For Teaching

John 17: What the Passage Says

88 claims across 26 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What John 17 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

At the end of his last talk with his disciples, Jesus prays out loud to the Father. He says the hour has come, asks the Father to give him glory again, and reports that he has finished the work he was given. He then prays for the disciples the Father gave him (that they be kept safe, made holy by the truth, and be one) and prays the same for everyone who will later believe through their message.

Claim by Claim

17:1
- Jesus spoke these words.
- Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven.
- Jesus addressed God as Father.
- Jesus said the hour has come.
- Jesus asked the Father to glorify his Son.
- The purpose is that the Son may glorify the Father.
17:2
- The Father gave the Son authority over all flesh.
- The purpose of that authority is that the Son should give eternal life to all whom the Father has given him.
17:3
- Eternal life is that they know the Father.
- The Father is the only true God.
- Eternal life is that they know Jesus Christ.
- The Father sent Jesus Christ.
17:4
- Jesus glorified the Father on the earth.
- Jesus completed the work the Father gave him to do.
17:5
- Jesus asked the Father to glorify him in the Father's own presence.
- The glory Jesus asked for is the glory he had with the Father before the world existed.
17:6
- Jesus made the Father's name known to the men the Father gave him out of the world.
- Those men belonged to the Father.
- The Father gave them to Jesus.
- They have kept the Father's word.
17:7
- They now know that everything the Father has given Jesus comes from the Father.
17:8
- Jesus gave them the words the Father gave him.
- They received those words.
- They knew truly that Jesus came from the Father.
- They believed that the Father sent Jesus.
17:9
- Jesus prays for them.
- Jesus does not pray for the world.
- Jesus prays for those the Father has given him.
- They belong to the Father.
17:10
- All that belongs to Jesus belongs to the Father.
- All that belongs to the Father belongs to Jesus.
- Jesus has been glorified in them.
17:11
- Jesus is no longer in the world.
- They are in the world.
- Jesus is coming to the Father.
- Jesus addressed God as Holy Father.
- Jesus asked the Father to keep them in his name.
- Jesus said the Father had given them to him.
- The purpose is that they may be one, as the Father and Jesus are one.
17:12
- While Jesus was with them in the world, he kept them in the Father's name.
- Jesus guarded those the Father gave him.
- None of them is lost.
- The son of perdition is the exception, and he is lost.
- This happened so that the scripture might be fulfilled.
17:13
- Jesus is now coming to the Father.
- Jesus speaks these things while in the world.
- The purpose is that they may have his joy fulfilled in themselves.
17:14
- Jesus has given them the Father's word.
- The world has hated them.
- They are not of the world.
- Jesus is not of the world.
17:15
- Jesus does not ask that the Father take them out of the world.
- Jesus asks that the Father keep them from evil, which may mean evil itself or the evil one.
17:16
- They are not of the world.
- Jesus is not of the world.
17:17
- Jesus asked the Father to sanctify them in the truth.
- The Father's word is truth.
17:18
- The Father sent Jesus into the world.
- Jesus has sent them into the world.
17:19
- Jesus sanctifies himself for their sakes.
- The purpose is that they also may be sanctified in truth.
17:20
- Jesus does not pray for these alone.
- Jesus also prays for those who will believe in him through their word.
17:21
- Jesus asked that they all may be one.
- The Father is in Jesus.
- Jesus is in the Father.
- Jesus asked that they also may be in the Father and himself.
- The purpose is that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus.
17:22
- Jesus has given them the glory the Father gave him.
- The purpose is that they may be one, as the Father and Jesus are one.
17:23
- Jesus is in them.
- The Father is in Jesus.
- The purpose is that they may be made perfect in one.
- The purpose is that the world may know that the Father sent Jesus.
- The purpose is that the world may know that the Father has loved them as he has loved Jesus.
17:24
- Jesus addressed God as Father.
- Jesus wills that those the Father has given him be with him where he is.
- The purpose is that they may behold his glory.
- The Father gave Jesus that glory.
- The Father loved Jesus before the foundation of the world.
17:25
- Jesus addressed God as righteous Father.
- The world has not known the Father.
- Jesus has known the Father.
- These have known that the Father sent Jesus.
17:26
- Jesus has declared the Father's name to them.
- Jesus will declare it further.
- The purpose is that the love with which the Father loved Jesus may be in them.
- The purpose is that Jesus may be in them.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

