17:4,5
Jesus has brought the Father glory by finishing His work on earth. His work on the cross meant that Satan’s plan to separate us from God that began back in Eden had failed. It means that God’s eternal purposes are fulfilled, it means that His justice and mercy are demonstrated. The Father will now glorify Jesus in His presence. Jesus would be given all power and authority (Matt 28:18; Eph 1:20,21).
“The glory I had with you before the world began”. This clearly states the eternal nature of Christ, and links in with all things being created through Him (Col 1:16). Note that there is a mutual giving of glory. We tend to think of glory as being self-serving, but in God it is mutual giving. We are to give glory to God, and in Rom 8:17 it says we will share in Christ’s glory, and Col 1:27 speaks of Christ being the hope of glory in us.
17:6
The beginning actually says “I revealed your name”, meaning Jesus revealed who God really is. He revealed this to those the Father had given to Him. So there are two key facts here. The first is that we can only see who God really is if Jesus reveals Him to us. Secondly, the Father chooses who will receive this revelation. The Father gave these to the Son “out of the world”. When we get saved we do not get saved so that we can have a better life down here. Often many things will improve in our life, but that is a byproduct, it is not the product itself. The product is that we saved out of the world, so that instead of living like “worldings” we live like Christ.
We belong to God, He gave us to Christ, and we obeyed His word.
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