This great prayer of Christ is similar to a final report of work accomplished,
the most important of which was to reveal the Father’s love and his plan of salvation for all men.
(Stanley F. Anderson)
John 17:20-26 NIV
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
“If the Father is in him and he is in them, then the Father is in them:
they are drawn into the very life of God, and the life of God is perfect love.”
(F. F. Bruce)
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
Where there is a sense of God’s glory, unity is so much easier.
Lesser things that often divide us are set far in the background
when there is a sense of God’s glory at work.
(David Gruzik)
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
“He prayed for them. He prays for us.
He knew His intercession for them would prevail.
He knows His intercession for us will prevail.
Then let us rest in Him, with the rest of loving obedience and of surest confidence.”
(G. Campbell Morgan)