Our Lord now turned from praying for Himself to praying for His disciples whom He thought of as a special group separate from the world (6: 37-40, 15:19) and given Him as a gift by the Father. To this small group He declared he manifested the Father’s name.
This revelation of God’s name was given to make Him known in His essence and being as the only true God. Jesus had already declared earlier that He was the ‘way, the truth and the life – the only way to the Father (John 14: 6) He had said that because of His oneness with the Father in essence (10: 30) whoever had seen Him had seen the Father. The Son had accordingly manifested or revealed the Father in His Person. He had also made Him known to men by His work in glorifying Him on the earth by the unswerving obedience that eventuated in His completing the redemptive mission the Father had given Him.
The Father’s name is an expression indicating God’s whole character and attitude toward fallen humanity. In this gospel God is portrayed as full of grace and wonderful love. Grace came by Jesus Christ and love for sinners was that which shone most splendidly thought Jesus Christ.
“I am praying for them… I am not praying for the world.” His own prayer for His enemies on the cross (Luke 23: 34) as well as His injunction to His disciples for those who despitefully used them (Matt 5: 44) indicates this passage does not refer to His general practice of prayer.
The Lord’s high priestly by its very nature and circumstances of its utterance is applicably only to His disciples. He was about to leave them so solemnly commended them to the Father’s care. In commending the disciples to the Father, Jesus mentioned the reason He had for doing so. They had been the Father’s before they were given to Him. This gift, however, only made them more fully the Father’s and vice versa. Indeed Jesus declared the absolute community of property in all things between Father and Son.
“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.” (15-17) He wanted His disciples to be set apart and make righteous by the Word of God; in one sense this had already happened. In once sense this had already happened, in another sense they were being sanctified.
The mission of Jesus is here clearly stated in His prayer.” As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
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