

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And even today, among Christian leaders, and I'm not questioning their salvation, but there is this tendency to speak about God in general terms, in the public arena, but you never hear the name of Jesus mentioned, it would seem.

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And there's something very defective and deficient about that message. Eternal life involves knowing

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God the Father and knowing his son, Jesus Christ, and you can't know God the Father without knowing

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Jesus Christ. That is absolutely clear. And so, we need to know

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Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. And so, we can only know God the Father through God his son, as our

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Lord once declared, as recorded in Matthew's Gospel, all things have been delivered to me by my father.

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No one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son, and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him.

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If you know anything about God the Father, it's because God the son had purpose to reveal him to your soul, to your mind.

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Here in verse three, Jesus Christ refers to God, to whom he has prayed, as the only true God. That's interesting.

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Those who claim to know God but deny Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity, in other words, the cults,

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Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, for example, they hop on this verse to say that Jesus himself declared the father was the only true

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God, as though he were not putting himself in that position.

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This is error, of course. Matthew Poole, who was somewhat of a contemporary with Matthew Henry, whom we always quote, and I have two quotes of both these men here.

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Spurgeon highly recommended the three volumes of Matthew Poole's commentary. Matthew Poole wrote, those who deny the divine nature of Christ think that they have a mighty argument from this text, where Christ, as they say, speaking to his father, calls him the only true

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God. But divines, that's an old term for ministers, answer that the term only or alone is not to be applied to thee, but to the term

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God. And the sense is this, to know thee to be that God, which is the only true

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God, and this appeareth in 1 John 5 20, where Christ is said to be the true God. Which he could not be, if the father were the only true

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God, considered as another from the son. You follow his reasoning there? Jesus says, you know, that God is the only true

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God. But in, but John, the same one who wrote these verses, recorded these verses of Jesus, writes in 1

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John, Jesus Christ is the true God. And so clearly you cannot interpret this to only refer to God the father as the true

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God. It's the triune God, the Trinity, who's the true God, is what the verse is declaring.

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And so what Jesus is contrasting is belief in the triune God as the only true

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God against idols, who are not gods, false gods. That's what he's advocating.

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And Matthew Henry suggests this, God is here called the only true God to distinguish him from the false gods of the heathen, which were counterfeits and pretenders, not from the person of the son, of whom it is expressly said that he is the true

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God in eternal life, 1 John 5, 20, and who in this text is proposed as the object of the same religious regard with the father.

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It's certain there is but only one living and true God and the God we adore is he. He is the true

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God and not a mere name or notion. The only true God and all that ever set up as rivals with him are vanity and a lie.

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The service of him is the only true religion. And that's what Jesus was declaring.

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There's only one God and he's the true God, only true God. Now, knowing

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Jesus Christ with respect to having eternal life involves knowing and believing some essential truths regarding Jesus Christ.

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And this is suggested to us in the text by Jesus himself. Again, he declared eternal life as knowing the father and Jesus Christ whom the father has sent.

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A relative clause there, whom the father had sent is suggestive of knowledge that is essential, necessary in order to have eternal life through Jesus Christ.

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It reveals that if we know Christ, it's because we understand and believe in the deity of Jesus Christ whom the father has sent.

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It speaks of the deity of Christ, right? Before Bethlehem, God the father sent

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Jesus into the world. It speaks of his pre -existence, right? And so one must believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.

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You cannot be a Christian. I had a professor of New Testament in seminary who educated in Europe in his

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PhD. The guy was brilliant, professor of Greek. He was my supervising professor in my

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PhD program. But you can be full of knowledge and be woefully spiritually ignorant.

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He spoke one day of Rudolf Bultmann, and he said Rudolf Bultmann did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, but I understand he was a very good pastor.

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Absolute ignorance about spiritual truth. You can know a whole lot, but if you don't realize and believe in the deity of Christ and certainly bodily resurrection of Christ on that first Easter Sunday, you're still in your sin.

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The father sent him into the world to become one of us and one with us in his incarnation. And this knowledge is essential to salvation.

