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  • The Hour Is Come – Glory to the Son AND the Father

    The Hour Is Come – Glory to the Son AND the Father

    Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer of intercession begins simply and humbly.

    Even from the confines of a dark upper room in Zion which Judas has now left on the eve of Jerusalem’s great darkness, Jesus looks up to the light of a glory the Son once had – the glory of the LORD God our Father in heaven.

    Glorify your Son

    Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee…

    John 17:1 b KJV

    John 17:

    When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said,

    “Father, the time has come.

    … glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.

    John 17:1b-2a NET

    Our eternal High Priest has much more to say in His prayer of high importance to sinners for whom He intercedes. These include eternal life and as previously mentioned who the Father has given to the Son.

    Yet today let’s focus in on why Jesus prays for the Father to glorify the Son – His reason for entering the Holy of Holies beyond the veil of our distanced understanding, on behalf of these eleven witnesses and more.

    What is GLORY?

    The Apostle John, one of the Eleven remaining had previously witnessed the glory of Jesus.

    Luke 9:

    The Transfiguration
    28 Some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming…

    … when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him… a cloud formed and began to overshadow them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.

    35 Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”

    δόξα – doxa –

    From the base of δοκέω (G1380) – generally used meaning to ‘think.’

    The LORD God is a thinking All-powerful, Ever-existing Being!

    Think about it. As created and fragile beings our worship of the LORD God considers humbly our own humanity beneath His glory.

    We who can think should glorify the LORD above all, but often we will not.

    • δόξα dóxa, dox’-ah; glory (as very apparent),
      • in a wide application (literal or figurative, objective or subjective):—dignity,
      • glory(-ious),
      • honour,
      • praise,
      • worship.

    These humble acknowledgements so rare in men of flesh, yet plainly evident in all creation, reflect the glory of God. Therefore a soul who thinks about the LORD our Creator and glorifies Him is a worshiper, flesh and spirit looking up and bowing down to our Lord and God.

    Jesus prays to the Father as a Son of Man.

    Having been sent by the Father to the world He has completed the work for which He was sent by the Father. The hour now approaches for Him to return to His former glory.

    His former GLORY with the Father

    Never forget, beloved Christian disciple of Jesus, that He and the Father are One.

    Prior to creation and in the early history of God’s chosen, Jesus had the same former glory. You have read of it. Yet so often we remain blind to the LORD’S glory. How rare the time men bow before it.

    The GLORY of the LORD is perhaps as foreign to 21st c. christians as hebrew.

    וַיִּשְׁכֹּ֤ן כְּבֹוד־יְהוָה֙ עַל־הַ֣ר סִינַ֔י וַיְכַסֵּ֥הוּ הֶעָנָ֖ן שֵׁ֣שֶׁת יָמִ֑ים וַיִּקְרָ֧א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֛ה בַּיֹּ֥ום הַשְּׁבִיעִ֖י מִתֹּ֥וךְ הֶעָנָֽן׃

    וּמַרְאֵה֙ כְּבֹ֣וד יְהוָ֔ה כְּאֵ֥שׁ אֹכֶ֖לֶת בְּרֹ֣אשׁ הָהָ֑ר לְעֵינֵ֖י בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

    Exodus 24:16-17 WLC [click for translations]

    כָּבוֹד

    • כָּבוֹד kâbôwd, kaw-bode’; rarely כָּבֹד kâbôd; from H3513; properly, weight, but only figuratively in a good sense, splendor or copiousness:—glorious(-ly), glory, honour(-able).

    Exodus 24:

    15 Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.

    16 The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.

    17 And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain top.

    18 Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

    the GLORY of a consuming FIRE

    Moses later confirms in Deuteronomy [ דברים 4 ]:

    “You said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.

    This is the former glory the Messiah Jesus knew with the Father!

    Later the prophet Isaiah would write:

    Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless. “Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?”

    Isaiah 33:14

    Jesus knew a former glory with the Father, a fearful and awesome consuming fire which refines and humbles men made of dust and ashes.

    The writer of Hebrews, restating Moses warning of keeping the covenant, reminds of this glory:

    Hebrews 12:

    18 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.”

