O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
Jesus addresses God as righteous Father to declare a covenant relation full of rich promises that believers must personally appropriate, while saying plainly that the fallen world in ignorance and unbelief has misjudged and not known Him, that He Himself has truly known Him from sharing the Father's counsels before the foundation of the world, and that His own have known that the Father sent Him. He spoke this to reveal the Father's true character of goodness, mercy, love and holiness and to keep declaring that name so the Father's love may dwell in believers through sanctification and the Spirit. That revealing work belongs to His prayer that believers be one with Him as He is one with the Father, retaining their identity while sharing His love, so their unity and Christlike lives become the convincing evidence to the world that God sent His Son. It was His farewell high-priestly intercession on the night before His suffering, spoken aloud to comfort and strengthen the disciples for trial, joining finite humanity to the infinite God and continuing in heaven where He still intercedes that His people be kept from sin. Answering it calls believers today to receive it as the daily rule of life in entire consecration, beginning in Christlike homes and in ministers and workers drawing together in love without strife, that cleansed from sin and united heart to heart they reflect Christ and make known God's wisdom.
Setting of the Prayer
This is Christ's last intercessory prayer for His disciples, offered in the upper chamber after Judas had left, on the night before His suffering and trial and betrayal and rejection and crucifixion. It was spoken just before Gethsemane where the weight of the world's sins rested upon Him, and just before His separation from them as their visible counselor. It was prayed as He prepared them for His coming suffering and separation, showing what believers are to be in the world. It was spoken to His disciples when He was about to leave them, declaring that the world had not known God while He had known Him and His followers had known that God had sent Him.
It is a farewell high-priestly petition that embraces humanity and joins earth to heaven and finite people to the infinite God. In it as the Good Shepherd He identifies His interests with fallen humanity and intercedes for His followers before the Father. As their Elder Brother He shared human weakness and temptation without sin, and prayer was the necessity of His humanity. He sought fresh grace so He could strengthen His followers with assurance and hope, and He joins Himself with His believing people in the work of saving a lost world.
It was spoken aloud in the hearing of the disciples, full of instruction of the highest type expressing His desire that all be saved through faith in Him. It comforted them through disappointment and trial and was spoken so their hearts would not be troubled, directing their thoughts to the great object of His mission and His joy that all His humiliation and suffering would glorify the Father's name. It gave them precious instruction for their future work to bless humanity, teaching that divine power must be combined with human effort and that ministry must be built upon a divine Christ. In this way it prepared and strengthened them for coming trials and temptations, pleading that they receive grace to follow His example and continue His work in partnership with God through the Holy Spirit working in man.
They did not fully understand it until after the resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit. The instruction of John 16 followed by this final prayer was fully understood and appreciated only after His resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the instruction of John 14-17 is understood with new enlightenment through the influence of the Spirit of God. The coming of the Holy Spirit as at Pentecost opens blinded eyes to what God desires to do for the human race in these chapters. Afterwards those words brought them comfort and peace and hope in disappointment and distress and trial.
It belongs to the connected teaching of John 6 and 13-17 and of John 14, 15, 16, and 17. It is a sample on earth of the intercession He carries on in heaven within the veil for all who receive Him and believe on His name, even to the ends of the earth. That intercession He is making and will continue to make to the end of the world for those who believe in Him, teaching that after completing His sacrifice He intercedes as High Priest in heaven. In that intercession He presents to the Father His bruised hands bearing the wounds of cruel spikes and pleads that He has graven His church upon the palms of His hands. His prayer concerns spiritual blessings, that His disciples be kept from sin and remain loyal to God, not that they gain riches or human honor.
Meaning of Its Words
The address to God as righteous Father declares exactly what it says and yet means far more than is realized. It holds out wonderful far-reaching possibilities, rich promises and covenant relation, with every word to be studied carefully and every blessing to be understood and appropriated personally, for God means every word He says and will not change or alter what has gone out of His lips. It belongs to the prayer of John 17 spoken just before trial and crucifixion when Christ was about to leave His disciples, and to the plain outline of God's will in John 13-17 for those who minister in word and doctrine, who must believe every verse there and live them out before fellow ministers and thereby be converted and learn the philosophy of genuine missionary work. It is to be received into the treasure-house of the soul, made the daily lesson and rule of life, studied to learn how to pray and how to live, prayed for union and lived so that God can answer it. Those who do not avail themselves of the blessings so graciously offered will be called to answer in the day of the Lord for refusing the great gift placed within their reach, while those who press its meaning personally find that knowing the sending of the Son is made convincing to the world by the unity of believers, when Christ is revealed in lives filled with love and compassion and Christlike tenderness and courtesy, proving that God sent His Son to die for sinners to change the sinful heart and form character after the divine likeness. It means God wants His people to be like Himself, kept unspotted from the world, forgiven of sins and drawn to Himself, that they may step into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, united in Christian love as brethren bound together by a golden chain of love let down from heaven. It means the treasures of His word keep opening more and more like a treasure-house, increasing in every phase as truth is dug for as hidden treasure through human workers moved by the Spirit, with different ones seeing beauty in different truths, and no one should hinder them or claim to know all worth knowing, but let God work through human instrumentalities according to His will.
