These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you:
All Commentaries on John 17:1 Go To John 17
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Our Lord, in the form of a servant, could have prayed in silence had He pleased; but Here membered that He had not only to pray, but to teach. For not only His discourse, but His prayer also, was for His disciples’ edification, yes and for ours who read the same. Father, the hour is come, shows that all time, and every thing that He did or suffered to be done, was atHis disposing, Who is not subject to time. Not that we must suppose that this hour came by any fatal necessity, but rather by God’s ordering. Away with the notion, that the stars could doom to death the Creator of the stars.
But if He was glorified by His Passion, how much more by His Resurrection? For His Passion rather showed His humility than His glory. So we must understand, Father, the hour is come, glorify Your Son, to mean, the hour is come for sowing the seed, humility; defer not the fruit, glory.
But itis justly asked, how the Son can glorify the Father, when the eternal glory of the Father never experienced abasement in the form of man, and in respect of its own Divine perfection, does not admit of being added to. But among men this glory was less when God was only known in Judea; and therefore the Son glorified the Father, when the Gospel of Christ spread the knowledge of the Father among the Gentiles. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You; i.e. Raise Me from the dead, that by Me You may be known to the whole world. Then He unfolds further the manner in which the Son glorifies the Father; As You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. All flesh signifies all mankind, the part being put for the whole. And this power which is given to Christ by the Father over all flesh, must be understood with reference to His human nature.
He said, As You have given Him power over all flesh, so the Son may glorify You, i.e. make You known to all flesh which You have given Him; for You have so given it to Him, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.
Dismissing then the Arians, let us see if we are forced to confess, that by the words, That they may know You to be the only true God, He means us to understand that the Father only is the true God, in such sense as that only the Three together, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are to be called God? Does our Lord’s testimony authorize us tosay that the Father is the only true God, the Son the only true God, and the Holy Spirit the only true God, and at the same time, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, i.e. the Trinity, are not three Gods, but one true God? .
Or is not the order of the words, That they may know You and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent, to be the only true God? the Holy Spirit being necessarily understood, because the Spirit is only the love of the Father and the Son, consubstantial with both. If then the Son so glorifies You as You have given Him power over all flesh, and You have given Him the power, that He should give eternal life toas many as You have given Him, and, This is life eternal, to know You, it follows that He glorifies You by making You known to all whom You have given Him. Moreover, if the knowledge of God is life eternal, the more advance we make in this knowledge, the more we make in life eternal. But in life eternal we shall never die. Where then there is no death, there will then be perfect knowledge of God; there will God be most glorified, because His glory will be greatest. Glory was defined among the ancients to be fame accompanied with praise. But if man is praised in dependence on what is said of him, how will God be praised when He shall be seen? as in the Psalm, Blessed are they who dwell in Your house: they will be always praising You. There will be praise of God without end, where will be full knowledge of God. There then shall be heard the everlasting praise of God, for there will there be full knowledge of God, and therefore full glorifying of Him.
What He said to His servant Moses, I am that I am; this we shall contemplate in the life eternal.
For when sight has made our faith truth, then eternity shall take possession of and displace our mortality.
But God is first glorified here, when He is proclaimed, made known to, and believed in, by men: I have glorified You on the earth.
Not You command Me, but, You gave Me, implying evidently grace. For what has human nature, even in the Only-Begotten, what it has not received? But how had He finished the work which had been given Him to do, when there yet remained His passion to undergo? He says He has finished it, i.e. He knows for certain that He will.
He had said above, Father, the hour is come: glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You: the order of which words shows that the Son was first tobe glorified by the Father, that the Father might be glorified by the Son. But now He says, I have glorified You; and now glorify Me, as if He had first glorified the Father, and then asked to be glorified by Him. We must understand that the first is the order in which one was to succeed the other, but that He afterwards uses a past tense, to express a thing future; the meaning being, I will glorify You on the earth, by finishing the work you have given Me todo: and now, Father, glorify Me, which is quite the same sentence with the first one, except that He adds here the mode in which He is to be glorified; with the glory which I had before the world was, with You. The order of the words is, The glory which I had with you before the world was. This has been taken by some to mean, that the human nature which was assumed by the Word, would be changed into the Word, that man would be changed into God, or, to speak more correctly, be lost in God. For no one would say that the Word of God would by that change be doubled, or even made at all greater. But we avoid this error, if we take the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, to be the glory which He predestined for Him on earth: (for if we believe Him to be the Son of man, we need not be afraid to say that He was predestined.) This predestined time of His being glorified, He now saw was arrived, that He might now receive what had been aforetime predestined, He prayed accordingly: And now, Father, glorify Me i.e. that glory which I had with you by your predestination, it is now time that I should have at your right hand.
