Jesus Prays for Himself
John 17:1-5
The prayer Jesus offers in the 17th chapter of John has often been called the Lord’s prayer in the sense that the one He taught the disciples on the Sermon on the Mount is more rightly “The Disciple’s Prayer. The prayer that Jesus offers at the end of the Farewell Sermon in chapters 14-16 is rich. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his Book “Assurance of our Salvation” makes a detailed exposition of the prayer itself, breaking it up into three parts. In verses 1-5 Jesus prays for Himself. In verses 6-19 He prays for His disciples. And in verses 20-26, He prays for all believers. I will follow this outline in the exposition of this prayer.
Jesus had just finished His final earthly sermon to His disciples. He had to deal with their upcoming failure when they would desert Him. He also needed to clarify His mission and purpose and prepare them for later persecution. The disciples would need to put up a united front in the face of opposition. The Holy Spirit would assist them in this and would be God’s ongoing presence to guide them, a sort of pillar of cloud and fire. The disciples finally thought they had got it and had to hear Jesus answer, “Do you really? You are just about to be scattered. He had said this several times that night, and I am sure it was unsettling to them.
Jesus begins His great prayer by making a petition in his own behalf to the Father. He lifts His eyes to Him and asks the Father to glorify Him so that He might glorify the Father. The weight of the universe was upon the shoulders of Jesus. The whole plan of redemption depended upon Jesus’ faithful obedience until death. We confess that Jesus was fully human, and therefore subject to temptation. John usually stressed Jesus’ divine nature as the Son. But here as in chapter 12, we see a human moment. The other gospels would add the scene at Gethsemane where Jesus asks the cup to pass from Him. He knew fully the suffering He was about to undertake. As frightening as the prospect of crucifixion would be to any human being, Jesus knew even better the ghastly suffering of the cross.
Jesus would glorify the Father by dying on the cross as the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. But He needed the strength from the Father to encourage Him to complete the mission. Sometimes it seems selfish on our part to pray for ourselves first. Perhaps it is seen as a sign of our frailty. Perhaps it is pride, because we get right to praying for others as though we are invulnerable. But we really need to include our self in prayer, that we stand up to trial before we pray for others. Jesus would pray for the disciples to withstand the coming shock. But first He prays for Himself.
Jesus knew his hour had come. We have heard about “the hour” all the way back to the 2nd chapter where Jesus tells his mother: “My hour has not yet come.” The hour describes the purpose that Jesus came into the world to fulfill. He did take time to do signs and wonders as well as to train His disciples. He did turn the water into wine, after all. But the next time he addresses His mother was at the cross. He turned water into wine to save the grooms family from embarrassment for the sake of His mother. But He dies on the cross for the sake of His Father. The theme of “the hour” appears from time to time to direct the reader of the gospel forward to the ultimate purpose of the Incarnation.
Jesus speaks this prayer with the intention of His disciples overhearing it. He is in a sense teaching them about himself even as He addresses the Father in prayer. He reminds the Father that Jesus has been given authority over all flesh, including His own. He had already said He had the power to lay down His life as well as take it up again. He is going to the cross as the ruler over all humanity and not as an unfortunate peasant preacher who offended someone. Jesus was no victim of human circumstance. This statement also reminds Jesus of who He also tells the Father that He had the authority to grant eternal life to everyone the Father had given Him. His disciples overhear this. They know He has told them about eternal life and that Jesus had told them about their special relationship in that they knew the Father and the Son and by this were assured of eternal life. Jesus would succeed, even though the disciples were about to fail. But they were also assured of restoration afterward.
It should also be a means of assurance to us, even though we all too often miserably fail. Because eternal life is firmly in the grip of Jesus and not our own selves, we can have hope that the Captain of our Salvation will bring us through. We shall prevail because we are kept in His power and believe.
Jesus, after once more saying that His earthly life had already glorified the Father, He goes forth to courageously face the final test. His entire life had been dedicated to doing His Father’s will. He had not failed in the least. Nor would He fail now.
Jesus now says something very interesting. It says that He has finished the work the Father had given Him to do. Here the same verb is used which Jesus will speak on the cross which is translated “It is finished.” Here an aorist participle is used which is usually used to refer to past events. But the climax of Jesus’ work would not happen until later that day on the cross. It seems that Jesus treats the future event as though it had already happened. So sure was the victory that He proclaims it in advance. This is similar to the “prophetic perfect” in the Hebrew language which treats future prophecy with a past tense verb. The “it is finished” of the cross is already fact.
The word finished comes from the Greek word “telos” which has the idea of completion. An example of this is when an architect plans a building and then proceeds to build it. When the building is complete and working as designed, that is telos. John uses this word group starting in chapter 4 where Jesus reminds the disciples that others had labored in the fields that He had asked them to harvest. The prophets had exhausted themselves, and pointed forward to the day that Jesus’ own life would be exhausted on a cross. Telos also occurs at chapter 13, where Jesus sais that He loved His disciples until the “end.” He was about to demonstrate the perfect completeness of love by dying on a cross. This uttermostness of Jesus love becomes reality with the words “It is finished!” on the cross. Here the verb form is in the perfect tense which speaks of the endlessness of Jesus’ victorious love. No greater love has any person than to lay down his life for His friend unless it is the love that Jesus demonstrated for dying for all humanity, friend or enemy.
Jesus ends the prayer by reminding the Father that He desired to be reunited with the Father in heaven, where as with the Father, and Holy Spirit, the co-eternal Godhead they would be reunited in glory. But this was not just for His sake. Jesus also prayed that the believers would also share in this glory. When our work on earth is finished according to God’s plan for our lives, we too will be united with them in the Kingdom to ever behold and bask in the glory of the Father.
In the meanwhile, even as Jesus’ earthly mission is coming to an end, tat of the disciples was about to begin. Jesus would go on from here to pray for them as well as for all believers who would come after them. Jesus had set His face to the cross and had already overcome it. There would be one final temptation at Gethsemane, so severe that His sweat became bloody. He became so exhausted that angels would have to uphold Him so His strength would not utterly fail and Jesus die there. He would become so weak that He could not finish carrying His own cross to Cavalry and had to be assisted.
We can learn from this the importance of keeping ourselves in prayer. If Jesus could be so buffeted, even though He was perfectly human, how much more for ourselves who are far from perfect. If Jesus came to the such weakness, so will we. Jesus would soon remind the sleepy disciples to rise and pray, lest they enter into temptation. We must humble ourselves in prayer for ourselves. It is not selfish to do so. Others are depending upon us to hold up under pressure. If we are in positions of leadership in the church, our failure is all the more devastating to the church. And too often we do fail. We must pray for ourselves so that we can hold up others in prayer in ministry.
