THE GLORY OF CHRIST (1)
THE GLORY OF CHRIST (1)
JT The gospel of John affords us more perhaps as to this great subject than any of the other gospels, We shall find that the subject of the glory of Christ is carefully sub-divided in this gospel. The verses read afford instruction as to the highest feature of the subject: Christ become Man, seen first as an only-begotten with a father, and then this point enlarged on in chapter 17 in His own words in speaking to His Father as to His glory which the Father should accord Him. He had finished the work that the Father gave Him to do, and He asks for the glory that He had shared along with the Father before the world was. Then He speaks of the glory which had been given Him which He gave to the disciples, and, in verse 24, of the glory which further had been given Him which they were to see. He links this last glory with the love that the Father had for Him before the world was. I thought we might touch the highest features of this subject first, and then work out to its effect in testimony here. Chapter 17 touches a state of deity which taxes us as to our spirituality and understanding.
JWD Do you understand the love wherewith the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world to refer to His deity, or is it anticipative of manhood?
JT I think it is what existed then; He was not in manhood then. It is not presented as anticipative love, it is spoken of as existent. “I desire”, He says, “that where I am they also may be with me ... for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. It is a love that was existent then, and of course He [p. 72] was not Man then. It was a question of love between two Persons. It seems as if it is brought in in the passage read to detain us before the great fact of deity, so far as we may apprehend it. It is indeed apprehended in love.
AR It would appear to be a glory existent between Themselves; other glories are in the main relative, in view of our being brought into them.
JT Yes; we are brought into the glory of verse 22 because it says, “the glory which thou hast given me I have given them”. But verse 24 is what the saints are to see; and the Lord adding that the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world is clearly to detain us in that great position in so far as we can be detained in the presence of Deity, for “He that abides in love abides in God, and God in him”, 1 John 4:16. We are not far from Deity in that position of love.
SP Is it suggestive that this gospel, being the last written, should deal with this thought of glory? No other gospel develops it as John develops it. Does it not definitely fit in with our day?
JT Quite so. The glory of man would find its way into the assembly in the latter days. Royalty was coming into the assembly; the emperor himself presided in the councils; so it was needful that the saints should be established in the glory of Christ.
SJH Are we to understand that the glory to be beheld in verse 24 is the same as the glory asked for in verse 5?
JT That I am not prepared to say. It is a glory given in verse 24, and in verse 5 it is a glory asked for that had been His before. It is not presented as a communicated or given glory; it is a glory to which He is reinstated: “and now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”. It is not communicated afresh; it is not something attaching to Him as [p. 73] given to Him as man, but one returned to Him. Only in the position of dependence, He asks the Father to glorify Him “with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”; but whether we can behold that I am not prepared to say. There is certainly a strong link between it and the glory in verse 24, a given glory which we behold.
JWD Is not the thought of glory something that shines out and is manifested?
JT Yes, it is.
JWD Is this glory “before the world was” in verse 5 attached to inscrutability, or would it be the glory connected with “Let us make man” Genesis 1:26 in reference to creation, God coming out? What I had in mind was that in some sense, just prior to God’s coming out in revelation, you get the idea, “Let us make man”. There is counsel, and yet still in deity. Is that not so?
JT The question is whether it is definable. “Before the world was” is indefinite and we can hardly add anything. We might say, Did the angels, or anyone see it? The Scriptures do not say. It is what “I had along with thee before the world was”; it was glory, whoever saw it. Why can divine Persons not speak of glory between Themselves?
AR Why did He say this before His disciples in relation to the Father?
JT I think He would have us linked with Deity in some sense. It is in love. What God is, is essentially beyond us; but then love is of God, and it evidently existed in the divine Persons before incarnation — even before creation. So I think the link is in love; the understanding is in love.
EP How far would the expression in Ephesians go: “Chosen us in him before the world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love”, Ephesians 1:41. I was thinking of the expression. “in love”.
[p. 74] JT That was clearly counsel. It was not yet existent because it referred to creatures; it was contemplated. But this glory existed then, the glory of verse 5; the other is just contemplated. What would you remark further?
EP I was just thinking of the expression, “in love”; I was wondering if there would be any connection with this.
JT “In love” is counsel. It is actual now, but it is in creatures. It is a question of the work of God, showing, as I was remarking, that the link with the Deity in eternity is love. But this glory of verse 5 does not include the saints, nor does it suggest that they see it. I do not say they do not, but it is a glory by itself not connected with purpose; it existed then whoever saw it. Divine Persons can evidently speak of glory between Themselves — “the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”.
