Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify you,...” Ch.17:1
The prior words Jesus had spoken to His disciples that they may have peace in Him, that they may be strengthened and perfected in the virtues of faith and love, and so overcome the world. After these words, Jesus lifts His eyes to heaven and prays as High Priest on behalf of the entire Church which is His Body, which lives in Him, and is sanctified in Him toward the glory of His Father. In praying thus, says Blessed Theophylact, Jesus teaches us that “when temptations assail us we should put everything else aside and flee to God.”
What hour is spoken of here? The hour and day of His humiliation and suffering and death by a hating world. Jesus has declared the truth, kept the law and commandments, and now He willingly submits to death in order to fulfill the will of the Father. As the only lover of man, He longs for the passion and embraces it, calling it His glory. And by this glory, Christ works to bring everyone to faith. Grace is no longer limited to the Jews; it is offered to the whole world.
…And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Knowledge of God is communion with God and he who receives knowledge of the true God and the true Christ receives life eternal.
…I have manifested Thy name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were yours, You gave them to Me and they have kept Your word.
Jesus revealed to His disciples the name of God, that is, the name Father. The disciples, knowing the Son of God, learned about the Father through the Son; they learned that God is the Father of the one only-begotten Son through Whom God created all things, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Father sent His Son into the world, that the world might be saved through Him. Being reborn of God, the disciples knew they had the same Father as Jesus and that they are loved by the Father as Jesus is loved. The disciples were true Israelites in whom there was no guile. They feared God and kept His law. Truth abided in them and they had faith in God’s promises.
…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.
The spoken words of Christ are spirit and life; the disciples received the knowledge that Jesus is the true Christ and that He is the Son of the living God, and they accepted Jesus within themselves. Because they received the words of Christ, they became worthy of later receiving the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, whereby they were led to the whole truth and became themselves teachers of the knowledge of the true God to all the nations.
…and I come to You, holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.
Jesus’ disciples continue the work of Christ, that is, the building up of the Church. And the world hates them and the ruler of the world, satan, will oppose them by every means in his power. Jesus petitions His Father to preserve them in the same unity as exists between Father and Son. Father and Son are one in thought, will, and love. Jesus prays that his disciples may be preserved in the same unity and that they may continue to love one another according to His commandment, and remain at peace.
.. and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
The disciples have been regenerated by the Word of God. As Apostles, they have become citizens of Heaven, having nothing in common with the world. And, in turn, they are hated by the world. They are hated because they became the sons of God. A world that hates the word of God, hates the Son of God and the sons of God;
St. Paisios the Athonite noted that the hostility of others is often a gift that detaches a Christian from worldly dependencies. “Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world…” He also reminded believers that the hostility of the world is a sign that a person is on the right path. “The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God.” The world ignores those who already conform to it. But the hostility of the world toward the Church must not be met with hatred on our part. When asked who the greatest enemy of the Church was, the saint answered: “The greatest enemy of Orthodoxy is ourselves. Because if we were truly Orthodox Christians, we would transform every person in the world. The whole world would believe in Christ.”
Through the words of the Lord the disciples are assured that they are made sons of God and so repudiate the temptations, sin and evil of the world, which hates and seeks to destroy them. Jesus with His disciples constitutes the foundation of the new world that is good, compassionate, immortal and by nature hostile to and transformative of the old world of sin which is ignorant of God, the fallen world of corruption and death. He who does not distinguish between these two different worlds walks in darkness, not knowing to which world he belongs.
Sanctify them by Your truth; Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
The blessed Theophylact says with regard to this passage: “Christ bids the Father to sanctify the disciples by giving them the Spirit; to guard them with right teaching and doctrine; to instruct them in the truth. We can be sanctified and acquire holiness only if we hold to Orthodox doctrine.” Jesus is clearly speaking here about doctrine - “Thy word is truth.” The Apostles are set apart for the preaching of the word so that they may become a living sacrifice. Their whole lives are to be dedicated to this salvific word, as witnesses and martyrs of the truth.
God is holy and those whom He sanctifies become holy. The Father in sanctifying Jesus’ disciples seals them with the seal of holiness, making them His own and no one is capable of tearing away from God those belonging to Him. The evil one is not able to abuse or harm or pollute them after they have been sealed by God. God sanctifies the faithful by means of the word, and the law which is truth.