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And this knowledge of our Lord Jesus also includes our understanding and measure of the purpose for which the father sent him.

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The father sent him. For what purpose did he send him? The father sent him to be our savior, our

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Lord, the promised king. He would establish the promised kingdom of God in history, which would come into existence through his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension with his enthronement in heaven.

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And of course, the one who believes on Jesus Christ understands the nature and purpose of his death on the cross.

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He died as a substitute for the sinner that believes on him. The one who believes on him solely and wholly as Lord and savior.

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Eternal life belongs to those who know these essential truths about Jesus Christ and have embraced them as the once crucified, but now risen and enthroned

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Lord over all. As one wrote, knowing in this verse signifies not mere comprehending of God and Christ in men's notions.

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In other words, in their, you know, in their reasoning or intellect. But the receiving Christ, believing in him, loving and obeying him.

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This is what knowing Jesus Christ involves. And John Gill expressed in this way the nature of this knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.

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This is to be understood of an evangelical knowledge of God as the

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God and father of Christ as a God of all grace, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin. And of Christ mediator, not a general notional speculative knowledge, but a practical and experimental one, a knowledge of approbation or approval and appropriation, a fiducial one whereby a soul believes in Christ, trust in his blood, righteousness, and sacrifice for salvation, which though imperfect is progressive.

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All of this is suggested by just a few words that our Lord Jesus expressed. This is eternal life, knowing you our father and knowing

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Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And so this knowledge of God, the father and knowledge of his son is the essence of eternal life.

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Of course, it's not a matter that you and I can attain on our own.

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It's not a result of one's intellect or even exposure to truth. It's not because we had a desire that other sinners don't have that welled up within our fallen hearts.

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The reason we have come to understand and believe these things is because God revealed them to us, didn't he?

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Or we would have never known them. And so the saving knowledge of God and his son is not the result of personal pursuit and discovery.

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It's the result of divine grace and illumination and regeneration, the new birth of the spirit.

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All set the matter straight in his appeal to the churches of Galatia not to fall back into legalism.

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He wrote, but now that you have come to know God, but he in no way wanted to, you know, people to think that the credit belongs to them for having come to know

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God, but he included the qualification or rather be known by God. See, that's the issue, that you were known by God.

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That's the only reason that you came to know God. How can you turn back again? He says basically to legalism.

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And so knowledge of God begins with God knowing us. And we know from the scriptures that God foreknew us from eternity.

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I came to know God savingly in the second week of January 1972. God knew me from eternity.

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He foreknew me. And the passage speaks of this in 1 Peter 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers.

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These are exiles. I think he's talking about the elect. Scattered throughout, and this is the region of northern, what's today in northern

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Turkey, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, that's Asia Minor, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God.

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God knew us. Through sanctification of the spirit, unto obedience, sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace to you, peace, we multiply.

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And so we read in the scriptures, we came to love God because he first loved us. And we could say with equal conviction, we came to know

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God because he first had known us, and that from eternity. Saving knowledge of God is always a result of the grace of God operating within us.

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Or we would never know. But we next read in verses 4 and 5 of John 17, how

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Jesus appealed to his father to glorify him, since he had completed the work the father sent him to perform.

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We read our Lord's words in verse 4, I have glorified you on the earth. He glorified the father on earth.

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All that our Savior did while on earth was intended to bring glory to his father. And glory, of course, speaks about a true comprehension of the greatness of God.

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There is a physical manifestation of glory, of course, in bright light, kind of glory in the

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Old Testament, the glory of God. Paul saw Jesus brighter than the sun at noonday on his road to Damascus.

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That is glory, but that whole visual glory brighter than the sun conveys the idea that you're seeing

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God for who he is and the full weight and significance of his being, at least in the measure that we can comprehend it is revealed to us.

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And so, as one wrote, Jesus is so close to the father with splendor that many human beings, creatures of the earth, not of heaven, have come to praise him.

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After all, the incarnation itself was a display of glory. Everything Jesus was and did and said was in order to manifest or reveal who the father was, the glory of the father.

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And here Jesus declared to the father, I've glorified you on earth. This was the sum of Jesus's life.

