John Chapter Seventeen: Jesus Prays for Unity
By: Deji Yesufu
The writing of the summary for this chapter coincides with the announcement of the death of John MacArthur in the early hours of today. In a very practical manner, MacArthur introduced many Christians today to what has generally come to be known as the “reformed” Christian tradition. MacArthur, in this vein, brought a great deal of development and progress to gospel preaching. The trouble, however, was that fundamental reformed theology is pugilistic by nature. When the reformed movement began in Europe, it came with a lot of division. Therefore, the downside of imbibing the raw teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin is that Christians would immediately begin to divide among themselves. A close observation of the prayer of Jesus in John 17 will, however, reveal something different: our Lord prayed essentially that the churches would be united. The lesson is simple: the Holy Spirit is the author of the reformation in the churches. But he never leaves it in its infancy. True, biblical and matured reformed theology will lead back to Christians uniting in the name of Jesus under biblical truth in spite of the Christian tradition they may find themselves in. This is because this is what Jesus prayed for. The prayer of our Lord may be divided into three: Jesus prayed for himself, Jesus prayed for his disciples, and Jesus prayed for the churches that will result from the preaching of the disciples.
First. Jesus prayed that God would glorify him: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that your son may glorify you…” When you consider that the events that will follow this prayer session will be the crucifixion, you begin to have an idea of what Jesus might have meant by God glorifying him. Philippians 2:8-10 tells us that Jesus became obedient to the point of death, following which God gave him a name: that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow. In other words, the way up is the way down. Jesus was heading to the cross, and our Lord was calling on God to keep his word to glorify him. The result of this glorification will not just be Christ having a name above every name, it will also mean that men will get to know God and, in the process, have eternal life – the knowledge of God itself being a means of salvation (John 17:3).
The lesson that one can grasp very quickly from the prayer that Christ prayed for himself is this: there is a path to glory in the Christian life, and except the Lord helps us to pray about it, it is not likely to be a path any of us wants to willingly walk on. One of the downsides of the rise of reformed thinking in our day is the penchant for young people, who have just imbibed reformed theology, to rush to show the world what they know. Here is the fact: like old wine, reformed thinking only gets better with time. The older the reformed person, the better. The reason is simple: time produces testing, and if, after ten years, you are still committed to reformed theology, we want to listen to you. What brings grace to your words is not so much what you know; it is what you have suffered. When Jesus prayed for glory, he was asking for grace to endure the path to it, which is the cross. Our prayer, as Christians, should be that the Lord will help us walk the path he has called us to. A truly biblical path is usually a lonely one, and if we want to be God’s mouthpiece in our day, we sure want to avail ourselves of the grace that God imparts on his servants through the rigour of suffering. The path to glory for Jesus was the cross; it will not be anything less for us.
Second. From verse 9, we see Jesus pray for the disciples. One prayer that is quite central to all that he asked God to do for the disciples is that they might be united. In John chapter 13, Christ had appealed to his disciples to love one another. It appears he was saying that the moment he leaves, the unifying force among the disciples might seem to be removed. He was, however, appealing to them that if they were discerning enough, that force was still there: Christ wanted them to do everything to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Jesus prays to God that the joy of the Spirit will abound among the disciples (verse 13); that his word will dwell within them (verses 14); and that God will sanctify them by the word (verse 18). He appears to be saying that where the Holy Spirit births genuine joy among God’s people, and this joy is the product of God’s word, this will inevitably lead to sanctification. And that genuine walking in the Spirit of holiness will result in unity. When we discover that what produces division in the churches is the flesh, you understand why walking in the Spirit is an antidote to all kinds of divisiveness.
Third. From verse 20, Jesus begins to pray for all those who will believe in him through the disciples. Christ was praying for all Christians from the days of the Apostles in the first century up till today, which is the twenty-first century. It is not possible to number all the people who have believed in Christ since the days of the Apostles, but they will certainly be in the millions. Jesus’ central prayer for all of us is this: “…that they all may be one…” When you look through the vast number of centuries and see the kind of fleshly divisiveness that has characterised the people who name themselves as followers of Jesus, you will understand why the prayer of our Lord is so very important. Jesus is saying essentially that, yes, “the devil will divide them, but oh that my Spirit will unite them”. I will end this summary with an example of how I think the Holy Spirit is uniting the church.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay on the conversion of somebody that we have come to know as the Apostate Prophet. Ridvan Aydemir was born a Muslim from Turkey, but he would eventually renounce Islam, chiefly because of the violence he saw in the religion. He was a committed atheist for a long time, until he began to consider the Christian faith. He examined all the Christian traditions available and settled for Eastern Orthodoxy. His choice of Christian tradition disturbed me a lot, but after careful consideration, I realised that if I were in his shoes, I would very likely have done the same thing. Despite their claims to unity, Islam is the most divisive religion on earth because of the inherent militancy in that religion, and it is one of the things that pushed Ridvan away from that religion. When he came to Christianity, I suspect that in his choice of Christian tradition, he would have considered the one that was least divisive, and he chose Eastern Orthodoxy.
While the Protestant Reformation did a lot of good to Christianity, one of the things that Christians of today are considering in tempering reformed fervour is reducing the divisiveness among us. Whether we like it or not, Jesus Christ is the one building his church, and there is no Christian tradition that is perfect. Every one of us has our issues. If we humble ourselves and listen to the other person, we will likely discern Christ in that person. This is not an ecumenical appeal – It is stating clearly that the chief prayer point in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, which is that the churches be united, will be answered. How God will do it, no one knows. We should, however, not evade a clear lesson from John 17, which is that Jesus Christ prayed that the churches would be united. Amen.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
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