17:1: "The hour is come": earlier in this Gospel Jesus repeatedly says his "hour" has not yet come (2:4, 7:30, 8:20). The word does not mean a point on a clock; it means the appointed moment of his arrest, death, and return to the Father. "Glorify" translates a Greek verb built on doxa, meaning weight, splendor, public honor; to glorify someone is to make their real worth visible to others. Lifting the eyes to heaven was the ordinary posture of Jewish prayer, standing with the head up and the eyes open, not bowed with eyes closed.
17:2: "All flesh" is a Hebrew idiom meaning all living human beings; it is not a contrast between body and soul. "Power" here translates a Greek word meaning rightful authority or delegated right, which is the sense "power" carried in 1611, rather than sheer force.
17:3: "Know" here has the sense it carries in Hebrew and Greek of knowing a person by direct acquaintance, as one knows a friend or a spouse, rather than knowing facts about someone. "Christ" is not a surname but a title: it is the Greek translation of the Hebrew mashiach, "anointed one."
17:4: "I have finished the work" uses a Greek verb meaning to bring something to its intended completion. It is from the same family as the word behind "made perfect" in verse 23 and is closely related to the cry "It is finished" at 19:30.
17:5: "Glorify thou me with thine own self" is stiff English for a simple idea: at your side, in your own presence.
17:6: "Thy name": in Hebrew usage a person's name stands for the person: their identity, their character, their reputation. To have "manifested thy name" means to have made God himself known, not to have taught a word to pronounce. "They have kept thy word" means they have held on to it and guarded it, the way one keeps a command or keeps watch, not merely that they remembered it.
17:9: "The world" (Greek kosmos) in this Gospel rarely means the planet or the natural creation. It usually means human society as it runs itself without reference to God, the order that, as 1:10 puts it, "knew him not." That is the sense it carries through the rest of this chapter. "I pray" translates an ordinary Greek verb meaning to ask or request something of someone; it is not a specialized religious term.
17:11: "Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me": the Greek here is read two ways. The better attested wording attaches the phrase "which thou hast given me" to the name, giving "keep them in your name, the name you have given me," which is how most modern translations take it. The manuscripts behind the King James attach it instead to the people, "those whom thou hast given me." "Keep" means guard or protect, not retain.
17:12: "Son of perdition" is a Hebrew style of expression in which "son of" plus a quality describes a person marked by that quality or headed for that end. "Perdition" is an old English word for ruin or destruction, and the Greek makes a play on words: none was lost except the son of lostness. The reference is to Judas. No particular scripture is named here; earlier, at 13:18, Jesus applies Psalm 41:9 to the betrayer, "He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me."
17:13: "Fulfilled" here means filled right up to the brim, not granted like a wish.
17:15: "From the evil": the Greek phrase is grammatically either masculine, "the evil one," meaning a personal adversary, or neuter, "evil" in general. The King James leaves the ambiguity open; the plain rendering has chosen one of the two readings.
17:17: "Sanctify" translates a Greek verb meaning to set apart for God's exclusive use. In Israel's worship it was the regular word for dedicating priests, vessels, and days to sacred service. It is about designation and ownership first, not primarily about making someone morally better.
17:19: "I sanctify myself" uses the same setting-apart word as verse 17. In the older scriptures that word is applied both to a priest consecrated for service and to an animal or gift set apart to be offered, so it carries the sound of both roles at once.
17:20: "Their word" means their message, what these men will go out and say about him. It does not refer to a written text; nothing of the New Testament existed yet.
17:23: "Made perfect in one": the Greek verb means brought to completion or wholeness, finished as intended. In 1611 English "perfect" meant complete or fully formed rather than morally flawless.
17:24: "I will that" is not a statement about the future. In 1611 "will" was an ordinary verb meaning to want, wish, or intend, so the sense is "my desire is that." "The foundation of the world" is a standard idiom for the founding or creation of the world, so "before the foundation of the world" means before anything was made.
17:25: "Righteous" means always doing what is right and always being fair.
17:26: "Declared" in 1611 English means made known or revealed, not formally announced. As in verse 6, "thy name" means everything God is.

Read John 17