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Everything Jesus did throughout his early earthly sojourn glorified his father. But what did this look like?

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How did Jesus glorify his father? Well, in everything that Jesus thought and did, he did nothing with view to promote the serving of himself, nothing.

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But all that he thought, all that he did was as his father would have him to do. He lived a life of self -denial and humble submission to whatever the father brought before him.

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He always promoted the name and cause of his father. Never did he promote himself, his own name.

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And so he'd allow himself to be, of course, abused and beaten, and he would never raise a hand in self -defense.

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But the other hand, you know, you disregard my father in the temple. He sat down fashioned a whip and cleaned house because he was concerned about the glory of his father.

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He wasn't concerned about himself. He was concerned everything he thought, everything he did was in order to bring credit, bring glory to his father.

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And here in his declaration of his life well lived, he did not complain of the hardship or the deprivation he experienced through life.

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Though he was born into an impoverished family, though he suffered misunderstanding of his words, rejection of others, even those who were close to him, he thought not on these things how he was treated.

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Rather, he was very pleased that he had finished the work for which his father had sent him. He finished the work.

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That is, the finish of it was in sight. That is, the next day he would be crucified, of course. And it was on the cross he declares, it's finished.

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He had accomplished the work. And as one wrote, well, it was

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Matthew Henry, it was a strange way for the son to glorify the father by embasing himself. He always embased himself.

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And this looked more like to disparage him rather than glorify him. Yet it was contrived that so he should glorify him, that is, the father.

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Amazing when you think about it. It's ironic. Jesus said to his father,

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I have finished the work which you have given me to do. The father had sent his son into the world to do a work on his behalf.

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The father sent him on a mission to complete. He was to be one of us, a human being.

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His human nature having been joined to his divine nature in his one person. And through his human nature, he accomplished the work to which the father had assigned him.

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And so as a young man, when he was 12 years of age, Jesus referred to this work to which the father had sent him.

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You'll recall when Jesus remained in Jerusalem, when his parents headed back toward Nazareth after the festival, they thought he was in another part of the caravan.

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He wasn't. The third day, they found him back in the temple, engaged in answering and questioning the leaders of Israel about the things of God.

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And of course, they were surprised to find him, perhaps a little perturbed at him.

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And Jesus responded, why did you seek me? Did you not know I must be about my father's business? Didn't you know

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I'd be about doing my father's work? Now, that is the

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New King James translation. The ASV and some other translations have the idea of, did you not know

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I'd be in my father's house, referring to the temple. But I think the context does suggest he was doing his father's work.

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That's what he was called to do. And so even at the age of 12, he had grown in his human nature to understand that God was his father and he had a work to do.

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And he was already employed in doing it. It's interesting.

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Our Lord said, I finished the work which you gave me to do. When he had not yet been arrested, tried and crucified.

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It was on him, you know, minutes later. And yet he declared he had finished his work.

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Yes, his great trial was before him, but he had successfully served his father faithfully throughout his 30 plus years on earth.

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He had all but reached his end. I finished the work you gave me. Again, Matthew, Henry, his father gave him his work, his work in the vineyard, both appointed him to it, assisted him in it.

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The work that was given him to do, he finished, though he had not as yet gone through the last part of his undertaking.

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Yet he was so near being made perfect through sufferings that he might say, I finished it. It's as good as done.

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He was giving it his, it's finishing stroke. I have finished.

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The word signifies his performing every part of his undertaking in the most complete and perfect manner.

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And herein he glorified his father. He pleased him. He praised him and the glory of God that his work is perfect and the same as the glory of the redeemer.

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What he is, what he is the author of, he will be the finisher of it. It was a strange way for the son to glorify the father by basing himself.

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Yet it was contrived that so he should glorify him. I've glorified thee on the earth in such a way as men on earth could bear the manifestation of thy glory.

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And so the father had sent his son into the world to perform a work and Jesus saw himself to be on a mission to accomplish that work, the work for which he was sent.

