John 17:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet He had said: "I will come to you" (Jn 14:18), and, "I am with you always, to the end" (Mt 28:20). Why then does He now speak as though He truly intended to be separated from them?

As I have said, this is condescension to their thought, so that they might be somewhat calmed when they heard Him speak in this way and entrust them to the Father. Since, after many consolations from Him, they were still not persuaded, He finally turns His speech to the Father, showing His great love for them.

He speaks as though saying: Since Thou callest Me to Thyself, establish them in safety, for I am coming to Thee. What do You say? Can You not guard them Yourself? Certainly I can. Why then do You say this? "That they may have My joy fulfilled" (Jn 17:13). That is, so that they may not be troubled, being still imperfect.

By these words He showed that He said all this for their consolation and joy. Otherwise His words would appear contradictory. "But now I am not in the world, and these are in the world." This is what the disciples actually thought, and He adapts Himself to them.

If He had said, "I will keep them," they would not have believed so readily. Therefore He says: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name" (v. 11), that is, by Thy help. "While I was in the world, I kept them in Thy name."

Again He speaks as man and as Prophet, because nowhere is He seen doing anything in the name of God. "Those whom Thou hast given Me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled" (v. 12).

Elsewhere He says: "Of all that He has given Me I shall lose nothing" (Jn 6:39). But not only Judas was lost. Many others were lost afterward. How then does He say, "I shall lose nothing"? As far as depends on Me, I shall lose nothing.

In another place He shows this even more clearly, saying: "I will not cast him out" (Jn 6:37). It is not My fault. I do not drive away, and I do not abandon. If someone falls away of himself, I do not draw him by force.

"But now I am coming to Thee" (v. 13). Do you see how humanly this discourse is framed? Therefore, if anyone wishes on this basis to lower the Son, he will also lower the Father.

Look how from the beginning He seems at times to teach Him and explain to Him, and at times to command Him. He seems to teach when He says, "I pray not for the world." He seems to command when He says, "I have kept them until now, and none is lost," and, "so do Thou keep them."

Again He says: "They were Thine, and Thou gavest them to Me," and, "while I was in the world, I kept them." The solution to everything is that all these words were spoken in condescension to their weakness.

After saying, "None of them is lost except the son of perdition," He added: "that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Of what Scripture does He speak? Of that which foretells many things concerning Him.

Yet Judas was not lost in order that Scripture might be fulfilled. Concerning this I have already said much before. It is a special manner of Scripture to present what later comes to pass as though it were the cause.

If we do not wish to err, we must carefully examine everything: the character of the speaker, the subject of the speech, and the laws proper to Scripture. "Brethren, be not children in understanding" (1 Cor 14:20).

It is like someone who, handing property to another for safekeeping, says: see, I have lost nothing; do not lose anything either. But He says all this for the consolation of the disciples. "These things," He says, "I speak in the world," for the peace, consolation, and joy of the disciples. He wishes them to take courage and not be troubled, since You receive them whole and will keep them, as I also kept them and lost none. How then, Lord, did You lose none, when Judas perished, and many others went back (Jn 6:66)? He says, I lost none on My part. As far as depended on Me, I left nothing unfulfilled. I kept them, that is, I strove in every way to preserve them. If they fall away by themselves, that does not in any way belong to My fault. "That the Scripture might be fulfilled" means every scripture that foretells concerning the son of perdition. For he is spoken of in various psalms (Ps 108:8; Ps 68:26) and in the other prophetic books. Concerning the particle "that," we have often said that Scripture is accustomed to call a cause what is fulfilled afterward.

