Glory
0 Amens
John 17:1-10 “Glory”
Every kid wants to know what God is like. What does He do with His time? Is He grumpy or happy? Is He ever lonely? And how does this whole Trinity thing work, anyway? Let’s see.
Glory between the Father and Jesus
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
We have two snapshots here. One is sometime before Jesus is about to die on the cross. The other is from long before there was anything. No earth, people, oxygen, not even a single atom. And the same thing is happening! Let’s see the same theme of God’s glory being seen between Father and Son in both snapshots.
1. The hour has come. The term hour has been used throughout John’s gospel and it always refers to the time of Jesus’ execution, resurrection, victory over sin, and glorification…and its here. Jesus is about to be glorified by the Father and Jesus will return the favor. In Jesus’ execution and in the victory He’d gain, the Father and Son are celebrating their respective excellence. It was the reason Jesus came. His objective was to glorify the Father and the Father aimed to glorify the Son.
Eternal Life. Jesus’ death on the cross was one of the primary means God would be glorified. Jesus was given authority by the Father to give eternal life to those the Father gave Him (2). This is how Jesus and the Father declare each other’s excellence in this violent moment. Jesus came to bring eternal life to the rebellious world. He God had given Him some people to redeem and when He did it, He glorified the Father (4).
What is eternal life? Verse 3 tells us it is knowing the one true God! We know Him through Jesus who was sent by the Father. I love this. The whole point to why God chose to redeem those He gave Jesus was so that they would live through knowing God (and not just any god…but the One true one). Apparently knowing God is that good. This has to be so confusing to lots of us out there today. If all Jesus has meant to you up until this point is cleaning up your life and being somewhat moral and attending church some, this has to be baffling. And a lot of it is our fault since that is the message you hear most of the time. Instead, Jesus is saying that He is going to die to bring you life so that you can know God and in so doing, He glorifies the Father…who glorifies Jesus!
2. Before the world existed (verse 5). This is the second snapshot. If the first is sometime before the event that would allow millions to know God…Jesus’ death and resurrection, the second is before anything was made. What was God doing? The Father and Son were glorifying each other. Jesus is about to return to the kind of glory He’s always known forever in the past. He will declare the excellence of the Father in His death, but He will only know honor and glory when He returns to Him. In other words, the rebelliousness and hatred of His creation isn’t happening there.
Just so you know, this shoots holes in the idea that God was lonely and decided to create us. No. He has been perfectly content for all of eternity past. He sees His own greatness in the other persons of the Trinity. The Son enjoys the Father. The Father enjoys the Son. They both enjoy the Spirit the proceeds from their union. The Spirit enjoys both. They each see their own excellence fully in the other.
In short, that sort of glorification in each of the 3 persons of the Trinity that happened before creation, is happening at the key moment in all of human history. Pressing this even further, God is enjoying and glorifying God at every turn of human history and when this world in its present form wears out, He will still be doing it. In a sense, we do grieve God when we dishonor Him through disbelief and disobedience, but in another sense, nothing can take away His full satisfaction of Himself in the other persons of the Trinity. Even if you don’t understand all of this, it should at least stretch your conception of God to someone much more independent, powerful, and happy than you previously thought.
Glory and Us
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
We’ve had plenty already that would be a lot to digest. If this text didn’t reference us a bit, it would cause us to be awestruck by the greatness of God and how somehow He is one God and somehow He is three persons and how all three are fully God and all three fully enjoy the other. But this passage keeps going.
There are some people that God gave Jesus out of the world (6, 9). As is the pattern, the Father gives to the Son and the Son gives to the people (that the Father has given Him!). In regards to the truth, the Father gave words to the Son, who then has given them to His followers. The result of these words is belief. God gave authority to the Son to bring eternal life through His life, death, and resurrection. All that the Son says, it is the Father that is speaking it. You can be confident that you can know what God is like by seeing what Jesus was like.
I want to drive home verses 9-10. Notice how Jesus is now glorified in His followers. Consider this for a minute. There is a sense in which God loves the world, but glorifying Jesus is a special grace is given to His followers. Jesus says He’s not praying for everyone, but for His present and future followers (later in the passage), He says He will be glorified in them. This means that the kind of enjoyment of God that God has known forever has now been extended to followers of Jesus. Let that sink in. We are included in the Triune God’s perfect enjoyment of Himself. Our lives now are intended to glorify Him in a way similar to how Jesus glorified the Father and how the Father glorified the Son at cross. How? Jesus’ cross and resurrection are given to us and when our lives demonstrate the transformation bought there, glory is given to this one God.
How do Christians glorify a God that is giving and receiving glory to and from Himself forever?
Our catechism states “by loving Him and doing His commands?” That’s right. We love and enjoy Him and this enjoyment of God causes obedience. John Piper is really helpful at this point. He makes a slight modification in the old
It is important to say that we don’t make God greater by our enjoyment of Him (like a microscope), but we recognize His already existing greatness (like a telescope). He is bigger than you thought and the greatest thing about being a Christian is we get to gaze at Him now and forever.
We are such practical people. We recognize that we need help with finances or marriage or decision making and we want a bottom line message about how we can do better. And the Bible has some things like that. But it’s not the main story. Here is a principle here at Redeemer: Want to do something to help your marriage, handling of money, or decision making? Yes, do our practical workshops, read books and anything else that’s helpful. But none of those things will change your values. At Redeemer we want you to be transformed by the grace of Jesus and to see the superior worth of Jesus. When we see that, then we can apply practical principles to a changed heart! 1 Cor 10:31 says, So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. We can learn to enjoy physical things here on earth by enjoying God through them. This will generate a constant attitude of gratefulness and perspective in us. This is a lot of what the new heavens and new earth will be like and we get to try it out here right now!
Our application today is nothing specific, but it’s everything specific. I’m not going to mention any one area because its one area. Consider Jesus’ prayer and desire for us: to have eternal life and to believe in Him and to glorify Him. If you are a follower of Jesus, this is your one thing to do. If you drink deeply from Him, it will soak into your values and change everything. If you aren’t, be transformed and believe in Him. Let His work on the cross be applied to you so you can live and enjoy Him forever. Let’s sing of God’s greatness together!
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