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And this purpose guided Jesus and motivated him throughout life. And at the end of the life, his life on earth, he could say to his father,

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I finished the work which you have given me to do. And just by word of application for us, we may look to our

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Lord Jesus as an example that we're to follow. We must make it our business as Christians to do the work that God has appointed us to do.

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According to our capacity in the sphere of our activity, we must each of us do all the good we can in this world.

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He's placed you in a situation, in positions, in work, in your family, in the church, in society, and you got to work before you and we are to finish that work.

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And secondly, as Jesus, we must aim at the glory of God in all. We must glorify him on the earth, which he's given on to the children of men, demanding only his quick rent on the earth, where we are in a state of probation and preparation of eternity.

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We must persevere here into the end of our days. We must not sit down till we finished our work and accomplished as a hireling our day.

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And I'm getting a little older now, you know, I'll be 68 in a few months and I'm thinking more and more, Lord, help me finish well.

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And, you know, in the time and opportunities that we have, you know, before us, may we finish well.

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And so in our Christianity, we should have this understanding of our relationship with God, who has our creator and his son as our savior.

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He called us out of the fallen kingdom of the evil one into the glorious kingdom of his son. He's commissioned us to glorify him in this world and how we act and react and how we think and how we live.

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And God has given each of us who've come to know him a purpose, which is a glorious privilege, but also a sacred duty to which we should give ourselves prayerfully and fully every aspect and every detail of our lives are the arena in which we perform the work of God, acting and reacting in the way our savior and Lord would have us do.

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Every challenge of life that we face in the secular world, in the world in which we're occupied, every relationship that we have, whether they're pleasant or difficult, comprise a stage on which our life before God is to be lived.

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And so Paul, of course, could write of his own life at the end of his last words before he was martyred, probably.

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I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith. He performed his work, didn't he?

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He accomplished it. And so finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give to me on that day and not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

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He's describing Christians, if we're thinking rightly and living rightly. And so may he enable each of us to see this glorious calling, great privilege.

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Every morning when you wake up and you begin the day, you know, Lord, everything I do today is a work for you.

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In the way I act and react and respond and think and reason, help me be true and faithful so that we one day would hear

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Jesus say to us, well done, thou good and faithful servant. A servant does work that's prescribed for him.

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Enter into the joy of thy Lord. We should just play at this

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Christianity. It is at the heart of our very existence, isn't it? Knowing God and his son,

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Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. Well, our Lord then concluded his prayer for himself with these words in verse five.

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And now, oh, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

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As we voiced last Lord's day, this prayer seems to flow forth from our Lord's part in the eternal covenant of redemption that was established between the three persons of the blessed

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Holy Trinity. This is suggested here in our Lord's words. In eternity, the three persons of the

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Trinity covenanted together, father, son, and Holy Spirit for the redemption of his people from sin and their just condemnation.

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The father had chosen a vast number of sinners from the fallen world and set his love upon them, purposing to save them unto himself.

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And the father had sent his son into the world to redeem his chosen people. The son had done so, having committed himself in eternity to redeem them through his life and his death.

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And the father had promised his son that upon completion of his work, completion of his mission, he would exalt his son to the supreme seat of authority in heaven.

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And so the son could now expect and anticipate his exaltation. He had done everything that they had agreed for him to do.

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And the father promised, after you get done with that, I'm going to exalt you, return you to the glory that you enjoyed and experienced before the incarnation.

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Matthew Henry wrote this aspect of our Lord's Prayer. It was according to the covenant between them.

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I was happy to read this, confirming what I was asserting. It was according to the covenant between them that if the son would make his soul an offering for sin, he should divide the spoil with the strong.

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And quotes from the fourth servant song of Isaiah 53. And the kingdom should be his.

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And this he had an eye to, depended upon in his sufferings. And it was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross.

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And now in his exalted state, he still expects the completing of his exaltation because he perfected his undertaking.

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He accomplished his work. And now, again, as we pointed out last week, it's a prayer of Jesus, but it's in the form of a command.

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It's like Jesus said, all right, Father, I've done what, you know, we committed for me to do.

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And now, you know, fulfill what you committed to do. Glorify me with the glory that we shared in eternity.