The world has not known the Father in fallen ignorance, unbelief and unwillingness to accept the truths Christ came to proclaim. Sin has made humans aliens from God, and the world refuses to receive truth in love, does not see God, and does not recognize Jesus as the One God sent. It misjudges God by finite human measurement as unloving, vindictive, exacting and condemnatory, misjudging and misinterpreting His truth and righteousness as wrath ready to break out on sinful creatures, and it hates practical purity and holiness. This stands in contrast to Christ who knows Him and to the disciples who know His divine mission and that the Father sent Him, presenting the life and character believers are to have as they seek to overcome and bear good fruit, with Christ's saving work of bringing truth to the world entrusted to those who receive Him as Saviour. The world and Christians cannot join in fellowship and unity because they serve different masters, and the lessons of the prayer are to be studied and put into practice by God's people.
This ignorance reaches even professed followers, for very few truly know the Saviour. Those who carry truth to those in darkness must not be among those of whom He says they do not know God. Knowing God is learned through knowing Jesus in this life, and those who do not draw near to Jesus and delight in His character here show they do not know Him and would find no pleasure in His presence and companionship in the life to come, preferring to be anywhere else, because one who did not learn to know Him in this world could not learn to know Him in heaven.
But Christ has known Him, and limited humans unable to perceive the divine beneath His humanity need Him to reveal the Father and affirm His divine nature, which He spoke with pity and sympathy for fallen ignorance. He has truly known the Father because He has shared in the Father's counsels, been in the secret chambers of the Most High in the counsel between Father and Son before the foundation of the world where the plan to save a lost world and the covenant of peace were laid. If the world had been admitted into those counsels it would bear only one testimony, that God is love, for the Father gave Himself in the gift of His Son and in union with the Son devised the plan of redemption, a gift displaying both God's love and His holiness and justice. The world measures God by its own limited ideas, but knowing God reveals that one testimony.
And Christ's own have known that the Father sent Him, for His disciples knew His divine mission. The prayer embraces all who believe through their word including later believers, and calls them to strive to answer it and shows the possibilities of Christian life and what Christians may become. Those who believe in Him as personal Saviour, who accept unpopular truth and suffer reproach for His sake, are dear to Him and united with Him. This known sending is given as assurance to His followers and is the credential believers bear to the world through their unity, answered only when every sincere believer puts away all evil thinking and evil expressions, cherishes love and not hatred, and presses together in Christian fellowship, so that the love with which the Father loved Jesus may be in them and Jesus in them.
Christ Revealing the Father
Jesus came to expose the world's sin and to bring people into harmony with God by removing sin, so that through the Spirit they may be shaped in the divine likeness and become channels of light to the world. His mission was to reveal the Father and declare His name, meaning His goodness, mercy, love, compassion, patience, truthfulness, forgiveness and faithfulness to His covenant. That revelation corrects the false picture of God as harsh and condemning, directs glory to Him, and calls people to know God, worship Him, think upon Him, plant themselves upon Christ and believe Him. Limited humans, unable to perceive the divine beneath His humanity, need Him to reveal the Father and affirm His divine nature, which He did with pity and sympathy for fallen ignorance, and His ministry of revealing God's character is continued as His disciples are sent to carry His message to others.
Knowing God yields one testimony, that God is love. The world measures God by finite human measurement and misjudges His truth and righteousness as unloving and vindictive wrath, but Christ has truly known the Father because He has shared in the Father's counsels, been in the secret chambers of the Most High in the counsel before the foundation of the world where the plan to save a lost world and the covenant of peace were laid. In union with the Son the Father devised the plan of redemption and gave Himself in the gift of His Son, giving His Son to die so that people lacking knowledge of salvation might receive salvation and light. That gift displays both God's love and His holiness and justice.
He has declared the Father's name and will keep declaring it, for this revealing work is what He came for and what He continues. The purpose is that the love with which the Father loved Him may be in believers and He Himself may be in them, with the Father's love dwelling in them through sanctification, obedience and the Spirit. This revelation is meant to bring God's love into His children's hearts so they can make Him known to others.
This revealing stands between His will that those given Him be with Him where He is to behold His glory given Him because the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world, and His declaring and continuing to declare the Father's name to that end. It belongs to His requested recompense after finishing His earthly work, His glorification in His ransomed church, with believers kept from evil while remaining in the world, sanctified through truth and sent as He was sent. Made one as Father and Son are one and given Christ's glory to be made perfect in one, they are to communicate the knowledge of God by revealing Christ in spirit, action, daily words and perfect Christian life as God's chosen representatives and adopted children, bearing the divine credentials before the world.
Knowing God and Christ is personal knowledge gained through sanctification by the truth, in which believers united with Christ become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ without losing individual personality. It is learned through knowing Jesus in this life, and it is expressed in character as the highest education, leading to eternal life and an immortal inheritance. Believers are therefore obligated to acknowledge God in all their ways and to seek ever more knowledge of Him.
