Given By The Father

  

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” (John 17:6).

 

There are four major threads in the Upper Room in this verse. Can you see them? Read the chapter again, and again, and again, keep reading it and meditating upon it. The Light that is refracted never ends, and its combinations never cease.

 

We see the Name of the Father, Jesus disclosing the Name, the giving of those who belong to the Father to Jesus, and the enigmatic faithfulness and belief of these men whom the Father has given. I write “enigmatic” because it is a mystery, at least to me, how Jesus can make such statements about them. As you read John 17, can you see these four themes? How are they woven together? What other themes do you see?

 

In this meditation I want to explore, “the men whom You have Me out of the world.”

 

We first saw this in 17:2, “that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.”

 

How might we think about this? Let’s be careful and consider what we know, rather than what we don’t know. That is, let’s focus on what Jesus says rather than on our curiosity, or what others want us to think about. Perhaps we would do well to consider John 6:37 – 40:

 

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

 

What parallels do you see between John 6:37 – 40 and John Chapter 17?

 

Let’s also note 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

 

The Father has given us to Jesus. The Father has taken us out of the world and has given us to Jesus. The Father has drawn us to Jesus. Jesus will lose nothing that the Father has given Him.

 

Above I cautioned us to focus on what we know, not on what we don’t know Let me attempt to explain what I mean.

 

What questions do people normally have when they read the above passages?

 

In my experience, they have two problems; one has to do with “free will,” and the other has to do with “what about those not included?” That is, what about those who have either never heard of Jesus or whom the Father has not given to Jesus?

 

Did Jesus address these questions in these passages? I don’t see that He did.

 

Can we draw logical conclusions to our questions? I don’t see that we can, for our logic is faulty and fallible and our knowledge and understanding are limited.

 

Jesus tells us what He tells us, both in John Chapter 6 and John Chapter 17, so that we might know what He tells us, not so that we may know what He doesn’t tell us. Our problem is not that our curiosity is not satisfied, it is that we don’t believe and live according to what Jesus tells us. Were we to live in the knowledge and reality of what Jesus tells us about our calling and assurance in Him, laying down our lives for one another, loving one another, we would not have the time nor the inclination to engage in perpetual speculation nor would we care to satisfy our curiosity. We would not desire to see every question answered, and we would most certainly realize our cognitive limitations in our current state in this world (the noetic effects of sin).

 

In some way, shape, and form, in some mysterious and Divine fashion, we belong to the Father, we are not of the world. The Father has given us to Jesus. The Father has drawn us to Jesus. Visualize this please. You have belonged to the Father, the Father has taken you and given you to Jesus. The Father has made a gift of you to Jesus.

 

Jesus has received you as a gift from the Father. Jesus has given you eternal life by showing Himself and the Father to you. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (17:3). “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life” (6:40).

 

Eternal life is relational. You have been called into a relationship with God. The Father took you out of the world, the Father gave you to Jesus. Will you live in this reality?

 

“What about free will?” you ask.

 

Jesus speaks of the will of God, Jesus does not speak of your free will. This is God’s Story, you are incorporated into the Father’s Story, into the Son’s Story, into the Spirit’s Story – your story is enveloped in the Trinity and in the Body of Christ within the Trinity.

 

Consider the total and complete assurance that Jesus gives you by telling you that you are where you are, in a relationship with Him, because the Father gave you to Jesus.

 

“O but I want this to be about me!” we cry. Ah, but this is not about us, this is about Jesus and the Father. To be sure we are in the Story, but we are not center stage, this is not the Good News about you and me, it is the Good News about Jesus Christ. O for sure, it is Good News for us, it is Good News for us all, and as we realize the glory of what Jesus is telling us about the Father giving us to Him, we have the assurance we need to lay our lives down for Him and others. As we realize that Jesus keeps what the Father has given Him, that He guards us, O the assurance and peace and security we have in Him!

 

This also means that, just as Jesus, we need to be about our Father’s business!

 

A fundamental truth and reality of our life in Christ is that we do not belong to ourselves, we have never belonged to ourselves. There are those Christians who live in this knowledge, and those who don’t. Those who do not live in this knowledge live independently of Christ, those who do live in this knowledge live as the possessions of Another, in other words, Jesus Christ is truly Lord of their lives.

 

One of the enigmatic realities of the Father giving us to Jesus is that Jesus the Lamb had to shed His blood and die for us to purchase us (Rev. 5:9 – 10). The Father gave us to Jesus, Jesus gave us the gift of eternal life.

 

What are we giving to others?