John 17:1-23

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CHAPTER 17 Ver. 1. hese words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come: glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. These are the last words of Christ, when going to His Passion, and like the dying notes of the swan, are full of sweetness, love, and warmth. He teaches us (1.) when trouble is pressing on, to have recourse to prayer, and to ask God for strength to overcome it. (2.) That fathers both earthly and spiritual should, when going away or dying, commend their children to God in prayer. (3.) That preachers should study their discourses, so as to obtain both such power of speech as to move the hearts of their hearers, and so as to gain acceptance with them, that they may understand what they bear, and lovingly carry it out in their lives. "But no vain waste of words may have a place," says S. Cyril, xi. 14.

Lifted up His eyes. To teach us, by using the same gesture, to lift up our heart to God.

Each word has its force. "Father." Christ prays as man, but as God-man: hypostatically united to God. He therefore calls God His Father, because He begat the Son as God, and hypostatically united to Him man's nature (hominem) which He assumed. The Name of Father invites to confidence and love; for what can a father deny his son? It also indicates majesty and power; for as S. Cyril says (Thesaur, i. 6), "It is in God a greater thing to be the Father than to be Lord. Because as the Father He begat His consubstantial Son, but as Lord He made the creatures, who are infinitely inferior to Him."

Is come. n the Greek it is in the past tense. It is, that is, the fitting time, almost the last hour of my liberty and life. My seizure, My passion, My cup and death are at hand, when I shall specially need, 0 Father, Thy grace and help. For then will My Godhead be especially hid, when I shall be nailed to the Cross, as a seditious person, and as aiming at being King of the Jews. I therefore pray Thee to wipe away this infamy, to manifest My Godhead and glorify Me. S. Augustine says (in loc.), "This denotes that all time, and that what He would do at any time, or allow to be done, were all ordered by Him, who is not subject to time. The hour is come, not by the force of destiny, but by God's ordering. Be it far from our thought that the stars should compel the Maker of the stars to die."

Glorify Thy Son. But what glory and glorification does Christ here ask for? (1.) Some understand. His Passion and death; this indeed was great glory to Christ. For by it He reconciled men to God, He abolished sin, He overcame the devil, He destroyed death, He procured for us life and glory. So Origen, Hom. 6 in Exod.; S. Ambrose, Hexam. iv. 2; S. Hilary, Lib. iii. de Trinit., who says, "He was to be spit upon, to be scourged, to be crucified. But the Father glorifies Him by the sun withdrawing its light, by the earth trembling, by the witness of the Centurion." The cross therefore was in itself a dishonour to Christ, but in its fruits it was glorious.

(2.) S. Augustine (in loc.) and Ribera consider that this glorifying of Christ was in His resurrection, ascension, His being seated at the Right Hand of the Father, and His sending the Holy Spirit. I offer Myself (He would say) to an ignominious death for Thy glory, and for the salvation of men, whom Thou hast chosen from all eternity. Do Thou glorify Me, that in My Passion I may appear as thy true Son; and afterwards rise again and ascend into heaven; that men, for whom I die, may thus believe in Me, that Thy Godhead, power, and goodness may be acknowledged, and that Thou mayest be adored by all. Hear S. Augustine: "If He is glorified in His Passion, how much more in His Resurrection? He says therefore, the hour is come for sowing in humility, delay not Thou the fruit thereof in glory." (3.) More correctly, and to the point. This glory was the manifestation of Christ, to be the Son of God. This was the end and scope of His Incarnation, as He explains in the next verse, and so its meaning is, Thou hast sent Thy Son into the world to redeem it. My Passion, whereby many will be offended and fall from Me, is at hand. I pray Thee, 0 Father, to glorify Me, that men may not contemn and despise Me for My death on the cross, but may acknowledge Me as Thy Son, and Very God, and thereby obtain grace, righteousness, and salvation." Christ asks that this purpose of God may be manifested to the world, to the end that this His mighty work may attain its end and object. Glorify Me then by miracles, the earthquake, the rending of the veil, the opening of the tombs, &c., by My speedy Resurrection, by My Ascension, the conversion of the whole world, that all may recognise Me as God, and the Saviour of the world.

It is clear then that all these three interpretations come to the same point. Glory and distinction mean the same thing, as is shown by many heathen authorities. It is also plain that this glorification properly relates to Christ's manhood, and that it should be acknowledged as united to the Godhead. Consequently it is an acknowledgment of His Godhead. For by its being made known to the world that Christ's manhood was united to the Godhead, it was made known also that God of His boundless mercy humbled Himself to be born, and to die for us from His supreme love for man.

Arius used to object. The Son seeks to be glorified by the Father, therefore the Father is greater than the Son. S. Basil retorts by quoting the words which follow, "That Thy Son also may glorify Thee." The Son therefore glorifies the Father quite as much as the Father glorifies the Son. Morally, Christ teaches us here, that God turns into glory any ignominy which has been incurred for His name, and that the greater the ignominy, so much greater is the glory. And that ignominy is the true way to glory, according to the Apostle's words (Philippians 2:7, seq.)

And in like manner, SS. Peter and Paul, having been evilly entreated and put to death by Nero, attained to the highest glory, so as to be lords not only of Rome but also of the whole world, and to have had their statues placed on the columns of Trajan and Antonine, in the place of these two Emperors.

The Gentiles had some faint notion of this. As Agesilaus said that the way to obtain undying glory was to despise death. And so also Alexander, Julius Cæsar, and many others, gained their renown in war by despising death (see Horatius, Carm. i. 12).

Hence the Spaniards have an axiom to the same effect.

Apostolic men should be more ready to say the same, for what is earthly glory to heavenly, human to divine, temporal to eternal? See Romans 8:18. And the Apostle speaks elsewhere of the eternal weight of glory: For the Holy Trinity, all the countless angels, all the hosts of the blessed prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors will glorify through all eternity the champions of virtue.

That Thy Son also may glorify Thee. By showing that I am not a mere man, but the God-man, sent by Thee for the salvation of man. And I ask this, not for Myself, as being greedy of glory, but that it may come back to Thee, as the Fount and Author of all My glory, that so I may in turn glorify Thee by making Thee known to the whole world. Christ did this (1.) "Because when the Son is glorified the Father is glorified also," says S. Cyril; and so also S. Hilary (Lib. iii. de Trinit.) says, "He shows that the virtue of the Godhead is the same in Both; for the glory of the Son is the glory of the Father." (2.) Because when this great mystery of godliness, viz., the Incarnation of the Word and by it the salvation and redemption of men, was made known, all who heard and believed it praised the boundless compassion, wisdom, and omnipotence of God the Father, which He manifested in this His, work. (3.)Christ especially glorified His Father by the living voice of His doctrine and preaching. For Christ preached the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and in many places of St. John He magnifies God the Father, saying that He was sent by Him, and ascribing to Him everything He had received. Hear S. Augustine (in loc.), "God was known in Judea only, but it was by the Gospel of Christ that the Father was made known to the Gentiles. He saith therefore, Glorify Thou Me, raise Thou Me up, that through Me Thou mayest be made known to all the world."

Note the word "Thy Son;" for, as S. Hilary says (Lib. iii. de Trinit.), "There are many sons, but He was the proper, the Very Son, by origin, and not by adoption, in truth and not in name, by nativity and not by creation."