John 17

Now when we are bespangled with holiness, our lives are walking Bibles: this is according to God's will, and it pleases him. 2. We please God when we do the Work that he sets us about (John 17:4). I have finished the work which you gave me to do, namely my mediatory work.

Branch 5. Christ being exalted at God's right hand, this is for the comfort of believers, that they shall one day be exalted to that place of glory where he is: Christ's exaltation is our exaltation. Christ has prayed for this (John 17:24): Father, I will that all those whom you…

Question: Who does Christ intercede for? Answer: Not for all promiscuously (John 17:9), but for the Elect. The efficacy of Christ's prayer reaches no further than the efficacy of his blood; but his blood was shed only for the Elect, therefore his prayers only reach them.

As the angel called Lot out of Sodom, when it was ready to rain fire; so God calls his people from the fire and brimstone of Hell, and from all those curses they were exposed to. 3. He calls them out of the world, as Christ called Matthew from the receipt of custom (John 17:16).…

Well, let me lay down some motives to glorify God. 1st Motive: It will be a great comfort in a dying hour, to think we have glorified God in our lives; it was Christ's comfort before his death (John 17:3): "I have glorified you on earth." At the hour of death all your earthly co…

Ans. The Spirit's conduct is agreeable to the Word: Enthusiasts leave the Word. The word is truth (John 17:17). And the Spirit guides in all truth (John 16:13).

What is the Heaven of the angels, but the smiles of God's face, the sensible perception and feeling of those joys which are infinitely ravishing and full of glory? And to encourage and quicken us in seeking after them, consider, that Christ died to purchase this joy for his sain…

As the Spirit is at work in the heart, so is Christ at work in Heaven. Christ is ever praying that the saints' grace may hold out (John 17:11): Conserva illos — Father, keep those whom you have given me; keep them as stars in their orb, keep them as jewels, that they may not be…

And have not they coalition and union with Christ; Christ is the head, they are the body (Ephesians 1:23). This is a near union, much like that union between God the Father and Christ (John 17:21). As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us.

It is so pure, that it purifies everything else. (John 17:17) Sanctify them through your truth. The Scripture presses holiness so as never any book did: it bids us live soberly, righteously, godly (Titus 2:12).

Has Christ a place in the celestial mansions, so have the saints (John 14:2): In my Father's house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you. Has he his Father's love, so have they (Psalm 146:8; John 17:26): That the love with which you have loved me may be in them. Doe…

Quest. How may sanctification be attained to? Resp. 1. Be conversant in the Word of God (John 17:17). Sanctify them through your truth.

1. By reading the Word. The Word is a great means to sanctify the heart, and bring it into a Sabbath frame (John 17:17). "Sanctify them through your truth," etc.

(1.) The near mystical union between Christ and his saints. As the meat which is eaten incorporates with the body, and becomes one with it; so by eating Christ's flesh, and drinking his blood spiritually, we partake of Christ's merits and graces, and are mystically one with him…

2. The unity of the persons in the Godhead consists in the mutual in-being of them, or their being in one another. The three persons are so united, that one person is in another, and with another (John 17:21). You, Father, are in me, and I in you.

2. Christ causes perseverance and carries on a saint till he comes to the heavenly Kingdom, vi orationis, by his intercession: Christ is an advocate as well as a surety; he prays that the saints may arrive safe at the Kingdom (Hebrews 7:25): "Therefore he is able to save them,"…

They stick at no service; they will run through a sea, and a wilderness; they will follow the Lamb wherever he goes. 3. They are a heavenly people, stars (John 17:16). You are not of the world.

Well then, if we must in this manner believe in God, then we must also know him: for we can have no faith in the thing which is utterly unknown. Therefore if we would believe in the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, we must know them in part (John 17). This is life eternal to know you…

He rejoices over them with joy, and rests in his love (Zephaniah 3:17). It is no ordinary affection that God bears to the righteous; the sun shining upon a burning glass, sets on fire only the object which is near the glass; the beams of God's love are more intensely inflamed to…

Isaiah 53:11: The knowledge of my righteous servant shall justify many. John 17:3: This is eternal life, to know the eternal God and whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. In these places, by knowledge is meant faith grounded upon knowledge, whereby we know and are assured that Chris…

For 1. We are to expound this universal with respect to God's purpose and Covenant, the contrivance of the Elect's Redemption, and to the death of Christ, the execution of it, and so these words our, us, we, all are, and must be restricted to these, and in them we are to find ou…

For the first then, There is (we say) an eternal transaction between God and Jesus Christ the Mediator concerning the redemption of sinners, his actual redeeming by being wounded and bruised, supposes this; for the Son is no more liable to suffering (not to speak of his suitable…

And these four considerations (under which we may see him paying our debt) may clear it. 1. That he laid aside the glory which before the world was he had with the Father, for a time; which therefore that it may be restored to him again, he prays (John 17:5), it having been as t…

The third use serves to be a motive and encouragement to them that hear this Gospel to receive Christ, and for the consolation of believers who have received him. 1. It serves to encourage you all to receive him; He is no mean person that woos you, but King of kings, and Lord of…

So then by my people must be understood these who in God's eternal purpose are separated by the decree of election to be his own, even these whom he has chosen to glorify himself in and by them through his grace, and to glorify them with himself. Even these spoken of, John 17:6:…

