John 17:6-12
“I have manifested your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the son of perdition so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
In the first five verses of the chapter Jesus prayed for himself. Now his prayer changes focus to his disciples.
What does it mean that Jesus manifested God’s name? In Hebrews 1:1-3 it says, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Jesus revealed God to those the Father gave him. Our revelation of God is a gift we cannot earn but must receive. Of the twelve, one withheld his hand from receiving and revelation was withheld from him. There is always the tension between the ideas of free-will and predestination. It is true that the work of salvation is all of Christ’s and none of ours and it is true that everyone must choose to accept or reject. The concepts are not exclusive, they are mutually supportive.
The elation of triumph attends Jesus even as the cross draws near because the total destruction of sin and death is near completion. We also have that joy, the joy of freedom from sin and death in Christ.
In Christ we no longer belong to the world and its way of destruction. The world cannot bear the evidence of its coming destruction, which is what we are, a demonstration of God’s power to make all things new. Jesus prays that we would be sanctified. This is being separated out for God’s use and it is the effect of following Jesus. There is a part of sanctification which is instantaneous and complete upon conversion and there is the path of sanctification that we get to walk out with Christ.
brotherpayne 