AB Would it show to us that there have been no reservations in regard to love? As you have already called attention to, “He that abides in love abides in God, and God in him”, 1 John 4:16.
JT Yes, quite so. I was just saying that seems to be the link as to us with what is in God. The “with” in verse 5, you will observe, is according to the note, “’along with’ as to presence and place”. It is a preposition of that kind.
JWD Do you understand that to be connected with His manhood, that as in manhood He desires to take His place in Deity?
JT I think so, I think He has gone back on those terms. The link is in His manhood; but is it a glory that He can return to as Man within our range? That is the point, because it says that he “has also ascended up above all the heavens”, Ephesians 4:10 and we do not go beyond all the heavens. It is a question of Deity.
JWD He was always in inscrutable Deity, but [p. 75] in that He requested this as Man, would not that involve some relation to the saints?
JT It is a question as to whether we are entitled to say that. You see the preposition is “along with” as to presence and place. He has gone beyond all the heavens. Heaven is created; but what is beyond them is not created. We take it to be the uncreated realm which belongs to Deity, and we have to leave it there.
JWD I was just wondering as to the request underlying it. In Ephesians it is in purpose; but here He puts it on the basis of a request.
JT But it is a remarkable request. He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it; and now glorify me, thou Father”, (”thou” is remarkable), “along with” (as to presence and place) “thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”. It is the same existent glory; it is the same glory He is going into now. To say we can follow that, although it is in manhood, is the question, because He has gone beyond the heavens.
WL Do you think the Lord brought this in to guard His deity before His disciples?
JT Yes. In verse 24, “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” has the same force. That is, there is a guard but it is at the same time a precious thought. It is mentioned in verse 5, but then in verse 24 the idea of love is in it, which seems to be the link as to it in us.
CAM Does it not help to recognize that with divine Persons as such, everything is an eternal now, all is present? The very use of the preposition is for our sake.
JT “Before Abraham was, I am” John 8:58 — that is the eternal now, as you say; the Person has no beginning or end; it is Deity. The preposition helps us. It is a [p. 76] preposition of dignity or equality, one Person over against the Other on equal terms; that is the idea of it. It is what the Lord had along with the Father. Your child may share something with you, but that is not the thought; this is a preposition of equal dignity.
AR The Father and the Son are not on equality.
JT Not if you look at the relationship; but if you look at the Persons you have equal dignity. “Glorify thy Son” is spoken in the third person; but in verse 5, “Glorify me, thou Father”, it is Persons of equal dignity. The Lord when He comes down to verse 5 is taking the ground of equality although in sonship. There is personal equality in the use of the pronoun.
JWD What would you say this great thought is intended to produce in us?
JT It tends to make us worshipful, a very important matter. Chapter 17 is the proper place to bring it in because the Lord is evidently speaking to His Father in the hearing of His disciples. Although He is Son, and recognises it, yet the Person is understood to be there, and He has it before Him that He is to be glorified by the Father along with the Father, with the glory He had with Him before the world was.
EP Is the thought in this chapter that the Lord is here free from limitations? In the preceding chapters, 13 to 16, in speaking to the disciples would not certain limitations be imposed upon Him on account of their condition?
JT Quite so; He implies that in certain remarks. But there are no limitations when He is speaking to the Father. And in verse 5 He speaks to the Father on equal personal terms, and He is such a One as can be reinstated in a glory which He shared along with the Father before the world was. In chapter 1 we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1:1. “With God” would be personal identification, and then “the Word was God” — what question can there be about it? If we bear that in mind throughout the gospel we understand verse 5.
SJH Is not the title “Word” something that can be conveyed or communicated?
JT That alluded to His position here in manhood; that is where the title came out. The communication was when He was here, an appellation which belongs to Him in manhood, but which is used to identify Him in Deity — not that “the Word” covers Deity at all — it is an appellation that belongs to Him as communicating the mind of God here on earth.
AR John would have the greatest reverence in his soul as he took account of the Lord Jesus in these verses. He says “we have contemplated his glory” and yet he speaks on another occasion of being on His breast and in His bosom.
JT That gives a clue to what is in mind. Spirituality and spiritual intelligence are taxed as looking into this matter. It requires a state of love to look into it.
JWD There will always be something about that great Person that will remind us of His deity, and we shall be able to recognize it.
JT It is all there. He says expressly that no one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son reveals Him; and no one knows the Son but the Father. There is no revelation of the Son at all as to His Person; that should always be in our minds. We are in the presence of a Person who is inscrutable eternally.