And then for a conclusion of the bargain and transaction, there is the Father's accepting of his undertaking; he is content to take his sufferings as the price for the elect's debt. Hence (John 17), he says, Your they were, and you gave them me, that is, yours they were by elect…

Now, when we say, that Christ's sufferings and death, are a price for the sins of his people, we exclude not the reprobate simply from temporal and common favors and mercies that come by his death; they may have and actually have common gifts and works of the Spirit, the means o…

We show that Jesus Christ is the only sin-offering, by which sin is taken away; and that it is implied here; so that it is denied to all other things, or means to have any efficacy, virtue, or merit in them, as to the removing of sin, and the curse brought on by it; this is, I s…

And indeed, if we look to the nature of this transaction, we will find it to be a promise, and a promise of God to the Mediator, that can neither be altered, nor unaccomplished; indeed, it is a covenanted promise, made on a condition, to wit, the laying down of His life; as the…

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Being spoken to, by another lately, in your hearing, and in part by us (John 17:4). And from verse 10.

Second, because he gets not the native credit and honor of his office, till he get this, but counts himself to be like an ambassador, who comes to woo a wife for the king, his master, who is well treated and entertained; but gets a refusal of what he came for. It was the discipl…

It follows now that we consider this part of the words, which holds out the means by which this benefit is made ours, and that is, by his knowledge, which holds out the instrumental cause of our justification; it's ordinarily so called; and we see no cogent reason inducing us to…

If we look to reason, it cannot be otherwise. First, if we consider what our Lord Jesus was in His person, being the Son of God, He cannot but be glorious (John 17:5): He prays, "Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was." Though by being man He…

The first is (Matthew 3:14 and 17:5): This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; He undertook to satisfy for the elect's debt, and has accordingly performed it, so that the Father is well pleased. A second is (John 17:4), where He appears before the Father, and uses it fo…

The fourth and last article, or part of the condition required of the Mediator, is, He made intercession for the transgressors; there was more required of him than to die, and to die such a death for the Elect's sins; He must also make application of his death; and he will do th…

It is the Mediator God-man willing, whose will, as man, being perfectly conformed to the will of God, cannot be (to speak so) gainsaid in whatever he wills for the persons given him. And this is answerable to (John 17:24): Father, I will that these whom you have given me may be…

9. Our perseverance in the faith, and perfect glorification is a fruit of Christ's intercession, so that his own cannot but persevere and be glorified, because he intercedes for them. This is what is spoken to several times (John 17), especially verses 15 and 24. In verse 15: "I…

For the iniquities of my people was he stricken, says the Lord (verse 8). The same who are called the Mediator's people (Psalm 110:3), for says blessed Jesus to his Father (John 17:10), "All mine are yours, and yours are mine" — who shall, without any doubt or possibility of mis…

Christ bases his prayer on the sweetest relation of a Father and a Son: Father, save me. So (John 17) Father, glorify your Son. Verse 5: And now Father, glorify me.

He is a warm-hearted passenger, who on a cold day, will take off his own garment, to clothe a naked foundling, that he finds in the way; I (says Christ) laid on you a naked sinner, the skirt of that love, with which the Father loved me. O what a strange word is that? (John 17:26…

Now to come nearer the point, the formal blessedness of the saints is in the act of seeing, knowing, loving, enjoying God, which on our part are created things, and so empty nothings, and are not essentially the happiness of man, but means by which we enjoy God our happiness, so…

Now all are not so, but certain definite [illegible] is only. 3. These [illegible] the Lord has chosen to life, are given of the Father in Christ (John 10:26; John 6:37; John 17:2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 24). And all such are raised up at the last day and saved (John 6:37, 39).

Indeed whatever God meant to do for us and in us, whatever privilege or benefit he meant to bestow upon us, he did that thing first to Christ and (some way) bestowed the like on him as a common person, that so it might be by a solemn formal act ratified and be made sure to be do…

You heard before what welcome God gave Christ when he first arrived there, and what he said to him; and Christ said (as it were) again to God: 'I come not alone; I have much company, many of my brothers and followers to come after' (for it was the declared and avowed end of his…

That place also in 1 John 2:1–2 seems to make this the great end of intercession: 'If any man sin' (that is, if any of the company of believers, to whom alone he wrote) 'we have an advocate with the Father' — so that intercession principally serves for sins to come or committed…

Christ comforts himself with this in his obedience, [Therefore does my Father love me:] It is spoken in relation to his fulfilling this his command formerly mentioned; and so withall imports, as if God should love Christ the better for the love he should show to us; it pleased h…

In untying a shoe latchet, there is neither shame nor pain: but for a man to be reproached for Christ, if any thing be base and dishonorable, sure it is that: for a man that was taken to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and for him not to be ashamed of the people of God: nor of…

These three the Holy Ghost takes special notice of in this case. First, The spirit of God, wherever it is shed abroad in any member of Christ, it does make us one with the Lord Jesus, it unites us into one fellowship of nature, a likeness in affection and disposition, and a like…

When Christ appeared to Paul from Heaven, he trembled and was astonished, and was three days without sight, as you may see (Acts 9:9); there was a special reason, why an apostle should see him in person. (3.) We shall see this glory when fit for it (John 17:24). Father, I will t…

1. There is the immediate sight and presence of God, and Jesus Christ, who shall be all in all to them (1 Corinthians 13:12): Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, then shall I know as also I am known. And (John 17:24): Father, I will that…