Eternity Daily Bible Study - No. 312
Series: St. John=s Passion - Gospel of John chapters 12-21
Today=s verses: John 17:24-26
Today=s Topic: That They May be With Me Where I Am
Date: 6th August 2004
Write To The Author: John Edmiston – johned@aibi.ph   

John 17:24-26 MKJV  Father, I desire that those whom You have given Me, that they may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, for You have loved Me before the foundation of the world.  (25)  O righteous Father, indeed the world has not known You; but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent me.  (26)  And I made known to them Your name, and will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

Jesus wants us to be with Him, where He is. At the moment that is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father – and, spiritually speaking we are seated with Him there.

Ephesians 2:4-7 MKJV  But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us  (5)  (even when we were dead in sins) has made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved),  (6)  and has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,  (7)  so that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

We “go to be with Christ” when we die (Philippians 1:23) but we also are seated with Him now (Ephesians 2:6), and are already citizens of Heaven (Ephesians 2;19, Philippians 3:20) and Hebrews says that we have already come to the heavenly Zion and a city full of angels in festal array (Hebrews 12:22-24). Thus in one sense we already are part of Heaven. 

To be sure, while we are in this corruptible flesh we cannot fully inherit the Kingdom of God and the things of Heaven (1 Corinthians 15:50). However when we arrive there we will be welcomed as a citizen, with full rights, and sense that part of us has been there all along.

What will we do there? We will behold the eternal glory of the Lord! “Father, I desire that those whom You have given Me, that they may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, for You have loved Me before the foundation of the world.” 

This last phrase “for You have loved Me before the foundation of the world” means that Jesus is no ordinary man, nor is he just a prophet, He has been eternally in existence. He existed even before Abraham, the spiritual father of the Jews “before Abraham was, I am..” (John 8:56-58). John’s gospel declares the eternal existence of Jesus when it opens with “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

Colossians states it thus: Colossians 1:15-17 MKJV  (15)  who is the image of the invisible God, the First-born of all creation.  (16)  For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him.  (17)  And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.

So Jesus is not just a man, He is the eternally existent God! Neither did Jesus evolve out of Creation as a sort of high spiritual principle, rather He was before Creation and was involved in its very existence and design and purpose. 

Now Jesus relationship to the Father has always been one of mutual love “for You have loved Me before the foundation of the world.”  And Jesus wants His disciples to enter into a similar love relationship “And I made known to them Your name, and will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

The key to this love relationship is knowing God and being aware of His attributes, His works, His glory and His will and knowing this in a way that is personally true for you. The word knows God as a curse word or a concept or a source of “luck, or at best as a moral force or a Divine Watchmaker. The idea of a genuine, deep personal connection between the believer and God that orders the whole of life is absent from worldly thinking.

Jesus puts it this way: “John 17:25-26 MKJV  O righteous Father, indeed the world has not known You; but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent me.  (26)  And I made known to them Your name, and will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

God is righteous – which means that the wicked are excluded from relationship with Him. So the world does not know Him. But certain people do know God, Most preeminently Jesus Himself “but I have known You..” and those that believe that God sent Jesus into the world (v.25) To these Jesus reveals the Father – and especially His name. He does this so that believers may know God and be loved by God and come into an intimate and internal appreciation of Jesus “so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
 
Thus in these verses Jesus is praying for the development of a spiritual community of love founded on the deep knowledge of God and of His eternally existent Son, Jesus Christ.

As we finish John 17 we need to note what Jesus did NOT pray for the disciples. He did not pray for wealth or status or power or the achievement of personal comforts and ambitions.  He knew that they would die as martyrs on crosses. Jesus prayed for eternal things – which is why we still value this prayer so deeply. 

Amidst all the noise and clatter today we need to learn to pray selflessly, out of the depths of the cross and for the eternal things that truly matter. The New Testament prayers of Jesus and Paul and the early church were for things such as love and wisdom and boldness in preaching the gospel. How we would be transformed if we prayed that way today! 

Let us pray for the full and deep knowledge of God! Let us pray to be filled with love in all wisdom and discernment! Let us pray for the bold and powerful spread of the gospel in regions beyond! Now we have finished this chapter lets apply it and learn from it.

Blessings,

John Edmiston

Eternity DBS web-site: http://www.aibi.ph/eternity
To subscribe - send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org
To unsubscribe - send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-unsubscribe@strategicnetwork.org 

The Asian Internet Bible Institute offers free non-formal bible and ministry training and has many articles and resources. You can find it online at: http://www.aibi.ph/

To support John & Minda Edmiston and their missionary work in Asia go to: http://www.aibi.ph/aibi/donate.htm