“Praise the Savior ye who KNOW Him! Who can tell how much we owe Him?Gladly let us render to Him; All we are and have!”
The famed Baptist preacher Charles
Spurgeon was spot when he said, “What is
often forgotten is that the ultimate end of gospel is not the conversion of men
but the glory of God!” To which John Piper adds, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."
The final prong of the Father's love gift to His beloved Son is mentioned at the tail end of John 17:2.
C) The glorified
Savior is given the right to bestow eternal life. "…that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may
give eternal life” (John 17:2c).
Because of the Son’s triumphant
cross work the Father grants Him the privilege of bestowing eternal life. The keys of heaven are in His nail pierced
hands alone (Rev. 1:18)! It’s why Peter said,
“Where else shall we go Lord? Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John
6:68) “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under
heaven that has been given among men, by which why must be saved (Acts 4:12;
John 14:6)”
No human being can merit their own salvation,
let alone, grant eternal life to anyone else.
That includes the Roman Catholic Pope, mother Mary, and every other
“saint.” As is true throughout Scripture, salvation is presented in John 17 as
a “gift” of sovereign grace (John 17:2-3; Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8-10).
The glorified Savior is given the right to bestow
eternal life to all of the elect. This brings us then to “the
Salvation Parenthesis: (what is eternal
life?)”
John 17:3 answers the most significant
question in the world (what is eternal life). How
would you answer that question? When the subject of everlasting life is
mentioned Christians almost instinctively reference John 3:16. "For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish, but have eternal life
(John 3:16)."
The next time somebody says to you, “Eternal
life, what do you mean?” You should make a beeline to John 17:3. Jesus could not have stated it any
clearer than this. "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. (John 17:3).
Eternal life is a grace gift that
entails union with Christ and communion with God. Yes,
biblical Christianity involves sound doctrine but it also involves a personal,
saving relationship with the God of the universe and with His Son, our
blessed Savior, Jesus Christ. When we lose sight of this
truth our orthodoxy will grow cold
and our piety will become perfunctory. Oh that the Holy Spirit of Christ
might use this text to set our hearts ablaze!
We need to be regularly reminded that there’s
only one redemptive relationship that can satisfy the deepest longings of the
soul. It’s the ultimate relationship
that we were created for. As the Westminster Confession of Faith so
puts it, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
I would encourage you to go back and reread
Genesis 1-3. In the opening chapters of Scripture we learn
that the earth was originally created to be a Divine residence- wherein
Holy, Holy, Holy God and Holy People could coexist forever.
When Man rebelled against his Maker
paradise given became paradise lost. One
of the most devastating consequences of “the fall” is alluded to almost
immediately. “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3:8).
After the fall, rather than running to God in
joy our guilt stricken parents fled from God’s presence in fear. Like spiritual lepers they silently
acknowledged that they were, “Unclean!
Unclean! Unclean!” Because of sin our most blessed
Creator can no longer coexist with man in perfect harmony or in unbroken
fellowship. As John Walton rightly
noted, “In the aftermath of the Fall, the greatest loss was not Paradise; it
was God’s presence!”
Which inevitable brings to mind a
number of questions: -Is life now void of
meaning and purpose? Should we join Solomon in saying, “Vanity of vanities, all
is vanity.” Are we now endlessly
condemned to live out our days ‘east of Eden’ in God-forsaken lands (note Gen.
3:23-24)?
As we think about the fall of man in
light of John 17:2-3 one is left to wonder, “What about all the promises God
made to His eternal Son?” When read in their
redemptive-historical contexts Genesis 3:15 and John 17 direct our
thoughts to the cross.
"And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I
glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given
Me to do. And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory
which I had with Thee before the world was (John 17:3-5).”
In John 17:3 Jesus is referred to as the Divinely commissioned
Son. Why did the Father send His ‘one of
a kind (monogenes) Son’ into the big
bad world? John succinctly answers this
question in his first epistle. “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior
of the world” (1 John 4:14).
The apostle Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him
who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.”
This is the gospel according to
Jesus. “For this is the will of My
Father, that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him, may have
eternal life… (John 6:40).” "And this is eternal life, that they may know
Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
One cannot escape the High Priestly
prayer of Jeus without answering the ultimate life question. “Do I truly have a
personal, saving relationship with the true and living God and with His Son,
Jesus Christ?”
The warning God gave to Israel in
Jeremiah 9:23-24 is as timely now as it was then: "Thus says the LORD, "Let
not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his
might, let not a rich man boast of his riches but let him who boasts boast of
this, that he understands and knows Me…"
I would be remiss if I conclude this
article without mentioning this. The believer’s
saving relationship with the LORD is rooted in the New Covenant. (note Mt.
26:68)! Or perhaps it is better to say
that Jesus’ “salvation parenthesis” flows out of the streams of Jeremiah 31:34,
where God made this oath with His people.
“For they shall all know Me; from the least of them to the greatest,
declares the LORD, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will
remember no more.” The New Covenant was
clearly on Jesus’ mind earlier that same night (note Matt. 26:68).
The glorification of Jesus (through
the cross) secures our eternal redemption that we might enjoy unbroken
fellowship with God, forever and ever, amen!
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is
easy for us to take our most treasured human relationships for granted. Sadly, at times, we do the same thing with
God. In my life I far too often take the
benefits and blessings of this restored relationship for granted. O to know Thee and to be known by Thee.
May the lyrics of this final hymn by
the aim of our daily lives:
“Praise the Savior ye
who KNOW Him!
Who can tell how much
we owe Him?
Gladly let us render
to Him;
All we are and have!”