Unity Proving His Mission
John 17:25 belongs to the prayer for believers to be one with Christ as He is one with the Father, as close as the union between Father and Son, and it is the privilege and duty of believers to seek that oneness of John 17:17-27 so they answer His prayer. Father and Son are distinct persons whose unity does not erase either one's identity, and likewise those united with Christ become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ without losing individual personality, retaining their own identity while becoming one with one another and with God through Christ. Christ as Intercessor in heaven is ever working for the unity of His people, and to be in harmony with heaven they must seek to be one in faith and in practice, united in the closest bonds of fellowship and love as one body under one supreme Head. That harmony exists in proportion to illumination and sanctification, for the more fully believers receive the enlightenment of the divine Spirit the more nearly they harmonize in understanding truth and unite in judgment with confidence, peace and harmony, as when after the resurrection and ascension union prevailed and believers were all of one heart and one mind and, after the difference over circumcision of Gentiles was settled, were perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
That oneness, harmony, union and love is the great gift by which every truly converted soul is thoroughly identified with Christ the Son of God and endowed with divine nature through true conversion. Every truly converted soul shares the same love that Christ has with the Father and the same love for one another, bound to one another and to Him by a golden cord of love let down from heaven, brethren with brethren bound together in Christian love. In Christ that oneness was a constant joy to God because in Him God beheld the reflection of His own character in One who would not misrepresent Him. Perfection of character means perfection in unity, and grasping by faith the oneness prayed for brings great possibilities for God to work through a united people, manifesting His power by giving them victory over the world and over Satan and by bestowing everlasting life as reward for faithfulness.
The unity and Christlike lives of believers is what is meant to prove to the world the knowledge that God sent Jesus into the world as its Redeemer to save sinners. When Christ is revealed in lives filled with love, compassion, tenderness and courtesy and character formed after the divine likeness, that shared love expressed in character so plainly gives convincing evidence to the world that God sent His Son, which unbelief cannot withstand or controvert. The manifestation of that unity is evidence of the power of God and a sign bearing convincing evidence of the divine character of Christ's mission and of the genuineness of Christianity, testifying with convicting power that the Word of God is the safe rule of life, so that the world through Him may be saved by receiving Him and believing in Him. This knowing belongs to Christ's requested recompense after finishing His earthly work, His glorification in His ransomed church, which is the chief source of His glory and the means of making known God's manifold wisdom to principalities and powers in heavenly places.
The prayer is answered only when every sincere believer puts away all evil thinking and evil expressions, cherishes love and not hatred, and presses together in Christian fellowship, so that the love with which the Father loved Jesus may be in them and Jesus in them. It requires putting away perplexity, discouragement, strife, envy, jealousy, evil surmising, evil thinking and evil speaking against fellow laborers, variance, fault-finding and seeking the highest place, bringing even thoughts into captivity to Christ and thinking no evil of brethren, confessing and forsaking sin so wrongs between God and man and between brethren are taken out of the way. Its meaning is known by experience when believers are meek and lowly in heart, close to Christ and close to one another in Christlike sympathy and love, giving confidence to the weak through loyal fellowship, correcting thoughts, words and acts, reading and practicing God's Word, taking self sternly in hand, being with Jesus and learning of Him, and living so kind, so tender, so loving, so Christlike that the world sees God has indeed sent His Son to save sinners.
Difference, disunion, bickering, strife and dissension dishonor God and disgust unbelievers and fasten them in unbelief, and those who profess greater light and to keep God's law must therefore preserve harmony and show greater perfection of character and deeper devotion. Variance, disunion, talking against one another, envy and fault-finding pain Christ's heart, advance Satan's work to divide God's followers, and make service for the Lord a pretense, presenting the opposite of what God desires. Satan understands better than church members how discord over little misunderstandings growing into variance and hatred keeps God's people divided, and every move to pull apart is not pleasing to God, for His people must not pull apart but stay together in accordance with that prayer. The world and Christians cannot join in fellowship and unity because they serve different masters, since the world has not known the Father while Christ knows Him and His disciples know that the Father sent Him, and a loose lax religion leaves the world confused.
Those united to Christ are loved by the Father as He loves His Son, belonging to Him as chosen children and embraced as His children sharing the inheritance of God and Christ. The true work of grace in the heart unites believers to Christ and to one another, making them partakers of the divine nature escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust, becoming one with Christ in God, changed from sin to holiness. If believers preserve the unity prayed for, God will love them as He loved His Son, the sinner will be saved, and God will be eternally glorified, with barriers of selfishness removed in a church moved by one Spirit in brotherly sympathy and opened to rich and eternal happiness outliving all earthly enjoyment.
