The Hour Is Come

In John chapter 17 we embark upon one of the most remarkable and profound passages in the whole of Scripture. Every believer reading this chapter must surely feel they are standing on holy ground for the majesty of the subjects involved and the blessedness of those things requested from God by our Lord Jesus Christ. As we enter into this chapter let us do so with excitement and humility, and let us note this fact; there never was a request made by the Son of God that was not abundantly granted by His loving Father.

From ministry to prayer

Having finished His sermon in the previous chapter the Lord Jesus moves from ministry to prayer. He had ministered by explaining to His disciples why He had come from His Father and that soon, having accomplished all righteousness, He would return to His Father. He assured them of His success and encouraged them to trust Him as they waited for the Holy Spirit of promise. He said, ‘be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’. 

The real ‘Lord’s Prayer’

Now, in their hearing and for their further blessing, He prays to His Father. Our Lord prayed often to His Father and also taught His disciples to do so. He taught them to pray what we call, ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. But John 17 is the Lord’s own prayer. Of all the prayers offered up by our Saviour in His lifetime this is the only one recorded in its entirety. The Holy Spirit has preserved it for us and communicated it to the church for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness.

Our High Priest

The entire chapter has come to be known as ‘Christ’s high priestly prayer’. In it the Lord intercedes first for His Apostles and then for His whole Church. He introduces these petitions by looking forward to His own glorious entrance into the Father’s presence. He speaks to His Father about receiving and repossessing His own glory, ‘the glory which I had with thee before the world was’. This points us to the covenant of grace and peace which the Lord Jesus had come to fulfil and by which achievement His glorious return to heaven was assured.

Spoils won in battle

The prize for the Lord overcoming the world, satisfying the righteous demands of holiness and fulfilling the terms of the everlasting covenant of peace was His own glory and the glory of His body, the Church. The Saviour’s intercession is founded upon the entitlements gained by completing the work His Father had given Him to do, His work as the God-Man Mediator. Christ’s requests for His church are sought upon the basis of His finished work on the cross and His precious blood. These requests will not and cannot be denied. 

Our Substitute before God

Our Saviour willingly and successfully went to the cross to atone for the sins of God’s elect. Our sin was laid upon Him. He bore our grief and carried our sorrows. He ‘bare our sins in his own body on the tree’ and died in our place. Despite His personal purity and having no sin of His own, He became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. This is called substitutionary atonement. 

A people kept

Upon the basis of His atoning sacrifice the Saviour prays to His Father for the preservation of the Apostles in this world, the salvation of His redeemed people yet to be born and the effectual gathering of His church together in heaven. He prays that all ‘whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory’. Our Saviour’s prayer is exclusively for God’s elect; all those the Father committed into Christ’s care, all for whom His blood was shed and all the Holy Spirit bestows with faith, calls in power and saves by sovereign grace. 

‘The hour is come’

John chapter 17 is a unique glimpse into the mystery of godliness, the coming into the world of Christ the God-Man and the eternal purpose of Almighty God in the work of grace and glory. Tomorrow, God willing, we shall have a brief overview of the whole chapter then concentrate on the opening verse with particular reference to the Lord’s glory and what He means by ‘the hour is come’.

Amen.