JTJr Philippians 2:6 opens with, “who, subsisting in the form of God”, Philippians 2:6 subsisting in it; and then the direct allusion to His manhood follows.
[p. 78] JT That is good, it helps the mind. He was “in the form of God”, Philippians 2:6. The word form is substantial, not simply external; He was substantially God. The account is that He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”; Philippians 2:7 the word ‘form’ is the same, He is substantially a bondman too. It is not external, it is real, and this form of God was a real thing. He says as expressing that, “no one knows the Son but the Father”; Matthew 11:27 not the word ‘son’, but the Person of the Son.
JTJr As in the form of God it is a glory which seems to contract itself when He becomes a bondman.
JT As we proceed in the readings we shall see the contraction or compression in such a Person from the form of God which is infinitely beyond any creature thought. Even in that second form, as bondman, no one knows Him. He is inscrutable, yet He can contract Himself or compress Himself into such smallness that we can take it in. That is what we shall come to in the subsequent consideration of the subject.
Ques In chapter 1:14 it says, “We have contemplated”. Is there the full idea of compression there?
JT Quite so: “an only-begotten with a father”; it is in compression but still there is glory attaching to it, that there is One there in manhood able to be with the Father as an only-begotten. He is able to take that place and shine in it.
HB Would Thomas’s confession in John 20 have any bearing, in saying, “My Lord and my God”? John 20:28.
JT He was impressed with deity there: I suppose it is an allusion to the remnant by and by, how they will come in to apprehend Christ as their Lord and their God. Psalm 45 says, “He is thy Lord, and worship thou him”, Psalm 45:[p. 79] 11.
AR Would chapter 1:14 be what can be taken in? “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father)”.
JT Quite so, it can be taken in. It is not the glory of deity, that is, it is not what He was before the world was, with the Father. It is what He is as Man down here as coming within their range. That is really the beginning of the gospel, the thirteen verses that precede this are prefatory. This is the beginning of the gospel from our side.
JWD In what circumstances would this glory of an only-begotten be seen? Would it be our Lord’s attitude Godward, as man, or what they generally saw in Him?
JT What they saw particularly at certain times; for instance this 17th chapter might enter into that, and other such occasions not recorded when He would be alone with the Father. We are told in Luke 11 that He was in a certain place praying; they would see that. I am alluding to that only as to what they see. John does not say they contemplated His glory in deity as God; he says, “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. That is where we begin; that is the position of christianity.
WL Would this chapter 17 be part of the contemplating?
JT Quite so. What better illustration could you have than this, His feelings expressed in His visage, because we are told He lifted up His eyes.
JH John’s disciples said, “where abidest thou?” and the Lord said, “Come and see”, John 1:38,39. What is involved in that?
JT That fits in with what we are saying; we begin with what we see. “We have contemplated his glory”, and so on. John does not say, ‘I, Peter and James, and all the others’,
[p. 80] but it is understood who the we are here. It is the beginning of christianity, and the apostles are authoritative persons selected by the Lord to see Him in this way.
JWD Would you say that this glory is entirely unique to Him, or in some sense might we be brought into it?
JT Well, it is unique of course. The words are descriptive: the word ‘father’ here is not the Father; that is, it is not formally the Son with the Father. It is ‘’as of an only-begotten with a father”; it is descriptive and what any person from Adam down would understand. It is the idea of a family; ‘’as of an only-begotten with a father” is intelligible to every person.
CAM As I understand it, God has brought things about in a finite way in order that love might be known, and these relationships are all that love may be known in the greatest possible way.
JT That is the force of this passage. It comes within the range and understanding of every person because every person belongs in some sense to a family. So in testimony it is intelligible to the human race — glory with a father. ‘Only-begotten’ would be a son, a masculine thought. Have you something to remark further?
CAM God gets infinite delight in what He has brought into finite conditions because of the essential greatness of what He has brought in.
JT That is important, because no creature could afford this joy to his father that is contemplated here. No creature could be this to God — an only-begotten with a father; the Personality of Christ in manhood underlies the joy the Father has in Him, but still it is in mind that we can be brought into it in a relative way.
WL Is it intended to be attractive to us?
JT [p. 81] It is not the first-born here, although the first-born is spoken of too; it is an only one. It is to intensify the thought.
JWD Is it to enter into our worship, as in the hymn, ‘And to know the blessed secret of His preciousness to Thee’? (277:6).
