The prayer of the Son: glory, protection and unity

John 17 is the only extended prayer of Jesus in the Gospels. It closes the Farewell Discourse and is spoken, according to the Gospel, aloud and in the hearing of the disciples (verse 13). The title 'High Priestly Prayer' is not in the text. It became common among Protestant writers from the sixteenth century on, because the prayer has the shape of a priest's intercession.

Matthew, Mark and Luke describe a different prayer that same night in the garden. There Jesus asks that the cup might pass from him (Mark 14:32-42; Matthew 26:36-46; Luke 22:39-46). John has no Gethsemane scene, but he has traces of it: Jesus' soul is troubled and he asks the Father to glorify his name (12:27-28), and he later speaks of the cup the Father has given him (18:11). John 17 has a different tone, sure and exalted, and some compare it to Matthew 11:25 to 27 and Luke 10:21 to 22, where Jesus thanks the Father and speaks of their unique knowledge of each other. It also overlaps with the Lord's Prayer: the Father's name, and the request for protection from the evil one (Matthew 6:13) have counterparts here.

The Gospel is anonymous. Tradition attributes it to the apostle John, writing in Ephesus late in the first century. Some scholars hold that an eyewitness (the beloved disciple) stands behind it, and others see a community tradition shaped by a final author. Critical scholars question whether so long a prayer could be reported verbatim. Believing readers answer that the beloved disciple was present, that Jesus prayed aloud 'so that they may have My joy' (verse 13), and that the Spirit promised to bring his words to mind (14:26). The prayer may well be given in the evangelist's words, as in other speeches of the Gospel, even if its content comes from Jesus.

John 17 is a prayer set within a narrative. Prayers in Scripture are addressed to God but recorded for others to hear, and here the evangelist wants readers to overhear what Jesus asks for them. The prayer has three movements in widening circles: Jesus (verses 1 to 5), the eleven (6 to 19) and the future church (20 to 26). Some read this as the order of a priestly intercession; the pattern is also close to a farewell prayer for a community. Verse 24 is the closing summit, in which Jesus says 'I want', an unusual form of petition that reflects his standing with the Father.

Three principles help.

• First, the language of 'giving' ('those You have given Me', verses 2, 6, 9, 24) must be read as John uses it throughout. It speaks of the Father's initiative and security, and also includes human response: they 'have kept Your word' and 'believed' (verses 6 and 8).
• Second, 'the world' has two uses. It is the object of God's love and mission (verse 21, 23) and also the realm of opposition (verses 9, 14, 25). The prayer is not for the world in the second sense but aims at the world's belief.
• Third, 'sanctify' and 'one' carry specific meanings in context: to be set apart for God, and to share the unity that the Father and the Son have. They should not be changed into general ideas of morality or agreement.

Verses 1–5

'Father, the hour has come.' The hour has been coming throughout the Gospel (2:4; 7:30; 12:23; 13:1) and is now here. He asks to be glorified 'that Your Son may glorify You'. In John, glory is revealed through the cross as much as beyond it (12:23-24). Verse 2 says the Father gave him 'authority over all people' to give eternal life to those given to him. Verse 3 defines it: 'that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.' The verb 'know' (ginosko) is relational, and the phrase 'only true God' echoes the Old Testament confession of one God (Deuteronomy 6:4) while placing Jesus within the knowledge of him. Verse 4 reports the work accomplished, ahead of 'It is finished' (19:30). Verse 5 asks for 'the glory I had with You before the world existed', a claim of pre-existence matching 1:1 and 12:41.

Verses 6–8

'I have revealed Your name' means he has shown who God is, as Father. The disciples have kept the word and received 'the words You gave Me'. Their knowledge is brief but real: they 'knew with certainty that I came from You'.

Verses 9–19

'I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world.' In this prayer his intercession is for his own, though he prays later that the world may believe (verses 21 and 23). The first request is protection, 'Holy Father, protect them by Your name', and the aim is that 'they may be one as We are one'. Verse 12 recalls that none was lost 'except the son of destruction', who is Judas (compare 6:70-71; 13:18; Acts 1:20). The same phrase is used in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 of the figure of lawlessness. Verse 13 gives joy as a purpose. Verse 15 asks 'not that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one'. Matthew 6:13 in the Lord's Prayer similarly asks for deliverance from the evil one. Verses 17 to 19 ask that they be sanctified 'by the truth; Your word is truth'. To sanctify is to set apart for God. Verse 18 gives the mission: 'As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them.' Verse 19, 'For them I sanctify Myself', uses the verb for consecrating a sacrifice. It reflects 10:36, where the Father 'consecrated' the Son and sent him. Jesus sets himself apart for the cross, so that they too may be set apart in truth.

Verses 20–23

He now prays 'also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message', which includes every later Christian. The request is that 'all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You'. The model of the church's unity is the Father and the Son. The goal is mission: 'so that the world may believe that You sent Me.' Verse 22, 'I have given them the glory You gave Me', and verse 23, 'perfectly united', complete the picture. The unity is meant to be visible enough for the world to see.

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.' This answers 14:3. The final verses return to the Father's name and love. Jesus has made the Father's name known and will keep doing so, 'so that the love You have for Me may be in them, and I in them'.

The prayer is a major source for the doctrine of the Trinity and the church. The Son prays to the Father and speaks of glory shared before creation (verses 5 and 24), so he is a distinct person from the Father and shares in his glory. The Father and the Son are one, and that oneness is the pattern of the church's life (verses 11 and 21). Their love is the ground of the believers' love (verse 26).

It also presents the doctrine of salvation as God's work from first to last. The Father gives people to the Son, the Son keeps them, and the Father keeps them in the Son's name (verses 6 to 12). Reformed readers draw from this the perseverance of the saints; other traditions read the same verses as comfort with the continuing need to remain. Sanctification is by the truth of God's word, and it is bound up with mission: they are set apart and sent. Finally, the prayer displays the Son's continuing intercession. Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 say that Christ lives to intercede for his people, and 1 John 2:1 calls him their advocate. John 17 is the example of what that intercession is like.

Jesus is presented as the pre-existent Son who shares the Father's glory (17:5, 24) and who has finished the work given to him (17:4). The prayer is also the fullest priestly picture of him in the Gospels. The Letter to the Hebrews develops it: he is the great high priest who has passed through the heavens (Hebrews 4:14), who offers himself (9:14) and who always lives to intercede (7:25). John's phrase 'for them I sanctify Myself' (17:19) joins priest and sacrifice, a combination Hebrews also makes. The Old Testament high priest consecrated himself and made atonement for himself, his household and the whole assembly on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). Some interpreters see an echo of this in the three circles of the prayer, himself, the eleven and the church. This is a suggestive pattern rather than something the text states.

Another echo is the high priest bearing the names of the tribes on his breastplate and shoulders into God's presence (Exodus 28:9-12, 29). Jesus carries his people in prayer into the Father's presence, though John does not draw the parallel. More firmly, the prayer fulfils his own words. He promised to ask the Father for the Advocate (14:16), he said that he would protect his own (10:28), and in 17:12 he points to Scripture's fulfilment in the loss of Judas.