John 17:2
I. Perhaps the first thought which arrests the mind in this
wide-circling verse is the connection of power and mercy power all
subordinate to mercy. Three gifts, you will observe three gifts are
separately mentioned, and these three gifts comprise everything. The
whole truth, as it is in... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:4
I do not think that here in this text our Lord intended to refer to
the final and completing act the blood-shedding which was remission. I
believe He reviewed His life the subjection, the pain, the obedience
learned by the things He suffered, the teaching and the trial, the
subjection to i... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:11
I. The Author and maintainer of Unity. "Holy Father, keep." Unity
wherever it exists flows from God. He is the cloud whence the drops of
peace distil first upon crowning Hermon, and then flow down to all the
lower heights. And as He is the exclusive author, so is He also the
exclusive ma... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:12
Christ's Care for His Disciples
I. Observe, first, what a comforting thing it is to know that Christ
would sooner work a miracle to restrain the enemies of His servants,
than leave those servants to an encounter too great for their
strength. The disciples, we may believe, would have bee... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:15
There are two reasons why God does not take His people out of the
world, but rather keeps them in it and preserves them from the evil.
One reason respects themselves the other, the world.
I. And first, it is for a good and salutary work on themselves that
they are thus brought into conta... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:16
Christian Separation from the World
I. Its nature. The unworldliness of Christ is our model. The
separating line which marked His life from the world's life is the
line which is to mark our own. Christ's separation was not an outward
separation from the world, but an inward separation f... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:17
I. Revelation, or, as our Lord terms it solemnly, the truth,
sanctifies us first of all by putting before us an ideal of sanctity.
The man of action, like the artist, needs an ideal. It is, in fact,
his first necessity, and outside the sphere of revelation there have
been such ideals; but... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:19
Sanctification
I. The sanctification of which our Lord speaks in this place, is the
consecration of the whole creature, of the whole being, to the
spiritual purpose of the service of our heavenly Father. To give up
everything in order that His will may be accomplished, to do that will
to... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:21
The Unity of the Race
What a vision Jesus must have had of the essential oneness of the
race. Man is one continuity of the race throughout all the ages. Bird
and beast are always beginning; they are what bird and beast were
thousands of years ago. Man is the exception. In his life today... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:24
Christ's Wish for Man
This must always be the first joy of any really good life, its first
joy and its first anxiety at once, the desire that others should enter
into it. Indeed, here is a test of a man's life. Can you say: "I wish
you were like me?" Can you take your purposes and stand... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:25
The Religion of Daily Life
I. These are the words of the greatest man that ever lived; of the
founder of our religion, even of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They
were spoken the night before His death, concerning His followers on
earth; and, I presume, He knew what He was saying. But tho... [ Continue Reading ]
John 17:26
The Eloquence of the Cross
Christ was standing, when He spoke these words, on the very margin of
His death, with little or nothing beyond except His crucifixion; and
then He says, evidently pointing to His suffering, "I will declare Thy
name." The declaration could be taken in no other... [ Continue Reading ]