JT Quite so.
NB What would you say as to Proverbs 8:30, “Then I was by him his nursling, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him”? Proverbs 8:30.
JT Well, of course that is wisdom personified. I should not like to bring it into this. It is anticipative. It is wisdom personified, and Jehovah in that chapter is Christ Himself. Everything was made by Him and wisdom was of Him. It is not easy to get it into our minds perhaps, but anyone who would look at Proverbs 8 would see that Jehovah is the Operator, and John 1 says everything was made by Christ. Wisdom is contemplated as a person, so we have to bear in mind that if it is wisdom as in Christ, it would be Christ as Man anticipatively: but it was there when Christ was making the worlds. “Daily his delight”, Proverbs 8:30 and “my delights were with the sons of men”, Proverbs 8:31, would bring out what wisdom is.
AHP Would it be right to say that John 17 would give us to understand that lying behind every revealed or acquired glory was the glory that belonged to divine Persons? There may be much that we share and behold and enjoy as with Christ, but what was in the mind of divine Persons is peculiar to Themselves.
JT We must always remember that. I think it is important to keep in mind that John begins with Christ’s glory. Our minds should be imbued with it in considering all that follows.
AB Would the import of this verse be seen in connection with the Word as “with God”, but now become flesh, come into expression?
JT [p. 82] That is good. It does not say the Word became man; the word used is ‘flesh’, it is a condition intelligible to us, that is, within the creature’s range; this is a condition which Christ took in incarnation.
JST How does that link on with chapter 17: “The men whom thou gavest me”? Is it a mature thought?
JT Chapter 17 is mature throughout. This is the beginning, that “we have contemplated his glory, the glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. That contemplates Christ with God as man, not only a first-born, but an only-begotten.
JWD Does this thought of man convey the thought of substantiality?
JT It does. That is, “the Word became flesh” is substantial. It is a practical expression, as John says in his epistle: “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; that which we contemplated, and our hands handled, concerning the word of life”, 1 John 1:1. That is what is contemplated in christianity; the disciples begin to see that.
JWD Is not the idea of a man the basic thought? It is men that are sons, not children.
JT So that chapter 17 is “the men whom thou gavest me”, showing they have come up to this now. In chapter 16 the Lord contemplates a man born into the world. The word ‘child’ is used first as to travail but the product is a man. You can see what the link is in the Lord’s mind; and in chapter 17 those whom the Father gave Him were men through that ordeal. We come into manhood through pressure.
WB Why is the term “Holy Father” used?
JT We were referring to verse 6: “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”; that is the first indication. You can understand that holiness would be essential; it is touched on [p. 83] later.
Ques Would the sufferings include Gethsemane and the cross?
JT That is what He is speaking of in chapter 16; manhood is developed in chapter 16 out of pressure. The metaphor used is universally known, that of a child born, but then it is a man born into the world. That is the result the Lord has in mind. He does not continue the idea of a child; it is the product through pressure. He applies it to them: they were men through pressure.
EP Do you get this idea of substantiality in glory? I was thinking of Paul’s expression, “eternal weight of glory”, 2 Corinthians 4:17.
JT Quite so. Weight certainly involves substantiality.
Ques You mentioned in your prayer the complicated affairs around us. Is that intended of God to make men of us?
JT I think so. I think the whole position today is that we may come into the truth that is ministered to us. I never knew of a period of greater pressure than at present, both in the assembly and in the nations; I am sure it is to effect manhood in the saints. Pressure is the way to it. That is what the Lord speaks of in chapter 16 in the metaphor He uses; He speaks of a man born into the world, and then He says, verse 20, “But the world shall rejoice; and ye will be grieved, but your grief shall be turned to joy”, John 16:20. And then after the metaphor, He goes on to say in verse 22, “Ye now therefore have grief; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one takes from you”, John 16:22. That is what He has in mind, that they would come into actual manhood through the pressure, and He would crown it by appearing to them. There will be the joy of His presence after they have been through it. The Lord called Peter and all of them one after the other, and the pressure was consequent; but this peculiar [p. 84] pressure in Gethsemane is what He has in mind here, that they would come out of that, and that they would see Him, be equal to it, and rejoice.
AHP From chapter 13 the Lord’s service amongst the disciples is an ascending one; His serving them as washing their feet finds its climax in chapter 16 in the thought of manhood. Would that enter into chapter 17, in the Lord speaking to the Father?
