The Prayer He Prayed for You (1 of 2)

John 17 — The High Priestly Prayer and What It Means That Jesus Intercedes for Every Believer

“I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me.”

— John 17:20–21 (NET)

The Most Extraordinary Prayer in the Bible

John 17 is not an easy chapter to read carefully. It demands a different kind of attention than the chapters that precede it. In John 13 through 16, Jesus is speaking to His disciples. In John 17, He is speaking to the Father. The disciples — and we, as readers — are overhearing the Son talk to the Father about the people He is about to die for.

Every line of this prayer is weighted with the full knowledge of the cross. Jesus is praying it in the hours before His arrest. He knows what is coming. He knows Judas has already gone. He knows Peter will deny Him. He knows all eleven will scatter. And He prays for them anyway — not despite what they are about to do but with complete foreknowledge of it. This is not the prayer of a man surprised by his disciples’ failures. It is the prayer of a King making intercession for the people who are about to abandon Him.

Read it slowly. Read it as if you are in the room. Because in the most important sense, you are. John 17:20 puts you there explicitly: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” That is you. Before you existed, before you believed, before you were born, the eternal Son of God prayed for you by category in this prayer. You are not on the margins of John 17. You are the subject of a significant portion of it.

The First Movement: The Son and the Father (John 17:1–5)

The prayer opens with Jesus praying for Himself — which is not selfishness but the recognition that the completion of His mission is the precondition for everything else in the prayer.

“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you – just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. Now this is eternal life – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”

— John 17:1–3 (NET)

Two things in these opening verses deserve the disciple’s full attention.

First: Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him so that He can glorify the Father. The cross — which is the glorification Jesus is requesting — is simultaneously the Son’s greatest act of obedience, the Father’s greatest act of love, and the Spirit’s greatest act of power (in the resurrection). The glorification of the Son is the instrument of the glorification of the Father because the cross reveals the character of God in its fullest and most undeniable form. At the cross, the justice of God and the mercy of God are not in tension. They are unified. Sin is punished fully. Sinners are forgiven fully. Both at once. In the same act.

Second: John 17:3 defines eternal life in terms that Part Four of this volume will develop fully: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Eternal life is not primarily a destination. It is a relationship of knowing. Present tense. Available now. Growing throughout the disciple’s life on earth and deepening infinitely beyond it. The whole of Part Four turns on this verse. Receive it here in its prayer context: this is what Jesus asked the Father to give you. Not merely heaven. Knowing. Intimacy. Union.

The Second Movement: Praying for the Eleven (John 17:6–19)

The second movement of the High Priestly Prayer is Jesus interceding specifically for His eleven disciples. He describes them to the Father in terms that the disciples themselves would have found simultaneously humbling and staggering:

• “They were yours; you gave them to me.” (v. 6) — The disciples did not choose Jesus first. The Father gave them to the Son. Their discipleship was the Father’s gift before it was their decision.
• “They have obeyed your word.” (v. 6) — Said of eleven men who were about to scatter, including the one who would deny three times. Jesus describes them not by their imminent failure but by their overall orientation of obedience. This is how the King sees His disciples.
• “All I have is yours, and all you have is mine.” (v. 10) — The mutual possession of Father and Son includes the disciples. They are not on the margins of the divine relationship. They are inside it.
• “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” (v. 15) — This is the spiritual warfare verse in John 17. Jesus does not ask the Father to remove His disciples from the battle. He asks the Father to protect them in it.

That final prayer deserves particular attention for the disciple in spiritual warfare.

Jesus did not pray for your evacuation. He prayed for your protection. He did not ask the Father to remove you from the front lines. He asked the Father to guard you while you are on them. The disciple who is looking for an exit from the battle — who has allowed rapture theology or cultural exhaustion or personal suffering to produce a posture of withdrawal and waiting — is waiting for something Jesus did not pray for. He prayed for you to stay in the world. He prayed for you to be protected there. Not the same thing as evacuation. Not even close.

He also prays: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” (v. 17) Sanctification — the progressive transformation of the disciple into the image of Christ — happens through the truth. Not primarily through suffering, though suffering participates. Not primarily through community, though community matters. Through the truth: the Word of God, received, believed, obeyed. The disciple who neglects Scripture is not merely missing information. He is blocking the primary instrument Jesus prayed the Father would use to sanctify him.

The Third Movement: Praying for Every Future Believer (John 17:20–26)

John 17:20 is the verse that places you inside this prayer.

“I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one – I in them and you in me – that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.”

— John 17:20–23 (NET)