Jesus' Prayer Request
What Is Accomplished
“I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled… Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me…
And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
(John 17:6-12, 20-23, 26)
In the above verses, we see that God’s Son has a prayer request. Most of the time we do not think about Him and His needs. All we do is run to Jesus with our prayer requests, and we pray on the basis of reconciliation. But here Jesus has a prayer request, and the interesting thing is that we can help answer that request. In fact, we are the answer to that prayer. His request was not to obtain a reconciled people – He wanted to be one with us. This can be seen in reading the first set of verses out of John 17. This prayer has been referred to many times as Christ’s high-priestly intercessory prayer. Although that is true, there is more to understand concerning what is at work in the heart of the Lord as He is making His request before His Father.
If you look closely at the first part of His prayer, you can see that Jesus was happy and content with those who had joined Him and had already come out from the world. All of Jesus’ words in verses six through twelve are in the past tense, and have a sense of joy and accomplishment about them.
In verse eight He is talking about those He has already gathered: “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.” Notice specifically here that Jesus is stating things that have already been accomplished: “They have received my words, they have believed that You sent me.” Again, in verse fourteen, Jesus continues to express things that already have been accomplished, for He speaks in the past tense: “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” He is stating at that moment, “I have gathered a reconciled people. They are not of the world, they are reconciled.” In this sense, Jesus is declaring that He already has had a “reconciled” relationship with them, in that they have believed His words, followed Him, and been with Him for the last three years. In verse eleven, He tells the Father that they are already His and what is His is the Father’s. They are already no longer of the world, for they have received His Word and believed in the Son. None of the statements Jesus is making pertain to the prayer request He is about to make to the Father. Jesus’ prayer request is about to move well beyond reconciliation into the realm of oneness, intimacy, and love.
Let the Reconciled Be One
Beginning in verse 20, we find that He begins praying for something that is not yet accomplished. Though these disciples were now of God and had found the way, the Lord prays hard for something more that is yet on His heart. What is it that Jesus so deeply cares about that would cause Him to use His last words on earth to express it in prayer?
Listen carefully to His words! He is speaking as a man that desires to have a bride who can be one with Him. He is asking His Father for one that is with Him and that is of His same kind. He seeks a bride that loves Him for Himself, and not for what He can do in terms of reconciliation. But more than that, He wants someone He can lavish His love upon, and He is praying for it. He is sharing the very recesses of His heart with the Father. His words seem to say, “I am about to go away, and this is what I really want. I have something on my heart, and I want it badly. Father, I want what is reconciled to become one with me.” Just consider that the last part of John chapter 17 is nothing more than a heart cry and a prayer request from the Son of God who maybe has never asked for anything before in His life. This is the same Son who would not ask for ten thousand angels to deliver Him, who did not cry out for deliverance in the wilderness when the devil was tempting Him, though He had not eaten or drunk anything for forty days and forty nights.
May we truly hear the very heart of Jesus as He prays so that we can find out what it is that He would desire to have. What other prayer has He ever prayed where He laid out His desires so clearly? In a sense Jesus is saying, “Father, I have a request and since I do not ask very often, I am asking you, can we transform the reconciled ones into a Bride for me? Can we do it? Is it possible? Can they enter so much and so deeply into Us that it is just like what we had before the world, where I live in You and you live in Me?”
This was Jesus’ last real-time extended prayer. How precious to hear Him share His heart-request with His Father. This view is far better than the view that this is a High Priestly prayer for God to allow His people to be unified. Some of us may interpret it as Jesus wanting as many people as possible to join the great Christian club, and if you say yes at an altar, you are in. The Cross was not just the work of a benevolent God saving a lousy sinner; it was a huge leap beyond that. It was the love of God bringing us into Himself through oneness with His Son.
If we have been reconciled by His death, then we should move on into the understanding of what it means to be saved by His life (Romans 5:10). The Lord desires not just the reconciliation of sinners, but that they would also change and become partakers of His Life in oneness. In verse eleven, Jesus asks the Father to keep those who are reconciled and have already been given to Him, with the hope that they may be one: “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.” It is clear from this and other verses in this chapter of John that Jesus considers these disciples to have already become reconciled, so His prayer request is not about salvation from sin and hell. Having them enter into the oneness that Jesus had with the Father before the creation of the world has moved out of the realm of restoration and has granted reconciled man to enter into something he was never a part of before.
God Wants to Share His Glory
There is a widespread idea in the Church that God does not want to share His glory. With that in mind, look at verses 21 and 22: “That they may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest to me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” A man who has only experienced reconciliation is capable of breaking that relationship and usurping God’s glory, just as the devil did. But God knew that He could share His glory with those who entered into oneness of heart and nature. You can break with what you do, but not with who you are.
The Body of Christ needs to start approaching things from a bride point of view and as sons of God who are in the family. Too many make God so big and untouchable that, in our own sight, we are just peons with whom He would never share His glory. As long as we are just relating as reconciled men, then we have the potential of trying to steal God’s glory. I do not agree with people trying to steal the glory of God, but neither do I agree with people who refuse to enter into all that Jesus desires for them. Jesus said, “I want them to have the glory that I had with you. That is the glory I want them to have.”
You Cannot Divide One
What is it that makes this plan secure beyond all that reconciliation could accomplish? The answer to that is found in Jesus making us one with Himself. We are made aware of this in verse 23: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” A person who is reconciled is brought near and made closer to God than he ever was before, yet there still remains two who are now brought near to each other. How much more so does the closeness of union make us ONE and no longer two. To be made one is to be made so close that the one cannot be divided, for you cannot un-reconcile one, neither can you divide one.
Atoms are made up of three parts: protons, neutrons, and electrons. Atoms are so small, but everything that is created is made up of them. Like God is in the Trinity, atoms are also three that are one. Even though there appear to be three parts, if you try to divide and split those three apart, then you have a big problem — an atomic explosion. To make an atom bomb, you split an atom. God made the atom in such a way that what is one should not be divided. In reality, it cannot be. He has communicated to us through nature that even the very smallest thing if it is three that are one, should never be divided. If you do try to divide it and take control over it, then it could destroy your world. Although this is just a shadow, it speaks of how serious it is to God that what is one is meant to forever abide as one. We have been made one with Jesus!
In John 17, Jesus says that even as God is one and has always been one, so He is bringing us into Himself as one. He is not making us God, but He desired that we become the body of Christ, who is one with God and hidden with Christ in God (cf. Col. 3:3). In this union of oneness, He was making us the Bride of Christ. Ephesians 1:6 declares that we are not just accepted by the Beloved, which would be on the basis of reconciliation but accepted “IN the Beloved” as one with Him. To really see this would revolutionize Christianity. Rather than always trying to get acceptance from God, we would know that we are accepted in Him, not just by Him. We would know that the concept of being “in Him” is not a reference to a distant location outside of ourselves, but a union that has brought us into oneness. We are the Lamb’s bride, we are one with Him, and there is no difference in the Father’s mind between Him and you.
Come Away to Oneness
Notice that all of this action of bringing us into oneness is deeply tied to the motivation of love on God’s part: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” Without comprehending our union into Christ, we might misinterpret the Shulamite’s words in the Song of Solomon to be saying, “I am my beloved’s and He is mine and His banner over us"... is getting along. In our frustration with the divisions among churches, we may ask, “Can’t we all just get along?” Sadly, the answer is that we cannot and will not get along unless we become one, and by that begin to function as the Body of Christ.
We are all the Bride of Christ now, but we do not all presently act like it. We act like we are a bunch of individuals trying to achieve righteousness on our own. We act like we are individuals who have never been joined together in Christ because we have no understanding of the fullness of what the resurrection accomplished. The basis upon which so many believers comprehend the Cross has not proceeded past reconciliation and so we never enter into the “much more” that is ours through oneness. If we are unaware of the full scope of what the Cross has brought us into, then we cannot hear the heart cry of Jesus no matter how many times we read John seventeen. His prayer request will remain a mystery that is locked up and closed to the carnal mind. We will be unable to perceive the greatness of what He has brought us into if we first do not lose the awareness of ourselves in the earth as separate beings. We are now “in Christ” with all the fullness of meaning that this entails.
Jesus is saying unto His bride, “Come away, My beloved” (SoS 2:10). Have you ever wondered where we are supposed to come away to, and thought, “Where are we going?” In the physical realm, we are not going anywhere, but in our hearts and identity, we are coming away to Him as we accept that we are one with Him. Can we not hear His heart as He cries out in prayer, “Oh Father, let the reconciled become one” (Jn. 17:11)?