JT It does clearly. Verse 6 comes after the preliminary great thoughts of eternal life connected with Him as seen in effecting things for the Father. Then He comes down to what He has in mind, “the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”. It does not say ‘out of heaven’, although that in a certain sense is true also, but “out of the world”.
AHP We are made to feel in reading John 17 the need of spiritual manhood to understand it.
JT It is not simply that you are in the relation of son, but it is the quality of man through pressure; and I believe the present state of things is intended for that, that brethren through this pressure should come into practical manhood — what God would make us in suffering excruciating things at times, but God is making us so that we are given to Christ under these circumstances.
CAM When you think of the great idea of pressure, I suppose the thought of love is in mind. It would not be primarily that God has an adversary or that the question of good and evil has to be solved. Would you not say it was necessary in order that love should be understood in its emotional character?
JT Quite so. But the question is how much can we stand under pressure, because the first thought with us in pressure is to be relieved. But it has to be. You are not to be relieved, because it is a question of what is being made. The pressure of what is [p. 85] being made in the earth, who can see? Geologists know a good deal, no doubt, but it suggests what is developed. Diamonds and other precious stones are undoubtedly the outcome of heat and pressure. Creation affords abundant illustrations of what God is doing spiritually, and if He is putting us into tight places it is to form us, getting us to throw off what is inflationary and take on what is reduceable — what can be reduced and at the same time refined.
CAM God can get what is infinite out of what is finite, but is it not remarkable that the metaphor used in this matter of pressure in John 16 involves the expectancy which makes us hope and know that it is worth while?
JT “The joy”! It is the great thought from eternity, “My delights were with the sons of men”, Proverbs 8:31. They are not created; they are developed. There is the family thought; there is the creative and the progenitive. “Sons of men” is what wisdom delighted in.
Rem “I and the lad will go yonder and worship”, Genesis 22:5. The lad would possibly suggest this side of it; he had to learn what the wood was and the binding.
JT That is very good. Abraham and the lad went to the mount appointed, and on the way they talked about one thing and another but the lad enquired about the wood. He was in the enquiring attitude; he was in the making attitude, for he saw there was a Iamb required for a burnt offering, and he was bound to that altar. Joseph too, when he was taken by his brothers — what anxiety of soul! It refers to it afterwards as the anguish of his soul. It says too, that the iron entered into his soul. But see what kind of a man we get out of it! “God sent me before you to preserve life”, Genesis 45:5. So God is aiming at getting men, those who can do things, and through whom God can do things.
SP Does God take account of pressure that comes on us as a result of breakdown, to work out [p. 86] His own ends? With David it does not say, ‘Thou art the one’, but Nathan says, “Thou art the man!” 2 Samuel 12:7. Then the child dies, and David lies on the earth and refuses to take food, and refuses to be comforted. Perhaps Jehovah will have mercy! Then the next thing is that Solomon comes in.
JT That is a very good and instructive line of thought. David was a man. God took him up as a man. His name signified that he was loved from the outset, and his qualities are given immediately. He was a man when he entered into this terrible conduct, and now, is he to be less? No, he is to be more a man than ever. So Psalm 51 is not written immediately, it is when he is able to say, “I have sinned”. He said that to Nathan, and that is the real man. Psalm 51 is the product of a real man, and all generations these hundreds of years have been provided with expression for their manhood from that psalm.
Ques Would the product be seen in relation to the joy that you are referring to in chapter 16? It does not read that she does not have trouble, but “she no longer remembers the trouble, on account of the joy that a man has been born into the world”, John 16:21.
JT Quite so.
EP Is that seen in Hannah’s song? She celebrates the man child. She says, “The pillars of the earth are Jehovah’s, and he hath set the world upon them”, 1 Samuel 2:8. Do you think that was through pressure?
JT Hannah and Mary the mother of our Lord should be linked together in that way to bring out manhood in a sister. They are remarkable women because they bring out the qualities of manhood. They were both women of pressure so that Mary the mother of our Lord is able to say, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour”, Luke 1:46,47. It shows she is able to [p. 87] discriminate as to what is within her; she is a product of Romans 7.
JWD Is that idea connected with the acacia wood underlying the gold in the tabernacle system?
JT That is right; but at Marah I think the thing is that it was shown: “Jehovah shewed” Moses wood (Exodus 15). It does not say it was acacia wood. Why did not Moses see it? It was there but he had to be shown this peculiar character of manhood coming out in Christ. He had to be shown, and I believe that would underlie the whole tabernacle system — it is manhood, the boards are standing up. And they are big boards; you would wonder what kind of acacia trees could be had in the wilderness to provide boards a cubit and a half broad.