    21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I am full of fear and trembling.”

    Do you fear the LIVING GOD? And do you, O man, humbly bow down to the GLORY of the LORD?

    What is the chief end of man?

    Any teaching of faith must begin from the glory of God and consequent worship of God by man, for we are nothing more than a created being glorifying our Creator.

    We have glanced at a Hebrew origin, then New Covenant Greek.

    Moving beyond millenia of teaching from ancient latin we receive an English version of this elemental Christian teaching since the 1640’s during the Reformation.

    The Westminster Catechism begins with God’s glory.

    “Man’s chief end if to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

    Another foundational Protestant teaching, The Heidelberg Catechism, begins by asking, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”

    Perhaps the Disciples had wondered this often while following their Lord and Master Jesus for three years.

    What is about to take place on the Cross will fully bring light to Jesus’ prayer to the Father asking Him to bring the Son His former glory along with the Father.

    Jesus’ prayer for glory

    4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed…

    10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them…

    (John no doubt realizes that Jesus includes the Eleven here, but our Lord’s prayer of intercession goes much further than praying just for the Disciples in the room.)

    22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

    (Much to think about here even beyond the glory of the Lord.)

    24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

    High Priest of the New Covenant

    Jesus intercedes as High Priest on our behalf — between the Father and all sinners given to Him

    From here the Son our High Priest will move deeper into the unseen Holy of Holies where Jesus will present Himself as a living and acceptable Perfect Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

    To be continued...
  • Father, the hour is come

    Father, the hour is come

    Jesus uses ‘Father’ as a relational approach to God, just like the trust which the boy Jesus surely must have had with Joseph, husband of His mother Mary, many times.

    Yet what does this mean to a disciple of Jesus’ teaching to address the Lord God as Father?

    Father, the hour has come

    There’s a certain immediacy to saying, ‘the hour’ is come, or now is or has come. It is the precise time we have been awaiting – a time prepared long before now.

    Our present focus of The Hour Is Come is Jesus’ prayer at the precise time after Judas left the room and prior to the Lord and the Eleven departing for Gethsemane where He is about to be betrayed.

    When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come;

    glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

    John 17:1-2 ESV

    Jesus begins His conversation in prayer by addressing the LORD God in a most intimate and relational way.

    “Father,” the Son of Man so boldly addresses Almighty God in heaven. What a connection!

    A Man Who IS more than a man — speaking directly to the LORD GOD, as if He Who IS the very Son of God would humbly address his papa on earth.

    Trinity begins with the Father

    The lesson and relationship learned from Jesus’ prayer is both mysterious and wonderful — glorious in a sense of worship and humbling in the light of an intimate relationship.

    Later we will focus again on Jesus the Son of God, His connection through the Holy Spirit and a new covenant of grace for all who will follow Jesus as Lord. But for now we look up only to the Father, as did Jesus in His prayer..

    πατήρ – patēr

    Choose any of the three definitions you like, but realize that John and the Eleven are listening to the Son of Man, Jesus their Master and Teacher, pray directly to the LORD God in heaven, whose Voice they have heard previously.

    1. generator or male ancestor
    2. metaphor for:
      1. the authors of a family or society of persons animated by the same spirit as himself
      2. one who has infused his own spirit into others, who actuates and governs their minds
      3. one who stands in a father’s place and looks after another in a paternal way
      4. a title of honour
        1. teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received (We don’t really honor teachers in this way in these last days, but some give this authority to a priest leader of a flock.)
        2. the members of the Sanhedrin (As you know, Jesus had some issue with these ‘fathers of Israel’ as well & they will be the ones to clandestinely convict the Messiah of God our Father sent as our atoning Sacrifice to save a remnant of Abraham.)
    3. God is called the Father (This applies is many ways you may read here, but above all ‘Father of spiritual beings and of all men.’)

