The Greatest Prayer
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2022 · 27 February 2022
This is our final look at John 17. Let us look at the final three verses, 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.” The last portion of this prayer, is given in verse 24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me.” That is the promise to everyone who is redeemed, everyone who is justified, and everyone who is a Christ follower.
We will one day be in heaven with Him. That is the glorious end, the indescribable end to which all of us look for and long for. But in reality we live our lives earthbound, so it’s difficult for us to experience real anticipation for heaven. How often do you think about heaven? How often do you think about being free from sin? How often do you think about being holy?
Do you think about being in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ? David in Psalm 16:11 says, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Do you understand what Paul meant when he wrote, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is much better”? Do you understand the longing of his heart to be absent from the body and to be with the Lord?
As believers in Colossians 3:1 we have been told to, “keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” But I fear that we really don’t grasp the reality of what heaven is. Yes, it is a real place, but it is not so much defined as a place as it is as a person. David said, “In Your presence, in Your right hand, that’s where joy lies, that’s where pleasures are kept.”
We know something about heaven. But it’s easy to get caught up in descriptions of a place and not understand that the heart of heaven is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will never see God because God is invisible. We will never see the Holy Spirit because He is invisible. But we will see Christ. We will enter into love, joy, satisfaction and fulfillment that is beyond comprehension.
We actually should be living all the time in a full anticipation of heaven. Our Father is there, that’s how we pray: “Our Father who art in heaven.” Our fellow believers who have died are there, the generation of those who are enrolled in heaven, “the spirits of just men made perfect.” Our names are there, which means there’s a place that belongs to us; we have an entitlement.
In Luke 10:20 Jesus said, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” Our citizenship is there. Our inheritance is there - an inheritance which is “imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved in heaven for us.” Our holiness is there. Our perfection is there. We are sinless there. And our eternal reward is there.
Our Lord said in Matthew 5:12, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.” But most important, our Savior is there, standing at the right hand of God. According to Acts 7:56, when Stephen looked up, he saw the Savior standing at the right hand of God. He has gone there to prepare a place for us in the Father’s house. Heaven is all about being with Him; our Savior is there.
God’s purpose in salvation was to bring us to heaven. From eternity past, when He chose who would be in heaven, to eternity future, when all whom He chose will be in heaven, God is fulfilling His plan. Hebrews 2:10 says, “For it was fitting for God for whom are all things, and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering.”
God is satisfied, fulfilled and glorified in loving. God wanted many more sons to love. So the Father decided to create a universe. He allowed for sin and the Fall to put His mercy, grace, and salvation on display. He sent His own Son to die in the place of the sons, to redeem them from judgment, in order that He might have His justice satisfied and forgive their sin and bring them to glory.
The Lord Jesus also is the Great High Priest who prays us into glory, and that’s what’s going on in John 17. He not only lived for us a perfect life that could be imputed to our account; He not only died for us to provide the sacrifice for our sin; He not only rose for us to grant us life; but He ever-lives, making intercession for us, praying us into glory against all attacks, and all sin.
Jesus Christ stands at the right hand of God the Father on our behalf, as the attorney for our defense, praying us into glory. That is what Paul calls in Romans 5 his “much more” work. His death is a matter of hours on the cross, His resurrection after a matter of days. But His intercession goes on as long as time goes on. In John 17, we have the only example of His intercessory prayer to bring sons to glory.
Our Lord has two final requests of the Father. The first is a prayer for the regeneration of believers, that we would be one in the world, and that’s verses 21-23. Which means that they are one in the sense that they possess eternal life, that they may be one in the sense of regeneration in life shared by the Father and the Son. This is a prayer for internal life, the very life of God to all who believe.
Jesus is talking about making them one, in the sense that We are one: “I in them, You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity.” The original text here is what we call a perfect passive participle – “having been perfected,” an already accomplished act. “I am praying that they will already have been perfected while they are in the world.” He’s talking about us being redeemed; conversion, the unity of eternal life.
So the world can see what transformation takes place by the power of God through the gospel. We then are sent into the world to put that on display while we proclaim the gospel. He is praying for the salvation of those who believe, and that they would be granted the full eternal life that belongs to the triune God. Like 1 Corinthians 6:17, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”
It’ll show up in good works to which we have been foreordained (Ephesians 2:10). It’ll show up in the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.” Now there’s one final request. The second is, a prayer for glorification and that we might be one in heaven. Here is the ultimate: the Son prays for the Father to bring all His chosen sons to glory.
