What does John 17 say about unity?
If I was given sixpence every time I heard someone quoted John 17.21 '…that they might be one…' and then I'd have a lot of change that I wouldn't know what to do with. It is commonly suggested that, in this, Jesus' 'high priestly prayer', we see his last want expressed to his heavenly Male parent, and that desire is for his people to take visible unity. We must therefore take this seriously, and make it a priority above other issues since, afterward all, it was and then important to Jesus that it formed his terminal wish.
It is worth looking at the prayer a little more closely, and putting it in its context both in John'due south gospel and amongst the gospels every bit a whole. The prayer forms the climax of the Last Supper soapbox in John—just of class John himself mentions no supper, but instead focusses on the washing of the disciples' feet by Jesus. This reminds us that we need to read John in one paw with the synoptics, and particularly Marker, in the other; the two make full out each other and give each other context. So we read that, after this prayer of John 17, Jesus goes out [to Gethsemane] in John xviii.1, simply we need to plough to Marker xiv.32 to know the name of the place and what happens there.
It is also worth noting from the kickoff that the longer form of Jesus' spoken language in John is not, in itself, a reason to treat the synoptics as more historical, and John more of a theological construction of what Jesus said. Even the speeches in John are relatively curt, and all the didactics of Jesus recorded in the synoptics would take mere hours to recite, so nosotros must care for them as (quite possibly reliable) summaries of longer and more than extensive didactics.
Turning to the prayer itself, we discover many of the earlier themes and ideas in John drawn together. First, we run across the notions of '60 minutes' and 'glory'; John has from the beginning been interested in days and hours, and in Cana Jesus tells Mary that 'my hour has non yet come' (John 2.iv) and even so, in the phenomenon and in anticipation of what is to follow hither, 'Jesus did the first of his signs…and revealed his glory' (John two.eleven).
Then we have the interrelated ideas of life and truth: eternal life is to know the true God, whom Jesus alone reveals. In the prologue in John 1, nosotros have already been introduced to the light who was life for the globe from the beginning of creation. And that low-cal is constantly linked with testimony—of John, of Jesus' disciples, and of Jesus himself. The idea of the work of the Son existence aligned with the piece of work of the Father takes us back to the thought that 'my Father is always working' in John 5.17 and that the piece of work demanded of us is faith—assertive in what Jesus teaches (John six.29).
The distinction of the disciples from the world touches on John'due south ambiguous theology of 'world'—it is the object of God's love (John 3.sixteen) only is as well opposed to God and the things of God (John 15.eighteen), so that (paradoxically) to love the world is to hate God (1 John ii.15). This dissimilarity between the disciples and the globe reflects Jesus' own relationship with the earth (John 17.16); though the earth 'came into existence through him, it did not know him' (John ane.10) and 'his own people [both the Jews and all humanity] did not receive him' (John ane.11). His own ministry and kingdom do not take their origin in the earth—that is the real pregnant of Jesus' statement to Pilate in John 18.36, oft mistranslated as 'of this world' rather than 'from this world', as if the kingdom did non accept an touch on earthly structures of power. The question of where Jesus 'remains' or stays or abides has been of involvement from the disciples' start encounter: 'Rabbi, where are y'all staying/constant?' (John i.38). Nosotros now learn that Jesus abides in the Male parent, and nosotros need to abide in him, and that he will no longer abide in this earth simply is going to the Male parent. (This idea of movement from the Male parent's side, down to the incarnation, and upwardly again dorsum to the Father is neither late, not uniquely Johannine, since we find the same motion in Phil ii.5–11 and in 2 Cor viii.9).
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At present we begin to approach the heart of the prayer, where the argument about unity comes. Jesus' key concern is for the protection of the disciples in the midst of the globe in which they remain but to which they practise non belong. 'Make them holy in the truth; your word is truth.' The language of truth goes to the centre of a central theme in John; as Andrew Lincoln and Marker Stibbe have pointed out, the whole of John can exist understood as a form of trial narrative, with witnesses called to testify to the truth of Jesus' claims and identity, and the Begetter fifty-fifty chosen to the witness stand (John eight.18). That is why the conflict is so sharp with the 'leaders of the Jews' in chapters 5 to 8, because they are the prosecuting counsel, and that is why John's business relationship of the crucifixion naturally includes the extended dialogue with Pilate (conveyed to us past ane of the servants there) which is not included in the synoptics.
'Your discussion' here cannot refer to Jesus himself, fifty-fifty inside the 'logos' Christology of John, not to the lowest degree because Jesus has already talked of the cleansing and sanctifying work of his words, that is, his teaching of truth, in relation to abiding in the vine (John xv.3). To be holy involves remaining in the person and work of Jesus, and remaining in his educational activity which reveals the truth about u.s., God and the world. It is into this context that Jesus then longs for the unity of his people. The parallel with the unity betwixt Jesus and the Father cannot be exact, not to the lowest degree with the hindsight we have following the Nicene expressions of our understanding of the Trinity. But information technology is about the unity of commitment, will and understanding; only as Jesus does the will and work of the Father, and just every bit the Begetter's testimony is completely unified with the testimony of Jesus, so his disciples are to take that one commitment to true testimony which reveals the truth of God—and which will then lead many who accept non themselves been witnesses of Jesus besides to believe (John 20.31). There is no sense hither that the unity of the believersin and of itself, asunder to the truth, plays any role in the confidence of the globe.
Jesus finishes the prayer with aninclusiorender to the theme of glory, merely does so with a unique address to God equally 'righteous Father'—only the third time John uses the term 'righteous' (after John v.30 and vii.24) and the but time in the New Attestation that God is described in this way.
So Jesus' prayer for unity is tightly leap with concerns for the truth, for holiness, for the distinctive testimony of his people over against the world to which they do non belong, leading to the revelation of the glory of God and past which, through faithful testimony, many in the globe volition come to believe that Jesus is the only true revelation of the Father who loves them and draws them to himself.
And of course we detect very similar inter-relationships betwixt these concerns elsewhere. In the oft-cited example of the Council of Acts 15, information technology is striking that the understanding of the new experience of seeing the Spirit poured out on the Gentiles is interpreted by means of discerning God's purposes in Scripture, and (most notably for us) is then recognised by all of God's people in unanimity. The accord with Scripture and the unified reception by the people both attest to the truth of the interpretation.
Perhaps this is an object lesson in the dangers of the 'memory verse' approach to reading Scripture, by which we isolate one phrase from its immediate and wider context, then lose important elements which it needs in order to exist understood properly.
(Outset published in 2016)
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