    By all Authority implied in Jesus’ opening of HIS High Priestly Prayer, it is highly significant that the Lord Jesus ‘lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father …’

    And from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament the definition instructs us from the everyday Greek word used by Jesus and those in Jerusalem governed by Rome:

    πατήρ : ‘from a root signifying “a nourisher, protector, upholder” (Lat., pater, Eng., “father,” are akin), is used

    [God’s] “Fatherhood” in spiritual relationship through faith is the subject of NT revelation, and waited for the presence on earth of the Son. The spiritual relationship is not universal.

    Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament

    [& an additional insight: Note: Whereas the everlasting power and divinity of God are manifest in creation, His “Fatherhood” in spiritual relationship through faith is the subject of NT revelation, and waited for the presence on earth of the Son, Mat 11:27; Jhn 17:25.

    The spiritual relationship is not universal, Jhn 8:42, 44 (cp. Jhn 1:12; Gal 3:26).] [I will leave you to your own further revelation of the Father through your research of these scriptures. RH]

    The ‘Father’ of Jesus’ prayer

    With additional insight of bowing down to God the Father in our prayer to heaven, let us recall that Jesus had already taught the Disciples that which we know so well and do take for granted.

    The Lord’s Prayer

    After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

    Matthew 6:9 KJV
    father with turban and beard seated with arms around son

    ‘Our,’ which precedes Father, in the Lord’s Prayer is a personal possessive pronoun, a possessive plural in corporate prayer.

    So perhaps appropriate in a singular personal possessive sense in prayer, you or I might reasonably pray,

    “My Father in heaven. Holy is your Name.”

    (And recall that the Lord Jesus has declared: “I and the Father are One.” [John 10:30]

    What glorious mystery for us to observe Jesus and the Father, who are One, in this, His most personal prayer prior to the Son’s sacrifice on a Cross for our sins.

    The Disciples had been accustomed to Jesus praying to the Father at many times corporately before the multitudes, more privately among them and privately away from them at times.

    Luke 11:

    And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him,

    ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’

    And he said unto them, ‘When ye pray, say,

    Our Father which art in heaven,

    Hallowed be thy name.

    Thy kingdom come.

    Thy will be done,

    as in heaven, so in earth.

    Luke 11:2b KJV

    When your mortal ‘time is come’ will you able to approach your heavenly Father saying, ‘Thy will be done?’

    Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com on Jesus’ prayer in John 17

    So from this final prayer following the last supper of Jesus and the Disciples, John witnesses this high priestly prayer of their Master and Teacher Jesus, a beloved father to the Twelve for these past three years.

    πατήρ – patēr – a title of honour – teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received

    John 17:

    … “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You…

    5 Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself…

    11 I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You.

    Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me,

    that they may be one even as We are.

    One with the One Father

    Do you think that it is important to the Apostles that Jesus again prays to the Father with words confirming that He and the Father are ONE?

    שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד׃

    “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!

    Deuteronomy 6:4 Masoretic Text, NASB

    Jesus continues and prays just a short time later:

    21 that they may all be one;

    even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You,

    that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

    Relationship with our Father in heaven

    Paul, Apostle to the gentiles, later writes to the church in Corinth:

    Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? … But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him… Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you

    1 Corinthians 6:15-19 excerpt NASB

    Again, the Apostle Paul and Jesus both point to the glorious mystery of the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as ONE, as well as a personal relationship between the spirit of a redeemed man like you or me to the ONE GOD, Who IS Spirit and truth.

    John 17:

    Jesus continues His High Priestly Prayer as intercession for these disciples and those to follow:

    24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am…

    25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me…

    What must the Disciple have thought following Jesus’ prayer to the Father?

    What do you think of this prayer to the Holy Father in heaven by the Highest of High Priests praying for your soul?

    “Lord,” they called Jesus — “the existing One” as more than a Son of Man, as the LORD GOD IS ONE!

    אֱלֹהִים

    ‘elohiym – ʼĕlôhîym, el-o-heem’; plural of H433; gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God

    Our LORD is the ONE GOD — Trinity — the Son interceding by prayer and His own priestly Sacrifice for those who believe and would be saved.

    When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

    John 18:1 ESV
    To be continued...

