John 17:24

After He has said that many should believe on Him through them, and that they should obtain great glory, He then speaks of the crowns in store for them; Father, 1 will that they also whom you have given Me, be with Me; where I am.

These are they whom He has received from the Father, whom He also chose out of the world; as He says at the beginning of this prayer, you have given Him power over all flesh, i.e. all mankind, That He should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him. Wherein He shows that He had received power over all men, to deliver whom He would and to condemn whom He would. Wherefore it is to all His members that He promises this reward, that where He is they may be also. Nor can that but be done, which the Almighty Son says that He wishes to the Almighty Father: for the Father and the Son have one will, which, if weakness prevent us from comprehending, piety must believe. Where I am; so far as pertains to the creature, He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh: He might say, Where I am, meaning where He was shortly to be, i.e. heaven. In heaven then, He promises us, we shall be. For there was the form of a servant raised, which He had taken from the Virgin, and there placed on the right hand of God.

What means then what the Truth says above, No man has ascended into heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. Yet here is no discrepancy for our Lord being the Head of His members, the reprobates excluded, He is alone with us. And therefore, we making one with Him, whence He came alone in Himself, there; He returns alone in us.

But as respects the form of God, wherein He is equal to the Father, if we understand these words, that they may he with Me where I am, with reference to that, then an away with all bodily ideas, and inquire, not where the Son, Who is equal to the Father, is: for no one has discovered where He is not. Wherefore it was not enough for Him to say, I will that they may be where I am, but He adds, with Me. For to be with Him is the great good: even the miserable can be where He is, but only the happy can be with Him. And as in the case of the visible though very different be whatever example we take, a blind man will serve for one, as a blind man though He is where the light is, yet is not himself with the light, but is absent from it in its presence, so not only the unbelieving, but the believing, though they cannot be where Christ is not, yet are not themselves with Christ by sight: by faith we cannot doubt but that a believer is with Christ. But here He is speaking of that sight wherein we shall see Him as He is; as He adds, That they may behold My glory, which you have given Me. That they may behold, He says, not, that they may believe. It is the reward of faith which He speaks of, not faith itself.

he says not, that they may partake of My glory, but, that they may behold, intimating that the rest there is to see the Son of God. The Father gave Him glory, when He begat Him.

When then we shall have seen the glory which the Father gave the Son, though by this glory we do not understand here, that which He gave to the equal Son when He begat Him, but that which He gave to the Son of man, after His crucifixion; then shall the judgment be, then shall the wicked be taken away, that he see not the glory of the Lord: what glory but that whereby He is God? If then we take their words, That they may be if with Me where I am, to be spoken by Him as Son of God, in that case they must have a higher meaning, viz. that we shall be in the Father with Christ. As He immediately adds, That they may see My glory which you have given Me; and then, Which you gave Me before the foundation of the world. For in Him He loved us before the foundation of the world, and then predestined what He should do at the end of the world.

That which He calls glory then is the love wherewith He was loved with the Father before the foundation of the world. And in that glory He loved us too before the foundation of the world.

After then that He had prayed for believers, and promised them so many good things, another prayer follows worthy of His mercy and benignity: O righteous Father, the world has not known it you; as if to say, I would wish that all men obtained these good things, which I have asked for the believing. But inasmuch as they have not known you, they shall not obtain the glory and crown.

He says this as if He were troubled at the thought, that they should be unwilling to know One so just and good. And whereas the Jews had said, that they knew God, and He knew Him not: He on the contrary says, But I have known you, and these have known that you have sent Me, and I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, by giving them perfect knowledge through the Holy Ghost. When they have learned what you are, they will know that I am not separate from You, but You own Son greatly beloved, and joined to You. This I have e told them, that I might receive them, and that they who believe this aright, shall preserve their faith and love toward Me entire; and I will abide in them: That the love wherewith you have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

