Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 17:26
And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare [it]: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
26. have declared will declare ] Better, made known will make known. The verb is cognate with that rendered ‘know’ in Joh 17:25, and here as there the aorist is used, not the perfect. Christ knows the Father and makes known His name, i.e. His attributes and will (see on Joh 1:12), to the disciples. This imparting of knowledge is already accomplished in part, ‘I made known’ (comp. Joh 15:15); but the knowledge and the love which imparts it being alike inexhaustible, there is room for perpetual instruction throughout all time, especially after the Paraclete has been given, ‘I will make known’ (comp. Joh 14:26, Joh 16:13).
wherewith thou hast loved me ] In the Greek we have a double accusative, as in Eph 2:4. ‘Hast loved’ should be didst love (see on Joh 17:4): but possibly this is a case where the English present might be admitted as the best equivalent of the Greek aorist (see on Joh 15:8).
may be in them ] May rule in their hearts as a guiding principle, without which they cannot receive the knowledge here promised; for ‘he that loveth not, knoweth not God’ (1Jn 4:8).
I in them ] These last words of Christ’s Mediatorial Prayer sum up its purpose. They are the thread which runs through all these farewell discourses. He is going away, and yet abides with them. His bodily presence passes away, His spiritual presence remains for ever; not seen with the eye without, but felt as life and strength within. Having known Christ after the flesh, now they know Him so no more: they are in Christ, a new creation (2Co 5:16-17).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thy name – See the notes at Joh 17:6.
And will declare it – After my resurrection, and by the influence of the Holy Spirit, Luk 24:45; Act 1:3.
I in them – By my doctrines and the influences of my Spirit. That my religion may show its power, and produce its proper fruits in their minds, Gal 4:19.
The discourse in John 14; 15; 16 is the most tender and sublime that was ever pronounced in our world. No composition can be found anywhere so fitted to sustain the soul in trial or to support it in death. This sublime and beautiful discourse is appropriately closed by a solemn and most affecting prayer – a prayer at once expressive of the profoundest reverence for God and the tenderest love for men – simple, grave, tender, sublime, and full of consolation. It is the model for our prayers, and with like reverence, faith, and love we should come before God. This prayer for the church will yet be fully answered; and he who loves the church and the world cannot but cast his eyes onward to that time when all believers shall be one; when contentions, bigotry, strife, and anger shall cease; and when, in perpetual union and love, Christians shall show forth the power and purity of that holy gospel with which the Saviour came to bless mankind. Soon may that happy day arise!
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 17:26
And I have declared unto them Thy name
The Divine name
The name of God is His moral character.
This is the stability and glory of the universe. These words present it
I. AS THE HIGHEST OBJECT FOR REVELATION. I have declared. Paul said at Athens, Him declare I unto you. Not only is this the highest function of
1. The material universe.
2. Angels.
3. But of Christ the greatest Being.
II. AS THE GRAND ORGAN OF REFORMATION. That the love, &c. Gods character is the reformatory force.
1. Moral reformation consists in the transfusion of Divine love into souls.
2. This transfusion of love can only be accomplished through a manifestation of the Divine character. Gods character alone generates love. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Love and I–a mystery
I. THE FOOD OF LOVE TO GOD.
1. Knowledge. I have made known. We cannot love a God whom we do not know. Only when the eyes are opened to behold the loveliness of God will the heart go out towards God, who is so desirable an object for the affections.
2. A knowledge given by Christ. It is not knowledge that we pick up as a matter of book learning that will ever bring out our love to the Father. Not knowledge communicated by the preacher alone. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. He that knows not Christ knows not the Father.
3. Knowledge coming gradually. And will declare it. As if, though they knew the Father, there was far more to know.
4. Knowledge distinguishing us from the world. It is the mark by which the elect are made manifest (Joh 17:6).
5. Knowledge of the name of God.
(1) Righteous, and yet a Father. Our joy begins when we see the two united.
(2) The word name is used as a sort of summary of all the attributes of God. All these attributes are well adapted to win the love of all regenerate spirits. God is
(a) Holy. To a holy mind there is nothing in the world, there is nothing in heaven more beautiful than holiness.
(b) Good;
(c) Merciful; Who is a God like unto Thee.
(d) Love, and there is a something about love which always wins love.
II. THE LOVE ITSELF.
1. What it is not. The prayer is not that the Fathers love may be set upon them, or move towards them, but be in them. Christ did not die to make His Father loving, but because His Father is loving.
2. This love is of a very peculiar sort. The love wherewith Thou hast loved Me.
(1) Our Lord desires us to have a distinct recognition of the Fathers love to Him. God never loved anything as He loves Christ, except His people, and they have had to be lifted up to that position by the love which the Father has to His Son.
(2) You are to have in your heart a sense of the Fathers love to you, and to recollect that it is precisely the same love wherewith He loves His Son. When there was a choice between Christ and His people which should die of the two, the Father freely delivered up His own Son that we might live through Him.
(3) We are to give back a reflection of this love, and to love Jesus as the Father loves Him. The Father is the Sun and we are the moon, but the moonlight is the same light as the sunlight. The moon has not a ray of light but what came from the sun, and we have not a live coal of love to Christ but what came from the Father. We are as the moon, shining by reflected light, but Jesus loves the moonlight of our love and rejoices in it.
(4) This love of the Father in us is to go beaming forth from us to all around.
3. This indwelling of the Fathers love in us has the most blessed results.
(1) Has an expulsive result. As soon as ever it gets into the heart it says to all love of sin, Get thee hence: there remains no room for thee here.
