Gospel of John [17:14-16]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 19. Joh 5:30-47; 12:37; Gal 1:3-5.

JOH 17:13 "But now I come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy made full in themselves.

 

JOH 17:14 "I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

 

JOH 17:15 "I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world [not God's solution to tribulation], but to keep them from the evil one.

 

JOH 17:16 "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

 

All the Father's word that had been given Jesus had been delivered to them. And, as we know, more would be given to them after the Spirit was given.

 

The singular use of the noun "word" refers to the sum total of all the words given, vs. 8.

 

JOH 17:8 for the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them

 

God the Holy Spirit would supernaturally bring the words spoken to them by Christ to their remembrance as well as reveal to them the rest of the words to come that would complete the canon of Scripture.

 

One of His titles [names] is the word.

 

JOH 1:14

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

His humanity, begotten from eternity, was given everything He possessed from the Father, including the word. His word is alive and powerful. His word is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. It was and continues to be given to the world, but for the most part the world has rejected it. For this reason the world hated Christ and so would hate the disciples and all positive believers. Yet we do not stand aloof from the people of the world, but rather, we love them as Christ did in the hope that they would heed the gospel message.

 

Though the world will hate the believer, the believer is to love all:

 

MAT 9:13

"But go and learn what this means, 'I desire compassion, and not sacrifice ,' [HOS 6:6] for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

 

This occurs right after He called Matthew to follow Him. Matthew was the worst kind of sinner in the eyes of the religious Jew. He was not just common tax collector, which was bad enough, but a custom's house official, a Mokhes. They were considered the farthest from repentance, one whose sins could never be forgiven by God. Matthew gave a big reception for Jesus in his own house. Here He is at Matthew's house, a tax collecting custom's house official, eating dinner and many if not all of the other tax collectors attended and their associates, their lady-friends and others that the religious Jews would have deemed sinners far from God.

 

As regards the sinner, all other systems outside of Christ know of no welcome to him till, by some means (inward or outward), he has ceased to be a sinner and become a penitent. They would first make him a penitent, and then bid him welcome to God. To the Rabbinic school mercy only came with sacrifice, meaning repentance, good works, and the giving of alms. They knew no mercy without this type of sacrifice. However, Christ first welcomes the sinner to God, and so makes him a penitent, meaning that He gives Him the gift of wisdom and love from which he is transformed in his mind and so his mind is thus changed. Christ knew no sacrifice, which was real and acceptable to God, that was not full of mercy. The religious demands while Christ imparts life. 

 

When He says "Go and learn" He is using a common and popular phrase of the Rabbis and Pharisees.

 

Christ first bids the sinner welcome to God and then gives him the Way of life in which he make walk righteously without guilt or condemnation for failures.

 

And for those who have believed in Him and received His word, the word becomes alive and powerful and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.

 

He delivered the Father's message to the world in person and the world had not believed Him. The world was unresponsive.

 

(He is in the temple on the Sabbath at a certain feast after He healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda.)

 

JOH 5:30 "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

 

JOH 5:31 "If I alone bear witness of Myself, My testimony is not true.

 

JOH 5:32 "There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the testimony which He bears of Me is true.

 

JOH 5:33 "You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.

 

JOH 5:34 "But the witness which I receive is not from man, but I say these things that you may be saved.

 

JOH 5:35 "He was the lamp that was burning and was shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

 

JOH 5:36 "But the witness which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.

 

JOH 5:37 "And the Father who sent Me, He has borne witness of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.

 

JOH 5:38 "And you do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.

 

To be told that they do not have God's word abiding in them was a shocking thing for a Pharisee or Scribe to hear for they were thoroughly trained in the scripture and in the oral tradition of laws, but the reason being was that they did not believe in Him and so they had no understanding of the truth of the word of God.

 

JOH 5:39 "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me;

 

JOH 5:40 and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.

 

JOH 5:41 "I do not receive glory from men;

 

JOH 5:42 but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.

 

JOH 5:43 "I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another shall come in his own name, you will receive him.

 

JOH 5:44 "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

 

JOH 5:45 "Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.

 

JOH 5:46 "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me.

 

JOH 5:47 "But if you do not believe his writings [they perverted them into a system of legalism], how will you believe My words?"

 

Also in Jerusalem just a few days before His death:

 

JOH 12:37 But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him;

 

Do we think that the world would give the same message more credence because it came from the lips of the disciples? The world hated them as they did the Lord.

 

JOH 17:14 "I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

 

The disciples are not out from the world but born again and out from God. They and we are new creatures in Christ, citizens of heaven, and possessing a divine nature. The spiritual death of Christ causes the death of the old creature when anyone believes in Him as their Savior. To put our hands to the plow and to look back is to retain a fondness of something that the believer is dead to.

 

JOH 17:15 "I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.

 

"ask" - evrwta,w [erotao] = to ask, request, or pray. More frequently used when the petitioner is on footing of equality or familiarity with the person whom he requests.

 

This word speaks of the intimacy that Jesus has with the Father, though in His humanity, He has submitted to the will of the Father. As God and man, He and the Father are one in unity, yet through His humility, His humanity heeds the Father as greater than Himself. God's ways are not man's ways and so there are many seeming paradoxes in the ways of God that are beautiful truths to be believed upon.