John 17:20,21

“ And it is not for these only that I pray, but for all those who believe on me through their word, 21, that they all may be one; that, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, they also may be in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. ”

Jesus has commended to God the author and the instruments of the work of salvation; He now prays on behalf of the object of this work, the body of believers. The Church appears here elevated by faith into unity with God, and rendered capable thereby of beholding and sharing the glory of the Son. It is the realization of the supreme destiny of humanity which He contemplates and asks for, the contents of that “ hidden wisdom which God had foreordained before the ages for our glory ” (1 Corinthians 2:7).

The question therefore is not only, as is often supposed, of the union of Christians among themselves, but above all of the union which is the basis of this, that of the body of believers with Christ and, through Him, with God Himself. This sublime unity it is which Jesus, in what follows, contrasts with that of the world. The true reading is certainly the present participle πιστευόντων, the believers, and not, as the T. R. reads, almost without any authorities, the future πιστευσόντων, those who shall believe. These believers are undoubtedly not the believers at the moment when Jesus is praying, since they had believed through His word and not through that of the apostles. But He pictures to Himself all believers, speaking absolutely. He sees them in spirit, these believers of all times and places, and by His prayer He unites them in one body and transports them, in some sense, to glory. This present cannot be rendered, in French, in an altogether exact way. In Reuss's view, this present participle proves that it is the evangelist and not Jesus who is speaking. This is to ascribe great unskilfulness to so able a composer.

The last words assign to the apostolic teaching a capital part in the life of the Church. Jesus recognizes, in the future, no faith capable of uniting man to God and preparing him for glory except that which is produced and nourished by the word of the Eleven. The term word (λόγος) does not, as the term testimony (μαρτυρία) might do, designate merely the narration of the evangelical facts; it contains also the revelation of the religious and moral meaning of the facts. It is the contents of the Epistles, as well as that of the Gospels. Men cannot really come to faith in Christ (εἰς ἐμέ, on me), at any time, except through this intermediate agency. How can Reuss infer from this passage that the apostles have no other privilege relatively to other believers but that of priority? This saying assigns to them a unique place in the life of the Church. No teaching capable of producing faith can be other than a reproduction of theirs.

The following verses present the object of the petition under the form of an end to be attained by this very prayer (ἵνα, in order that); John 17:21 designates this end in itself; John 17:22 states what Jesus has done already to the end of the possibility of its realization; John 17:23 shows it perfectly attained.

It seems to me that the first clause of John 17:21 is formed only of the words: that all may be one, which indicate the general idea; then, that the clause: as thou, Father,...depends on the following that, by an inversion similar to that of John 13:34. There is, therefore, here an explanatory resumption: “That they may be one; that, I say, as thou, Father,...they also may be in us.” This construction does not have the dragging character of that which makes the as depend on the first that. After having asked for the general unity of believers (all), Jesus describes it as a unity of the most elevated order; it partakes of the nature (καθώς) of that of the Father and the Son. As the Father lives in the Son and the Son in the Father, so the Son lives in the believers and, by living in them, He unites them closely one with another. Instead of: “that they may be one in us,” some Mjj. read: “that they may be in us.” It may be said that the context requires the idea of the unity of believers, and that the small word ἕν was easily lost in the ἐν ἡμῖν which precedes. The idea, however, does not imperatively require this word. It is by being in Christ and through Him in God (in us), that believers find themselves living in each other. That which separates them is what they have of self in their views and will; that which unites them is what they have of Christ, and thereby of the divine, in them. It is clear that this dwelling of Christ and consequently of God in them is the work of the Spirit, who alone has the power to cast down the barrier between personalities, without confounding them.

Such an organism, exercising its functions on the earth, is a manifestation so new that the sight of it must be a powerful means of bringing the world to faith in Him from whom it proceeds. Here is the content of the third that, which is subordinate to the two preceding ones, and indicates the final purpose of them. The word believe is never taken in the New Testament otherwise than in a favorable sense (except in James 2:19, which relates to an altogether peculiar case). It cannot therefore designate a forced conviction, such as that which may be found in Philippians 2:10 f. No doubt, Jesus does not mean to say that the whole world will believe; this would be contradictory to what He said of the world in John 15:20; John 15:22; John 15:24. We must recall to mind the fact that the question is of an end which cannot be accomplished for all. In any case, Jesus declares that in the world estranged from God there are yet elements capable of being gained for faith.

And what the sight of a local and passing phenomenon, like that of the primitive Church in Jerusalem, produced among the Jewish people (Acts 2:44-47), will not the same spectacle, when magnified, produce this also on a grander scale, one day, throughout the entire world? Perhaps even Jesus is thinking more especially of the conversion of the Jews at the end of time, when they shall see the Church realized in all its beauty among the Gentiles. In John 15:18; John 15:20, the word world designates, above all, the Jewish people. This supposition is confirmed by the words: that it is thou who hast sent me, that is to say: “that I, this Jesus of Nazareth, whom they have rejected, am really the promised Sent one whom they were expecting.” Romans 11:25; Romans 11:31. Comp. 1 John 1:3; Ephesians 4:13.

After having presented to God this end worthy of His love, Jesus recalls in John 17:22, as in John 17:4; John 17:6; John 17:14; John 17:18, how He has Himself prepared the work of which He asks the completion, and in John 17:23 He describes its glorious consummation.