(2) A repulsive power by which it repels the assaults of sin.
(3) An impulsive power. It is as when an engine receives fire and steam, and so obtains the force which drives it. Then have you motive power, then are you urged on to this and that heroic deed which, apart from this sublime love, you never would have thought of.
(4) How elevating it is. How it lifts a man up above self and sin; how it makes him seek the things that are above!
(5) How purifying it is!
(6) How happy it makes the subject of its influence! If you are unhappy you want mole of the love of God.
III. THE COMPANION OF LOVE. I in them. Catch those two words. Here is love and. I–love and Christ come together. Oh, blessed guests!
1. We are sure that He is where love is; for, where there is love there is
(1) Life, and where there is life there is Christ, for He Himself says, I am the Life.
(2) The Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for the Holy Spirit is Christs representative.
(3) Faith, for faith worketh by love, and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith.
(4) God, for God is love.
2. You need not go abroad to find the Lord Jesus Christ. He lives within you.
(1) What a blessed sense of power this gives to us. I in them. Then it is no more I in weakness, but, I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.
(2) Hence we gather the security of the believer.
(3) We should give Christ good entertainment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Spiritual illumination and Divine love
I. THE GREAT SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. I have declared to them Thy name. The name was the Jewish formulary for God; His perfections, glory, grace.
1. That the saving knowledge of God comes to us by direct communication from Christ. Not by wisdom, virtue, strength of our own; for the world by wisdom knew not God, but from the discovery which Christ makes by His word and Spirit: I have declared. See it in the woman of Samaria–in His patience with the disciples. It is Christs prerogative to convey the saving knowledge of God to the mind; it is our privilege to seek that knowledge from Him.
2. That we need spiritual illumination from above, not only at our first conversion, but through the whole progress of our spiritual life. I have declared–and will declare it. Paul prays for the Ephesians that God would give them the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of Him–and yet they knew Him already. Paul, who was taught not of men, but of Christ Himself, and was even caught up to the third heaven, puts himself among the number of them who know only in part; and this will be true of the most learned and holy men to the last hour of life.
3. It becomes us to acknowledge our ignorance, and to implore Divine teaching. This is a promise to be pleaded in prayer. We are like babes, unskilful in the word of righteousness. The best persons and the best churches still need more light. It is not enough that Christ has declared to them, but He must still declare–not indeed new truths, new essentials of salvation, but He conveys new impressions of truth to the mind; new aptitudes to receive, to appropriate, to exemplify and apply truth.
II. THE GREAT LOVE WHICH GOD BEARS TO HIS CHILDREN It is here compared to the love which God bears to Christ. This love is said to be in them, just as Christ is said to be in them. By Gods love to Christ, learn His love to you.
1. This love is ancient in its date. Thou hast loved Me from the foundation of the world (Pro 8:22; Pro 8:31).
2. Unlimited in its degree. As you can place no limit to Gods love to the Mediator, so you can place no limit to His love to the people He has redeemed. Many would discourage the hopes of Gods children. Satan himself would rob them of consolation. False systems of religion do this.
3. Enlightened in its exercise. Gods love to Christ was enlightened, and His conduct towards Him was regulated with a view to the office He was to sustain, and He allowed Him to pass through scenes of pain, poverty, temptation. So He does us: much tribulation.
4. Constant in its duration. It is an everlasting love. (The Evangelist.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 26. I have declared unto them thy name, c.] I have taught them the true doctrine.
And will declare it] This he did:
1st. By the conversations he had with his disciples after his resurrection, during the space of forty days.
2dly. By the Holy Spirit which was poured out upon them on the day of pentecost. And all these declarations Jesus Christ made, that the love of God, and Christ Jesus himself, might dwell in them and thus they were to become a habitation for God through the eternal Spirit.
OUR Lord’s sermon, which he concluded by the prayer recorded in this chapter, begins at Joh 13:13, and is one of the most excellent than can be conceived. His sermon on the mount shows men what they should do, so as to please God: this sermon shows them how they are to do the things prescribed in the other. In the former the reader sees a strict morality which he fears he shall never be able to perform: in this, he sees all things are possible to him who believes; for that very God who made him shall dwell in his heart, and enable him to do all that He pleases to employ him in. No man can properly understand the nature and design of the religion of Christ who does not enter into the spirit of the preceding discourse. Perhaps no part of our Lord’s words has been less understood, or more perverted, than the seventeenth chapter of St. John. I have done what I could, in so small a compass, to make every thing plain, and to apply these words in that way in which I am satisfied he used them.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
By the name of God, is to be understood God himself, and whatsoever God hath made himself known by his word and gospel, his attributes and perfections. And after my resurrection, I will yet further declare it to them, who are yet in a great measure ignorant and imperfect in their notions of thee; that thy love wherewith thou hast loved me may be further communicated to them, and be derived to them, and abide in and upon them for ever; because I am in them (so some would have it read, though the word be , which properly is, and I, as we translate it). The words are but a repetition of what our Lord hath often said, and illustrated in, Joh 15:9, by the parable of the vine and the branches; and teach us this lesson, that Christ must be in those souls who can pretend to any share in that love of God wherewith he hath loved Christ: Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 2Co 13:5.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
26. And I have declaredI madeknown or communicated.
thy namein His pastministry.
and will declare itinyet larger measure, by the gift of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost andthrough all succeeding ages.
that the love wherewith thouhast lovedlovedst.