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And here our Lord Jesus, of course, refers to his pre -incarnate glory as eternally begotten son of God.

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And so this request of Jesus shows that he is the son of God, was equal with his father in glory.

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Here you have the deity of Christ, clearly, don't you? Prior to his incarnation, he declared the glory which

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I had with you before the world was. He had the same glory as the father. You cannot have the same glory as the father unless you're of the same essence of the father.

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He's the eternally begotten son of God. He's God who became incarnate.

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Now, this suggests to us in his incarnation, he was not characterized with the glory he had once shared and enjoyed with his father during the days of his flesh, as sometimes it's referred to.

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When he came into this world, he set aside his glory. And again, his glory was the manifestation of his divine authority.

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By humbling himself and assuming the lowly stature of a man, even a poor man in this world. So Paul described this action of our

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Lord Jesus in Philippians 2. Paul wrote, have this mind in you among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

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Here Christ is set forth as an example for you and me. This is how we're to live as Christians.

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Don't serve yourself, deny yourself, and Jesus did in every way. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself.

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And there's the words. And this describes the incarnation. By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross.

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Jesus never was self -serving, never sought his own glory. He denied himself of every aspect of human life that we think that we have a right to.

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Right to life, a light to liberty, a life of dignity and death, you know, everything he denied himself of.

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Now, when Paul wrote that the Son of God had emptied himself, he was not saying that the divine nature of Christ was suspended or removed or diminished in his incarnation.

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That is great error. It's not as though in his incarnation, he took a temporary hiatus of being

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God and became man for 33 years, but then returned to become God once again.

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That is not what this is teaching. When the Son of God took upon himself our human nature, it was an action that would continue into eternity.

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A man died on the cross, the God -man, fully

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God, truly God, truly man. He died upon the cross, and a man, the same body came forth from the grave, and that glorified body ascended to heaven, and a glorified man is now sitting on the throne of God, ruling over history.

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He is our Lord. God had become a man while remaining God, and will continue forever a man while ever remaining the

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Son of God. And so what Paul was declaring in Philippians 2 -7 was that the open manifestation of his divine nature was veiled from view during the days of his earthly sojourn.

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It was as though his flesh, the veil, hid the glory of God that was behind the veil, behind his flesh.

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It was there, it's just nobody could see it, except once in a while he would open it up for his disciples to see, in various ways.

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Here's the footnote in the Reformation Study Bible that confirms this, who made himself of no reputation, literally emptied himself.

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Christ is not said to have removed from himself his identity as God. That's not possible. The phrase means that he humbled himself, relinquishing his heavenly status, not his divine being.

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The nature of his self -emptying is defined in three phrases that follow, taking, coming, being found, again denying himself.

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And so in the incarnation, the glory of the divine nature of Christ was hidden from view by others about him, from others about him.

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The veil of his flesh hid from our view the glory of his divine nature. And this veiled glory was unveiled briefly, for example, for Peter, James, and John to behold on the

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Mount of Transfiguration. Remember that? Peter wrote about it later, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our

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Lord Jesus. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty, another word for glory, for when he received honor and glory from God the

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Father, the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved

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Son in whom I'm well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

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Of course, they saw him, you know, brighter than the sun, a manifestation of his divine glory.

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And so on the holy mountain, God the Father conferred a preview to the apostles of the glorification of his

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Son that he would receive upon his return to heaven after his resurrection.

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And it's important, I think, for us to understand that throughout our Lord's earthly ministry, he never called upon or relied upon his divine authority as the

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Son of God to perform or accomplish his works on earth. But he entrusted himself in his human nature to his

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Father to direct him, and it was the Holy Spirit working through him that performed all the miracles and helped him to teach.

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He was filled with the Holy Spirit without measure. He didn't call upon his divine nature to act at all.

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He only used the authority conferred to him as the promised Messiah, and it was in his human nature as he trusted his

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Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to do everything that was required of him. I thought you'd benefit from the comments of Matthew Henry on this.

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I'm sorry it's a little longer, but I was blessed by it. I thought you would be too, or should be.

