Everything our Lord Jesus Christ did as a man He did according to the will of God and for the glory of God. Throughout His ministry our Saviour constantly ascribed glory to God for all things; the miracles He performed, the doctrines He preached and for the mission of salvation and reconciliation upon which He was embarked. The Saviour was always obedient to His Father’s will and from a child was aware to be about His Father’s business. 

The glory of God is the final and sufficient explanation for everything. God in His glory is the beginning and end of all things. When God created the world, ‘the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy’ to the praise of His glory. When the Lord Jesus came into the world, the angels sang ‘glory to God in the highest’. When the redeemed of the Lord enter heaven they shall sing, ‘Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God’. ‘For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.’

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.

It is a wonder of divine mercy that the holy Lord God has stooped to speak to sinful men. Twice in these verses the Lord Jesus tells His disciples, ‘These things have I spoken unto you’. God’s creatures should listen when their Maker speaks. We ignore Him at our peril. A day is coming when the Lord will say ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire’ and no one will resist. Until then Paul says, ‘to you is the word of this salvation sent’. May God give us ears to hear the Saviour when He says ‘these things have I spoken unto you’. 

We ought not to forget joy. There is joy in the Lord and a joy from the Lord that belongs to all believers, a joy the world knows nothing of and no man can take away. Paul says, ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice’ and here the Lord Jesus promises His disciples that in a little while their joy will be full. As believers in Christ our cup is running over. The joy of the Lord is given in good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.

It is instructive to observe the care taken by the Lord to inform and prepare His disciples for the difficulties they soon would face. He explains what is going to happen, why it will happen and the reason for telling them now. The time is fast approaching when they will be opposed, expelled from the synagogue, even slain in the name of God. They will be persecuted because the religious Jews are ignorant of God and devoid of faith in Christ. He is telling them now to prepare them for it. Such things are to be expected. The Lord’s people ought not to be surprised and need not be offended.