Although they became wise men, Fathers, and lights of the whole world, we must nevertheless say without hesitation that they ought not to have considered only the bodily presence of our Savior Christ. They ought to have known that, even if He withdrew from bodily presence with them and was no longer visible to bodily eyes, they must certainly understand Him as present and always with them by His divine power. Indeed, can God be deprived of His own properties? What can hinder the Nature that rules all things, or stop It as though by necessity from the active manifestation of Its properties? For the activity and power of the Godhead is to be everywhere, to fill heaven ineffably, to fill the earth also, to contain all things and be contained by nothing. God is not enclosed by place, nor bounded by space or by any limits. The nature that is without quality, without limit, and without body admits none of this. Since Christ was together and at once God and man, the disciples ought certainly to have known that even if He were bodily absent, He would not be wholly absent. Rather, He would surely abide with them, according to the ineffable property of His divine nature. For this reason the Savior Himself had said earlier, 'Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, which Thou hast given Me.' And now He says again, 'While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Which Thou hast given Me.' By this He indicates to His disciples that the power to guard anyone belongs more to the activity of the Godhead than to bodily presence. For even the flesh itself was not sanctified by itself. Rather, through the co-presence of the Word united with it, it was in some manner transformed into His natural power. Thus it became the cause of salvation and holiness for those who partake of it. Therefore we cannot ascribe the whole divine activity to the flesh by itself. If we think rightly, we must refer it to the divine power of the Word. Indeed, does the keeping of the disciples in the name of the Father mean anything else? Were they not kept for the glory of God? Therefore, removing fear from the hearts of the disciples because they thought He was leaving them, and often repeating the same thing, He says that their complete safety will not depend on bodily dwelling with their Teacher. Rather, it will depend on His being God by nature. Since He has unceasing authority and power over all things, He is unchangeable and in no way admits transformation into what does not always remain the same. Therefore, even after His departure, He will be able without hindrance to guard them and deliver them from every evil that may befall them. Notice again the care for our benefit and good order hidden in this saying. As though He had entreated God the Father to guard the saints, He says that He Himself has already done this. He shows Himself equal in power and equal in operation to His Begetter. More than this, He shows Himself to be the very hypostatic power of Him Who begot Him. Indeed, if someone is shown to have the ability to do the very things that the actual and true God can do, as all confess, must not equality in authority and identity in nature certainly belong to Him? And He Who kept them as God 'in the name' of God, having clothed Himself through His divine works with the glory proper to that name, how could He be of another essence or another nature? How could He not truly be what God is by nature? Nothing that exists can perform the works proper to God unless it is in essence what we understand God to be. Here also, because of the Incarnation, there is a twofold meaning in His saying. The work of guarding and preserving those to whom this belongs for the sake of piety He, as it were, takes away from created nature and assigns to the 'name' of the Father. He ascribes what is divine to the divine nature alone. Therefore, although He says again that He kept the disciples, He did not ascribe the accomplishment of this work to human limitation. Rather, He affirms that it was fulfilled 'in the name' of God. In this way He places Himself outside the work insofar as He was and is understood as flesh. At the same time, He ascribes to Himself the power to guard and to perform divine works insofar as He is God from God, the all-working power of the Father. He is strength not made, but showing by what it is the nature from which it ineffably came forth. And if here again He says that the name of the Godhead was given to Him, although He is God by nature, since He appeared from God as Only-begotten, this does not harm the truth of the matter at all. Nor does it deprive Him of the honor and glory proper to Him. Certainly not. For it belongs to His humanity to receive, and this must especially be ascribed to it, since it has nothing of itself. Thus, He says, He kept His own disciples and showed such care for them that none perished except one. He called that one 'the son of perdition,' as one condemned to perdition by his own will, or more precisely, by his own worthlessness and impiety. We must by no means think that by a divine and immutable judgment the betrayer among the disciples was caught in the hunter's net and found himself in the snares of the devil. In that case he would have been without guilt, as one compelled by a supreme decree. Who can resist the judgment of God? But he was condemned as one who had committed an abomination. It would have been better for him never to have been born (Mt 26:24). For what reason? Because the wretched man is shown to have done this by his own will, not under compulsion from anyone. As one who loved so terrible a ruin, he is justly called a child of ruin. He was condemned to perdition and destruction, awaiting the day of perdition as though it were the pangs of birth and weeping. Since He added to these words, 'that the Scripture might be fulfilled,' we think it useful to say the following to our readers. The betrayer did not perish and reach such wickedness, betraying the precious blood of Christ for a few pieces of silver, because Scripture said it. Rather, because perdition was certainly awaiting him, since he betrayed the Lord according to his own evil character, Scripture, which cannot err, foretold that this would surely happen. For Scripture is the word of the God Who knows all things and bears in His mind each person's manner of life and conduct from beginning to end. Thus the Psalmist, ascribing to Him knowledge of all things, both past and future, says to Him in one place: 'Thou knowest all my thoughts from afar. Thou knowest my path and my lot, and Thou foreseest all my ways' (Ps 138:2-3). Therefore, foreknowing all things and beholding the future already as present, the divine word foretold to us, along with everything else said about Christ, that the betrayer placed among the disciples would perish. The foreknowledge and prediction of the future was certainly not God's will or command. Nor was the prediction a compulsion to commit the foretold sin and crime against the Savior. Rather, it was meant to turn him away from it. Once he knew this, he could certainly have refused, if he had wished, and guarded himself from it. For he had a free inclination toward whatever he wished. But perhaps you will say, 'How then did Christ keep His disciples, when the others appear to have escaped the devil's snares by the inclination of their own desires and voluntary impulses, while only the wretched Judas was caught among them all? What profit, then, was there in the keeping mentioned here?' To this, most noble friend, we also answer that watchfulness is certainly excellent. The strength of our mind and the power of the will toward virtue and doing good are very useful. In this way we work out 'our own salvation' (Phil 2:12). Yet this alone is not sufficient for the human soul. It necessarily needs higher assistance and grace, which lightens obstacles for it and makes the difficult and rocky path of righteousness fully passable. Hear the Psalmist's words concerning the fact that we have nothing at all that does not come from divine grace: 'Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman has watched in vain' (Ps 126:1). Therefore, I affirm, we must necessarily strive to display our own strength of character and our God-loving disposition. We must show ourselves courageous in the work of our salvation. At the same time, we must ask from God the assistance from above, as an unconquerable and unbreakable armor, once we have resolved to contend courageously. And since God has once granted this to us and has been well pleased in it, we can now overcome the power of the enemies and conquer the authority of the devil, if we do not wish to obey him when he calls us to sensual pleasure or another kind of sin. For once we surrender our will to him, and by inclination to evil show that we have given ourselves into his net, would it be just to accuse anyone else? Should we not instead assign the blame to our own follies? Is this not precisely what Solomon said long ago: 'The folly of a man harms his ways, and in his heart he blames God' (Prov 19:3)? This is beyond dispute. Therefore, if it was impossible for the betrayer to receive help from the Savior equally with the other disciples, let someone prove this, and we will agree. But if he had, equally with the others, the protection of divine grace around him, and by his own will fell into the pit of perdition, did Christ not keep him? Did He not show him His mercy? As far as the giving of help to a man was concerned, would He not have saved him, if he himself had not freely wished to suffer evil? Thus grace shone in the others, always saving those who made their own will, as it were, a fellow-worker with it and a helper of grace. For in this way the pattern of each person's salvation is ordered.