  • The Hour Is Come

    The Hour Is Come

    These words spake Jesus

    .. and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come…

    The Gospel of John 17:1a KJV

    The Gospel introduction to perhaps Jesus’ most pivotal prayer varies in other translations but agrees in the Lord’s focus on the moment:

    • “Father, the time has come.
    • “Father, the hour has come

    The Lord Jesus spoke these four words to the Father of a specific time of fulfillment of God’s plan of grace – a plan from before time into a moment of completion on the Cross of Redemption.

    Time and Eternity

    First let us consider time itself.

    We measure and divide our numbered days counting by millenia, century, year, season, month, week, day, night, hour, minute, second, instant even to a millisecond.

    All time measured as a meter or mile, distinct with start and finish and definable to man, a creation of indefinite but comparable time on this earth.

    Seasons and sundials only approximate time given to mortal man fading faintly into the shadow of death and disintegration.

    We measure our mortal hours by digital devices, clocks ticking away, watches counting the seconds passing into that which will be long forgotten in generations to come.

    Time

    “Father, the time has come.

    Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.

    John 17:1a-2 NET

    What does Jesus mean by this— the time or the hour has come?

    The context is this: Jesus is with the Disciples alone, having just finished the Last Supper. Judas now departed and after this all will leave this night for Gethsemane.

    Jesus has just encouraged them promising the Holy Spirit.

    John 16:31 Jesus responded to them, “Do you now believe?

    32 Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone…

    ὥρα – יוֹם – עֵת

    Time – Specifically Hour from the Greek – a certain definite time or season fixed by natural law and returning with the revolving year.

    Jesus points to this ‘certain definite time’ in a relational mortal sense. He may literally mean an ‘hour’ as this definite time, point of time, moment in which He and the Eleven must move on to His surrender to to sacrifice in Gethsemane. (It is now such and such an hour.)

    Jesus, alone with the Father and the Eleven, knows that His time is come.

    In a larger, immortal and timeless sense, His time has also come for completion of the redemption God planned for sinners before even the first sin of Adam.

    Time from the Hebrew is: time (of an event), time (usual). experiences, fortunes, occurrence, occasion; however it can also point beyond the measurable timeline of history to perpetuity, for ever, continuing future, as well as ancient (of past time), for ever (of future time). Time may refer eternally of continuous existence and for ever (of God’s existence).

    From נָצַח (H5329) – נֶצַח

    From a root meaning preeminent, perpetual, an overseer; the Hebrew understanding of eternal time suggests:

    eminence, perpetuity, strength, victory, enduring, everlastingness

    • eminence
    • enduring of life
    • endurance in time, perpetual, continual, unto the end
    • everlastingness, ever

    From this, a prophecy known to the Jews, including Jesus’ disciples:

    O LORD, You are my God

    Isaiah 25:

    O LORD, You are my God;
I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name;
For You have worked wonders,
Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.
    The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all
 peoples on this mountain; 
A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, 
And refined, aged wine.

    And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples,
    Even the veil which is stretched over all nations.

    He will swallow up death for all time,
    And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces,
    And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;
    For the LORD has spoken.

    וְאָמַר֙ בַּיֹּ֣ום הַה֔וּא הִנֵּ֨ה אֱלֹהֵ֥ינוּ זֶ֛ה קִוִּ֥ינוּ לֹ֖ו וְיֹֽושִׁיעֵ֑נוּ זֶ֤ה יְהוָה֙ קִוִּ֣ינוּ לֹ֔ו נָגִ֥ילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָ֖ה בִּישׁוּעָתֹֽו׃

    Isaiah 25:9 Masoretic Text

    And it will be said in that day,
    “Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
    This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
    Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

    Isaiah 25:9 NASB

    “And it will be said IN THAT DAY…

    this is ‘elohiym qavah yasha – יָשַׁע

    GOD’S long-awaited SAVIOUR!

    Isaiah 63: KJV

    8 For he said,

    Surely they are my people, children that will not lie:

    so he was their Saviour.

    9 In all their affliction he was afflicted,

    and the angel of his presence saved them:

    in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

    and he bare them,

    and carried them all the days of old.

    The Gospel of John 17:

    When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said,

    “Father, the time has come.

    Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— 2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.

    To be continued... Lord willing...