(6) I have manifested (better, I manifested) thy name unto the men which thou gavest me (better, Thou hast given Me) out of the world.--This manifestation of the name of God is the making Him known as the only true God, and the glorifying Him on earth of John 17:3-4. For the special form in which the thought is expressed ("Thy name"), comp. Note on Matthew 6:9.
He thinks of the disciples as a body separated from the world (comp. Note on John 15:19), and as given to Him by the Father. (Comp. Note on John 6:37.)
Thine they were, and thou gavest (better, hast given) them me.--The meaning of these words is that they were morally prepared by the earlier manifestation of God for the fuller manifestation in Christ. They were God's in more than name, and therefore when Christ was revealed to them, they recognised Him of whom Moses and the prophets did speak. (Comp. John 1:37et seq., and especially Notes on John 5:46; John 6:37; John 8:47.)
And they have kept thy word.--Comp. Notes on John 8:51; John 14:23. He says here, "Thy word," not "My word," because the thought of these verses (John 17:6-8) is that they were originally and were still the Father's. They had been given to the Son, but this was only the completion of the revelation of the Father to them. Christ's word was that of the Father who sent Him. (Comp. Notes on John 7:16; John 12:48-49.)
(2) The prayer for his disciples. Verses 6-8. - Here the Divine Intercessor turns from himself, and from the approaching glory of his own mediatorial Person and position, to meditate, for the advantage of his disciples, on what had already been done for them, in them, to them. He clothes these meditations in the form of a direct address to the eternal God, and makes the series of facts on which he dwells the groundwork of the prayer which follows for his disciples, as representative of all who, like them, have come into relations with the Father through him. I manifested thy Name (ἐφανέρωσα here corresponds to ἐδόξασατελειώσας of Ver. 4. The force of φανέροω is different from ἀποκάλυπτω or ἐμφάνιζω; see on John 14:21). "I poured light upon, and thus made appreciable, apprehensible, thy Name." This Name was but partially and imperfectly understood before. The Name of God, the compendium of all his excellences, the essential features of his substantial Being which Christ has thus illuminated, is "the Father." "Whatsoever is made manifest is light." This light is the effulgence of the glory of the Father. By being and living on earth as Son of the Father, the Father was revealed. A full revelation of the Father involves and is involved in a manifestation of his own Sonship. The relation between the Father and the Son is one of infinite complacency and mutual affection, and the revelation of it demonstrates the fact of the eternal and essential love of the Divine Being. Thus the fact that "God is love" is manifested in the life of the Son of man, who was in himself a revelation of the Son - the Son of God. "I manifested thy Name," said Jesus - showing that he regarded his work of self-manifestation and God-revelation as virtually complete - to the men whom thou gavestme (cf. here John 6:44 and John 10:29). The Father's "giving" of the sons of men to Christ refers primarily to the men that were made susceptible of his special grace and revelations, who in seeing, saw, in hearing, heard, who, being drawn by inward monitions and Divine grace, and verily taught of God, came to Christ. Thus the Father gave them to Christ. The first monitions, susceptibilities of soul for Christ, which are found throughout the world and the Church, are God's way of giving men to Christ. The supremacy and monergy of grace is involved in the whole of this representation. Out of the world. They were in the world, but have been drawn out of it by the re-relation of the Father. Thine they were, and thou gavestthem me. So that the approach even to the Lord Jesus, the drawing to Christ and to the blessed revelation of the Father, was preceded by a previous condition - "Thine they were." Before the process of giving and drawing was begun, there was a sense in which they bore this great designation. Their position as creatures, or as Israelites, or as believers in the Old Testament manifestation of the Name, seems to fall short of the solemn assertion, "Thine they were." There were in every case spiritual predispositions. They were "of God" (John 8:47); "doers of the truth" (John 3:21); "willing to do the will of God" (John 7:17); they were of the truth (John 18:37; John 6:37, 44). All these expressions reveal an extraordinary relation of human souls to the Father, which is presupposed, and precedes the power over them and advantage to them of the grace of Christ. This may throw light on the work of grace in pre-Christian and non-Christian times and places. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thyΛόγον - the sum total of thy revelation or Word to them. They, these men, these special representative men, have been true to their light, and know of the doctrine whether it be of God. Their own quickened conscience has been strong enough to justify all my διδαχή, my ῤήματα, as Divine assurances. To Christ's eyes they have already come out of their fiery trial faithful and true. Now, at this point in their training, they have known, by a strong experience, by tasting, handling, seeing, trusting, by vivid flashes of light, by keen, clear intuition of the reality, that all things whatsoever which thou hast given me, are from thee. There is no tautology here; the ὥσα are the truths, the fresh revelations, the glorious communion of the Son of man with the Father, which he made known to the disciples - truths which have a worldwide bearing, and also a direct bearing upon themselves - are from thee (παρὰ σοῦ, not παρὰσοι). This obscure utterance, in its mystic vagueness, is clearly expounded in the next sentence, which is the echo of the grand assertion of John 