John 17 - CSB Spurgeon Study Bible

17:1 “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Jesus seems to pray here as if he already stood within the veil—not pleading in agony as he did in the garden of Gethsemane but speaking with that authority with which he is clothed now that his work on earth is done. The great design of Christ, throughout his life on earth, was to glorify the Father. He came to save his people, but that was not his first or his chief aim. It was his objective, through the salvation of myriads of the sons of men, to glorify the Father.

17:11-12 “Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.” Greatly we do need protecting. We have been redeemed, but we must still be protected. We have been regenerated, but we must be protected. We are pure in heart and hands, but we must be protected. We are made alive with the divine life. We have aspirations after the holiest things. Our love of Christ is intense, but we must be protected. The sunlight of heaven rests on our honored brow. We are near the gates of glory, but we must be protected. The same hand that bought us must protect us, and the same Father who has begotten us to a lively hope must get us to his eternal kingdom and glory. All glory be to him who is able to protect us from stumbling (Jd 24).

17:15 “I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” If we die, it is not by chance but because God takes us out of the world. Believers fall asleep in Jesus neither before nor after the predestined time. No disease or accident can cut short their lives, and it would not be possible to prolong their existence beyond the time appointed by the Lord. Our lives are entirely in the keeping of our loving Father. The prayer of Jesus recognizes his Father’s sovereignty, but we ourselves must also recognize that we are entirely in God’s hands. He can take us out of the world, or he can keep us in the world and preserve us from evil.

17:17 “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” In this wonderful prayer our Lord, as our great high priest, appears to enter into that perpetual office of intercession that he is now exercising at the right hand of the Father. What a friend we have in Jesus, so willing, so speedy to do for us all that we need. How invaluable must the blessing of sanctification be when our Lord, in the highest reach of his intercession, cries, “Sanctify them!” The prayer means, “Father, consecrate them to your own self. Let them be temples for your indwelling, instruments for your use.”