John 17 - Introduction

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LORD'S PRAYER.

This prayer, so solemn and so tender, would never have been recorded had it not been intended for our study and profit, but. approach it with. feeling that it is almost too sacred for the usual verbal and textual criticism. It is the overflow of the full soul of the Lord in devotion to the Father,. fitting close to the wonderful discourses beginning in chapter 13; offered, standing, in the Upper Room, just before the Lord led his disciples out into the moonlit night, on the way to Gethsemane. This is the real Lord's Prayer of the sacred word; the prayer of Matthew 6:9-13, is the disciples' prayer, taught to them by the Lord. In order to drink in its spirit, the student must realize that the Lord stands at the foot of the cross, is about to suffer, and before the separation from his disciples and the agony and shame of the cross, he goes to the Father in their behalf and in his own.

Dr. Wm. Milligan, of Aberdeen, outlines this remarkable prayer as follows: "The chapter on which we now enter contains what is generally known as our Lord's High-priestly Prayer. Such. name is appropriately given it; partly, because it is the longest and most solemn utterance recorded of the intercessions with which Jesus approached the throne of his heavenly Father on his people's behalf; partly, because he was at this moment standing on the threshold of his especial work as their great High Priest. No attempt to describe the prayer can give. just idea of its sublimity, its pathos, its touching yet exalted character, its tone at once of tenderness and triumphant expectation. We are apt to read it as if it were full of sorrow; but that is only our own feeling reflected back upon what we suppose to have been the feelings of the Man of Sorrows. In the prayer itself sorrow has no place; and to think that it was uttered in. tone of sadness is to entirely mistake what must have been the spirit of Jesus at the time. It speaks throughout of work accomplished, of victory gained, of the immediate expectation of glorious reward. It tells, not of sorrow, but of 'joy,' joy now possessing his own soul, and about to be 'fulfilled' in his disciples (verse 13). It anticipates with perfect confidence the realization of the grand object of his coming,--the salvation of all that have been given him (verse 12), their union to himself and the Father (verse 21), their security amid the evils of this world while they execute in it. mission similar to his (verses 11, 15, 18,) and, finally, their glorification with his own glory (verse 24).... The prayer naturally divides itself into three parts; in the first of which Jesus prays for himself, in the second for his immediate disciples, and in the third for all who, in every age, shall believe in him. But the three parts are pervaded by one thought--the glorification of the Father in those successively prayed for, the accomplishment in each of the Father's purpose, and the union of. in the perfect, the spiritual, the eternal bond of love."

"Here is holy ground; here is the gate of heaven. No such prayer was ever heard before or since. It could only be uttered by the Lord and Savior of men, the mighty Intercessor and Mediator, standing between heaven and earth before his wondering disciples. Even be could pray it only once, in the most momentous crisis of history, in full view of the approaching sacrifice for the sins of the world, which occurred only once, though its effect vibrates through the ages. It is not so much the petition of an inferior suppliant, as the dialogue of an equal, and. solemn declaration of his will and mission. He intercedes with the eternal Jehovah as the partner of his counsel, as the executor of his will of saving mercy. He looks back on his pre-mundane glory with God, and forward to the resumption of that glory, and comprehends all his present and future disciples in unbroken succession as. holy and blessed brotherhood in vital union with himself and his Father."-- Schaff.