More Final Words
I know, I know. Last week was billed as final thoughts of Jesus. This week the text is John 17: 20-26. This passage has Jesus saying a few more “final thoughts”. It’s as if Jesus is some sort of 1st. century Lieutenant Colombo, turning around before He leaves and saying…just one more thing, before I go. Well as bible passages go, this is about it for last thoughts of Jesus on earth.
It is notable that these final, final thoughts are about Jesus’s nature and His identity. Jesus states most clearly that He and the Father are one. “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you” (Verse 20). This is a clear marker for who Jesus says that He is, and it does not get any less stunning just because Jesus has repeated it many times. This is also stunning because of the clear implications this identity carries.
Relaying the Message
The point of Jesus reminding us of who He is, is to remind us of what God has done through Him. Verse 22-23 states clearly, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
What this means for us is that God has communicated to us through His son Jesus the Christ. We know Jesus, therefore we know God. We may trust what Jesus has said and done because He and God are one. The resurrection has placed this faith within us. It is hearing God’s good and gracious word through Jesus that creates this faith in Him. We have heard this word and we simply believe. It is this belief that sees Christ dwelling within us as the righteousness of God Himself. This is because God and Jesus are one. As the Creed says, “One in Being with the Father”.
God had relayed His message through the Messiah, Jesus. Jesus has relayed this message to us. As Verse 26 states “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ “. There is nothing that we need do, all we need is to believe, and Christ dwells within us.
This is the essence of our faith, hearing the word and believing and receiving Christ within us, the very righteousness of God. In this we may be confident that all that stands between us and an eternal relationship with God has been obliterated. That is, we may be confident in our salvation.
All this sets the stage for Pentecost, next week, and the arrival of the Holy Spirit to light a fire under our ass so that we may go and relay this message of love and offer Christ to dwell in all who believe. This passage gives the final statement of why we trust and believe in Jesus. Next week we celebrate the arrival of the helper to assist in obeying.
Praise Be to God