Without doubt, he wished them to continue in the good. Therefore they were in the good. Yet because they did not remain in it, that is, because they did not persevere to the end, he says: "They went out from us, but they were not of us."

In other words, they were not of the number of the children, even when they believed as children. True children are destined and prepared beforehand to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29). According to this purpose they are called the elect. It is clear from this that the son of promise does not perish, but the son of perdition does.

The betrayer of Christ is called the son of perdition, destined for perdition according to Scripture. This Scripture contains a special prophecy concerning him in Psalm 108. Cf. Ps 108:13-20.

If I am asked why God did not give perseverance to those to whom He gave such love that by it they could live as Christians, I answer that I do not know. I do not say this from boldness, but from awareness of my own small strength, when I hear the Apostle: "But who art thou, O man, to answer back to God?" (Rom 9:20). [...] Since He condescends so that His judgments may be known to us, let us give thanks. If He judges that they should be hidden from us, let us not murmur at His decision. Rather, let us think that this itself is the greatest good for us.

Yet you yourselves, who resist His grace and inquire about this perseverance, what will you say? It is good that you do not renounce the name of Christian and boast that your faith is catholic. But if you confess that to remain in the good to the end is a gift of God, then I think you, like me, do not know why one man receives this gift and another does not. In that case, all of us are unable to penetrate the unsearchable judgments of God (Rom 11:33).

Here He continues: "While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name." "Since I," He says, "am coming to Thee, keep them in Thy name, in which I kept them when I was with them."

The Son of Man kept His disciples in the name of the Father when He was with them in human presence. Yet the Father will also keep in the name of the Son those whom He hears when they pray in the name of the Son. For the Son said to them: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you" (Jn 16:23).

We must not take this in a bodily sense, as though the Father and the Son guard us by turns, and the watch of one succeeds the watch of the other for our defense. It is not as though one takes up the guard when the other leaves it.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit guard us together, for They are the one, true, and good God. Scripture would not have raised us up if it had not condescended to us. So also the Word, made flesh, condescended in order to raise us up, not fell in order to perish.

If we recognize Him who condescended, let us rise with Him who raises us. Let us understand that, when He spoke those words, He distinguished the Persons but did not divide the natures.

When the Son kept His disciples in His bodily presence, the Father did not wait for the Son's departure in order to take up their care. Both kept them by Their spiritual power. And when the Son deprived them of His bodily presence, He retained, together with the Father, the spiritual care of them.

When the Son as man received care of them, He did not deprive them of the Father's care. And when the Father gave them to the Son's care, He did not give them in such a way as to deprive them of the One to whom He gave them. He gave them to the Son as man, without depriving them of the same Son who is God.