Living the Prayer Today
The prayer holds far more meaning than is commonly realized, full of instruction and consolation expressing the mind of Christ toward the Father and toward His disciples, and it is to be received into the treasure-house of the soul as the daily lesson and rule of life. It is to be deeply studied, read repeatedly, prayed for union, and lived so that God can answer it, with believers seeking the oneness of John 17:17-27 as their privilege and duty in harmony with heaven. The verse means exactly what it says, distinguishing the world that does not know the Father from Christ who knows Him and from disciples who know the Father sent Christ, and its lessons are to be studied and put into practice in sanctification through truth and unity and love so the world may believe. Those acquainted with present truth must believe every verse of John 13-17 and live them out before fellow ministers, for by this they are converted and learn the philosophy of genuine missionary work. As Intercessor in heaven Christ is ever working for the unity of His people as one body under one supreme Head in the closest bonds of fellowship and love, which exists in proportion to illumination and sanctification as the divine Spirit harmonizes understanding, judgment, confidence, peace and harmony.
Answering the prayer is by entire consecration to God as the only hope, and by believing and practicing the Word. It means putting the powers of the whole being into representing Christ in character, correcting thoughts, words and acts, reading and practicing God's Word, taking self sternly in hand, being with Jesus and learning of Him, and living so kind, tender, loving and Christlike that the world sees God has indeed sent His Son to save sinners. It is known by experience when believers are meek and lowly in heart, close to Christ and close to one another in Christlike sympathy and love, giving confidence to the weak through loyal fellowship and sending forth a decided influence demonstrating the sanctifying power of truth upon heart and character. Cherishing love for one another is the practice of the chapter's lessons, and failure to do so means the Lord is not glorified in the life. This is done by receiving Christ through daily feeding on the Word which enlightens, renews and nourishes, and by working in harmony to spread truth with sanctified zeal reflecting His character rather than seeking human exaltation.
Its practice begins in the home, where Christlike conduct lets light shine and influences the church. Knowing that the Father sent Christ is shown by love and unity binding believers heart to heart, beginning in the home through tender respectful regard and Christlike conduct and works, for God measures church members by what they are in the home. When obeyed there the influence extends to the church, making believers on earth a symbol of the family in heaven whose lamp burns brightly to win sinners to loyalty and give light to those in darkness. The lessons of the chapter presenting eternal life as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent are valuable and should be taught understandingly in every family. This unity is to shape family life so parents live out God's Word before children, reject dissension, and bring households into right relation to God by the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Children purchased by Christ's blood are to be saved from perishing by receiving righteousness, truth and happiness through faith in Jesus Christ.
For ministers in word and doctrine God's will is plainly outlined in John 13-17, requiring oneness as Christ is one with the Father and drawing together in even cords in solemn service. That unity means leaving every person free to do his God-appointed work under Christ as great head of the church, seeking counsel from God rather than binding one worker about in another's work or binding anyone hand and foot to another man's mind. It means respecting and loving one another and living in unity, with division between Christian workers contrary to receiving God's love and power. When God meets with His people those leading must not draw the people to themselves but point to God's presence among them, and all parts of service must be managed in an orderly becoming manner. Unkind talk and passing judgment are strange fire that defiles, hurts souls and spoils God's work, and must be cleansed away by the Holy Spirit placing the living coal upon the lips, lest counsels prove a detriment, a savor of death unto death rather than of life unto life.
Those who thus know that the Father sent Him belong to Christ's requested recompense after finishing His earthly work, His glorification in His ransomed church, which is the chief source of His glory and the means of making known God's manifold wisdom to principalities and powers. By this oneness made perfect workers bear the divine credentials, carrying on work harmoniously in perfected Christian character, while Christ with divine aid supplies all necessities to bring the gospel understandingly in various lines before the world. The ascension enables Him to give guidance and protection through the Holy Spirit, keeping them from evil while in the world, sanctified through truth, sent as He was sent, given His glory, loved as the Father loved Him, brought to be with Him where He is to behold His glory given in love before the foundation of the world, with God's name declared and still to be declared so the Father's love for Christ may be in them and Christ in them. Answering the prayer places followers on vantage ground necessary to properly represent Him by believing truth for truth's sake, and brings souls up onto a higher platform purified, refined and sanctified to feel the worth of souls for whom Christ died and the peril of doing nothing to bring souls to Christ. Keeping in communion through constant prayer lets light shine to reflect to others, sustains courage and faith in the love of God, makes them light for the world, keeps them unspotted and forgiven and drawn to God to step into the everlasting kingdom, with treasures of the Word ever opening like a treasure-house as truth is dug as hidden treasure and different workers see beauty in different truths.
The chapter makes no distinction giving spiritual gifts and miraculous signs to the apostles alone and withholding them from those who believe on their word, for they belong to believers in every age, not to first Christians only. It is to serve as the church's creed, for difference and disunion dishonor God. It serves as a test by which believers can see whether they have left their first love, and its call to be one as Father and Son are one is reason to seek unity and let Christ's love replace coldness and hardness. Its lesson to be lived is that disciples be one as He is one with the Father, with unity and encouragement rather than discouragement of others, and with believers united with Christ and with one another as guidance for the work and spiritual life of the church. Following its teachings is walking in the footsteps of Jesus and doing His works even as He did His Father's works, studying His ways and not man's ways and obeying His will and not self-will, meeting difficulties unitedly hand in hand without going ahead of Christ and consulting Him as Leader, for there is only one way to heaven and the only hope is to be one with Christ and then in and through Christ one with another.
