Lesson 19: The Lord’s Prayer

Opening Questions:

1. What do you learn about prayer from Jesus’ prayer in this chapter?
2. What questions do you have from the text?

The gospels attest that Jesus was a man of prayer (see Luke 3.21; 5.16; 6.12; 9.18,28; 11.1; 22.42; 23.34,46). However, we rarely see the contents of His prayers (Matthew 6.9f is an example of how to pray), and when we do see the contents of Jesus’ prayers they are very short (see John 11.41-42). Thus, John 17 stands out as a notable example of Jesus praying to His Father, and as such deserves the title of “the Lord’s prayer”.

John 17.1 begins with the words, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said…” The prayer was preceded by His discourse to the disciples in John 13-16, a discourse that concluded with Jesus saying “in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16.33). Those two thoughts, Jesus overcoming the world but His disciples being in the world, form the basis of Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Significantly, Jesus’ overcoming the world was tied to His “hour” coming (17.1; contrast with John 2.4; 7.6,8,30; 8.20). The hour of His death had come, but His death would bring about His glorification and His overcoming the world. Thus, it was a time for prayer.

Jesus prays for Himself (vss. 1-5).

Jesus’ prayer opens with the reason He was praying to the Father: “Father, the hour has come” (vs. 1). “That God’s appointed hour has arrived does not strike Jesus as an excuse for resigned fatalism, but for prayer: precisely because the hour has come for the Son to be glorified, he prays that the glorification might take place. This is God’s appointed hour; let God’s will be done” (Carson). Jesus prayed that the hour would result in the mutual glorification of the Father and the Son, but how would that take place? Vs. 2 would seem to provide the answer to Jesus’ request in vs. 1:

• “glorify your Son” (vs. 1) = “given him authority over all flesh” (vs. 2).
• “Son may glorify you” (vs. 1) = “give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (vs. 2).

The main point in this section is Jesus desired to have the same glory He possessed “with you before the world existed” (vs. 5). But, that could only come because Jesus glorified the Father, “having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (vs. 4). The point: glorification comes via obedience.

Jesus prays for the apostles (vss. 6-19).

This part of Jesus’ prayer is notable first for how His disciples are identified (vss. 6-10):

• They grasp the revelation of the Father in the Son (vs. 6)
• They are given to the Son by the Father / they received His word, believed it and kept it (vss. 6-8).
• They are distinguished from the world (vs. 9).
• They bring glory to the Son (vs. 10).

Having identified those who belong to Himself, Jesus then prayed that they would be protected by the Father (vss. 11-19). First, Jesus prayed that the Father would protect them by keeping them united in His name (vss. 11-12). “They cannot be one as Jesus and the Father are one unless they are kept in God’s name, i.e. in loyal allegiance to his gracious self-disclosure in the person of his Son” (Carson). Second, Jesus prayed that the Father would protect them from the evil one (vss. 14-19). They needed this protection because they would remain in this world; a world that would hate them and is ruled by the evil one (see John 12.31). But the Father could “sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (vs. 17). “Jesus is the one whom the Father ‘set apart [i.e. “sanctified”; the verb is hagiazō] as his very own and sent into the world’ (cf. notes on 10:36). That is, the Father reserved the Son for his own purposes in this mission into the world. Otherwise put, the Son sanctified himself (cf. v. 19, below)—i.e. he set himself apart to be and do exactly what the Father assigned him. Now he prays that God will sanctify (hagiazō) the disciples. In John’s Gospel, such ‘sanctification’ is always for mission. The mission of the disciples is spelled out in the next verse; the present verse focuses on the means of the sanctification: ‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’” (Carson)

Vs. 19 deserves more consideration: “And for their sake I consecrate (hagiázō) myself, that they also may be sanctified (hēgiasmenoi) in truth.” Earlier, Jesus had referred to God as “Holy (hágios) Father”. Clearly, there’s something we are supposed to pick up from the holiness/sanctification wording in the text. It’s a picture of the Old Testament sacrificial system where the high priest was sanctified in order to offer sacrifices that would sanctify the people before Holy God. Jesus is both the High Priest and the sacrifice that sanctifies His people, allowing them to be with the Father. This adds further significance to Jesus’ use of the Father’s “name” (see vss. 6,11,12), for as High Priest Jesus was to bless the people with the Father’s name: “‘The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’ So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them” (Numbers 6.24-26).