me may be in them, and I inthemThis eternal love of the Father, resting first on Christ,is by His Spirit imparted to and takes up its permanent abode in allthat believe in Him; and “He abiding in them and they in Him”(Joh 15:5), they are “oneSpirit.” “With this lofty thought the Redeemer closesHis prayer for His disciples, and in them for His Church through allages. He has compressed into the last moments given Him forconversation with His own the most sublime and glorious sentimentsever uttered by mortal lips. But hardly has the sound of the lastword died away, when He passes with the disciples over the brookKedron to Gethsemaneand the bitter conflict draws on. The seed ofthe new world must be sown in Death, that thence Life may spring up”[OLSHAUSEN].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And I have declared unto them thy name,…. Himself, his nature, his perfections, especially of grace and mercy, his mind and will, his Gospel; [See comments on Joh 17:6]. A very fit person Christ was to make this declaration, since he was with him from all eternity, and was in his bosom; the Father did all in him, and his name is in him; and he is the faithful witness; nor is anything of God to be known savingly, but in and through Christ; the apostles are here particularly meant, though the same is true with respect to all that are given to Christ, who are his children and brethren, to whom he also declares the name of God:
and will declare it; more fully to them after his resurrection, during his forty days’ stay with them, and upon his ascension, when he poured down his Spirit in such a plentiful and extraordinary manner upon them; and will declare it to others besides them in the Gentile world; and still more in the latter day glory, and to all believers more and more:
that the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them; that is, that a sense of that love with which God loves his Son, as Mediator, might be in them and abide in them, and which is the rather mentioned because they are loved by the Father with the same love, and share all the blessed consequences of it, the knowledge and sense of which they come at, through Christ’s declaring his Father’s name unto them; and which they will have a greater sense of, and will be swallowed up in it in heaven to all eternity:
and I in them; dwelling in them, taking up his residence in them; not only by his Spirit and grace here, but by his glorious presence with them hereafter; when they shall be brought to his Father’s house, behold his glory, and be for ever with him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
And will make it known ( ). Future active of , the perpetual mission of Christ through the Spirit (John 16:12; John 16:25; Matt 28:20) as he himself has done heretofore (17:6).
Wherewith (). Cognate accusative relative with which has also the accusative of the person (me).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And I have declared unto them thy name,” (kai egnorisa autois to onoma sou) “And I have made known your name directly to them,” Mat 6:9, by His Words and by His deeds; In all that He did He reflected the character, image, or attributes of His Father, Joh 4:34; Joh 6:38; Heb 1:3; Col 1:15; Col 2:9.
2) “And will declare it;” (kai gnoriso) “And I will make it further known,” to them, in future sufferings, the resurrection, and giving them the Great Commission, and in sending the Holy Spirit to bear witness of me as your Son, who has come to redeem the world to your glory, even to the restitution of all things, Joh 16:13; Rom 8:17-23; Act 3:20-21.
3) “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me,” (hina he agape hen agapesas me) “In order that the love with which you have loved me,” in sending, teaching, and sustaining me, Joh 3:35; Joh 5:20; Mat 3:17; Joh 13:34-35.
4) “May be in them, and I in them,” (en autois e kago en autois) “May exist in them and I also may be or exist in them,” Heb 13:1, as a church body, my House, and my bride, as well as in them as individual believers, Joh 10:28-29; Joh 14:16-18; Mat 28:20; existing in the midst of His churches, wherever they are assembled in covenant fellowship and service, Mat 18:20; Rev 1:12-20. The nearer Jesus came to death the nearer He seemed to come to His church. It appears the same would be proper for every child of His. He lives in His church today, Mat 18:20.
NEARER TO CHRIST
A few years since, a Christian company visited a Southern plantation. Among the slaves was an old man, with whom the following conversation was held: “You are an old man, will you not die soon?” “Yes, I know I must.” ‘Where do you expect to go?” “I think I shall go to the good land.” “Why do you think you will go there?” “I cannot tell, but the nearer I come to death, somehow Jesus and I get nearer together.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
26. And I have declared to them thy name, and will declare it. Christ discharged the office of Teacher, but, in order to make known the Father, he employed the secret revelation of the Spirit, and not the sound of his voice alone. He means, therefore, that he taught the apostles efficaciously. Besides, their faith being at that time very weak, he promises greater progress for the future, and thus prepares them to expect more abundant grace of the Holy Spirit. Though he speaks of the apostles, we ought to draw from this a general exhortation, to study to make constant progress, and not to think that we have run so well that we have not still a long journey before us, so long as we are surrounded by the flesh.
That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them; that is, that thou mayest love them in me, or, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be extended to them; for, strictly speaking, the love with which God loves us is no other than that with which he loved his Son from the beginning, so as to render us also acceptable to him, and capablc of being loved in Christ. And, indeed, as was said a little before, so far as relates to us, apart from Christ, we are hated by God, and he only begins to love us, when we are united to the body of his beloved Son. It is an invaluable privilege of faith, that we know that Christ was loved by the Father on our account, that we might be made partakers of the same love, and might enjoy it for ever.
And I in them. This clause deserves our attention, for it teaches us that the only way in which we are included in that love which he mentions is, that Christ dwells in us; for, as the Father cannot look upon his Son without having likewise before his eyes the whole body of Christ, so, if we wish to be beheld in him, we must be actually his members.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(26) And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.The Greek word here rendered declared is of the same root as the verb rendered known in the previous verse. It is better to preserve this connection by rendering the clause, And I made known Thy name unto them, and will make it known. His whole teaching had been a making known of the name, character, will of God, to them. In part this had been received, but in part only. The first steps in the spiritual lessons had been taken, but in His Presence in the Paraclete He will guide them into all truth, and make known to hearts quickened to receive it, the love of God which passeth knowledge.
