John 17:25,26

Vv. 25, 26 have as their aim to justify this last will of Jesus, not only from the standpoint of grace, but even from that of righteousness, precisely that one of the divine perfections which might seem opposed to the petition of Jesus in behalf of His own.

Vv. 25, 26. “ Righteous Father, the world, it is true, has not known thee; but as for me, I have known thee; and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26. And I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and that I may be in them. ”

Jesus does not say, as He did in John 17:11: “ Holy Father. ” And He certainly has His reasons for substituting here for the title holy the title righteous. What follows does not permit us to doubt that He takes this word in the sense of justice strictly so-called, retributive justice. Hengstenberg, Meyer, Weiss, Keil, Westcott, etc., have clearly seen this. In fact, Jesus opposes to the world, which has refused to know God and has thus rendered itself unworthy to be admitted to the contemplation of His glory, His own (οὗτοι, these), who have consented to know God and have thus become worthy of the privilege which He asks for them (John 17:24). Hence, as it appears to me, it follows that in the first words of John 17:25 the καί before οὗτοι and the καί before ὁ κόσμος are two καί of contrast, such as we have seen so many times in John (John 1:10; John 6:36, John 15:24), serving to bring together, by reason of their very opposition, the two contrary facts. But what has prevented interpreters from apprehending this relation is the fact that John intercalates between the two terms of the principal contrast a third term intended to introduce the second: “But as for me, I have known thee.” If the believers have arrived at the knowledge of God, it is not of themselves, but only by means of the knowledge which their Master had of God and which He has communicated to them. The δέ, but, indicates a first antithesis with reference to the καί, which precedes, relatively to the world, a fact which makes the second καί, before οὗτοι, appear no longer other than the completing of the antithesis expressed by this δέ which accompanies the ἐγώ. We may compare John 16:20, as an example of an antithesis in some sort broken by a secondary antithesis intercalated between the two members of the principal contrast.

This explanation draws near to that of Baumlein, and is in the main accepted by Keil. Meyer also explains the first καί as indicating an opposition, but an opposition to the idea of righteousness expressed in the invocation Righteous Father! “ And yet (although thou art righteous) the world has not known thee as such.” This non-recognition is, according to this view, that of which Paul speaks in Romans 1:19, which consisted in the blindness of men with reference to the revelation of God in the works of nature. But this idea has not the least connection with the context. Jesus has Himself said (in John 15:22; John 15:24) that all the sins previous to His coming would not have been imputed to the world, if it had not put the crowning point upon them by the rejection of Him. The terms to know and not to know God can refer here only to the acceptance or rejection of the revelation of the character of God in the appearance of Jesus. Weiss sees in the first καί, not an opposition to the second, but a particle which connects this verse with that which precedes. But what logical connection is it possible to establish between the admission of believers to the spectacle of the glory of Christ (John 17:24) and the refusal of the world to know God! This, then, is the meaning of this prayer: “The world, it is true, is the just object of Thy rejection by reason of its refusal to know Thee; but these, in receiving me, who have brought to them the knowledge of Thee, are become worthy of the privilege which I now ask of Thee for them.”