“He is entrusting the disciples to the father he has known and loved throughout his own earthly life, the father who, he knows, will care for them every bit as much as he has done himself. He is very much aware that the disciples are at risk. The world, which hates them as it hated him, will threaten and abuse them. They don’t belong to it, but they are to be sent into it, and they need protecting. That’s what the prayer is about” (NT Wright, NT Pray for Everyone).

Jesus prays for us (vss. 20-26).

We must never downplay the significance of this passage; Jesus prayed for you and He prayed for me! “Imagine some great figure of the past. Shakespeare, perhaps. George Washington, possibly. Socrates. Think of someone you respect and admire. Now imagine that the historians have just found, among old manuscripts, a letter from the great man himself. And imagine that it was talking about … you. How would you feel? That is how you should feel as you read verse 20. Jesus is talking about you. And me” (Wright in NT Prayer for Everyone).

And what did our Lord pray for us? First, that our unity would bear witness to the world (vss. 20-23). Not just our unity together, but our unity with the Father and Son (see John 14.21,23)! Second, that we would see His glory (vs. 24; see John 14.2-3; 1John 3.2). Finally, that God would dwell among His people (vss. 25-26; John 14.20). “The crucial point is that this text does not simply make these followers the objects of God’s love (as in v. 23), but promises that they will be so transformed, as God is continually made known to them, that God’s own love for his Son will become their love. The love with which they learn to love is nothing less than the love amongst the persons of the Godhead” (Carson).

Notes from the text:

• Vs. 2: fulfillment of Daniel 7.13-14.
• Vs. 3: fulfillment of Jeremiah 31.33-34. “God’s people are destroyed from lack of knowledge (Ho. 4:6); conversely, Habakkuk foresees a time when ‘the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea’ (Hab. 2:14)” (Carson).
• Vs. 4: fulfillment of Isaiah 42.1-9; 53.
• Vs. 5: fulfillment of Isaiah 52.13; 53.12. “the incarnation entailed a forfeiture of glory” (Carson). See Philippians 2.6-7.
• Vs. 6: fulfillment of Isaiah 52.6; see Exodus 3.13-15.
• Vs. 9: note that while Jesus came for the sake of the world (John 3.16), His prayer was only for those who would belong to Him.
• Vs. 11: fulfillment of Isaiah 2.2-4; Zechariah 2.11.
• Vs. 12: see Psalm 41.9-10; 109.8.
• Vs. 13: see John 15.11.
• Vs. 15: “The death/exaltation of the Master spells the principal defeat of the ruler of this world (12:31; 14:30; 16:11), but that does not rob him of all power to inflict terrible damage on the Lord’s followers, if they are left without succour. Until the consummation, when the last enemy is destroyed, ‘the whole world is under the control of the evil one’ (1 Jn. 5:19). The Christians’ task, then, is not to be withdrawn from the world, nor to be confused with the world (hence the reminder of v. 16, repeating the thought of v. 14b), but to remain in the world, maintaining witness to the truth by the help of the Paraclete (15:26–27), and absorbing all the malice that the world can muster, finally protected by the Father himself, in response to the prayer of Jesus” (Carson).
• Vs. 22: “Glory commonly refers to the manifestation of God’s character or person in a revelatory context; Jesus has mediated the glory of God, personally to his first followers and through them to those who believe on account of their message. And he has done all of this that they may be one as we are one” (Carson).