That the love wherewith thou hast loved (better, didst love) me may be in them, and I in them.Comp. Note on Joh. 15:9. The thought of Christs prayer in this verse is expanded in St. Pauls prayer in Eph. 3:17-19. It is more than that God may love the disciples, even as He loved the Son; it is that they may so know the nature of God that this love may be in them, dwelling in them as the principle of their life. And then the thought passes on to that fulness which has been present all through this last discourse and prayer, and I in them. (Comp. Joh. 17:23.) Going from them, to be yet with them; not to be with them only as a Person without, but as a power within. I in them are the last words of the Intercessory Prayer. The words remain in all their comfort for them in whom Christ is formed; in all their encouragement for doubting hearts seeking to know God; in all their warning for hearts that do not seek His presence. They are the prayer of Him who knoweth that the Father always heareth Him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
26. Declared thy name Unfolding the mystery of grace and glory embraced in the name of the Father.
And will declare it Unfolding its still more gracious grace, and its still more glorious glory, to them, to the Church of all ages, and to their whole glorious assembly in eternity.
Love wherewith thou hast loved me Which, as said in Joh 17:24, was a love before the foundation of the world.
May be in them Love from God resting upon them, and to God dwelling in them. They thus, by faith, come into a participation of God’s eternal love to his Son. They come into the everlasting beams of the eternal Sun. They enter into the embrace of God’s eternal purpose to glorify all who believe in Jesus. They fasten themselves to the golden chain of God’s election to eternal life of all who know him through his Son.
And I in them As the life-spring of their immortal existence, the well-spring of their eternal love, the day-spring of their eternal glory. For eternal life, love, and glory, embodied in Christ dwelling in them, are the full consummation of all that the sufferings and intercession of Christ himself can bring to his chosen. And in this consummation does this intercession most fitly end.
Thus close the valedictory utterances of Jesus to his disciples, extending through the last four chapters of this Gospel. They are, first, the colloquy and events during the supper, (chap. 13;) second, the Lord’s after-supper discourse, slightly interrupted by questions, (chap. 14;) third, his parting address of prediction, warning, and consolation, (chap. 15, and 16;) fourth, and last, this High Priestly prayer, (chap. 17.) It is pervaded with pathos, which runs as an undertone even through the triumphant passages both of the valedictory and the prayer. The pathos and the sorrow are soon to deepen into the immediate agonies of Gethsemane and the crucifixion; the triumphal tone is sustained by a prophetic recognition of the victory in the more distant future.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
REFLECTIONS
My soul! do thou, with uplifted eyes, and thankful heart, behold thy God and Savior, in this most blessed representation the Holy Ghost hath made of him, in this Chapter, here entering upon His High Priestly Office; and through faith, come under the golden Censer of his Offering! Oh! what a sample hath he here given, of his all powerful, all prevailing, and unchanging Priesthood. Yes! thou blessed Lord! let my poor soul, I pray thee, never lose sight of the Pillar and ground of the truth, on which thy Church, in all her members, both Apostles and people, stand everlastingly firm and secure; the perfection of thy finished work, and the faithfulness of Jehovah’s word and oath, in the Covenant, ordered in all things and sure. It is indeed eternal life, and it is thy office-character, to give it, to know Jehovah, the only true God ; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and Jesus Christ, whom Jehovah hath sent.
Oh, ye Apostles of Christ! what unspeakable mercies did Jesus, in this sweet prayer, confer on you! And ye no less, whom in all the after ages of the Church, God the Spirit hath called to the ministry; how are ye all, from age to age, included, in this rich priestly blessing of my God! Oh! for an holy jealousy, over the fold of Christ, in all the under pastors of the Church; to see and know that their commission is of God. Jesus! in mercy to thy Church, grant that none may run unsent; but that all may bear with them, the same sweet testimony as Jesus in this address to his Father gave, concerning his Apostles: As thou hast sent me into the world; even so have I also sent them into the world. Oh! the blessedness for all of this description and character, to have a consciousness of being interested in Christ’s prayer; from being sent forth to the ministry from Christ’s ordination: Holy Father! keep through thine own Name, those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are!
And no less ye whole Church of Christ! Never , never, lose sight of those most precious words of Jesus, when he said; Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. Yes! thou dearest Lord! though thou hast given some Apostles, and some Prophets, and some Evangelists; and some Pastors and Teachers: yet the whole is for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry; for the edifying of the body of Christ. Thy little ones dearest Lord, are as dear to thee, as the greatest and the best; for all is derived from thee, and none hath ought, but what he hath received from thee. Precious Lord Jesus! the hour is hastening, when that will of thine will be fully accomplished; and from an everlasting Oneness of thy Church and People with thyself, the whole Church will appear as thou hast said: Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me! Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it : that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
Ver. 26. That the love, &c. ] Claritas in intellecta parit ardorem in affectu. Ignoti nulla cupido. Clarity of mind gives birth to zeal in devotion. The unlearned desire nothing.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
John
THE HIGH PRIEST’ S PRAYER
CHRIST’S SUMMARY OF HIS WORK
Joh 17:26
This is the solemn and calm close of Christ’s great High-priestly prayer; the very last words that He spoke before Gethsemane and His passion. In it He sums up both the purpose of His life and the petitions of His prayer, and presents the perfect fulfilment of the former as the ground on which He asks the fulfilment of the latter. There is a singular correspondence and contrast between these last words to God and the last words to the disciples, which immediately preceded them. These were, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ In both He sums up His life, in both He is unconscious of flaw, imperfection, or limitation; in both He shares His own possessions among His followers. But His words to men carry a trace of His own conflict and a foreboding of theirs. For Him life had been, and for them it was to be, tribulation and a battle, and the highest thing that He could promise them was victory won by conflict. But from the serene elevation of the prayer all such thoughts disappear. Unbroken calm lies over it. His life has been one continual manifestation of the name of God; and the portion that He promises to His followers is not victory won by strife, but the participation with Himself in the love of God.