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See what confidence he, Jesus, expects the joy set before him. Now, O Father, glorify thou me.

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It's what he depends upon and cannot be denied him. First, see here what he prayed for.

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Glorify thou me as before. Verse one, there's a repetition there. All repetitions in prayer are not to be counted vain repetitions.

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I love that. Christ prayed, say, in the same words, and yet prayed more earnestly what his

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Father had promised him, and he was assured of. Yet he must pray for. Promises are not designed to supersede prayers, but to be the guide of our desires and the ground of our hopes.

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Christ being glorified includes all the honors, powers, and joys of his exalted state. See how it's described.

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First, it's a glory with God. Not only glorify my name on earth, but glorify me with thine own self.

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It was paradise. It was heaven to be with his Father. And then

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Matthew, Henry, and his commentary, whenever he wants to draw an application, he always puts in his text, note.

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Whenever you see that word in Henry, you realize it's an application. Note, the brightest glories of the exalted redeemer were to be displayed within the veil where the

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Father manifests his glory. The praises of the upper world are offered up to him that sits upon the throne and to the

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Lamb in conjunction. And the prayers of the lower world draw grace and peace from God our Father and our

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Lord Jesus Christ in conjunction. In other words, together. And thus the Father has glorified him with himself.

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That is with Christ. It is the glory he had with God before the world was.

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By this it appears, first, that Jesus Christ as God had a being before the world was.

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Co -eternal with the Father. Our religion, Christianity, equates us with one that was before all things and by whom all things consist.

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And second, that his glory with the Father is from everlasting as well as his existence with the

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Father, for he was from eternity, the brightness of his Father's glory. Hebrews 1 .3.

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And as God's making the world only declared his glory, but made no real additions to it, so Christ undertook the work of redemption.

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Not because he needed glory, for he had a glory with the Father before the world, but because we needed glory.

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That's why he did it. And third, that Jesus Christ in this state of humiliation divested himself of this glory and drew a veil over it, though he was still

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God, yet he was God manifested in the flesh. Not in his glory. He laid down this glory for a time as a pledge that he would go through this, his undertaking, according to the appointment of his

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Father. He was doing the work of his Father. And then fourth, I really like this paragraph, that in his exalted state, he resumed this glory, clad himself again with his former robes of light.

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Having performed his undertaking, he did as it were, and there's a Latin phrase, take up his pledge, by this demand, glorify thou me.

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Notice how Matthew Henry puts the prayer of Jesus in the form of a command, glorify thou me.

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He prays that even as human nature might be advanced to the highest honor it was capable of, his body, a glorious body, and that the glory of the

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Godhead might now be manifested in the person of the mediator, Emmanuel, God -man, he does not pray to be glorified with the princes and great men of the earth.

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No, he that knew both worlds, and might choose which he would have his preferment in, chose it in the glory of the other world, as far exceeding all the glory of this.

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He had despised the kingdom of this world and the glory of them when Satan offered them to him, and therefore might the more boldly claim the glories of the other world.

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Let the same mind be in us. Wonderful. Lord, give the glories of this world to whom thou will give them, but let me have my portion of glory in the world to come.

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It is no matter though I be vilified with men, but Father, glorify thou me with thine own self.

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This is a wonderful prayer that is very, very rich and suggestive of so much.

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Well, we just have maybe seven or eight more minutes. I do want to just touch on, start into this next section, and then we'll close.

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And this is Jesus praying for his apostles, and it goes from verses 6 through 19.

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And this is the majority of the content of Jesus's prayer in John 17.

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Now, of course, even though these words are directly and specifically for the 12 apostles, there's obviously application for us all, all

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Christians, true Christians that we may glean and derive. But let's just consider verses 6 through 8 quickly.

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Jesus declared to his father, I have manifested your name to the men, that's generic men, of course, men and women, you have given me out of the world.

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They were yours. You gave them to me. They've kept your word. And now they've known that all things which you have given me are from you, for I have given to them the words which you have given me, and they received them and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

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Now, it may not be clear immediately that he was praying for his apostles. It will be made clear in later verses.

