John 17:6-8

“ I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou hast given me out of the world; thine they were, and thou hast given them to me; and they have kept thy word. 7. Now they have known that all that thou hast given me is from thee. 8. For the words which thou hast given me I have given them; and they have received them, and they have known truly that I came forth from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. ”

The general idea expressed in these words is that of the worth which the apostles have acquired by the ministry of Jesus among them and by the success of this work. Thus is the way prepared for the prayer by which Jesus is about to commend them to the care of the Father. And first, what Jesus has done for them. The aorist ἐφανέρωσα, I have manifested, is connected with the similar aorists in John 17:4. The most important portion of the work which Jesus felicitates Himself in having accomplished (John 17:4) was precisely the preparation and education of these eleven persons.

The name of God, which He has revealed to them, designates the divine character fully manifested to the consciousness of Jesus Himself, and through Him to the disciples in proportion as the consciousness of their Master has become their own (Matthew 11:25-26). It is by revealing Himself as Son, that Jesus has revealed God to them as the Father. This is the reason why He must necessarily testify of Himself, as He does in the Fourth Gospel; it was an essential element of His teaching respecting God.

After having recalled His labor on their behalf, Jesus recalls to the Father what He has Himself done for them. The apostles were His, and He has given them to Jesus. The question here is not of what they were as men and as Jews, but of the relation which they sustained to God through their inward disposition, as faithful Jews; comp. the expressions: to be of God (John 7:17, John 8:47), to be of the truth (John 18:37), to do the truth (John 3:21). These expressions designate the moral state of the Israelites or heathen who adhere to the light of the law or of conscience. These beings who belong to God, God has led to Jesus by the inward drawing or teaching of which He has spoken in John 6:37; John 6:44-45; John 6:65. And He possesses them now as gifts of the Father.

Then, to what God and Jesus have done for the disciples, Jesus adds what the disciples have themselves done. This gift of themselves, once accomplished, they have faithfully maintained. Notwithstanding all the temptations to unfaithfulness which have assailed them during these years (Luke 22:28), they have kept in their heart the teaching of Jesus. They have preserved intact and pure from all alloy this name of God imprinted by Him upon their consciousness. The words “ thy word,” instead of “ my word,” are explained in John 17:7: the word of Jesus has been only a reproduction of that of the Father. Finally, Jesus sets before the Father all that which the disciples have become through this communication which He has made to them of His Word. They have discerned its divine origin, and they have received it in this character. There is at the first glance a tautology in the two expressions: which thou hast given me, and: is thine. But the first is derived from the consciousness of Jesus; the second is borrowed from that of the apostles: “They have recognized that all which I gave them from thee came really from thee.” It is, that in fact (John 17:8.) Jesus never added anything to it from His own resources.

Then, from the recognition of the absolutely divine character of His word, they are raised finally to the faith in the divine origin of His person (I came forth) and His mission (thou hast sent me). In these words there breathes also the feeling of inward joy and lively recognition which Jesus has just experienced a few moments before: for it is very recently that this result for which He blesses the Father at this moment has been obtained (John 16:29-31). The harvest seems scanty, no doubt: eleven Galilean artisans after three years of labor! But this is enough for Jesus: for in these eleven He beholds the pledge of the continuance of the divine work on the earth.

There is an advance in the three verbs of these two verses: “ They have known: ” on the authority of their consciousness; “ they have received: ” by submission to this testimony; “ they have believed: ” by the surrender of their whole being to Him who thus manifested to them His divine character. The forms ἐγνωκαν, τετήρηκαν, are Alexandrian, and the question to be determined is, as in so many other similar cases, whether the apostles themselves used them or whether they were introduced by the Alexandrian copyists.

After having thus prepared the way for His petition, Jesus utters it, and ends by giving the ground of it: