John 17:24

Ver. 24. “ Father, my will is that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. ”

Perfect unity is the last step before the goal of perfect glory. The repetition of the invocation Father, John 17:24-25, indicates the increasing urgency with which Jesus prays, as He draws nearer the end. The reading ὃ δέδωκας, “ that which thou hast given me,” is probably the true one; it brings out the unity of the believers, that perfect ἕν which the body of the elect will form (John 17:23). Θέλω : Jesus no longer says, I pray, but I will! This expression is found nowhere else on His lips; it is ordinarily explained by saying that the Son expresses Himself thus, because He feels Himself fully in accord on this point with the Father. But was not this the case in general in all His prayers! This unique expression must be in harmony with the unique character of the situation. And the unique point in this latter is that it is a question of Jesus as dying. It is His testament which Jesus here places in the hands of His Father, and, as the expression is, His last will.

All that which Jesus has just asked for them had for its aim to render them fit for the immediate beholding of His glory, from the very moment of their death (John 14:3). There is no question here of the Parousia, as Weiss thinks. The sphere of this divine manifestation is at once inward and heavenly. Meyer thinks that the glory, of which Jesus says that the Father has given it to Him, cannot be His divine glory before the incarnation, and must designate His glory after His exaltation, and He sees in the following words: for thou lovedst me before,...the ground on which God thus glorifies Jesus. But the ground of the exaltation of Jesus is quite differently described, not only by Paul (Php 2:9-11), but also by John himself, John 10:17; John 13:32; John 15:10: it is His perfect obedience even to death and even to the death of the cross.

The ὅτι therefore means: in that, and serves to explain wherein this glory of the Son consists: it is in having been the eternal object of the Father's love. Is there any glory to be compared with this? The word given may be incompatible with a certain conception of the divine Trinity; it is not so with that of John, which includes as a necessary element the relation of subordination between the Son and the Father; comp. John 1:1 (with God); John 1:18 (in the bosom of the Father); John 5:26 (“it has been given him to have life in himself”), etc. The words: before the foundation of the world, imply eternity, for the world includes all that which has come into existence. This saying of Jesus is that which leads us farthest into the divine depths. It shows Christian speculation on what path it must seek the solution of the relations of the Trinity; love is the key of this mystery. And as this love is eternal, and consequently has no more an end than it has had a beginning, it may one day become for believers the permanent object of an immediate contemplation, through which they will find themselves initiated into the mystery of the essence of the Son and of His eternal generation. Far more; as, by the complete community which the Son has succeeded in establishing between them and Him, they are the objects of a similar love to that of which the Son is the object, they will find themselves thus introduced into the eternal movement of the divine life itself. This appears from the word behold. One does not behold a fact of this order without being in some manner associated with it. Here is the height to which Jesus elevates the Church. After having drawn His spouse from the midst of a world sunk in evil, He introduces her into the sphere of the divine life.