John 17:13Meaning & 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).

Therefore, presenting Himself at once as God and man, He persuades the disciples to understand that, whether absent or present, He can equally accomplish what helps them toward salvation according to God. As He kept them while He was still with them on earth according to His humanity, so He will also guard them in His absence according to the Godhead, through His divine essence. For the Godhead is not in any place, yet It is by no means absent from anything that exists. It fills all things, passes through all things, is outside all things, and is in all things. When He addresses His Father with the words, 'Holy Father, keep them,' He at once presents Himself as the actual and all-working power of the Father. At the same time He shows that He is not outside His nature, but exists in it and from it, and has an inseparable union with it, although He is understood to exist in Himself. For He says, 'Keep them in Thy name, which Thou hast given Me,' and again, 'When I was with them, I kept them in Thy name, which Thou hast given Me' (Jn 17:11-12). From this we must understand that, just as He Himself has already kept them in the name given to Him by the Father, that is, in the glory of the Godhead, for He 'bestowed on Him the name above every name' (Phil 2:9), so He again desires that the Father Himself also keep them in the name given to Him. For He must not be excluded from participation in this work. The Father will guard those who truly believe in Him through the Only-begotten, as through His own power. Thus He acts in nothing that exists except through Him. Therefore, if even with the flesh He kept the disciples by the authority and glory of the Godhead, how could He cease to grant the disciples the mercy they need? How could His protection of them come to an end, when the divine authority of the Only-begotten always remains, and the power proper to Him by nature abides in unchanging firmness? For change or alteration into any worse condition is altogether foreign to the Godhead, which always possesses the prerogatives proper to It without interruption. Therefore, He says, 'I have spoken these things in the world, that Our disciples may have My joy fulfilled in them.' How this is so, we shall now say, since we do not wish to leave any obscurity in this saying. The blessed disciples thought that when Christ remained and lived with them, that is, according to the flesh, they would easily be delivered from every trouble. They thought they would escape unhindered from dangers at the hands of the Jews, and remain inaccessible to those who wished to harm them. But when He was separated from them and went to heaven, they thought they would easily fall into every danger, and even suffer the utmost calamity. For there would no longer be anyone able to defend them and turn away the assault of temptations. For this reason our Lord Jesus Christ neither denies the humanity once assumed, nor shows Himself to be without divine authority. He reveals both in His discourse. He says that, as man, the name of the Godhead was given to Him. Yet mercy and protection are accomplished in Him and through Him by the Father for those who honor Him. What wisdom lies in these words? It is this: that the blessed disciples should know and fully understand, applying a keen mind to this saying, that even when He was present with the flesh, He accomplished the work of their salvation not through the flesh, but by the glory and almighty power of His Godhead. Therefore, He says, no harm will come to the disciples from the fact that He will not be present with the flesh. The divine authority of the Only-begotten can easily guard them, even if the flesh itself is not seen as present. We say this by no means because we ascribe no value to the holy body of Christ. Rather, the activity in this work must be ascribed precisely to the glory of the Godhead. For the Lord's body itself was sanctified by the power of the Word united with it. Therefore it is effective for us in the mystical blessing of the Eucharist, so that it can implant its holiness in us. The Savior Himself once spoke of this when He conversed with the Jews and discoursed at length about His flesh, calling it truly life-giving and the true bread. He said, 'The bread which I shall give you is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world' (Jn 6:51). But when they were greatly astonished and deeply perplexed as to how the nature of created flesh could be the cause of eternal life for them, He answered, 'The flesh profits nothing. The Spirit gives life. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life' (Jn 6:63). Here also He says that the flesh can profit nothing, plainly for the sanctification and life-giving of those who receive it, insofar as this concerns the nature of human flesh. But insofar as it is understood and acknowledged as the temple of the Word, it must certainly be the cause both of holiness and of life. Yet this is not through itself, but through the God united with it, Who is holy and is life. Therefore, referring everything to the activity of the Godhead, He says that His departure with the flesh will cause no harm to His disciples with regard to their preservation. Even if He is hidden in the heavens, the Savior will not be absent from those who love Him. He will continue to dwell with them by the power of His Godhead. Therefore, He says, 'I have spoken these things in the world' so that they may have 'My joy fulfilled in themselves.' What is this 'fulfilled' and perfect 'joy'? It is to know and believe that Christ was not only a man like us, but that together with this likeness to us, except for sin alone, He is also true God. Thus it is plain and beyond doubt that the power to guard those who honor Him must always belong to Him, whenever He wills, even if His bodily presence is not visible. In this precisely lies the possibility for us also to have perfect joy, since we always have near us a Champion Who can deliver us from every evil.

On the other hand, since He was soon about to depart, in a certain way He was already no longer here. What is this joy of which He said, "that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves"? He had explained it above when He said, "that they may be one, as We are." He said that His joy, that is, the joy He communicated to them, must reach perfection in them. In this sense He said that He speaks in the world. This joy is peace and blessedness in the age to come. To attain it, one must live in this age righteously, piously, and with self-control.

It is the joy they received when they understood and believed that He is the Son of the living God (Mt 16:16). Therefore, He says, I prayed so that My disciples might have perfect joy. They heard that, even after My departure from the world, they would be defended and kept by You, God and Father.

Their calling is that through them the world itself be transformed and changed by the knowledge of God revealed through Jesus Christ. He prays only that the heavenly Father preserve them from the inner temptations of evil. He prays that inwardly they remain strangers to the world, as those sanctified by the truth He preached. He prays that His holy life, which He is ready to give for them, may be the foundation of their sanctification. "And for their sake I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth."

He adds that He says this aloud before His disciples so that, in all the temptations that would come upon them, they might remember this intercession of Christ for them. Thus they would be filled with the same joy with which He is filled as He goes to the Father. He goes to the Father after having fully handed over and revealed to His disciples all that the Father entrusted Him to reveal to men. Yet at the same time the world, the unbelieving part of mankind, hated them because they were not of the world. Therefore they need the special help of God, protecting them from the evil of the world. And the Lord prays to the Father that He preserve them from this evil.

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.

"If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So His beloved disciple teaches us (1 Jn 2:1). The prayer He now utters is spoken, as He says, "that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves." He prays to the heavenly Father that those who believe in Him may be filled, instead of sorrow, with the joy that He has. Earlier too He expressed His desire that His joy pass into the hearts of His disciples (Jn 15:11; Jn 16:24). Now He prays to the heavenly Father for the same thing. And how could one not desire it? His joy is pure, holy, and lofty. It is joy in fulfilling the will of the heavenly Father. It is joy in the reconciliation of heaven with earth, and in the blessedness of His faithful followers (Mt 25:21, 23; Heb 12:2). Weak hearts cannot receive this joy in one instant. They cannot contain it. They can be filled with it gradually, as their understanding of the great works of the Son of God grows. Poor sojourners of the earth, the Lord Jesus sees each of our tears and hears each of our sighs. "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15). Why do people seek consolations not from Him? Why do they ask help not from Him? To Him, my friends, to Him with all our sorrows. To Him with all our sins. Son of God, defend us and shelter us from our troubles and our sins. Amen.