Listen to Paul in Colossians 1:3-5, “We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” Paul says, I’m like Christ; I have heard about your faith. And now I’m praying based on your hope for you to get to heaven.
Verse 24 says, “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.” He desires to be with us. He doesn’t want everybody; He just wants “those whom You have given Me.” What gives us value is not intrinsic to us. It is because we are the Father’s chosen love gifts to the Son, which is all that is bound up in that love.
It is because of the Father choosing us as a gift of the Father’s love. It is the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Father, and I get caught in the middle. Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
He’s certainly not talking about Jerusalem where He was when He prayed that. He’s not talking about Gethsemane where He is about to be in a few moments after the prayer. He is talking about heaven. It’s on His mind, back in verse 11: “I am no longer in the world; yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You.” Verse 13: “Now I come to You.” His desire is for eternal fellowship with us.
God has more love to give than what He gave His Son. He wants many sons. That’s why Ephesians 1:5 says, “God chose us to adopt us as sons.” We are sons of God, given as a collective bride to Christ. We are headed for heaven to be with Him.” Psalm 23, “We will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” He desires to be with us, because we are the Father’s love gifts to Him.
In 1 John 3:1 we read, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.” We have been so loved by the Father. We don’t deserved it. Purely on the basis of God’s choice and sovereignty, we have been given to Christ, we have become children of God. The world doesn’t know this. Why? John says, “Because it doesn’t appear what we will be.”
But we know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is.” Heaven is seeing Christ, being with Him. Now, if you’re a believer, you don’t totally love the world. “If you love the world,” 1 John 2 says, “the love of the Father is not in you.” One of my desires has been to fill your life with the realities of Christ, so that He draws out all your affections.
And if you love Christ most, then heaven will be fulfillment. Why does He want us to be with Him? Two reasons. Reason one, verse 24: “So that they may see My glory which You have given Me.” When He came down to earth, His glory was veiled. John 1:14 says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” We saw His glory revealed in grace and truth.
His true glory was veiled, but His attributes shone through. There was only a moment when they glimpsed His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, in Matthew 17, and they all literally fell over in just a glimpse of His unveiled glory. But now we only know that by faith. Paul had some visions, but they were blinding on the Damascus Road. But when we get to heaven, we will see Him as He is.
What do you think you’re going to see? Forget the nonsense in all the books written by people who didn’t go to heaven but said they did. When you see Him as He is, you will see Him the way He is described in Revelation 21. Now we can see just a part of heaven. The material is jasper. The city is pure gold like clear glass. There are precious stones adorning the foundation in verses 19-20.
And then there are brilliant pearls that reflect the colors of the rainbow. And the streets are transparent glass. You’re looking at the New Jerusalem, the capital city of the infinite heaven. It has no boundary, it has no end. “And there’s no temple,” verse 22, “for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it.”
You don’t need any light, “for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” There’s one light in infinite heaven and it’s Christ. All the peoples will walk by its light. And there will be no night.” In Revelation 22:3, “There’ll no longer be any curse; the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it...His bond-servants will serve Him; and they will see His face.”
Why does He want us to see this glory? Because I want them to see that You loved Me before the foundation of the world. How does that connect? All that glory given to Me to become the Lamp of an infinite heaven is an expression of the Father’s love to Me.” When you enter heaven and you see the glory of Christ, you will know how much the Father loved the Son.
We are going to see such glory radiating from Christ that He’s the only lamp in the infinite, eternal heaven forever. We are loved into heaven, so that we can see how much the Father loves the Son. We will spend forever praising and honoring our Savior and redeemer as we behold His glory. And, secondly, to know His love, not just to see that He is love, but to experience it.
Look at verses 25 and 26, “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.” Christ says, “I’m going to continue to make Your name known, and I’m going to gather in all your beloved sons.”
Why? Here’s the second purpose clause, “so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” I want them with Me to know My love, the love with which You love Me.” I want them here to experience My love. And, that incorporates that we would love Him back. His mediatorial work, to bring us to glory, is to bring us into that incomprehensible love; and He will get us there.
God in His immense essence is invisible to our eyes, and it will be so for eternity; we will never see Him. Also He is incomprehensible to our minds, for nothing can perfectly comprehend that which is infinite. The blessed and blessing sight which we shall see of God will always be the face of Christ. We will reflect that glory through all of heaven. Let us pray.