16:30, which drew from the breaking heart its loud and sublime note of triumph. Because the words, the various sayings, utterances of Divine reality, which thou gavest to me, I have given to them. This blessed recital and exposition of his previous ministry is followed by the record of the effect, without which the whole Christian dispensation would that very night have come to an abrupt end. They believed that all Christ's words, works, energies, revelations, warnings, promises, like Christ himself, came from the eternal Father, therefore represented the supreme reality, more certain than demonstration, more vivid than intuition. They have rendered invincible assent to them as the Divine, absolute, unchangeable, irrevocable, eternal truth. In this overwhelming and satisfying conviction was laid the foundation of the Church of Christ. And they received them. This was a direct consequence of the Divine giving and of the Divine drawing. And they came to know - discerned, i.e. by personal experience - and truly that I came out from thee, and believed that thou didst send me. This knowledge and belief is the germ of the communication to others of the Divine manifestation; it is the Lord's reward for all the toil and sacrifice and Divine humiliation of his earthly ministry (John 16:30). The incarnate Word is recognized as such, the only begotten Son of the Father is known to be the Brightness of his glory. We see in this great utterance the true origin of the evangelist's own words (John 1:14-18; 1 John 1:1-5). This thought of Christ's has now become their voluntary, spontaneous, assured conviction. The inward reason corresponds with the objective facts.
17:6-10. Christ prays for those that are his. Thou gavest them me, as sheep to the shepherd, to be kept; as a patient to the physician, to be cured; as children to a tutor, to be taught: thus he will deliver up his charge. It is a great satisfaction to us, in our reliance upon Christ, that he, all he is and has, and all he said and did, all he is doing and will do, are of God. Christ offered this prayer for his people alone as believers; not for the world at large. Yet no one who desires to come to the Father, and is conscious that he is unworthy to come in his own name, need be discouraged by the Saviour's declaration, for he is both able and willing to save to the uttermost, all that come unto God by him. Earnest convictions and desires, are hopeful tokens of a work already wrought in a man; they begin to evidence that he has been chosen unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. They are thine; wilt thou not provide for thine own? Wilt thou not secure them? Observe the foundation on which this plea is grounded, All mine are thine, and thine are mine. This speaks the Father and Son to be one. All mine are thine. The Son owns none for his, that are not devoted to the service of the Father.
I have manifested thy name,.... Not the "Nomen Tetragrammaton", the name of four letters, the name "Jehovah", and which the Jews call "Shemhamphorash", and say is ineffable, and to be pronounced by Adonai; who also speak of other names, and say (i),
"truly the former wise men had holy names, which they received from the prophets, as the name of "seventy two" letters, and the name of "forty two" letters, and the name of "twelve" letters, and many other holy names; and by which they could do new signs and wonders in the world; but they did not make use of them, only in case of necessity, as in a time of persecution and distress.''
The name of twelve letters, Galatinus (k) pretends, is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the words for which in the Hebrew language consist of twelve letters; and that of forty two letters he makes to be this, the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, yet there are not three Gods, but one God; or thus, the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, three in one, one in three; the Hebrew words for which contain forty two letters; but the authorities by which he would support all this are insufficient. However, it is none of these names, nor any other scriptural ones, that are here meant; but either God himself, or the perfections of his nature, or his will of command, or rather his Gospel; unless Christ himself, or his name Jesus, God by the angel gave him, and in whose name there is salvation, and no other can be thought to be meant; and which, as it was manifested to his disciples, so it is to all whom God has chosen and given to Christ:
unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world; which is to be understood, not merely of their being given to him as apostles, nor of their being given and brought to him in the effectual calling only, but of an eternal act of God's in election, and in the covenant of grace; when these persons were given to Christ as his spouse, his spiritual seed and offspring, the sheep of his pasture, and his portion and inheritance, to be saved and preserved by him; which as it is an instance of love and care on God's part to give, and of grace and condescension on Christ's to receive, so of distinguishing goodness, to the persons given; since not all the world, but some of it, share in this favour:
thine they were, and thou gavest them me; the persons given were not the Father's merely by creation; for so others are his also; nor would they be peculiarly his, for they are the son's likewise in this sense; but they are his by electing grace, which is the peculiar act of the Father in Christ, and is unto salvation by him, through the sanctification of the Spirit; these are chosen to be his peculiar people, and given to Christ as such:
and they have kept thy word; the Gospel, not only in their memories, but in their hearts; and having publicly professed it, they defended it valiantly against the enemies of it, and kept it pure and incorrupt; this shows that the Gospel is meant by the name of God manifested to these persons.