Jesus addresses God as righteous Father to declare a covenant relation full of rich promises that believers must personally appropriate, while saying plainly that the fallen world in ignorance and unbelief has misjudged and not known Him, that He Himself has truly known Him from sharing the Father's counsels before the foundation of the world, and that His own have known that the Father sent Him. He spoke this to reveal the Father's true character of goodness, mercy, love and holiness and to keep declaring that name so the Father's love may dwell in believers through sanctification and the Spirit. That revealing work belongs to His prayer that believers be one with Him as He is one with the Father, retaining their identity while sharing His love, so their unity and Christlike lives become the convincing evidence to the world that God sent His Son. It was His farewell high-priestly intercession on the night before His suffering, spoken aloud to comfort and strengthen the disciples for trial, joining finite humanity to the infinite God and continuing in heaven where He still intercedes that His people be kept from sin. Answering it calls believers today to receive it as the daily rule of life in entire consecration, beginning in Christlike homes and in ministers and workers drawing together in love without strife, that cleansed from sin and united heart to heart they reflect Christ and make known God's wisdom.
Setting of the Prayer
This is Christ's last intercessory prayer for His disciples, offered in the upper chamber after Judas had left, on the night before His suffering and trial and betrayal and rejection and crucifixion. It was spoken just before Gethsemane where the weight of the world's sins rested upon Him, and just before His separation from them as their visible counselor. It was prayed as He prepared them for His coming suffering and separation, showing what believers are to be in the world. It was spoken to His disciples when He was about to leave them, declaring that the world had not known God while He had known Him and His followers had known that God had sent Him.
It is a farewell high-priestly petition that embraces humanity and joins earth to heaven and finite people to the infinite God. In it as the Good Shepherd He identifies His interests with fallen humanity and intercedes for His followers before the Father. As their Elder Brother He shared human weakness and temptation without sin, and prayer was the necessity of His humanity. He sought fresh grace so He could strengthen His followers with assurance and hope, and He joins Himself with His believing people in the work of saving a lost world.
It was spoken aloud in the hearing of the disciples, full of instruction of the highest type expressing His desire that all be saved through faith in Him. It comforted them through disappointment and trial and was spoken so their hearts would not be troubled, directing their thoughts to the great object of His mission and His joy that all His humiliation and suffering would glorify the Father's name. It gave them precious instruction for their future work to bless humanity, teaching that divine power must be combined with human effort and that ministry must be built upon a divine Christ. In this way it prepared and strengthened them for coming trials and temptations, pleading that they receive grace to follow His example and continue His work in partnership with God through the Holy Spirit working in man.
They did not fully understand it until after the resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit. The instruction of John 16 followed by this final prayer was fully understood and appreciated only after His resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the instruction of John 14-17 is understood with new enlightenment through the influence of the Spirit of God. The coming of the Holy Spirit as at Pentecost opens blinded eyes to what God desires to do for the human race in these chapters. Afterwards those words brought them comfort and peace and hope in disappointment and distress and trial.
It belongs to the connected teaching of John 6 and 13-17 and of John 14, 15, 16, and 17. It is a sample on earth of the intercession He carries on in heaven within the veil for all who receive Him and believe on His name, even to the ends of the earth. That intercession He is making and will continue to make to the end of the world for those who believe in Him, teaching that after completing His sacrifice He intercedes as High Priest in heaven. In that intercession He presents to the Father His bruised hands bearing the wounds of cruel spikes and pleads that He has graven His church upon the palms of His hands. His prayer concerns spiritual blessings, that His disciples be kept from sin and remain loyal to God, not that they gain riches or human honor.
Meaning of Its Words
The address to God as righteous Father declares exactly what it says and yet means far more than is realized. It holds out wonderful far-reaching possibilities, rich promises and covenant relation, with every word to be studied carefully and every blessing to be understood and appropriated personally, for God means every word He says and will not change or alter what has gone out of His lips. It belongs to the prayer of John 17 spoken just before trial and crucifixion when Christ was about to leave His disciples, and to the plain outline of God's will in John 13-17 for those who minister in word and doctrine, who must believe every verse there and live them out before fellow ministers and thereby be converted and learn the philosophy of genuine missionary work. It is to be received into the treasure-house of the soul, made the daily lesson and rule of life, studied to learn how to pray and how to live, prayed for union and lived so that God can answer it. Those who do not avail themselves of the blessings so graciously offered will be called to answer in the day of the Lord for refusing the great gift placed within their reach, while those who press its meaning personally find that knowing the sending of the Son is made convincing to the world by the unity of believers, when Christ is revealed in lives filled with love and compassion and Christlike tenderness and courtesy, proving that God sent His Son to die for sinners to change the sinful heart and form character after the divine likeness. It means God wants His people to be like Himself, kept unspotted from the world, forgiven of sins and drawn to Himself, that they may step into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, united in Christian love as brethren bound together by a golden chain of love let down from heaven. It means the treasures of His word keep opening more and more like a treasure-house, increasing in every phase as truth is dug for as hidden treasure through human workers moved by the Spirit, with different ones seeing beauty in different truths, and no one should hinder them or claim to know all worth knowing, but let God work through human instrumentalities according to His will.
