John 17:24 - Exposition

Now passing from this glorification of his people in the convictions and knowledge of the world, our Lord offers "as a Son to a Father," and therefore with profound naturalness, the prayer of the incarnate Loges to the eternal Father, and therefore an address indubitably supernatural and lifted above all human consciousness. It is a prayer, too, which rises from the high and unique term ἐρωτῶ (one which he never puts into the lips of his disciples) to a yet higher one, θέλω , as one who speaks with ἐξουσία which God had given him over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to those whom God had given him. θέλω means less than "I will," and more than "I desire," and is destitute of that element of "counsel" or deliberation that is involved in βουλόμαι . Very soon after this, when the full force of his human consciousness pressed upon him, he said ( Mark 14:36 ), "Not what ( ἐγὼ θέλω ) I will, but what thou wiliest." But here he is so conscious of the Father's will concerning others that he cries, Father, as for them whom —or, as some ancient codices read, that £ which — thou hast given me , regarded as a mystic unity, as the Bride which he has redeemed, I will that they also be with me where I am . κἀκεῖνοι resolves the ὅν into the elements of which it is composed. This is the first part of the final petition, and it embraces everything. " With Christ;" "Forever with the Lord;" in his glory and part of it, in the place which he is going to localize and prepare for them, is heaven. The glory which he had already given to his disciples ( John 17:22 ) falls far short of this fellowship with him where his undimmed radiance shines, is only a preparation for sharing with him in his ultimate triumph over the world and death, and also for sitting down with him on his throne ( Revelation 3:21 ). In this world fellowship with him in his suffering humanity did not finally reveal the transcendent glory (though in John 1:14 the apostle says, "We beheld his glory," etc.) of his Person. To realize this he prays, And that they may also behold the glory which is mine, which thou hast given me . The glory given cannot be the glory of the λόγος ἀσάρκος , according to Meyer, for that is not given, but belongs to him by eternal right; yet Meyer admits that the Father gave the Son to have life in himself; and that even the eternal Sonship itself may be regarded as the eternal bestowment of an infinite love. Seeing that the Lord goes on to give a reason of his θέλημα founded on an eternal or at least pre-mundane manifestation of a conscious love, surely he is thinking of the exaltation of humanity into the eternal glory, which he distinctly relinquished and veiled in the days of his flesh. That which they had hitherto seen they only partially apprehended, though he had even given it to them ( John 17:22 ), and though they had been drawn out of the world to high places of transfiguration, that they might behold it and learn how it coexisted with and was compatible with a perfect resignation to the will of God in human redemption. Our Lord prays, nay, wills , that they should hereafter see it in its fullness of grace and beauty, see it when relieved from obstructive hindrances due to the flesh and to the world, see it on the grandest scale, see it as it really is , see the full capacity and infinite momentum of the glory which he had already bestowed upon them. For thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. This, say Meyer and Luthardt, is given as a reason of the prayer for his disciples, not as an explanation of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. It is often said that the exaltation of the Son of man is a reward for his self-humiliation, and the crown of his sacrificial death ( Philippians 2:9 ; Revelation 3:21 ; Hebrews 1:1 , Hebrews 1:2 ), but these very passages couple that exaltation with the premundane glory of him who was, to begin with, and before his work of redemption, the "Effulgence of the Father's glory," who was "in the form of God," and regarded the being equal with God as no ἁρπαγμός —not as a thing to be seized, prized, and held in its integrity. And in Hebrews 2:9 , " He was by reason of his intended passion crowned with glory and honor, in order that he might taste death for every man." So that the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, and therefore before his incarnation, was that very glory of self-devoting and unutterable love into which he would come again with all the trophies of his redemptive work. The new and higher embodiment of his humanity would prove of such a kind that his essential glory would shine through it in undimmed luster. If this be the meaning, we cannot dilute this pregnant saying, one of the most mysterious of all his words, one which leads us up to the highest possible conception of the relations between the Father and the Son. The eternal love of which the Godhead itself is the SOURCE and the OBJECT is that to which we shall be introduced, and which our Lord would have us see and share (cf. 1 John 3:1-3 ).