The upper room discourse ends the way it began, in prayer — but this time Jesus prays out loud, in front of the eleven, so that everything He asks of the Father becomes something they overhear rather than something reported to them secondhand. He prays first for Himself, and in doing so makes the plainest statement anywhere in this Gospel that He existed, glorified, before the world itself was made. He prays for the eleven men listening. And then, astonishingly, He prays for every person who would ever come to believe because of their testimony — which means He is praying, by name in intention if not in words, for whoever is reading this sentence now.
A study in John 17 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 26 min read
Glorify Thy Son
“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
John 17:1-3
“With strong, hopeful words the Saviour ended His instruction. Then He poured out the burden of His soul in prayer for His disciples.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 680
Every prayer up to this point in the Gospels has been private, overheard by no one or reported secondhand by the disciples themselves. This one He speaks aloud, deliberately, with eleven men standing close enough to hear every word.
“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
John 17:4-5
“Had He appeared with the glory that was His with the Father before the world was, we could not have endured the light of His presence. That we might behold it and not be destroyed, the manifestation of His glory was shrouded. His divinity was veiled with humanity,—the invisible glory in the visible human form.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 23
This one sentence answers, from Christ’s own lips, the question this whole series set out to explore back in its very first chapter. He is not asking for a glory He is about to receive for the first time. He is asking to be given back the glory He had before Genesis 1:1 was ever written — the same eternal, uncreated splendor this Gospel opened by identifying Him with, now spoken of as a simple, personal fact He assumes His Father already understands.
Keep Through Thine Own Name Those Whom Thou Hast Given Me
“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. … 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.”
John 17:6, 8-9
The prayer narrows here, on purpose, to the eleven men in the room — not because He does not care about the rest of the world, but because it is these men He is about to leave behind to carry it forward.
“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.”
John 17:11-12
“‘I am glorified in them. 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.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 680
“None of them is lost, but the son of perdition” is spoken with Judas already gone from the room, on his way to the priests at that very moment — a quiet acknowledgment, spoken to the Father rather than to the ten who remain, of exactly what has just happened.
“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. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”
John 17:14-15
He does not ask for an easier assignment. He asks for protection strong enough to survive the hard one He already knows is waiting for them.
That They All May Be One
“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
John 17:17-19
Sanctification here is not self-improvement. It is a sending — the same mission that brought Christ into the world is handed directly to the men He is about to leave in it.
“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.”
John 17:20-21
“‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be 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.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 680
The moment the prayer stops being only about the eleven and starts being about “them also which shall believe on Me through their word” is the moment it becomes a prayer for every reader of this study, two thousand years and a translated Gospel later.
“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.”
John 17:22-23
Unity among believers is not framed here as a nice ideal for church committees. It is presented as evidence — the single visible proof the watching world is given that the Father really did send the Son.
That They May Behold My Glory
“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”
John 17:24
“Thus in the language of one who has divine authority, Christ gives His elect church into the Father’s arms. As a consecrated high priest He intercedes for His people. As a faithful shepherd He gathers His flock under the shadow of the Almighty, in the strong and sure refuge. For Him there waits the last battle with Satan, and He goes forth to meet it.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 680
“Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” places the Father’s love for the Son before creation itself — not a love that began at Bethlehem, but one with no beginning at all, the same eternity this whole Gospel has been circling back to since its first verse.
“O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent 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 17:25-26
The prayer ends on love passed down a chain — the Father’s love for the Son becoming, through the Son, love placed inside every believer who was ever given to Him. When the last word is spoken, Jesus rises from the table and, for the last time as a free man, walks out toward a garden called Gethsemane.