Both views are true-true to His experience, true to ours. The difference between them lies in the elevation of the beholder’s eye. Looked at on the outward side, His life and ours must be always a battle and often a sorrow. Looked at from within, His life was an unbroken abiding in the love of God, and a continual impartation of the name of God, and our lives may be an ever growing knowledge of God, leading to and being a fuller and fuller possession of His love, and of a present Christ. So let us ponder these deep words: our Lord’s own summing up of His work and aims; His statement of what we may hope to attain; and the path by which we may attain it. I shall best bring out the whole fullness of their meaning if I simply follow them word by word.
I. Note, first, the backward look of the revealing Son.
The first thing that strikes one about these words is their boldness. Remember that they are spoken to God, at the close of a life the heights and depths of which they sum up. They are an appeal to God’s righteous judgment of the whole character of the career. Do they breathe the tone that we might expect? Surely the prophet or teacher who has most earnestly tried to make himself a mirror, without spot to darken and without dint to distort the divine ray, will be the first to feel, as he looks back, the imperfections of his repetition of his message. But Jesus Christ, when He looks back over His life, has no flaw, limitation, incompleteness, to record or to confess. As always so here, He is absolutely unconscious of anything in the nature of weakness, error, or sin. As when He looked back upon His life as a conflict, He had no defeats to remember with shame, so here, when He looks upon it as the revelation of God He feels that everything which He has received of the Father He has made known unto men.
And the strange thing is that we admit the claim, and have become so accustomed to regard it as being perfectly legitimate that we forget how enormous it is. He takes an attitude here which in any other man would be repulsive, but in Him is supremely natural. We criticise other people, we outgrow their teachings, we see where their doctrines have deviated from truth by excess or defect, or disproportion; but when He says ‘I have declared Thy name,’ we feel that He says nothing more than the simple facts of His life vindicate and confirm.
Not less remarkable is the implication in these words, not only of the completeness of His message, but of the fullness of His knowledge of God, and its entirely underived nature. So He claims for Himself an altogether special and unique position here: He has learned God from none; He teaches God to all. ‘That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’
Looking a little more closely at these words before us, we have here Christ’s own account of His whole life. The meaning of it all is the revelation of the heart of God. Not by words, of course; not by words only, but far more by deeds. And I would have you ask yourselves this question-If the deeds of a man are a declaration of the name of God, what sort of a man is He who thus declares Him? Must we not feel that if these words, or anything like them, really came from the lips of Jesus Christ, we are here in the presence of something other than a holy life of a simple humanity, which might help men to climb to the apprehension of a God who was perfect love; and that when He says ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,’ we stand before ‘God manifest in the flesh.’
What is that name of God which the revealing Son declares? Not the mere syllables by which we call Him, but the manifested character of the Father. That one name, in the narrower sense of the word, carries the whole revelation that Jesus Christ has to make; for it speaks of tenderness, of kindred, of paternal care, of the transmission of a nature, of the embrace of a divine love. And it delivers men from all their creeping dreads, from all their dark peradventures, from all their stinging fears, from all the paralysing uncertainties which, like clouds, always misty and often thunder-bearing, have shut out the sight of the divine face. If this Christ, in His weakness and humanity, with pity welling from His eyes, and making music of His voice, with the swift help streaming from His fingers-tips to every pain and weariness, and the gracious righteousness that drew little children and did not repel publicans and harlots, is our best image of God, then love is the centre of divinity, and all the rest that we call God is but circumference and fringe of that central brightness.
‘So through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, “O heart I made! a heart beats here.”‘
He has declared God’s name, His last best name of Love.
Need I dwell for one moment on the fact that that name is only declared by this Son? There is no need to deny the presence of manifold other precious sources in men’s experience and lives from which something may be inferred of what God truly is. But all these, rich and manifold as they are, fall into nothingness before the life of Jesus Christ, considered as the making visible of God. For all the rest are partial and incomplete. ‘At sundry times and in divers manners’ God flung forth syllables of the name, and ‘fragments of that mighty voice came rolling down the wind.’ But in Jesus Christ the whole name, in all its syllables, is spoken. Other sources of knowledge are ambiguous, and need the interpretation of Christ’s life and Cross ere they can be construed into a harmonious whole. Life, nature, our inmost being, history, all these sources speak with two voices; and it is only when we hear the deep note that underlies them in the word of Christ that their discord becomes a harmony. Other sources lack authority. They come at the most with a ‘may be.’ He comes with a ‘Verily, verily.’ Other sources speak to the understanding, or the conscience, or to fear. Christ speaks to the heart. Other sources leave the man who accepts them unaffected. Christ’s message penetrates to the transforming and assimilation of the whole being.
So, dear brethren! for all generations, and for this generation most of all, the plain alternative lies between the declaration of the name of God in Jesus Christ and a godless and orphan world. Modern thought will make short work of all other sources of certitude about the character of God, and will leave men alone in the dark. Christ, the historical fact of the life and death of Jesus Christ, is the sole surviving source of certitude, which is blessedness, as to whether there is a God, and what sort of a God He is.