The world has not known the Father in fallen ignorance, unbelief and unwillingness to accept the truths Christ came to proclaim. Sin has made humans aliens from God, and the world refuses to receive truth in love, does not see God, and does not recognize Jesus as the One God sent. It misjudges God by finite human measurement as unloving, vindictive, exacting and condemnatory, misjudging and misinterpreting His truth and righteousness as wrath ready to break out on sinful creatures, and it hates practical purity and holiness. This stands in contrast to Christ who knows Him and to the disciples who know His divine mission and that the Father sent Him, presenting the life and character believers are to have as they seek to overcome and bear good fruit, with Christ's saving work of bringing truth to the world entrusted to those who receive Him as Saviour. The world and Christians cannot join in fellowship and unity because they serve different masters, and the lessons of the prayer are to be studied and put into practice by God's people.
This ignorance reaches even professed followers, for very few truly know the Saviour. Those who carry truth to those in darkness must not be among those of whom He says they do not know God. Knowing God is learned through knowing Jesus in this life, and those who do not draw near to Jesus and delight in His character here show they do not know Him and would find no pleasure in His presence and companionship in the life to come, preferring to be anywhere else, because one who did not learn to know Him in this world could not learn to know Him in heaven.
But Christ has known Him, and limited humans unable to perceive the divine beneath His humanity need Him to reveal the Father and affirm His divine nature, which He spoke with pity and sympathy for fallen ignorance. He has truly known the Father because He has shared in the Father's counsels, been in the secret chambers of the Most High in the counsel between Father and Son before the foundation of the world where the plan to save a lost world and the covenant of peace were laid. If the world had been admitted into those counsels it would bear only one testimony, that God is love, for the Father gave Himself in the gift of His Son and in union with the Son devised the plan of redemption, a gift displaying both God's love and His holiness and justice. The world measures God by its own limited ideas, but knowing God reveals that one testimony.
And Christ's own have known that the Father sent Him, for His disciples knew His divine mission. The prayer embraces all who believe through their word including later believers, and calls them to strive to answer it and shows the possibilities of Christian life and what Christians may become. Those who believe in Him as personal Saviour, who accept unpopular truth and suffer reproach for His sake, are dear to Him and united with Him. This known sending is given as assurance to His followers and is the credential believers bear to the world through their unity, answered only when every sincere believer puts away all evil thinking and evil expressions, cherishes love and not hatred, and presses together in Christian fellowship, so that the love with which the Father loved Jesus may be in them and Jesus in them.
Christ Revealing the Father
Jesus came to expose the world's sin and to bring people into harmony with God by removing sin, so that through the Spirit they may be shaped in the divine likeness and become channels of light to the world. His mission was to reveal the Father and declare His name, meaning His goodness, mercy, love, compassion, patience, truthfulness, forgiveness and faithfulness to His covenant. That revelation corrects the false picture of God as harsh and condemning, directs glory to Him, and calls people to know God, worship Him, think upon Him, plant themselves upon Christ and believe Him. Limited humans, unable to perceive the divine beneath His humanity, need Him to reveal the Father and affirm His divine nature, which He did with pity and sympathy for fallen ignorance, and His ministry of revealing God's character is continued as His disciples are sent to carry His message to others.
Knowing God yields one testimony, that God is love. The world measures God by finite human measurement and misjudges His truth and righteousness as unloving and vindictive wrath, but Christ has truly known the Father because He has shared in the Father's counsels, been in the secret chambers of the Most High in the counsel before the foundation of the world where the plan to save a lost world and the covenant of peace were laid. In union with the Son the Father devised the plan of redemption and gave Himself in the gift of His Son, giving His Son to die so that people lacking knowledge of salvation might receive salvation and light. That gift displays both God's love and His holiness and justice.
He has declared the Father's name and will keep declaring it, for this revealing work is what He came for and what He continues. The purpose is that the love with which the Father loved Him may be in believers and He Himself may be in them, with the Father's love dwelling in them through sanctification, obedience and the Spirit. This revelation is meant to bring God's love into His children's hearts so they can make Him known to others.
This revealing stands between His will that those given Him be with Him where He is to behold His glory given Him because the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world, and His declaring and continuing to declare the Father's name to that end. It belongs to His requested recompense after finishing His earthly work, His glorification in His ransomed church, with believers kept from evil while remaining in the world, sanctified through truth and sent as He was sent. Made one as Father and Son are one and given Christ's glory to be made perfect in one, they are to communicate the knowledge of God by revealing Christ in spirit, action, daily words and perfect Christian life as God's chosen representatives and adopted children, bearing the divine credentials before the world.
Knowing God and Christ is personal knowledge gained through sanctification by the truth, in which believers united with Christ become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ without losing individual personality. It is learned through knowing Jesus in this life, and it is expressed in character as the highest education, leading to eternal life and an immortal inheritance. Believers are therefore obligated to acknowledge God in all their ways and to seek ever more knowledge of Him.
