John 17:1-5
‘These words, Jesus spoke…: “Father, the hour has come! Glorify Your Son, so that Your Son too may glorify You! As You have given Him power over all flesh, so that He may give eternal life to as many as You have given Him! And this is life eternal — that they might know You the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent! I have glorified You on the Earth; I have finished
the work which You gave Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me with Your Own Self — with the glory which I had with You before the world was!”‘ John 17:1-5.
Calvin comments: “When the Lord had…promised the coming of the Spirit, He raised them to a better hope and talked to them about the glory and splendour of His Kingdom. Now, He betakes Himself to prayer…. ‘Father, the hour has come!’ Christ asks that His Kingdom may be magnified, so that He in His turn might magnify the glory of the Father…. Christ’s prayer also asks that His death may, by the power of the heavenly Spirit, bear such fruit as had been decreed by the eternal purpose of God…. It is our duty to ask from Him whatever He has promised….
“‘(Glorify Your Son, so) that the Son may glorify You!’… The shining of His and His Father’s glory, is mutual…. It is not only His eternal divinity that we must think of. For He speaks as God manifest in the flesh…. ‘You gave Him…authority over all flesh’…, the authority given to Christ when the Father appointed Him King…. The end…is to bestow eternal life on all His Own…. The Kingdom of Christ extends to all men, but it is saving only to the elect who follow the Shepherd’s Voice…. He forcibly compels others to obey Him, until at last He utterly destroys them….
“He enlightens the elect in the true knowledge of God…. He is not dealing with the fruition of life that we hope for, but only with the way in which men arrive at life…. We must first understand…we are all in death…. But where He has shone, we possess Him by faith — and also enter into the possession of life…. We are told to know God, and Christ Whom He sent…. There is no Fountain of life, save in God alone…. All who are alienated from Him, are deprived of life….
“The Father…sends Him, to possess the Kingdom…. Having completed His course, nothing remained for Him to do, but to display by the power of the Spirit the fruit and efficacy of all that He had done on Earth by His Father’s command…. ‘(Father, glorify Me…with) the glory which I had with You (before the world was)!’… He declares…He desires…only that He may appear in the flesh such as He was before the creation of the world…. (So) that the divine majesty which He always had, may now shine in the Person of the Mediator and in the human flesh which He had put on…. Christ is not a novel or temporary God…. His glory was eternal. He, too, always was…. He is not only the eternal God, but also the eternal Word of God begotten by the Father before the ages!”
Calvin also says in his Institutes I:13:8,22: “When God said ‘Let there be light!’ Genesis 1:3) — the energy of the Word was…exerted…. It must have existed, long before…. ‘Glorify Me…with the glory…I had with You before the world was!’… John…says that ‘in the beginning was the Word’ (John 1:1)…. The Word was eternally begotten by God, and dwelt with Him from everlasting!… That Logos…was God! (John 17:5).” The Father gave Him power over all flesh! You too!