And so the Son continues and says: "Those whom Thou hast given Me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." The betrayer of Christ was called the son of perdition, predestined to perdition, according to the Scripture which contains a special prophecy about this in Psalm 109.

Since they were imperfect, they trusted His lofty and divine words less than His humble words, suited to man. "Those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them perished except the son of perdition." This is Judas, the betrayer, the greatest friend of perdition, loved by it and loving it. By perdition here understand falling away and estrangement from God, or even the devil himself, as one who destroys those who obey him. Judas perished voluntarily, as a result of his evil will. Perhaps others among the seventy disciples also perished, but not at that time. Now only the betrayer perished. "That the Scripture might be fulfilled," namely the Scripture of David, which often speaks of Judas' betrayal, especially in Psalm 108. Here also the expression with ινα, "that," does not indicate cause, but the future in general, namely that the Scripture was to be fulfilled.

It was not so much the price that enticed you, as the magnitude of the sin. Therefore the criminality of your bargain is abominable, not because you valued the Lord cheaply, but because you sold Him who was the Redeemer, even yours, sparing not yourself. Thus your punishment was justly handed over into your own hands, for no one else could be found to execute it more harshly than you yourself.

God, who knows all things even before they happen, foretold his perdition through Holy Scripture, saying of him: "Let his days be few, and let another take his office" (Ps 108:8), and the rest that is said of him in the psalm. This manner of explanation, presenting events that occur after deeds as though they were the cause, is characteristic of Holy Scripture, according to the testimony of the divine Chrysostom. "This manner," he says, "is characteristic of Holy Scripture: to set down as a cause what follows after the event." He said, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled," instead of saying: when Judas perishes, then the Scripture that foretold his perdition will be fulfilled.

Foreseeing all this, Jesus knew that victory would not come easily to His disciples. Without special support from above they could not emerge victorious from the struggle before them. Therefore, after giving them all His final farewell instructions, He turns in supplication to His Father. He asks Him to guard their faith from every temptation and wavering, and to sanctify them by His truth. He asks that, after completing their earthly contest, they may be worthy to be where He, Christ, will be. He asks that not only they, but all who believe through their word, may be united by self-sacrificing love for one another. He asks that they remain in constant union with Him, Jesus Christ, and with the Father who sent Him.

He perished by his own fault, and his perdition had been foretold in Scripture. "Son of perdition" is the same as a perished or lost man, just as "son of light" means an enlightened man. Cf. Jn 12:36. Eternal, spiritual perdition is meant here, through falling away from the source of life. Cf. Mt 23:15. "That the Scripture might be fulfilled" refers to the prophecy concerning the treacherous betrayer. The Lord indicated it after washing the disciples' feet, and it is contained in the Psalm. See Ps 40:10, cf. Jn 13:18.

How did He guard and preserve them? He guarded them by teaching, miracles, and the example of His life. He comforted them in sorrows and strengthened them by instruction against the dangers of sin. In miracles He showed divine power, brought enemies into fear, and made the weak in faith strong. His life was light (Jn 1:4).

"And none of them is lost, except the son of perdition." It was painful for the loving Teacher to speak of the loss of a disciple, but He speaks, showing its causes. If the heavenly Shepherd explains the loss of one of the sheep, how will a shepherd who is a man not render an account to God the Judge for the flock entrusted to him?

O! The heavenly Father will demand a strict account from every shepherd for his ministry. Terrible will it be for the one whose negligence was the cause of the sheep's destruction. "Woe to the shepherds of Israel! Should shepherds feed themselves? ... The weak ye have not strengthened, the sick ye have not healed, the broken ye have not bound up, the straying ye have not brought back, and the lost ye have not sought. Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My sheep at their hand." Thus says the Lord of hosts (Ezek 34:3, 4, 10).

"Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture, says the Lord" (Jer 23:1). The faithful Shepherd says: "None is lost, except the son of perdition."

In the words "son of perdition" lies the whole history of this son. In the language of Scripture, "children of obedience" (1 Pet 1:14) means people who love obedience and have prepared for themselves the blessed portion of obedience. "Son of peace" (Lk 10:6) means one who loves peace and enjoys the blessedness of peace.

In the same way, "sons of perdition" (1 Sam 12:6), "children of wrath" (Eph 2:3), and "children of a curse" express by their very name both their own guilt and their own sorrowful lot. Thus in the Prophet Isaiah, "children of destruction" are the same as children of sin. "Are ye not children of destruction, a seed of transgression?" (Isa 57:4).

