Jesus Prays for His Own Whom He Calls

John 17:1-26 

Jesus Prays that We May Know 

1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Jesus Prays for His Chosen Ones

6 "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. 8 For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.

9 "I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. 10 And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

Jesus Prays for All Who Are Called 

20 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

24 "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

Jesus prayed looking heavenward to His Father that He as the Son would be glorified in the suffering and death set before Him (Hebrews 12:2) with joy that He might give glory to the Father in this work of atonement for the salvation of all given already to Him.  He dedined this eternal life as knowing the Father as the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent to do His work for us (John 6:29) to believe in for imputed righteousness (Romans 3:22, 1 Corinthians 1:30) and life to be lived with Him now and into eternity.  Jesus finished this work on the cross and up from the grave when He arose from death to life as a guarantee of our own resurrection in Him at the final judgment in that righteousness alone and not our own.  Yes, he prayed for the followers who were with Him then in the beginning but also for all in the ages to follow who would take up their own cross (Luke 9:23) of death to self and to live for Him who called them from before time began (2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:1-3).  Jesus prayed for those whom He had chosen from the beginning who were not yet following Him as well.  We who are His heart His word and receive Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world by His word and work in which we believe by faith through repentance from the death of sin and life given in Him.  We believe in Him as sent by God His Father to redeem us from the curse of the Law which reveals our sin inherited from Adam and continued by our own corrupt actions every waking moment.  He prays for us and not for the world, the vessels prepared for destruction (Romans 9:22) who are not drawn to Himself as called and chosen vessels of His great undeserved grace (Romans 9:23).  

He therefore prayed for our union with Christ and our permanence of that calling which can never be taken away by Him or our sin nor forfeited by us.  Once we are truly saved we are always saved because we have always been chosen to be saved from the moment He willed to create us and bring us into this world.  This is our hope as revealed in this prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He prayed further for our pro from the roaring lion who is our adversary, the evil one who is the great serpent set against Christ and all who have His testimony from the Garden of Eden until the final rede of the purchase of our souls in the day of the final judgment when that one will be forever cast down into unending torment all who follow the liar instead of the Lord of truth and life who covers our sin with His blood as foreshadowed in the sacrificed skins of animals covering the sin (Genesis 3:21) of our ancestors, Adam and Eve.  We now are not of this world just as He is from heaven above, sealed for that destiny as our destination promised by His word and proven by His work on earth to defeat death once and forever.  We are also sanctified by this truth, made holy according to His word of the gospel of our deliverance from sin’s punishment which was nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14) and remains dead there as surely as we live from the life risen out of death through faith in Christ and His work (John 5:24).  Jesus therefore ended this prayer by lifting up all those in the future who would come through repentance and faith in his sacrifice for their salvation by believing and receiving (John 1:12) Him as well.  He brings all He calls into union with Christ to be made perfect in His righteousness and to display that glory through the words and testimony of the gospel words of this life that never ends with Him.  The Father displays His work in Christ in whom we stand by grace and declare this love to the world that those who are called and chosen are drawn to know him as the only way to God, the truth of all God’s Word, and the life given unearned and undeserved by the Father’s great love.  This is the true God and eternal life (John 17:3, 1 John 5:11, 20) in Jesus Christ as He calls His own out of the world to Himself!