(i) Shaare ora, fol. 1. 3. (k) De Arcan. Cathol. ver. l. 2. c. 11, 12.
He thinks of the disciples as a body separated from the world (comp. Note on John 15:19), and as given to Him by the Father. (Comp. Note on John 6:37.)
Thine they were, and thou gavest (better, hast given) them me.--The meaning of these words is that they were morally prepared by the earlier manifestation of God for the fuller manifestation in Christ. They were God's in more than name, and therefore when Christ was revealed to them, they recognised Him of whom Moses and the prophets did speak. (Comp. John 1:37 et seq., and especially Notes on John 5:46; John 6:37; John 8:47.)
And they have kept thy word.--Comp. Notes on John 8:51; John 14:23. He says here, "Thy word," not "My word," because the thought of these verses (John 17:6-8) is that they were originally and were still the Father's. They had been given to the Son, but this was only the completion of the revelation of the Father to them. Christ's word was that of the Father who sent Him. (Comp. Notes on John 7:16; John 12:48-49.)
(2) The prayer for his disciples. Verses 6-8. - Here the Divine Intercessor turns from himself, and from the approaching glory of his own mediatorial Person and position, to meditate, for the advantage of his disciples, on what had already been done for them, in them, to them. He clothes these meditations in the form of a direct address to the eternal God, and makes the series of facts on which he dwells the groundwork of the prayer which follows for his disciples, as representative of all who, like them, have come into relations with the Father through him. I manifested thy Name (ἐφανέρωσα here corresponds to ἐδόξασα τελειώσας of Ver. 4. The force of φανέροω is different from ἀποκάλυπτω or ἐμφάνιζω; see on John 14:21). "I poured light upon, and thus made appreciable, apprehensible, thy Name." This Name was but partially and imperfectly understood before. The Name of God, the compendium of all his excellences, the essential features of his substantial Being which Christ has thus illuminated, is "the Father." "Whatsoever is made manifest is light." This light is the effulgence of the glory of the Father. By being and living on earth as Son of the Father, the Father was revealed. A full revelation of the Father involves and is involved in a manifestation of his own Sonship. The relation between the Father and the Son is one of infinite complacency and mutual affection, and the revelation of it demonstrates the fact of the eternal and essential love of the Divine Being. Thus the fact that "God is love" is manifested in the life of the Son of man, who was in himself a revelation of the Son - the Son of God. "I manifested thy Name," said Jesus - showing that he regarded his work of self-manifestation and God-revelation as virtually complete - to the men whom thou gavest me (cf. here John 6:44 and John 10:29). The Father's "giving" of the sons of men to Christ refers primarily to the men that were made susceptible of his special grace and revelations, who in seeing, saw, in hearing, heard, who, being drawn by inward monitions and Divine grace, and verily taught of God, came to Christ. Thus the Father gave them to Christ. The first monitions, susceptibilities of soul for Christ, which are found throughout the world and the Church, are God's way of giving men to Christ. The supremacy and monergy of grace is involved in the whole of this representation. Out of the world. They were in the world, but have been drawn out of it by the re-relation of the Father. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me. So that the approach even to the Lord Jesus, the drawing to Christ and to the blessed revelation of the Father, was preceded by a previous condition - "Thine they were." Before the process of giving and drawing was begun, there was a sense in which they bore this great designation. Their position as creatures, or as Israelites, or as believers in the Old Testament manifestation of the Name, seems to fall short of the solemn assertion, "Thine they were." There were in every case spiritual predispositions. They were "of God" (John 8:47); "doers of the truth" (John 3:21); "willing to do the will of God" (John 7:17); they were of the truth (John 18:37; John 6:37, 44). All these expressions reveal an extraordinary relation of human souls to the Father, which is presupposed, and precedes the power over them and advantage to them of the grace of Christ. This may throw light on the work of grace in pre-Christian and non-Christian times and places. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy Λόγον - the sum total of thy revelation or Word to them. They, these men, these special representative men, have been true to their light, and know of the doctrine whether it be of God. Their own quickened conscience has been strong enough to justify all my διδαχή, my ῤήματα, as Divine assurances. To Christ's eyes they have already come out of their fiery trial faithful and true. Now, at this point in their training, they have known, by a strong experience, by tasting, handling, seeing, trusting, by vivid flashes of light, by keen, clear intuition of the reality, that all things whatsoever which thou hast given me, are from thee. There is no tautology here; the ὥσα are the truths, the fresh revelations, the glorious communion of the Son of man with the Father, which he made known to the disciples - truths which have a worldwide bearing, and also a direct bearing upon themselves - are from thee (παρὰ σοῦ, not παρὰ σοι). This obscure utterance, in its mystic vagueness, is clearly expounded in the next sentence, which is the echo of the grand assertion of John 16:30, which drew from the breaking heart its loud and sublime note of triumph. Because the words, the various sayings, utterances of Divine reality, which thou gavest to me, I have given to them. This blessed recital and exposition of his previous ministry is followed by the record of the effect, without which the whole Christian dispensation would that very night have come to an abrupt end. They believed that all Christ's words, works, energies, revelations, warnings, promises, like Christ himself, came from the eternal Father, therefore represented the supreme reality, more certain than demonstration, more vivid than intuition. They have rendered invincible assent to them as the Divine, absolute, unchangeable, irrevocable, eternal truth. In this overwhelming and satisfying conviction was laid the foundation of the Church of Christ. And they received them. This was a direct consequence of the Divine giving and of the Divine drawing. And they came to know - discerned, i.e. by personal experience - and truly that I came out from thee, and believed that thou didst send me. This knowledge and belief is the germ of the communication to others of the Divine manifestation; it is the Lord's reward for all the toil and sacrifice and Divine humiliation of his earthly ministry (John 16:30). The incarnate Word is recognized as such, the only begotten Son of the Father is known to be the Brightness of his glory. We see in this great utterance the true origin of the evangelist's own words (John 1:14-18; 1 John 1:1-5). This thought of Christ's has now become their voluntary, spontaneous, assured conviction. The inward reason corresponds with the objective facts.
"truly the former wise men had holy names, which they received from the prophets, as the name of "seventy two" letters, and the name of "forty two" letters, and the name of "twelve" letters, and many other holy names; and by which they could do new signs and wonders in the world; but they did not make use of them, only in case of necessity, as in a time of persecution and distress.''
The name of twelve letters, Galatinus (k) pretends, is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the words for which in the Hebrew language consist of twelve letters; and that of forty two letters he makes to be this, the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, yet there are not three Gods, but one God; or thus, the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, three in one, one in three; the Hebrew words for which contain forty two letters; but the authorities by which he would support all this are insufficient. However, it is none of these names, nor any other scriptural ones, that are here meant; but either God himself, or the perfections of his nature, or his will of command, or rather his Gospel; unless Christ himself, or his name Jesus, God by the angel gave him, and in whose name there is salvation, and no other can be thought to be meant; and which, as it was manifested to his disciples, so it is to all whom God has chosen and given to Christ:
unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world; which is to be understood, not merely of their being given to him as apostles, nor of their being given and brought to him in the effectual calling only, but of an eternal act of God's in election, and in the covenant of grace; when these persons were given to Christ as his spouse, his spiritual seed and offspring, the sheep of his pasture, and his portion and inheritance, to be saved and preserved by him; which as it is an instance of love and care on God's part to give, and of grace and condescension on Christ's to receive, so of distinguishing goodness, to the persons given; since not all the world, but some of it, share in this favour:
thine they were, and thou gavest them me; the persons given were not the Father's merely by creation; for so others are his also; nor would they be peculiarly his, for they are the son's likewise in this sense; but they are his by electing grace, which is the peculiar act of the Father in Christ, and is unto salvation by him, through the sanctification of the Spirit; these are chosen to be his peculiar people, and given to Christ as such:
and they have kept thy word; the Gospel, not only in their memories, but in their hearts; and having publicly professed it, they defended it valiantly against the enemies of it, and kept it pure and incorrupt; this shows that the Gospel is meant by the name of God manifested to these persons.
(i) Shaare ora, fol. 1. 3. (k) De Arcan. Cathol. ver. l. 2. c. 11, 12.