In John 17 Jesus prayed to his Father in anticipation of his coming betrayal. He was going away, and it was for their benefit, he told his disciples (16:7), so that he could send the Holy Spirit to be with them. He had so orchestrated the circumstances that he could say to the Father, “I have glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (17:4). At this point nothing could stop his crucifixion which would lead directly to his resurrection and then his ascension to heaven. In a matter of weeks, he would be seated at the Father’s right hand, enjoying the restored glory of heaven and awaiting the signal to return and take possession of the Davidic throne of which Psalm 110 speaks. To this day, our Lord remains at the right hand of God until all his enemies are put under his feet.
When he spoke of having completed the work which the Father had given him to do, Jesus had more than just his own passion in mind. His prayer, which occupies all of John 17, shows this to be true. He did pray for himself in light of his approaching ordeal (v.1-5), but he spent far more time praying for his disciples – the apostles he had personally chosen (v.6-19) and the generations of believers who would come after (v.20-26). While Jesus would be going away, his mission continues in the years and centuries which followed. We typically turn to the final chapter of the Gospels or the opening chapter of Acts to find the church’s commission, and rightfully so, but in John 17 we learn about the method by which we are to carry out this mission.
Jesus’ Mission to the World
In v.6-8 Jesus described his own mission during the incarnation, and that was to bear witness of the Father in the world. He said that he revealed the Father’s name to the ones God gave him out of the world (v.6), by giving them the words the Father had entrusted to him (v.8). John described this earlier in his Gospel in terms of a light shining in the darkness (1:5), Jesus coming to his own (1:11), and becoming flesh to dwell among men (1:14). Jesus, “the one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side – he has revealed him” (1:18). In another place Jesus (or John, depending on where the quotation ends and his own remarks begin) repeats that he is the “light [which] has come into the world” (3:19), and declares that his words are the very life-giving words of the Father (5:24). He plainly states that his words are not his own but were given to him by God – the one who sent him (7:11-17; cf. 8:40). He even predicted that in his death the divine origin of his teaching would be vindicated (8:28). The final judgment, said Jesus, is by the word he has spoken (12:48), “For I have not spoken on my own, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a command to say everything I have said. I know that his command is eternal life. So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me” (v.49-50).
Jesus’ mission during the three years of his earthly ministry was to declare God’s word to the world, so men and women might receive it and come to know the One who is himself everlasting.
It is interesting to note the connection between what Jesus says about eternal life in 12:50 and 17:2-3. In the former Jesus says that the Father’s command is eternal life, and in the latter that eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son whom he sent. How can someone come to know God and thereby have eternal life? You must receive his command – his word – to believe in Jesus. Jesus’ mission during the three years of his earthly ministry was to declare God’s word to the world, so that men and women might receive it and so come to know the One who is himself everlasting.
The Disciples and the Word of God
This very thing is what separates Jesus’ disciples from the world. The disciples are those who have kept God’s word (17:6), which is to say they have received his words and believed that Jesus was indeed sent by the Father (v.8). The world, on the other hand, has not kept Jesus’ words (15:20), therefore they do not know the Father who sent him (v.21). The unbelieving Jews, Jesus said, did not have God’s word residing in them, because they were not willing to believe in him (5:38-40). And while his miracles served to draw large crowds, the vast majority turned away from following him, saying, “This teaching (i.e. his words) is hard. Who can accept it?” At the same time Peter, as spokesman for the rest of the disciples, asked, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (6:68). Jesus called out the Jewish leaders for plotting to kill him, “because,” he said, “my word has no place among you” (8:37), and their inability to even listen to what Jesus was saying was evidence of their devilish nature and origin (8:43-47). In sum, to keep his word is to love Jesus, and to refuse his words is to reject not only Jesus but his Father also (14:24).
So this was Jesus’ earthly mission: to reveal the Father’s name to the world by declaring to them his word. In doing this, he gathered to himself all those the Father had given him, which is another way of saying all those who received his word and believed in him. All these he had kept from harm so long as he had been with them, and through prayer he entrusted the disciples to the Father’s keeping, while he went to the cross and then returned up into glory.
The Disciples’ Mission to the World
In the final movement of Jesus’ prayer, he follows the ministry of the word from the Father through the Son to the apostles and on to future generations of believers. “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word” (17:20). The key element is that the apostles, like Jesus, will carry the Father’s word to the world. “As you sent me into the world,” Jesus prayed, “I also have sent them into the world” (v.18), referring to the twelve he had chosen to be his disciples. That is why we use the word “apostle,” because these men were uniquely appointed and sent out in Jesus’ name. The rest of the New Testament, and especially the book of Acts, records their obedience to this commission, and the New Testament itself is the record of their testimony (“their word” at the end of v.20). We who believe today in Jesus as the Christ sent down from heaven, who receive his words as the words of the Father himself, are the result of the ongoing revelation Jesus described in v.26: “I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known.” The end result of which is the loving unity of all believers with the Father and the Son, and the reverberation of God’s word to the world in each successive generation of mankind.