Or thus; What is to know Him, but eternal life, which He gave not to a condemned but to a reconciled world? for this reason the world hath not known You; because you are just, and have punished the with this ignorance of You, in reward for their misdeeds. And for this reason the reconciled world knows You, because you are merciful, and have vouchsafed this knowledge, not in consequence of their merits, but of your grace. it follows: But I have known You. He is God the fountain of grace by nature, man of the Holy Ghost and Virgin by grace ineffable. Then because the grace of God is through Jesus Christ, He says, And they have known Me, i.e. the reconciled world have known Me, by grace, forasmuch as you have sent Me. And I have made known your name to them by faith, and will make it known by sight: that the love wherewith you have loved Me may be in them. The Apostle uses a like phrase, I have fought a good fight, by a good fight being the more common form. The love wherewith the Father loves the Son in us, can only be in us because we are His members, and we are loved in Him when He is loved wholly, i.e. both head and body. And therefore He adds, And I in them; He is in us, as in His temple, we in Him as our Head.

1. In the beginning, therefore, did God form Adam, not as if He stood in need of man, but that He might have [some one] upon whom to confer His benefits. For not alone antecedently to Adam, but also before all creation, the Word glorified His Father, remaining in Him; and was Himself glorified by the Father, as He did Himself declare, “Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” Nor did He stand in need of our service when He ordered us to follow Him; but He thus bestowed salvation upon ourselves. For to follow the Saviour is to be a partaker of salvation, and to follow light is to receive light. But those who are in light do not themselves illumine the light, but are illumined and revealed by it: they do certainly contribute nothing to it, but, receiving the benefit, they are illumined by the light. …

Now hatred of evil attends the good man, in virtue of His being in nature good. Wherefore I will grant that He punishes the disobedient (for punishment is for the good and advantage of him who is punished, for it is the correction of a refractory subject); but I will not grant that He wishes to take vengeance. Revenge is retribution for evil, imposed for the advantage of him who takes the revenge. He will not desire us to take revenge, who teaches us “to pray for those that despitefully use us.” But that God is good, all willingly admit; and that the same God is just, I require not many more words to prove, after adducing the evangelical utterance of the Lord; He speaks of Him as one, “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world also may believe that Thou hast sent Me. …

6. We are therefore to suppose that the saints will remain there until they recognise the twofold mode of government in those things which are performed in the air. And when I say “twofold mode,” I mean this: When we were upon earth, we saw either animals or trees, and beheld the differences among them, and also the very great diversity among men; but although we saw these things, we did not understand the reason of them; and this only was suggested to us from the visible diversity, that we should examine and inquire upon what principle these things were either created or diversely arranged. And a zeal or desire for knowledge of this kind being conceived by us on earth, the full understanding and comprehension of it will be granted after death, if indeed the result should follow according to our expectations. …

22. That in the meantime we die, we are passing over to immortality by death; nor can eternal life follow, unless it should befall us to depart from this life. That is not an ending, but a transit, and, this journey of time being traversed, a passage to eternity. Who would not hasten to better things? Who would not crave to be changed and renewed into the likeness of Christ, and to arrive more quickly to the dignity of heavenly glory, since Paul the apostle announces and says, “For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our humiliation, and conform it to the body of His glory?” Christ the Lord also promises that we shall be such, when, that we may be with Him, and that we may live with Him in eternal mansions, and may rejoice in heavenly kingdoms, He prays the Father for us, saying, “Father, I will that they also wh …

In Genesis: “Then said the Lord to Adam, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of that tree of which alone I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat, cursed shall be the ground in all thy works; in sadness and groaning shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns and thistles shall it cast forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field in the sweat of thy brow. Thou shalt eat thy bread until thou return unto the earth from which also thou wast taken; because earth thou art, and to earth thou shalt go.” Also in the same place: “And Enoch pleased God, and was not found afterwards: because God translated him.” And in Isaiah: “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. …

