Jesus' Prayer As Our High Priest

John 17:1-5

This is known as Jesus' High Priestly Prayer. We will begin to study this prayer.

(v. 1) Father, the hour has come.

It's time.

Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.

"Lift Me up and exalt Me, so that I will be able to lift You up and exalt You, Father."

(v. 2) For You granted Him (Me) authority over all people

"All people" means everybody, every person who has ever or will ever live. He has ownership authority over all of us, both by Creation and by purchase with His Blood on Calvary.

that He (I) might give eternal life to all those You have given Him (Me).

With the ownership authority Jesus has over us all, the Father can now give Him anyone He wants to give Him out of all people. So everyone God the Father chooses out of all people everywhere will come to Him, will seek Him out, will search for the Truth which is Jesus, and each one will realize and understand that He is their Savior, Who took their death on the Cross for them. And by this faith, this trusting in Him, they will receive that real life, the spiritual eternal life to live forever.

(v.3) Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent.

Jesus said that real life is spiritual (John 6:63) because life itself comes from God and He is Spirit. So to "know" God Himself is to believe and trust Him to be Who He says He is and to do what He says He has done and will do. The way we can learn about Him is through language, communication, words; and His Word is the body of Truth that He has communicated to us, the Bible. 

(v.4) I have brought You glory on Earth by finishing the work You gave Me to do.

Jesus has given the Father all the credit for everything He said and did while He walked on this Earth: teaching people Who God is, and how God has designed this world to work. And proving that He spoke the Truth by doing all the miracles He did, demonstrating His authority over all Creation to manipulate matter and beings in ways that do not conform to the way things always normally work. 

(V. 5) And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began.

Now that Jesus is going back to Heaven, He will again enjoy the state of Being that the Triune God had before He began to create. This is the original Glory with which God has been and will be eternally glorified.

Jesus left this Glory for a time to come to this Earth as a Human Man, in order to accomplish the legal requirements on our behalf to enable us to spend eternity with Him. This was excruciatingly painful for Him (see especially Luke 22:41-44, saying the same prayer 3 specific times), but His love for us had Him do it anyway. That's how much He loves us.

We will continue to study through this chapter.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!