The high priestly prayer: glory, the disciples and the unity of all who believe

The Gospel of John is anonymous. Christian tradition ascribes it to the apostle John, son of Zebedee, and the book appeals to the testimony of 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (21:24). Some scholars hold to the apostle's authorship, some think a circle of his followers shaped the book, and Richard Bauckham argues for an eyewitness outside the Twelve. The traditional date is the 80s or 90s of the first century, and a fragment of John 18 (P52) shows that the Gospel was copied by the early second century. The stated purpose is that readers believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in his name (20:31).

The setting is the night before the crucifixion, on the same night as the footwashing and the Farewell Discourse (chapters 13-16). The prayer ends the discourse. Chapter 18 opens with Jesus crossing the Kidron valley with his disciples to a garden, so the prayer is spoken in or near Jerusalem as the arrest draws near. 'The hour' has been a refrain through the Gospel. It was not yet come at Cana (2:4) and was said to be near in 12:23 and 13:1. Here Jesus says it has arrived (17:1).

The title 'the high priestly prayer' does not come from the text. It arose in the church's later reflection, commonly traced to the Reformation era, because the prayer shows Jesus acting as a priest who intercedes and consecrates himself. The disciples overhear him. The prayer is a Gospel prayer, spoken in their hearing and recorded to be read by those who would later believe through their witness.

John 17 is prayer set inside narrative, the longest prayer of Jesus in the Gospels. Reading it well means keeping it as a prayer: its grammar is petition and thanksgiving, with a great deal of statement about what has already been done. Unlike the discourse before it, it is addressed to the Father, and the disciples hear only what he says to him.

The prayer moves in a spiral. The same key words return again and again: give, glory, world, name, word, truth, sent, know, one. Each return adds a new angle, so the structure should be followed by tracking the words and not by looking for a tidy logical sequence. The three petitions correspond to three circles: Jesus himself (verses 1-5), the eleven disciples who were with him (verses 6-19), and all future believers (verses 20-26).

Three principles apply.

• First, John uses 'world' in several senses. In 3:16 it is the object of God's love, in 17:14-16 it is the hostile order that hates Jesus' followers, and in 17:18, 21 and 23 it is the place and audience of mission. Verse 9, 'I do not ask on behalf of the world', is spoken about this particular petition for the disciples, and it sits beside the prayers that the world may believe (verses 21, 23).
• Second, 'those You have given Me' echoes earlier statements about the Father giving people to the Son (6:37; 10:29).
• Third, read the prayer against the Old Testament pictures of priests, names and glory, which John has been building since the opening chapter.

Verses 1–5

Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven and says, 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.' The glory he seeks is not praise for its own sake. In John the glory of Jesus is displayed at the cross, where the lifted-up Son shows the Father's love. The Father has given the Son 'authority over all people, so that He may give eternal life to all those You have given Him'. Then he defines eternal life: 'that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.' Knowing here is covenant knowing, a relationship and not only information. Jesus says he has glorified the Father by finishing the work given him, and he asks to be given again the glory he had 'before the world existed'. The Son existed with the Father before creation, and the request is for the return of a glory he had already shared.

Verses 6–8

Jesus has 'revealed Your name' to those the Father gave him out of the world. In Scripture, the name of God is his character and self-disclosure, given to Moses in Exodus 3:13-15. The disciples have kept the Father's word. They know that all Jesus has comes from the Father, have received the words given them, and know with certainty that he came from the Father and believe that the Father sent him.

Verses 9–11

'I ask on their behalf.' He is asking for the disciples and not for the world, which is a particular prayer on this night. 'All I have is Yours, and all You have is Mine.' He asks the Father to 'protect them by Your name' so that they may be one as the Father and Son are one. Numbers 6:24-27, the priestly blessing, speaks of the LORD keeping his people and putting his name on them, and verse 11 may echo it.

Verses 12–16

While he was with them he protected them, and none was lost 'except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled'. The son of destruction is Judas, and the Scripture is not named, though Psalm 41:9 is cited of him in 13:18 and Acts 1:20 applies Psalm 109:8. Jesus now gives them to the Father's care and asks not that they be taken out of the world but that they be kept 'from the evil one'. The world hates them as it hated him, because they are not of the world. This resembles the final petition of the Lord's Prayer, which asks to be delivered from the evil one (Matthew 6:13).

Verses 17–19

'Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.' To sanctify (hagiazo) is to set apart for God's service and to make holy. The truth is God's word, which Jesus has given them. 'As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world.' Then he adds, 'For them I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth.' Jesus sets himself apart for the task of the cross, and his disciples share its result. In 10:36 he spoke of himself as the one the Father sanctified and sent into the world.

Verses 20–23

'I am not asking on behalf of them alone, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message.' The church that reads this prayer is included. He asks that 'all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You', so that the world may believe that the Father sent him. The pattern of the unity is the life of Father and Son, and its purpose is the world's belief. He has given them the glory the Father gave him, so that they may be perfectly united.

Verses 24–26

'Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, that they may see the glory You gave Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.' The prayer climbs to the Father's eternal love for the Son and to the hope of seeing his glory. It ends with the promise of continuing revelation of the name, so that 'the love You have for Me may be in them, and I in them'.

The prayer is a window into the life of the Trinity. The Father loves the Son 'before the foundation of the world' (verse 24), the Son shared the Father's glory 'before the world existed' (verse 5), and the unity of the disciples is patterned on this shared life. John 17 is a primary text in the doctrine of the Son's eternal relation to the Father and in the doctrine of mutual indwelling, which the church later called perichoresis.

The prayer also bears on election, perseverance and mission. Jesus speaks of those the Father has given him (verses 2, 6, 9, 24), and he says he guarded them and lost none but the son of destruction. Reformed readers see here the secure election of God's people. Arminian readers emphasise the prayers that the world may believe (verses 21, 23) and the possibility of falling away that Judas illustrates. The prayer asks that the disciples be kept from the evil one (verse 15), and it sends them into the world as he was sent (verse 18; compare 20:21).

The theme of sanctification by the word (verses 17, 19) connects to Psalm 119 and Ephesians 5:26. And the intercession of Jesus continues beyond this night: the New Testament says that he intercedes for his people now (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1).

John 17 is not foreshadowing. Christ is present and speaking, and the prayer shows his priestly work as fulfilment. The Old Testament high priest represented the people before God. He wore their names on his shoulders and breastplate (Exodus 28:9-12, 29), entered God's presence on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), and consecrated himself before approaching. In Hebrews, Christ is the great high priest who has passed through the heavens (4:14-16) and who always lives to intercede (7:25), who offered himself and appears in God's presence on our behalf (9:24-26). John 17 shows the same figure at work on the night before the sacrifice.

When Jesus says, 'For them I sanctify Myself' (verse 19), many interpreters hear the priest setting himself apart as the sacrifice. This is a reading supported by the other uses of 'sanctify' in John (10:36) and by Hebrews 10:10, and it is offered here as a likely echo and not as a settled explicit statement of the text. The language of 'name' and 'glory' connects to Moses. Moses asked to see God's glory and heard the name proclaimed (Exodus 33:18-34:7), and Jesus now says that he has made the Father's name known and that his people will see his glory (verse 24). John 1:14, 18 has already said that the glory has been seen in Jesus and that the Son has made the Father known.

The prayer also speaks as Son. Jesus addresses God as Father throughout, and he claims to share in the Father's own glory from before creation, which no prophet or priest of the old covenant could claim. This is why the church has read the chapter as one of the clearest statements of the deity and mission of the Son.