Unity Proving His Mission
John 17:25 belongs to the prayer for believers to be one with Christ as He is one with the Father, as close as the union between Father and Son, and it is the privilege and duty of believers to seek that oneness of John 17:17-27 so they answer His prayer. Father and Son are distinct persons whose unity does not erase either one's identity, and likewise those united with Christ become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ without losing individual personality, retaining their own identity while becoming one with one another and with God through Christ. Christ as Intercessor in heaven is ever working for the unity of His people, and to be in harmony with heaven they must seek to be one in faith and in practice, united in the closest bonds of fellowship and love as one body under one supreme Head. That harmony exists in proportion to illumination and sanctification, for the more fully believers receive the enlightenment of the divine Spirit the more nearly they harmonize in understanding truth and unite in judgment with confidence, peace and harmony, as when after the resurrection and ascension union prevailed and believers were all of one heart and one mind and, after the difference over circumcision of Gentiles was settled, were perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
That oneness, harmony, union and love is the great gift by which every truly converted soul is thoroughly identified with Christ the Son of God and endowed with divine nature through true conversion. Every truly converted soul shares the same love that Christ has with the Father and the same love for one another, bound to one another and to Him by a golden cord of love let down from heaven, brethren with brethren bound together in Christian love. In Christ that oneness was a constant joy to God because in Him God beheld the reflection of His own character in One who would not misrepresent Him. Perfection of character means perfection in unity, and grasping by faith the oneness prayed for brings great possibilities for God to work through a united people, manifesting His power by giving them victory over the world and over Satan and by bestowing everlasting life as reward for faithfulness.
The unity and Christlike lives of believers is what is meant to prove to the world the knowledge that God sent Jesus into the world as its Redeemer to save sinners. When Christ is revealed in lives filled with love, compassion, tenderness and courtesy and character formed after the divine likeness, that shared love expressed in character so plainly gives convincing evidence to the world that God sent His Son, which unbelief cannot withstand or controvert. The manifestation of that unity is evidence of the power of God and a sign bearing convincing evidence of the divine character of Christ's mission and of the genuineness of Christianity, testifying with convicting power that the Word of God is the safe rule of life, so that the world through Him may be saved by receiving Him and believing in Him. This knowing belongs to Christ's requested recompense after finishing His earthly work, His glorification in His ransomed church, which is the chief source of His glory and the means of making known God's manifold wisdom to principalities and powers in heavenly places.
The prayer is answered only when every sincere believer puts away all evil thinking and evil expressions, cherishes love and not hatred, and presses together in Christian fellowship, so that the love with which the Father loved Jesus may be in them and Jesus in them. It requires putting away perplexity, discouragement, strife, envy, jealousy, evil surmising, evil thinking and evil speaking against fellow laborers, variance, fault-finding and seeking the highest place, bringing even thoughts into captivity to Christ and thinking no evil of brethren, confessing and forsaking sin so wrongs between God and man and between brethren are taken out of the way. Its meaning is known by experience when believers are meek and lowly in heart, close to Christ and close to one another in Christlike sympathy and love, giving confidence to the weak through loyal fellowship, correcting thoughts, words and acts, reading and practicing God's Word, taking self sternly in hand, being with Jesus and learning of Him, and living so kind, so tender, so loving, so Christlike that the world sees God has indeed sent His Son to save sinners.
Difference, disunion, bickering, strife and dissension dishonor God and disgust unbelievers and fasten them in unbelief, and those who profess greater light and to keep God's law must therefore preserve harmony and show greater perfection of character and deeper devotion. Variance, disunion, talking against one another, envy and fault-finding pain Christ's heart, advance Satan's work to divide God's followers, and make service for the Lord a pretense, presenting the opposite of what God desires. Satan understands better than church members how discord over little misunderstandings growing into variance and hatred keeps God's people divided, and every move to pull apart is not pleasing to God, for His people must not pull apart but stay together in accordance with that prayer. The world and Christians cannot join in fellowship and unity because they serve different masters, since the world has not known the Father while Christ knows Him and His disciples know that the Father sent Him, and a loose lax religion leaves the world confused.
Those united to Christ are loved by the Father as He loves His Son, belonging to Him as chosen children and embraced as His children sharing the inheritance of God and Christ. The true work of grace in the heart unites believers to Christ and to one another, making them partakers of the divine nature escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust, becoming one with Christ in God, changed from sin to holiness. If believers preserve the unity prayed for, God will love them as He loved His Son, the sinner will be saved, and God will be eternally glorified, with barriers of selfishness removed in a church moved by one Spirit in brotherly sympathy and opened to rich and eternal happiness outliving all earthly enjoyment.