The Lord Jesus willingly sacrifices Himself on the Cross as upon a holy altar, and through His holy blood His disciples are sanctified, becoming partakers and communicants of the sacrificed sacred body and precious blood of Jesus. For the purpose of this sacrifice and the holiness which it imparts, the Father sent the Son into the world and the Son in turn sent His own disciples in order to sanctify, through this one sacrifice, all those who believe in the disciples’ words. Jesus prays on behalf of all who will believe in their Gospel message.
..for them also that believe in me through their word; that they all may be one as You Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me.
The same unity which Jesus asked for his twelve disciples and apostles, He asks again on behalf of all who will believe in Him, through the words of the disciples. Through the apostles’ faith, salvation would be offered to the whole world and many would become their disciples. This is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. This Church believes in Christ just as the apostles believed in Him; it obeys the new commandment of love and all the commandments of Jesus as the Apostles obeyed them; it teaches the same truths as the Apostles taught and continues the work of saving human souls.
The true Church of Christ is in Christ and Christ in it; it lives in the Spirit of Christ and carries on His work of saving souls; it teaches the word of God, cleanses, sanctifies, enlightens and perfects souls. According to St. Theophylact, Jesus stresses the necessity of being of one mind. Peace and oneness of mind are to be preserved inseparably in the faith. This unity and oneness of mind are important to the credibility of the Church’s witness; if the disciples fight among themselves, how can they be called disciples of the peacemaker?
And the glory which You gave Me, I have given unto them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me.
St. Theophylact states: “The glory is revealed in His miracles, precepts, and teachings; but there is a glory even greater than that of miracles: oneness of mind. Divine peace has more power than any miracle to draw men to faith;”
All the glory that Jesus received for God, His Father, He gave abundantly to His disciples, too, so as to be one with them as the Father and the Son are one. There is mutual love between them, mutual honor, mutual care,and they are at peace forever, never divided, and never at conflict because of hatred, injustice or greed. This grace-filled unity is maintained by love, by self-emptying and bearing one another’s burdens; it is destroyed by inequality, greed and injustice. All that is the Father’s is the Son’s, and all that is the Son’s is the Father’s. Satan warred against this unity in love through the papacy, by which he introduced into the Church division and hostility together with every corruption and vileness. Papism divided the one Church into the Eastern and Western, and the latter through Luther and Calvin into a myriad of heresies and continues today to engage against and undermine the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox involved in the ecumenical movement must remember that unity is always given by God and received in a spirit of love for the truth. It is never negotiated or achieved through compromise and concessions.
I in them and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one,...
Christ dwells in each one of His disciples as the Father dwells in Jesus. Each of the disciples represents Jesus in the same way as Jesus represents the Father. Each of the disciples has all of Jesus dwelling in him and possesses all His characteristics and perfections. And Jesus, by dwelling in His disciples as the Father dwells in Jesus, renders them perfect as one Body and perfect in unity similar to that of the Father and the Son. Through this unity and perfection the entire world learns that God loved the disciples and the Apostles of Christ as much as He loved Christ Himself.
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
Those given to Jesus by His father were His disciples, and all those who through their word believed in Him. All these will constitute one city, the heavenly Jerusalem, having Jesus for King, beholding His glory and delighting in Him. In beholding Jesus we behold God and beholding God is the greatest of all blessings. Those who behold the glory of Jesus behold Him in themselves. The Father bestowed eternal joy upon Jesus Whom the Father loved before the foundation of the world; for He has been eternally the only-begotten Son and Logos of God, the reflection of His glory and the exact representation of His hypostasis and the object of God’s love.
And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.
The disciples were taught the knowledge of God’s name; they were taught that God is the Father of an only-begotten Son, through Whom He sent them the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father. Through enlightenment by the Spirit, they attained perfect knowledge of the Father and the Son. The disciples themselves attain perfection in the knowledge of the Father when they love the Father as the Father has loved them - and Jesus is in them and they are in Jesus. Then there is grace-filled unity between them and Jesus as there exists between Jesus and the Father.
This is the outcome of Jesus’ prayer through which true Christianity is made known. This prayer separates the world of perdition from that of salvation, the world under the sway of the ruler of darkness, from that ruled by Christ.
End
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