John 17:4,5

“ I have glorified thee on the earth; I have accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do. 5. And now, Father, glorify thou me, with thyself, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. ”

After having thus described the life which He desires to communicate to the world, Jesus returns to His request: Glorify me, in John 17:1. He has founded this request on what He is to do in the future; He now justifies it by what He has already done hitherto. As far as He has been able to do it here below, in His earthly condition, He has glorified God, He has caused His holy and good character to shine in the hearts of men. But to do more than this, He must have a new position, with new means of activity. It is thus that in John 17:4 the way is prepared for the repetition of His petition in John 17:5.

The Alexandrian reading τελειώσας, having accomplished, seems to me much more after the Greek than the Hebrew style, in other terms, much more Alexandrian than apostolic. The juxtaposition of the two verbs in the T. R. is therefore, in my view, preferable to their syntactic fitting to each other in the other text.

The words: “ I have accomplished the work,” express with a sublime candor the feeling of a perfectly pure conscience. He does not perceive in His life, at this supreme moment, either any evil committed or even any good omitted. The duty of every hour has been perfectly fulfilled. There has been in this human life which He has now behind Him, not only no spot, but no deficiency with reference to the task of making the divine perfection shine forth resplendently.