Living the Prayer Today
The prayer holds far more meaning than is commonly realized, full of instruction and consolation expressing the mind of Christ toward the Father and toward His disciples, and it is to be received into the treasure-house of the soul as the daily lesson and rule of life. It is to be deeply studied, read repeatedly, prayed for union, and lived so that God can answer it, with believers seeking the oneness of John 17:17-27 as their privilege and duty in harmony with heaven. The verse means exactly what it says, distinguishing the world that does not know the Father from Christ who knows Him and from disciples who know the Father sent Christ, and its lessons are to be studied and put into practice in sanctification through truth and unity and love so the world may believe. Those acquainted with present truth must believe every verse of John 13-17 and live them out before fellow ministers, for by this they are converted and learn the philosophy of genuine missionary work. As Intercessor in heaven Christ is ever working for the unity of His people as one body under one supreme Head in the closest bonds of fellowship and love, which exists in proportion to illumination and sanctification as the divine Spirit harmonizes understanding, judgment, confidence, peace and harmony.
Answering the prayer is by entire consecration to God as the only hope, and by believing and practicing the Word. It means putting the powers of the whole being into representing Christ in character, correcting thoughts, words and acts, reading and practicing God's Word, taking self sternly in hand, being with Jesus and learning of Him, and living so kind, tender, loving and Christlike that the world sees God has indeed sent His Son to save sinners. It is known by experience when believers are meek and lowly in heart, close to Christ and close to one another in Christlike sympathy and love, giving confidence to the weak through loyal fellowship and sending forth a decided influence demonstrating the sanctifying power of truth upon heart and character. Cherishing love for one another is the practice of the chapter's lessons, and failure to do so means the Lord is not glorified in the life. This is done by receiving Christ through daily feeding on the Word which enlightens, renews and nourishes, and by working in harmony to spread truth with sanctified zeal reflecting His character rather than seeking human exaltation.
Its practice begins in the home, where Christlike conduct lets light shine and influences the church. Knowing that the Father sent Christ is shown by love and unity binding believers heart to heart, beginning in the home through tender respectful regard and Christlike conduct and works, for God measures church members by what they are in the home. When obeyed there the influence extends to the church, making believers on earth a symbol of the family in heaven whose lamp burns brightly to win sinners to loyalty and give light to those in darkness. The lessons of the chapter presenting eternal life as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent are valuable and should be taught understandingly in every family. This unity is to shape family life so parents live out God's Word before children, reject dissension, and bring households into right relation to God by the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Children purchased by Christ's blood are to be saved from perishing by receiving righteousness, truth and happiness through faith in Jesus Christ.
For ministers in word and doctrine God's will is plainly outlined in John 13-17, requiring oneness as Christ is one with the Father and drawing together in even cords in solemn service. That unity means leaving every person free to do his God-appointed work under Christ as great head of the church, seeking counsel from God rather than binding one worker about in another's work or binding anyone hand and foot to another man's mind. It means respecting and loving one another and living in unity, with division between Christian workers contrary to receiving God's love and power. When God meets with His people those leading must not draw the people to themselves but point to God's presence among them, and all parts of service must be managed in an orderly becoming manner. Unkind talk and passing judgment are strange fire that defiles, hurts souls and spoils God's work, and must be cleansed away by the Holy Spirit placing the living coal upon the lips, lest counsels prove a detriment, a savor of death unto death rather than of life unto life.
Those who thus know that the Father sent Him belong to Christ's requested recompense after finishing His earthly work, His glorification in His ransomed church, which is the chief source of His glory and the means of making known God's manifold wisdom to principalities and powers. By this oneness made perfect workers bear the divine credentials, carrying on work harmoniously in perfected Christian character, while Christ with divine aid supplies all necessities to bring the gospel understandingly in various lines before the world. The ascension enables Him to give guidance and protection through the Holy Spirit, keeping them from evil while in the world, sanctified through truth, sent as He was sent, given His glory, loved as the Father loved Him, brought to be with Him where He is to behold His glory given in love before the foundation of the world, with God's name declared and still to be declared so the Father's love for Christ may be in them and Christ in them. Answering the prayer places followers on vantage ground necessary to properly represent Him by believing truth for truth's sake, and brings souls up onto a higher platform purified, refined and sanctified to feel the worth of souls for whom Christ died and the peril of doing nothing to bring souls to Christ. Keeping in communion through constant prayer lets light shine to reflect to others, sustains courage and faith in the love of God, makes them light for the world, keeps them unspotted and forgiven and drawn to God to step into the everlasting kingdom, with treasures of the Word ever opening like a treasure-house as truth is dug as hidden treasure and different workers see beauty in different truths.
The chapter makes no distinction giving spiritual gifts and miraculous signs to the apostles alone and withholding them from those who believe on their word, for they belong to believers in every age, not to first Christians only. It is to serve as the church's creed, for difference and disunion dishonor God. It serves as a test by which believers can see whether they have left their first love, and its call to be one as Father and Son are one is reason to seek unity and let Christ's love replace coldness and hardness. Its lesson to be lived is that disciples be one as He is one with the Father, with unity and encouragement rather than discouragement of others, and with believers united with Christ and with one another as guidance for the work and spiritual life of the church. Following its teachings is walking in the footsteps of Jesus and doing His works even as He did His Father's works, studying His ways and not man's ways and obeying His will and not self-will, meeting difficulties unitedly hand in hand without going ahead of Christ and consulting Him as Leader, for there is only one way to heaven and the only hope is to be one with Christ and then in and through Christ one with another.