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But it is suggested here in verse 6 when he spoke in the past tense, I have manifested your name to the men you have given me out of the world.

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He's referring to his earthly ministry, revealing himself to his apostles.

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He spoke in the past tense. Although his own divine glory was hidden from you before all, he disclosed or manifested the glory of his father to his apostles through his earthly ministry that was performed in their presence.

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In other words, you know, everybody saw the miracles. Everybody heard his teaching. But the disciples had a greater inside understanding.

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And they saw the glory of the father in it where people, other people, just attributed to Jesus alone, as it were.

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They didn't see the father in it. But he revealed to his apostles the glory of the father in the performance of his works.

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And so this statement of Jesus regarding his attention and effort to reveal to his apostles and to them only the glory of his father betrays and supports the biblical teaching of the sovereign grace of God in his dealings with mankind.

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God chooses whom he will reveal himself to and only to them.

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And he is sovereign in this. The Lord Jesus could have just as easily manifested the name of his father to all who saw and heard him, but he did not do so.

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He only manifested the father during his earthly ministry to those whom the father had given him out of the world.

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Jesus Christ was not trying to save the world, but rather the ones the father had chosen and given to him out of the world.

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Calvin nailed it. Here Christ begins to pray to the father for his disciples.

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And with the same warmth of love with which he was immediately to suffer death for them, he now pleads for their salvation.

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The first argument which he employs on their behalf is that they have embraced the doctrine which makes men actually children of God.

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There was no want or absence of faith or diligence on the part of Christ to call all men to God.

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In other words, he could have done that if he wanted. He could have called everybody. But among the elect only was his labor profitable and efficacious.

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His preaching which manifested the name of God was common to all. Everybody heard it. And he never ceased to maintain the glory of it, even among the obstinate.

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Why then does he say that it was only to a small number of persons that he manifested the name of his father, but because the elect alone profit by the grace of the spirit, who teaches inwardly?

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Let us therefore infer that not all to whom the doctrine is exhibited are truly and efficaciously taught, but only those whose minds are enlightened.

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That could be taking place right now. You know, there are some who, you know, may be sitting here and you're comprehending, you're understanding, you appreciate what's being said.

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And there may be others of you that are just, you know, bored out of your wits and just can't wait until we, you know, why didn't this guy end?

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I get out of here. Well, you know, that that reveals the ones on whom the

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God, the fathers were at work. Christ describes the cause to the election of God, for he assigns no other difference as the reason why he manifested the name of the father to some passing by others, but because they were given to him.

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Hence, it follows their faith flows from the outward predestination of God and that therefore it's not given indiscriminately to all because all do not belong to Christ.

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He purposely revealed the glory of his father to his apostles. Because they, the father had given them to him.

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That's what Jesus declared in this prayer. And as we work through our Lord's words to his father in this prayer, we'll read repeatedly about the sovereign grace of God.

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We owe everything to God's grace toward us. We cannot take credit for anything.

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We didn't discover Christ. We didn't find Christ as though he were lost and we found him.

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I found Jesus. Did you? Well, yes, you know, but, you know, we're the ones who are lost.

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Jesus found us because the father sent him on a mission. All right, to seek and say that which was lost.

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And probably most of you are as myself. We can remember the days when the last thing that I ever desired was to be a

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Christian. And I made my Christian friends very aware of that.

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That it was a disgusting, distasteful, undesirable thing that they were promoting to me.

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You can't attribute any, any change except to the sovereign grace of God.

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And this is what the Lord Jesus is setting forth here in John 17. And we'll speak more of this next week,

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Lord willing, when we get into verse seven. Let's pray. Thank you,

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Father, for this wonderful word that you've enabled us to listen to as your son prays to you, our father.

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And we thank you, our God, that we too who believe on Christ are the recipients of this glorious answer to his prayer on our behalf.

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And we're so grateful, our God, and indebted to your kindness and your love that you set upon us.

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For we're sinners and deserving of eternal wrath, but your purpose to glorify yourself and saving our souls.

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Help us, our God, to be forever grateful and forever giving glory to you for your kindness to us in Jesus Christ.