1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.”
This is a dramatic shift in Jesus’ dialog with his disciples. He is no longer talking to them and explaining things to them. He is praying aloud to his Father in heaven. Most of the time, Jesus has prayed in private to his Father, but this prayer is so important that he wants his disciple to hear his prayer for them and for all people who come to him in the future.
Previously, Jesus had prayed and asked the Father to glorify the Father’s name. Now, Jesus is asking that he will be glorified. If anyone would think that Jesus never claimed to be God or even hinted at it, then they have never read this prayer or have never understood what Jesus was asking. The first thing to understand is that giving glory is a form of worship.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
(Ps 86:9 ESV)
By asking the Father to glorify himself, Jesus is asking for worship. The second thing to remember is that God will not give his glory to another.
I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other.
(Isa 42:8 ESV)
Anyone who has the audacity to ask to be glorified the way Jesus did is either God in the flesh or he is demented. Since God did glorify Jesus and he is worthy of worship, this proves that Jesus is indeed who he claimed to be, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.
3 “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”
If we haven’t heard it enough, Jesus clarifies again that eternal life only comes by knowing God. A lot of our current world believes that all roads lead to God and the God is whatever we want him to be. But Jesus tells us this is nonsense. We must know the only true God. One of the big problems for the nation of Israel is that they kept departing from the one true God to follow other gods. The Lord repeats many times in Scripture that there are no other gods.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.
I, I am the Lord,
and besides me there is no savior.
(Isa 43:10-11 ESV)
Yet, Jesus also adds that they need to know him as well. It isn’t enough to believe in God for salvation. If that were so, then all faithful Jews would be saved. We must also know Jesus. God the Father sent Jesus and if you want to believe in God, then you must also believe in the one he sent. The reverse is also true. Jesus made a big point about the only way to know the Father was to go through Jesus and once you know Jesus, you will know the Father as well (John 14:6-7).
Jesus claims to bring glory to the Father by doing everything the Father sent him to do. But, Jesus had not yet died on the cross. That was one more thing that he had to do. Yet, as Jesus continues and asks to be glorified in the Father’s presence, it is evident that Jesus is contemplating the cross as a completed work. In the perspective of God, it is a completed work. Peter explained it when he said Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” and was crucified (Acts 2:23 ESV). God’s plans cannot be thwarted (Job 42:2). What God has decreed cannot be changed and that is a good thing because it assures our salvation.
But there is more. Jesus, himself, declares that he had been with God the Father before the existence of the world. John didn’t make up the first chapter when he said Jesus was with God in the beginning. This all points to Jesus’ deity and anyone who denies this certainly doesn’t know Jesus.
6 "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.”
Jesus is clearly talking about the eleven apostles. Judas has already left and Jesus will make it clear that he isn’t included in this part of his prayer. Jesus doesn’t claim any credit for rescuing the disciples from the world. This is all the Father’s sovereign choice. He chose the disciples long before Jesus even came into the world. Before Jesus selected the twelve, he prayed.
In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles. (Luke 6:12-13 ESV)
Jesus spent a complete night praying to make sure he called the correct individuals to be the apostles, his ambassadors to the rest of the world. His concern for prayer was to make sure he selected only those whom the Father had given him. This is an interesting glimpse into the way Jesus, the God-man, functioned. Sometimes, he got insight quickly and sometimes he had to pray to make sure he was doing the Father’s will.
How often do we run ahead of the Father and his plans? Sure, there are times when the Holy Spirit may nudge us to do something on the spur of the moment like witnessing to someone. But the big important decision should always be emersed in prayer.
These eleven that have stuck to Jesus are the ones who have obeyed Jesus’ words. As the followed Jesus, they slowly came to the realization that Jesus was passing on to them what the Father had revealed to Jesus. Though they still didn’t have a complete understanding of what Jesus and the Father had planned, they knew Jesus came from the Father. They didn’t even completely understand that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. They couldn’t understand that until the Holy Spirit came to them. Shoot, we know it to be true, but we still don’t completely understand how it works.
What is most important is that they believed the Father sent him. That is the beginning of faith for many.
9 “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.”
Jesus is still praying for the eleven disciples. He hasn’t extended this pray to anyone else, yet. He is setting a firm, specific boundary on this part of this prayer. He is repeating the security that they have in belonging to himself and to the Father. While there is a hint in this that there are many more who belong to Jesus, he is making it abundantly clear that he isn’t praying for everyone in the world.
Too many people today think that everyone will be saved. They glamorize Jesus by talking about how kind and gentle he is. They say things like in eternity, he will just wrap his arms around people who have hated he all their lives and love them. Then they will stop squirming and hating him. But that would not bring glory to Jesus through them. To be truly glorified and not glamorized, Jesus must execute justice for evil, unrepentant, sinners who have rejected him. There is no way he would pray for those whom he knows will never ever accept him as Lord and Savior.
11 “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name — the name you gave me — so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”
The disciples have not yet been born again. They don’t have the Holy Spirit. Jesus has been keeping them from falling away by the power of the Father’s name that the Father gave to him. If Jesus hadn’t been protecting them, they would have all left or betrayed him just like Judas did. When Jesus goes to the cross, he knows that he will be taking the Father’s wrath and will die. During this time and for some time afterward, Jesus will not be protecting the disciples from Satan’s schemes. This is one of the reasons Jesus is only praying for his disciples who are with him at that time.
This becomes evident that the hasn’t prayed even for all the other disciples who had been following him. If he had, they would not have cried out for his crucifixion just a few days later.
This is just a foretaste of the assurance we can have when we’ve placed our faith in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. Jesus has sent his Holy Spirit to be with us as a guarantee of our salvation (Eph 1:13-14). Jesus will never lose any single person whom the Father has given him. Judas is not an exception from the standpoint that Jesus always knew he would be lost (Ps 41:9). It was foretold in Scripture that he would be lost (Ps 109:6-19). If you hear the gospel and believe, you can be assured you are called, even if you have heard it many times without responding. Turn to Jesus today for salvation.
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