II. Secondly, note here that strange forward look of the dying Man: ‘I have declared Thy name and will declare it.’
That anticipation, which at once differentiates Him from all the brood of merely human teachers and prophets, even the highest, does indeed include as future, at the moment when He speaks, the swiftly coming and close Cross; but it goes beyond it. How much of Christendom’s knowledge of God depended upon the Passion, on the threshold of which Christ was standing? He, hanging on the Cross in weakness, and dying there amidst the darkness that overspread the land, is a strange Revealer of the omnipotent, infinite, ever-blessed God. But Oh! if we strike Gethsemane and Calvary out of Christ’s manifestation of the Father, how infinitely poorer are we and the world! ‘God commendeth,’ rather ‘establisheth,’ ‘His love toward us in that whilst we were yet sinners Christ died for us.’ And so as we turn ourselves to the little knoll outside the gate, where the Nazarene carpenter hangs faint and dying, we-wonder of Wonders, and yet certainty of certainties!-have to say, ‘Lo! this is our God; we have waited for Him.’
But that future revelation extends beyond the Cross, and includes resurrection, ascension, Pentecost, and the whole history of the Church right onwards through the ages. The difference between the two volumes of revelation-that which includes the work of Christ upon earth, and that which includes His revelation from the heavens-is this, that the first volume contains all the facts, and the second volume contains His interpretation and application of the facts in the understandings and hearts of His people. We have no more facts from which to construe God than these which belong to the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and we never shall have, here at all events. But whilst the first volume to the bottom of the last page is finished and tolerates and needs no additions, day by day, moment by moment, epoch by epoch Christ is bringing His people to a fuller understanding of the significance of the first volume, and writing the second more and more upon their hearts.
So we have an ever-living Christ, still the active Teacher of His Church. Times of unsettlement and revolutionary change and the ‘shaking of the things that are made,’ like the times in which we live, are but times in which the great Teacher is setting some new lesson from the old Book to His slow scholars. There is always a little confusion in the schoolroom when the classes are being rearranged and new books are being put into old hands. The tributary stream, as it rushes in, makes broken water for a moment. Do not let us be afraid when ‘the things that can be shaken’ shake, but let us see in the shaking the attendant of a new curriculum on which the great Teacher is launching His scholars, and let us learn the new lessons of the old Gospel which He is then teaching.
III. Thirdly, note the participation in the Father’s love which is the issue of the knowledge of the Father’s name.
And all that love Christ gives to us as deep, as continuous, as unreserved. Our consciousness of God’s love is meant by Christ to be like His own. Alas! alas! is that our experience, Christian people? The sun always shines on the rainless land of Egypt, except for a month or two in the year. The contrast between the unclouded blue and continuous light and heat there, and our murky skies and humid atmosphere, is like the contrast between our broken and feeble consciousness of the shining of the divine love and the uninterrupted glory of light and joy of communion which poured on Christ’s heart. But it is possible for us indefinitely to approximate to such an experience; and the way by which we reach it is that plain and simple one of accepting Christ’s declaration of the Father’s name.
IV. And so, lastly, notice the indwelling Christ who makes our participation in the divine love possible: ‘And I in them.’
So, dear brethren! it all comes to this-we may each of us, if we will, have Jesus Christ for Guest and Inhabitant in our hearts. If we have, then, since God loves Him, He must love me who have Him within me, and as long as God loves Christ He cannot cease to love me, nor can I cease to be conscious of His love to me, and whatsoever gifts His love bestows upon Jesus, pass over in measure, and partially, to myself. Thus immortality, heaven, glory, all blessedness in heaven and earth, are the fruit and crystallisation, so to speak, of that oneness with Christ which is possible for us. And the conditions are simply that we shall with joyful trust accept His declaration of the Father’s name, and see God manifest in Him; and welcome in our inmost hearts that great Gospel. Then His prayer, and the travail of His soul, will reach their end even in me, and ‘the love wherewith the Father loved the Son shall be in me,’ and the Son Himself shall dwell in my heart.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
have declared = declared: i.e. made known. Greek. gnorizo. See Joh 15:15, the only other occurance in John. Kindred word to ginosko (App-132. ) and gnosis, knowledge.
love. Greek. agape. App-136.
hast loved = lovedst. This whole chapter beautifully illustrates Psalm 119 and Psa 138:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Joh 17:26. , I will make known [declare]) He did so, for instance, ch. Joh 20:17, I ascend unto My Father and your Father; with which comp. Heb 2:12, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren; in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto Thee.- , Thy name) as Father, a most loving name.- -, the love-and I) i.e. Thou and Thy love; and I and My love.- , may be in them) that Thou mayest love them in themselves with the same love wherewith Thou lovest Me: that their heart may be the theatre and scene wherein is to be exercised this love.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 17:26
Joh 17:26
and I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known;-By the name of God is meant more than by the simple term by which he is known; but person, character, and mission of God in his dealings with man. And Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth; keeping loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the childrens children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. (Exo 34:5-7). [I have made known unto them thy nature, attributes, counsels, will, and commandments, and I will continue the manifestation of the same unto the end. The saving knowledge of God was not attainable by natural abilities, but cometh to us by the special revelation of Christ.]
that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.-Jesus had declared the work, mission, character, and office of the Creator and Ruler of the world; he would still do it in person till his final ascension; then he would do it through the Spirit that the Father would send in his name, that the apostle acting as he acted, living as he lived, might be the object of Gods love as he (Jesus) was loved by his Father. [It is not enough for the people of God that they are beloved of him, and that his love is towards them; but they must endeavor to have it in them.]
