Jesus Prays For His Disciples (J65)

“Holy Father, protect those you gave me;
I am leaving the world, but they must stay;
May they be one, even as one are we;
It is for them, not the world, that I pray!
They have accepted the words you prescribed,
And are confident that I came from you;
Your word is truth; may they be sanctified
By it and me, to righteousness that’s true!
They are not of this world, who detests them;
I send them to the world, as you sent me;
Protect them from Satan, for they fight him;
Through them much glory shall you and I see!
I have kept them safe, except for the one
Doomed to death before the world was begun!

Scripture Quoted: John 17:6-8, 13-14 (NIV)
“ ‘I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They know with certainty that I came from you, and they believe that you sent me.’ “ …
“ ‘I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.’ “

Commentary on: John 17:6-19 (NIV)
Jesus continues praying in Gethsemane on Thursday night about midnight. He had prayed for Himself, and now He prays for the disciples He has won. The “world”, here and throughout the Bible, usually means the non-believers who are still condemned. It is the enemy, enslaved by Satan, and includes the cultures, religions, and governments that hate the name of Jesus. In the world are people that Jesus refers to as “belonging to you” who will accept and believe in Jesus as Lord. Jesus knew that soon He would be ascending to heaven, leaving the spread of the gospel in the hands of His followers. He was going to send the Holy Spirit to them; He would indwell each believer, so that they would always have God’s guidance and counsel.

Notice several important truths contained in Jesus’ prayer. The names of all persons who are going to accept Jesus Christ are known to God before the beginning of time. Jesus called them “yours” and thanked His Father for giving them to Him. This does not mean that God pre-selected believers; of every person who calls for Jesus, none will He reject. It is a matter of each person’s free will.

Jesus emphasized two conditions that each believer had to meet. Each had to believe sincerely that Jesus had been sent to earth by God; also, each must accept the words His Father had given for Him to say. The words include the fact that Jesus lives today, meaning He was resurrected from the dead. If you accept Jesus as coming from God, and His resurrection from the dead (see Romans 10:9), you, too, can be saved to everlasting life.

In His prayer Jesus acknowledged that God’s word, the Bible, is truth. He prayed for his followers to be “sanctified”—meaning to be made righteous—by God’s word and by Jesus Himself. One task of the Holy Spirit is to regenerate the life of each believer so that he or she can live a sinless life. In the epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul showed that no human being can live without sin; however, the Lord Jesus Christ will impute His sinless character to each believer. You can do nothing that will admit you to heaven except to give you life to Jesus as Lord. Accepting Jesus is not a "work"; it is an attitude.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but shall have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)