His Intercessory Prayer for His Disciples

["Click here for John's account"]

This is the last event that we know of to have occurred on Thursday in the last week of the life of Christ. This is the most completely recorded prayer of all the prayers that Jesus made, yet even here a great many things are repeated.

Notice first, how the prayer was "timed". It came after a long dissertation (Chapters 14,15 and 16) with the Disciples. Words of prophecy, truth, comfort and cheer, even in the face of the cross. They were, in reality, a sermon. Following these words to them, He turns to the Father to pray for them. It is a good practice to pray for those who have been preached to, for it is God who brings results.

It was a prayer for His family for they were His family and a parting prayer, for His time had come. It appears to have been the first of His intercessory prayers which He has continued for 2000 years for those who are His.

Secondly, notice how He prayed. He lifted up His eyes to Heaven. This position for prayer was ridiculed at the time of Christ and was considered irreverent. Here Jesus sanctifies this position for those who are His and are called by His name.

In the first part of the prayer, Christ prays for Himself. First He claims His Sonship. This gives Him liberty and access to the Father. We would do well to do the same. In praying for Himself He twice asks for God to "glorify" Him. Once, for what He had already done, His ministry, and once for what He was about to do, die on the cross. This seems strange in light of the fact that Christ did these two things that God might be glorified. God was glorified through His ministry by His miracles. He was glorified by His death for because of it, Satan was conquered. God was also glorified after His death by the resurrection.

After He prayed for Himself, He prayed for those whom God had given Him. Even though they are yet weak in the faith, He knows that they believe that He was sent of God. He has seem gradual improvement in their understanding over the past three years. He accepts the limitations of their faith and reminds God that they belong to Him. "What is mine, is yours, and yours are mine." Notice this relationship was established before the foundation of the world. While Christ was with the Disciples, He kept them safe, all accept Judas, the "Son of Perdition". This was the name or "brand" put upon Judas. He was among those given to Christ but he never accepted Christ. Because of the inspiration of scripture and the foreknowledge of God, this was foreknown about Judas.

Then Jesus turned the keeping of the Disciples over to the Father. "Keep them that they may be one as we are one." "I do not ask that you should take them out of the world, only keep them in your care." Jesus did not ask for God to keep them free from trouble, pain, sorrow or persecution, but to keep them for eternity in their relationship to Him (the Perseverance of the Saints). Jesus wanted them to know of the "security " of the believer that they might be free to concentrate on their mission and enjoy the knowledge of their salvation as they spread this knowledge abroad. For this, Jesus says, the world will hate them, but He prays that the Father will keep them in His love. "For even though they were in the world, they were not of the world."

Then Jesus prayed that the Father would "sanctify" them. Sanctification is spiritual growth. It carried on the good work started when we accept Christ. It makes our "light" shine all the more. It makes us more useful in the work of the Lord. This is accomplished by a joint effort between the Holy Spirit and the believer.

So having prayed for their safety and sanctification, He prays for their unity. "Not only for these eleven, but for all of those who believe on me through their witness, that they may all be one." It was Christ's prayer that all believers might be one as He and the Father were one. "Father, look upon them all as one." Different places, different ages, different colors and different creeds. Let them be united in Christ the common Head. To aid them in this unity, Christ gave them the same glory that the Father had given Him. The glory of being God's ambassadors. Why is "oneness" so important? "That the world might see and believe that Jesus was sent of God." Words witness, unity witnesses better and dis-unity destroys our witness. Unity in the church is the evidence that Christ dwells there.

Then He prays that they will spend eternity with Him. "Father, I will that they be with me in eternity." This is the way the King James renders this translation. Other translations render it, "Father, I desire that they be with me in eternity." The King James seems to express it better as we believe that it was "Christ's will" that they and those who accept Him, spend eternity with Him.

Jesus closes this prayer by showing His respect for the Father. "O, Righteous Father, the world has not known you." Only a "select" few knew God up to this point. But now all would be able to know Him, because Jesus made God known to the Disciples and the Disciples would , in turn, make the world know Christ and the Father that sent Him.

When Jesus had spoken these words, He went into the Garden where Judas would betray Him.

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