Glorify Your Son
TRANSLATION
(1) After Jesus spoke these words, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, (2) for you have given him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all you have given him. (3) Now this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. (4) I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. (5) And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory which I had with you before the world began.
(6) “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. (7) Now they know that everything that you have given me comes from you, (8) for I gave them the words you gave me, and they received them. Now they know for certain that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.”
OBSERVATIONS
The final chapter of the Upper Room Discourse consists entirely of Jesus’ great intercessory prayer. Several words, repeated in this opening segment, help us grasp the essence of what the Son was asking of the Father. We find “word(s)” three times (vss. 1, 6, & 8), “Father” (vss. 1 & 5) and “Son” (vs. 1) twice, “glorify/glorified/glory” (five times in vss. 1, 4, & 5), and “eternal life” twice (vss. 2 & 3).
The most important word because of the number of repetitions was “give/gave/given” (found eight times in vss. 2, 4, 6, 7, & 8). As we consider how Jesus used “give,” we could summarize this segment in this way: “the Father gave the Son authority to give eternal life to all whom he had given to him by means of giving to them the words the Father had given him to give to them.” While a bit awkward and somewhat redundant, this sentence summarizes what Jesus Christ came to accomplish.
OUTLINE
I. The Father will glorify the Son because the Son has glorified the Father. (1-5)
II. The Son has given to those whom the Father has given him the words that give them life. (6-8)
IDEA STATEMENT
Because the Son has glorified the Father by giving the words of eternal life to those the Father has given him, the Father will glorify the Son throughout eternity.
APPLICATION
In this awe-inspiring chapter which shows us how our great High Priest continually intercedes for us with the Father, Jesus defined the concept of “eternal life.” We might have thought that such a definition would include a clear reference to the distinction between time and eternity because we, who are stuck in time, have such a hard time imagining what eternity will be like. Instead, Jesus defined eternal life in terms of the family relationship his incarnation made possible for us with God, the Father: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (vs. 3). This accords perfectly with Jesus’ statement given earlier in the Upper Room Discourse to Philip: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9).
We naturally yearn to know how eternity compares and contrasts with our present time-constrained existence. Instead, disregarding that desire, Jesus explained that eternal life is found in our relationship within the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This relationship is something we already begin to experience while still enmeshed in time. The more we meditate on the reality of being God’s children by faith in the Savior by the power of the Holy Spirit, the more we’ll understand the nature of the eternal life for which he saved us and into which we’ll enter fully once our earthly existence is completed.