5. Therefore let the Son do the works of Him That sent Him, and the Father also do the works of the Son. “At all events,” you say, “the Father wills, the Son executes.” Lo, I show, that the Son willeth, and the Father executeth. Do you say, “where dost thou show this?” I show it at once. “Father, I will.” Now here if I had a mind to cavil, lo, the Son commandeth, and the Father executeth. What wilt Thou? “That where I am, they may be also with Me.” We have escaped, there shall we be, where He is; there shall we be, we have escaped. Who can undo the “I Will” of the Almighty? You hear the will of His power, hear now the power of His will. “As the Father” saith He “raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” “Whom He will.” Say not, The Son quickeneth them, whom the Father commandeth Him to quicken. …

9. “Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.” Here He has already foretold His resurrection; for they would not acknowledge Him when present, and afterwards they sought Him when they saw the multitude already believing on Him. For great signs were wrought, even when the Lord was risen again and ascended into heaven. Then mighty deeds were done by His disciples, but He wrought by them as He wrought by Himself: since, indeed, He had said to them, “Without me ye can do nothing.” When that lame man who sat at the gate rose up at Peter’s voice, and walked on his feet, so that men marvelled, Peter spoke to them to this effect, that it was not by his own power that he did this, but in the virtue of Him whom they slew. …

14. By this, then, which the Lord hath explained, that He Himself is the door, let us find entrance to what He has set forth, but not explained. And indeed who it is that is the Shepherd, although He hath not told us in the lesson we have read to-day, yet in that which follows He very plainly tells us: “I am the good Shepherd.” And although He had not said so, whom else but Himself ought we to have understood in those words where He saith, “He that entereth in by the door is the Shepherd of the sheep. To Him the porter openeth: and the sheep hear His voice: and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. …

2. There is also another form of His divine presence unknown to mortal senses, of which He likewise says, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” This, at least, is not the same as “yet a little while I am with you;” for it is not a little while until the end of the world. Or if even this is so (for time flies, and a thousand years are in God’s sight as one day, or as a watch in the night,) yet we cannot believe that He intended any such meaning on this occasion, especially as He went on to say, “Ye shall seek me, and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come.” That is to say, after this little while that I am with you, “ye shall seek me, and whither I go, ye cannot come.” Is it after the end of the world that, whither He goes, they will not be able to come? And where, then, is the place of which He is going to say a little after in this same discourse, “Fath …

37. “There shall come ambassadors out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall prevent the hands of Him” ( ver. 31 ). Under the name of Egypt or of Ethiopia, he hath signified the faith of all nations, from a part the whole: calling the preachers of reconciliation ambassadors. “For Christ,” he saith, “we have an embassy, God as it were exhorting through us: we beseech you for Christ to be reconciled to God.” Not then of the Israelites alone, whence the Apostles were chosen, but also from the rest of the nations that there should be preachers of Christian peace, in this manner hath been mystically prophesied. But by that which he saith, “shall prevent the hands of Him,” he saith this, shall prevent the vengeance of Him: to wit, by turning to Him, in order that their sins may be forgiven, lest by continuing sinners they be punished. …

His meaning is somewhat of this sort. Through whom He hath blessed us, through Him He hath also chosen us. And He, then, it is that shall bestow upon us all those rewards hereafter. He is the very Judge that shall say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” ( Mat. xxv. 34 .) And again, “I will that where I am they will also be with Me.” ( John xvii. 24 .) And this is a point which he is anxious to prove in almost all his Epistles, that ours is no novel system, but that it had thus been figured from the very first, that it is not the result of any change of purpose, but had been in fact a divine dispensation and fore-ordained. And this is a mark of great solicitude for us.

Thus the Law is still necessary for the confirmation of the Gospel, yet to those who obey it is unnecessary. And he calls the Gospel “glorious.” There were some who were ashamed of its persecutions, and of the sufferings of Christ, and so for the sake of these, as well as for others, he has called it “the glorious Gospel,” thus showing that the sufferings of Christ are our glory. And perhaps he glances too at the future. For if our present state is exposed to shame and reproach, it will not be so hereafter; and it is to things future, and not to things present, that the Gospel belongs. Why then did the Angel say, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, for unto you is born a Saviour”? ( Luke ii. 10 .) Because He was born to be their Saviour, though His miracles did not commence from His birth. …