Questions on John Chapter Seventeen
E.M. Zerr
1. After these words to where did Jesus look?
2. To whom did he address his prayer?
3. What did he say had come?
4. Tell what he asked the Father to do.
5. Why had power been given Christ?
6. What brings life eternal?
7. What had Jesus done on the earth?
8. State what glory he now prayed for.
9. What had he manifested to men?
10. Tell who are the men referred to.
11. What had they kept?
12. State what these men were led to know.
13. What words had Jesus given them?
14. This produced what belief?
15. What was Jesus now doing for them?
16. For whom did he not pray?
17. To whom did the disciples belong?
18. In what did Jesus take glory?
19. What separation did he now refer to?
20. Tell what keeping he asked of God.
21. This was to what purpose?
22. How had they been kept up to now?
23. Which one has not been kept?
24. This fulfilled what?
25. Why called “son of perdition”?
26. To whom does Jesus now come?
27. Why come at this time and place?
28. What had Jesus given the apostles?
29. Tell what the world has done.
30. State the reason.
31. For what did Jesus not pray?
32. From what would he have them kept?
33. To what did they not now belong?
34. In this respect whom are they like?
35. What special favor did he ask for them?
36. Through what was this to be accomplished?
37. Who had been sent and where?
38. What had Jesus done for their sakes?
39. This was to accomplish what?
40. Who are “these” in John 17:20?
41. Who are “them” in this same verse?
42. By what would they be made believers?
43. State the subject of this prayer.
44. What example is referred to?
45. Tell the result to be obtained.
46. In whom may unity be had?
47. What had been given to aid them to unity?
48. What three should be perfect in one?
49. This would make the world know what?
50. What was Christ’s will concerning his followers?
51. For what reason did he wish this?
52. How long had God loved Christ?
53. Who had and who had not known the Father?
54. Why had Christ declared God’s name?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
I have: Joh 17:6, Joh 8:50, Joh 15:15, Psa 22:22, Heb 2:12
that: Joh 14:23, Joh 15:9, Eph 1:6, Eph 1:22, Eph 1:23, Eph 2:4, Eph 2:5, Eph 5:30, Eph 5:32, 2Th 2:16
and I: Joh 17:23, Joh 6:56, Joh 14:20, Joh 15:4, Rom 8:10, 1Co 1:30, 1Co 12:12, Gal 2:20, Eph 3:17, Col 1:27, Col 2:10, Col 3:11, 1Jo 3:24, 1Jo 4:13, 1Jo 4:14
Reciprocal: Deu 32:3 – Because Psa 9:11 – declare Psa 89:24 – in my Isa 12:4 – declare Isa 43:4 – I Have Isa 60:9 – unto Mat 11:27 – neither Luk 10:22 – and no Joh 1:18 – he hath Joh 3:35 – Father Joh 5:20 – the Father Joh 7:29 – I Joh 8:19 – if Joh 11:5 – loved Joh 13:1 – having Joh 14:7 – from Joh 16:27 – the Father Joh 18:1 – spoken Rom 8:29 – to be Rom 8:39 – love Rom 9:17 – that my 2Co 13:5 – Jesus Christ Eph 1:17 – in the knowledge Eph 4:6 – and in Eph 4:13 – the knowledge
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6. The general unity of purpose and spirit between God and Christ, including the faithful apostles, makes up this closing verse of Christ’s memorable prayer.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 17:26. And I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them. The thought of Joh 17:25 is now more fully expressed, and, with it, the result to which the knowledge spoken of conducts all believers is summed up in the one word inclusive of every blessing, both for time and for eternity,love. How exhaustive is the mode in which Jesus teaches the name of God, the revelation of the Father in the Son,I made it known to them; they know; I shall make it known to them! It is the expression of complete revelation, similarso far as in such a matter we may speak of similarityto Which was, and is, and is to come. Therefore there naturally follows to all who embrace this revelation a perfect entering into that of which it tells, into that love which unites the Father and the Son, and which shall be in them, as Jesus Himself shall be in them, the unbroken rest of peace after the toils, the eternal sunshine of joy after the sorrows, of the world.
Thus the third section of the prayer closes, its main burden having been that the whole Church of God, believers of every age and country, may be so brought to and kept in the unity of the Father and the Son that the glory of the Son in the Father may be theirs. For then, the conflicts of this world ended, they shall be partakers of the fulness of that love of the Father which shall encompass them as it encompassed the Son before the foundation of the world,pure, undimmed, undisturbed by the presence of either sin or sorrow,the Father in the Son and the Son in them, all in perfect holiness and blessedness consummated into One. Thus, too, shall the end of all be attained, the glorifying of Him of whom and through whom and to whom are all things.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
That is, “I have made known unto them thy nature, attributes, counsels, will and commands, and I will continue the manifestation of the same unto the end.
Learn thence, that the saving knowledge of God was not attainable by natural abilities, but cometh to us by the special revelation of Jesus Christ: I have declared unto them thy name.
Learn, 2. That they that have the name of God, his nature, and will, savingly declared to them, do not stand in need of any farther declarations and discoveries of God’s nature and will to be made unto them: I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.
That is, “That the love which is originally in thyself, as the fountain of all grace, may be communicated and dispensed from thee to them, and become inherent in them.”
Learn hence, that it is not enough for the people of God that they are beloved of him, and that his love is towards them; but they must endeavour to have it in them; that is, experience it in the effects of it, and in the sense and feeling of it in their own souls.