Therefore, in the Savior's words, the son of perdition is one who, by loving perdition, prepared perdition for himself. The Savior does not name the perishing disciple. In love He had not named him before either (Jn 13:26).

And is this son of perdition not also an image of other unhappy sinners? In the sinner's history the Lord fixes His gaze upon that dark boundary where sin reaches perdition, despite all the measures of saving grace.

To show that the heavenly Father does not delight in the destruction of the sinner, He points out that the sinner's whole fate had been announced beforehand to him. "The son of perdition is lost, that the Scripture might be fulfilled."

Here Christ Jesus has in view not only the words of the psalm about the betrayer (Ps 40:10), as before (Jn 13:18). He embraces with His gaze the fate of Judas, traced beforehand in Scripture in the image of the sinner.

An ancient teacher says: "Judas, knowing the prophecy, ought not to have betrayed Christ. If someone asks how he perished while Christ was guarding him, one must say that the wicked do freely what they wish. God guards and strengthens the good, since freedom by itself cannot preserve a man."

They remain in that environment which must be cleansed and sanctified. Great will be the reward of these evangelists, but great also will be their labors and sufferings. Therefore the Lord prays for them, in their presence, to God the Father, so that their heart may not be troubled or terrified.

The incarnate Lord goes to the Father. The relations which existed on earth between God incarnate, the disciples, and the glorified Lord are wholly changed after His Ascension. The disciples will no longer hear on earth His merciful word, which calmed them and lifted them upward. Nor will He visibly, to bodily eyes, guard them from every evil. "While I was in the world, I kept them in Thy name."

As pure but enlightened and instructed infants, the God-man presents His disciples before the Godhead, and then visibly leaves them on earth. Yet to calm the disciples, the Lord now lifts up His voice to God the Father with prayer: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, those whom Thou hast given Me."

Keep them. Give them, by the Spirit of God, the strength to remain such as I leave them on earth. Instruct them when they are left without Me. Sanctify them for service. Raise them morally by sending the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who will breathe into them new life and new powers, for the sake of the sacrifice offered by Me, God in human form.

The very expression with which this prayer begins, "Holy Father," points to the chief thought of the appeal to God the Father. It is the sanctification of the disciples, the making of them a sacred people, lamps of grace, from whom myriads of other souls, burning with love for the Lord, were to be kindled. Cf. 1 Pet 2:9-10 with reference to Hos 2:23.

"That they may be one, even as We are," the Lord also says. He signifies that the final goal is the complete unity of the disciples, and through them of all believers, with the Lord in love and in the thought of God. It is the complete forgetting, by the disciples and by all Christians, of selfish, petty, and earthly thoughts.

It is the striving to replace the sinful state inherited from Adam with the desire to be like the pure and sinless nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must remember that He, the Author of life, gave Himself as a sacrifice for the world.

In this striving to become like Him, so far as is possible for man, there will be full unity of man with God through Jesus Christ the God-man. He bore in Himself the image of the complete man, with soul and flesh. This is what the Lord says in the words: "that they may be one, even as We are."

"None is lost" of those who were with the Lord, "except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Judas is called the son of perdition in the same sense in which Antichrist is called the son of perdition in 2 Thess 2:3.

He, like the future adversary of Christ, is prepared for perdition because, instead of the will of God, he dares to set up his own human will. "He loved cursing, and it shall come upon him. He desired not blessing, and it shall be far from him. Let him clothe himself with cursing as with a garment" (Ps 108:17-18).

Such is the punishment of the son of perdition, of whom it is also said: "A word of Belial has come upon him. He has lain down; he shall rise no more" (Ps 40:9). These words directly concern Judas, for in the same psalm the speech continues and points to him who "ate My bread and lifted up his heel against Me" (Ps 40:9-10).

But we have had occasion to point out that Judas is the forerunner and of one type with Antichrist. Judas was among the Twelve, could have inherited blessing, and by his own will chose the curse.

At the end of earthly life Antichrist will appear. According to John the Theologian, as also many of his predecessors, he will come out of the sanctified community (1 Jn 2:18-19; cf. Jn 7:5). Yet, as the Theologian says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us."

Their end is eternal death. "The Lord Jesus will slay Antichrist with the spirit of His mouth and destroy him by the manifestation of His coming" (2 Thess 2:8-9).

Therefore we think that when the Lord says, "None of them is lost except the son of perdition," He includes in these words not only an indication of Judas. He also gives a much broader indication of the future of the Church of Christ, against which "the gates of Hades shall not prevail" (Mt 16:18).

Although the sons of perdition will try to shake it and turn believers away from the Lord, the Lord has said: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." From this faith the Church draws her unshakable strength.