JST Is it instructive in John 17 that the men received the word? I was thinking of the acacia wood. The Lord says, “I am glorified in them”.
JT I am glad you bring that up because we want to see christianity here. We must find persons who have “received”. So Paul says, “There are gods many, and lords many, yet to us there is one God, the Father”, 1 Corinthians 8:5. “To us”; we must get the us: that is the people that have received. So John develops that in saying, “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God”, John 1:12,13. That is the idea.
JTJr Was that showing itself in Israel when David began to come to the fore even while Saul was still king? That element began to be seen in the people receiving David.
JH It was seen in a peculiar position of pressure; there was a murderous man by him all the time. David was in the house and Saul took a javelin to smite him against the wall. That is where manhood is developed; it was there but it was developed.
[p. 88] Psalm 51 should be contemplated as to how we come out under pressure, and indeed all the psalms. David may have been the editor of all the books of the Psalms, but the first book is all David’s, you might say.
JTJr He says, “In pressure thou hast enlarged me”, Psalm 4:1. Would you say that in the pressure God was having His way with him?
JT Very good, that is Psalm 4.
HB Is there something analogous in the book of Malachi? You get the refiner’s fire, the fuller’s lye, and God sparing a man as a father spares a son.
JT Very good. “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau”, Malachi 1:3. Genesis showed a man and God says, I love him. That is in the last book of the Old Testament.
AR 1 Chronicles 12 gives a list of men who came to David in the pressure. Would John 16 show those who were with the Lord in His pressure too?
JT Just so.
JWD What was your thought about the glory that can be shared and the glory that can be contemplated?
JT Chapter 17 as a whole — this range of glory — gives the Lord’s own words in speaking to His Father in presence of His disciples. He tells His Father what eternal life is. Why does He do that? “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (verse 3). He is telling it to His Father in their hearing. That is the moral side; that is really the basis of the chapter — eternal life. In it we are really delivered from idolatry in the true man in Christ; and we are then ready for all these glories that follow. Eternal life is deliverance; it is an out of the world state of things. I am thus able to take in these glories that belong to another world. So He goes on to the very top of things in verse 5, and [p. 89] then comes down to the men, and tells His Father what kind of men they are (verses 6 - 12). And then He goes on in verse 22 to say, “And the glory which thou hast given me I have given them”; He is telling this to the Father. If He were telling it to Peter, Peter might say, ‘What did you give us, Lord?’. His Father would understand that in His attitude of mind towards His apostles He was clothing them with sonship, and they were the recipients of it. In verse 24 it is the glory that they are to see, and He links it with love, saying the Father loved Him before the world was.
EP In this thought of the Lord’s speaking to His Father with these desires in His heart, is there any kindred thought in what Paul says, “He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”? Would Paul’s desires for the saints be included in that?
JT Quite so. “He is able to keep” them; the Lord has kept the men, you mean? How much you can put into all this, into these words of the Lord to His Father! Now if we are on Ephesian ground we can enter into this in some little way. We are ready for it, to fill it out in our measure.
AR Say a word on verses 22 and 23, “That they may be perfected into one”. What is your thought as to that?
JT “And that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me”. It is clearly our position in testimony there but it is great elevation. It is the testimony issuing out of the persons who are glorified with the glory He gave them. It lifts the testimony up to a high level. The consequence is that the world knows “that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me”. It seems to me that the Lord is bringing them to that in the understanding of sonship and the testimony that flows out of it.
AR Verse 21 says, “That they may be all one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”. Is the idea that the thing is working out reciprocally amongst us, and clothing each one of us with this glory?
JT One of the most difficult things I think is to look at the saints rightly. Brethren come together: how do I look at them? How do I clothe them in my mind? That is the point. The glory He gave Christ in testimony God gives us.
AB “The words” — divine communications — would bear upon that. It says, “They have received them”.
JT Very important — receiving His words, the words He had given them. What you receive gives character to you, so that christianity is verified in persons who have received it. And then verse 24 is the climax to all this, the glory that is seen in Christ, and the link with the past eternity before the foundation of the world. The ‘foundation’ being brought in in verse 24 shows that the Lord is coming down to concrete facts. It is the thing concretely as having a foundation; you can build where there is a foundation.
Rem You spoke about “the Word was with God”, John 1:1. We are not able to look back into that condition, but verse 24 would link us on with it in love.
JT We are set up in that way in love in relation to Deity.