The safety of a Christian lies in this, that God loves him; but the joy, the comfort, and happiness of a Christ, consists in the knowledge, in the sensible apprehension and feeling, of his love; therefore Christ closeth his prayer for his members, with this affectionate and comprehensive petition: Let the love wherewith thou hast loved me, be in them, and I in them.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Ver. 26. No doubt the light which has dawned in the hearts of the disciples through the revelation of God in Christ as yet only begins to appear. But Jesus pledges Himself to communicate to them for the future the fulness of the knowledge of the Father which He Himself possesses.
The future: I will make known, does not refer to the death of Jesus, as Weiss supposes, but, according to the preceding chapters (Joh 14:21; Joh 14:26, Joh 16:25), to the sending of the Holy Spirit and the entire work of Jesus in the Church after the day of Pentecost. Reuss well renders the admirable thought contained in the words: And that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them: The love of God which, before the creation of the physical world, had its adequate object in the person of the Son (Joh 17:24), finds it, since the creation of the new spiritual world, in all those who are united with the Son. What God desired in sending His Son here on earth was precisely that He might form for Himself in the midst of humanity a family of children like Him, of which He should be the elder Brother (Rom 8:29).
Jesus adds: And that I myself may be in them. Connected as it is with the preceding words, this expression must mean: And in loving them thus, it will still be myself in them whom thou wilt love, and thus thy love will not attach itself to anything that is defiled. Its object, indeed, will be Jesus living in them, His holy image reproduced in their person.
What simplicity, what calmness, what transparent depth in this whole prayer! It is indeed, as Gess says, the only Son who here speaks to His Father. Everything in these beautiful words is supernatural, because He who speaks is the only Son who has come from heaven; but at the same time everything in them is natural, for He speaks as a son speaks to his father. The feeling which is the soul of this prayer, the ardent zeal for the glory of God, is that which inspired Jesus throughout His whole life. His three petitionsthat for His personal glorification, that for the consecration of His apostles and that for the glorification of the Church, are indeed the sentiments which must have filled His soul in view of the blow which was about to put an end to His earthly activity. In the details not a word has been met whose appropriateness and fitness to the given situation has not been proved by exegesis. Can it be possible to hold, with Baur, that, at the distance of more than a century, a Christian should have succeeded in reproducing thus the impressions of Jesus? This would be to say that there existed then another Jesus than Jesus Himself.
Weiss and Reuss hold, as we do, that this is the composition of an immediate witness. But they find in certain passagesin Joh 17:3 for example the proof that the disciple has reproduced the thoughts of the Master after his own fashion. The second asks whether John had, then, in his hands tablets and pencil to take down word for word the prayer of Jesus.
But, if John truly regarded Jesus as the Logos, we ask once again how could the respect which he must have had for His words have permitted him to make Him speak, and especially pray, according to his own fancy? He undoubtedly did not have his pencil in hand; but the memory is proportionate to the attention and the attention to the interest; now must not that of John have been excited to the highest degree? On the other hand, the words of Jesus, simple, grave, earnest, were of a nature to impress themselves more deeply and distinctly on the heart of John than any other words. Moreover, it is not impossible that, at an inconsiderable remove of time from that evening, John should have felt the need of committing to writing what he recalled to mind of these last conversations and this prayer. Or again, the unceasingly renewed meditation upon these words engraved upon the tablets of his heart and ever refreshed by the action of the Spirit, may have supplied the place of any external means. This inward miracle, if one will call it so, is far less improbable than the artificial composition of such a prayer.
But is the profound calmness which reigns in this scene compatible with the agony in Gethsemane which immediately follows it in the other Gospels? Keim asserts that John by this narrative annihilates the Synoptical tradition.
The conflict in Gethsemane has the character of a sudden crisis, of a violent shock, in some sort of an explosion, after which calmness was re- established in the soul of Jesus as quickly as it had been troubled. This passing crisis has a double cause: the one natural, the singular impressibility of the soul of Jesus, of which we have seen so many proofs in our Gospel, particularly in ch. 11 and Joh 12:27. By virtue of the very purity of His nature, Jesus was accessible, as was no other man, to every lawful emotion. His soul resembled a magnetic needle, whose mobility is only equalled by the perseverance with which, in every oscillation, it tends to recover its normal direction. Gethsemane must have been for Jesus, not punishment, but the struggle with a view to the acceptance of punishment; and thus the anticipatory suffering of the cross. Such an anticipation is sometimes more painful than the reality itself. The supernatural cause is pointed out by Jesus Himself, Joh 14:30 : The prince of this world is coming. Comp. Luk 22:53 : This is your hour and the power of darkness. The extraordinary character of this agony betrays itself in its suddenness and even its violence. St. Luke had closed his narrative of the temptation in the desert with the words: The devil withdrew from him, , until another favorable moment. The hour of Gethsemane was that moment which Satan judged favorable to subject Jesus to the new test which he was reserving for Him. There is nothing here which is not in perfect accord with the normal development of Jesus’ life.
The sacerdotal prayer is, as it were, the amen added by Jesus to His work accomplished here on earth; it forms thus the climax of this part, which is intended to trace out the development of faith in the disciples (chs. 13-16), and corresponds, notwithstanding the difference of forms, with the passage in Joh 12:37-50, in which John gave his reflections on the history of Jewish unbelief (chs. 5-12).
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
17:26 {7} And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare [it]: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
(7) He communicates the knowledge of the Father with his own little by little, which knowledge is most full in Christ the mediator, that they may in him be beloved by the Father, with the selfsame love with which he loves the Son.