“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
John 17:22-23
If you’re familiar with Jesus’ prayer in John 17 you may have skated past these verses many times before. But notice that word “glory.” What is the glory God the Father gave to God the Son? It’s what Jesus prayed for back in verse one. We’ve seen in John 17 a number of gifts the Father gave the Son: authority (v. 2), eternal life (v. 2), people (v. 2), work (v. 3), eternal glory (v. 5), a Name (v. 6), words (v. 8), worship from people (v. 10), love (v. 24).
Here is the key Bible passage on the relationship between God the Father and God the Son:
“The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.'”
Psalm 2:7 (quoted in Heb. 1:5, 5:5 and Acts 13:33)
The Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. embraced the Christology that the Lord Jesus was “begotten not made.” They refuted Arius and his claim of Jesus that “there was a time when he was not.” So when John 3:16 calls Jesus “his only begotten Son,” it is not a reference to the birth or origin of Jesus at some point in the distant past but to the nature of the Son’s relationship to God the Father.
Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father.
This is a beautiful revelation of the nature of God’s Triune inter-relationship. There is a glory God the Father has always been giving to God the Son, and always receiving that glory back, through the person of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Again, this does not mean the Spirit was created at some point in eternity past. This has always been the relationship among the persons of the Trinity, who exist outside of time. What it means is that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united. And that is no surprise since we worship one God not three Gods (Deut. 6:4-6).
Now come back to John 17. “The glory that you have given me I have given to them.”
This is a mind blowing statement. The infinite glory of the eternally begotten Son of God… in us?
Well, of course. What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us? The fullness of God (Eph. 3:15-21) is in us as individual followers of Jesus and as local church gatherings. This is why we are commanded to “be filled” (Eph. 5:18) as we learn to abide in Christ (John 15:5) and thereby bear much fruit.
“To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”
Colossians 1:27-28
Christ in us. This is our blessed hope, that in Christ we will one day be glorified (Rom. 8:29-30). But it is also our present reality, that Christ is in us with the fullness of His glory, goodness, power, love, life, peace and everything else. To what end? “…That they may be one even as we are one.”
Jesus has given us everything in Himself for the sake of our unity with one another, which will amplify our ministry in a dark and divided world.
The one word summary for the glory of the Godhead placed in us is love. God is love. This is why God presented Himself primarily as a Father-Son relationship. Family love is the closest we can come in human terms to understanding divine love. But it’s just a glimpse. Just the tiniest taste.
But as we join with Jesus in praying His desires, as we grow in love for Him and for one another, as we live out the unity for which Jesus died and for which He lives, the world looks on and comes to know that Jesus really did come from God the Father and the good news of the Gospel really is the good news.
Study and pray John 17 today.
“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17:26