John 17:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Though He existed with the Father from eternity and from the beginning, He accepts this abasement with the flesh, with this earthly and mortal covering. He accepts it with the human form considered according to its own nature, apart from its union with the divine nature in Christ. This form necessarily asks, as though by grace, for what belongs to Him by divine nature, for He was and is in the form and equality of the Father.

The flesh from the Woman, or the whole temple from the Virgin, is not consubstantial with God the Father and is not identical with Him by nature. Yet once it was received into the body of the Word, and once it had been made the body of the Word, it is thereafter counted as one with Him. For there is one Christ and one Son, even when He became man.

For this reason Christ is understood as having received unity with God and the Father, being received into this unity even with the flesh, which does not by itself have one being with God. If it must be said more briefly and clearly, the Only-begotten says that what was given to His flesh was given to Himself. This was given, of course, from the Father, through Him, in the Spirit.

For the form of unity with God has no other path, even when considered in relation to Christ, inasmuch as He appeared and was called man. Through union with the Spirit, the flesh is sanctified by an ineffable mode of conjunction. Thus it ascends to an unconfused union with God the Word and, through Him, with the Father, clearly by position, that is, by union with the Word, and not by nature.

This grace and glory, He says, given to Me by Thee, Father, clearly the grace and glory of being one with Thee, "I have given to them, that they may be one as We are one."

We are united with one another in the ways already described. But we are also united with God. The Lord gave us the clearest explanation of how this happens. Setting forth the benefit of His teaching, He says: "I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one."

The Son abides in us bodily as man, communicating Himself and uniting Himself with us through the mystical blessing, the Eucharist. He also abides in us spiritually as God, recreating our spirit for new life by the grace and activity of His Spirit, and making us partakers of His divine nature.

Therefore Christ is the bond of our unity with God and the Father. As man, He has bound us to Himself. As God, He unites us to God, being by nature in His Begetter.

It would otherwise have been impossible to raise to incorruption a nature subject to corruption. The Nature that stands above all corruption and change had to descend into it. In some manner it raises to its own good what is always falling downward. By communion and union with itself, it draws what belongs to created nature out of its proper limits, transforming into itself what is not such by itself.

Thus we are brought to unity with God and the Father through the Mediator Christ. We receive into ourselves, bodily and spiritually, as we have just said, Him who is by nature and truly Son, having essential unity with God the Father. Thereby we become glorious communicants and partakers of the Nature that surpasses all.

Yet in desiring that we be received into unity with God and the Father, Christ both conveys to our nature the benefit from the Father through Himself and shows that this power of grace must serve as a clear rebuke to those who think He is not from God.

Indeed, what place can remain for such slander if, through Himself, He raises to unity with the Father those who have been joined to Him through faith and true love?

Thus He says: When they obtain unity with Thee, Father, through Me, then "the world will know that Thou hast sent Me." That is, by Thy good pleasure I come to help the earth and to bring the divine economy of salvation to those who wander upon it.

Moreover, and no less, He says that those who have received such greatly desired grace will know that "Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." For He received into unity with Himself One who is like us and from us, that is, Christ, and counted Him worthy of such great love. Here again we speak of Him as man. Since He also gave us the ability to reach this, did He not equally accomplish the work of love?

Let this trouble no one who has understanding. It is evident and beyond dispute that a servant can in no way be equal to his Master. God the Father could not love His Son in the same measure as creatures.

Yet we must keep in mind that we see Him who was loved from eternity as though having a beginning of love when He became man. Therefore, having received what He had, He must be seen as having received it not for Himself, but for us.

He rose to life, destroying the dominion of death, not arranging resurrection for Himself, since He is the Word and God. Rather, He gave this to us through Himself and in Himself, because in Christ there was the whole nature of man, trampling down the bonds of death.

So also He must not be understood as having received love from the Father for Himself, since He was always and unceasingly beloved. Rather, to bring us the love of the Father, He receives it from Him also when He became man.

Therefore, as we shall be, and already have become, conformed to His Resurrection and glory in the firstfruits of the race and in the first one, Christ, so we have also received a likeness of love. We give the primacy in all things to the Only-begotten and rightly marvel at the incomparable mercy toward us of the divine nature. It grants His own blessings to creatures and communicates to created beings what belongs to Him and to Him alone.

What glory, if not immortality, which human nature was to receive in Him? He Himself had not yet received it. Yet, according to His custom, because of the unchangeableness of predestination, He expresses the future by verbs of the past. He means that He will be glorified, that is, raised by the Father, and that He Himself will raise us to this glory at the end of this age.

This is like what He said elsewhere: "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills" (Jn 5:21). To whom, if not to those whom the Father wills? For what the Father does is not something different, but the same thing the Son does, and He does it not otherwise, but in like manner (Jn 5:19).

Thus He raised Himself. Hence His words: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (Jn 2:19). Therefore we must understand that the glory of immortality, which He said the Father gave Him, He also gave to Himself, even if He does not say this.

For He often says that the Father alone does what He Himself does together with the Father, in order to refer all that exists to Him from whom He Himself has His being. Yet sometimes, keeping silence about the Father, He says that He Himself does what He does together with the Father. This is so that we may understand that the Son must not be separated from the Father's activity when, saying nothing of Himself, He attributes the works to the Father. Likewise the Father must not be separated from the Son's activity when, with silence about the Father, it is said that the Son does what is certainly done by Them equally.

Thus, when the Son speaks of the Father's activity and is silent about His own, He shows His humility, so as to benefit us more. When, in turn, He speaks of His own activity and is silent about the works of the Father, He affirms the equality of the Father and the Son, so that no one may think Him lower than the Father.

So in this passage also He does not separate Himself from the Father's activity, although He said: "the glory which Thou hast given Me," since He Himself gave it to Himself. Nor does He separate the Father from His own work, although He said: "I have given to them," since the Father also gave it to them.

At the same time, not only the works of the Father and the Son, but also the works of the Holy Spirit, are inseparable from one another. Indeed, as in praying to the Father for all His own He desired that "all may be one," so also in the manifestation of His own mercy, expressed in the words, "the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them," He certainly desired the same thing. For He immediately added: "that they may be one, even as We are one."

No thoughtful person will object that the Holy Spirit is called glory, when he looks at the Lord's own words. For He says, "The glory which You gave Me I have given them." And truly He gave such glory to the disciples when He said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jn 20:22). He who clothed Himself in human nature received this glory, which He always had before the world existed (Jn 17:5). When that nature was glorified by the Spirit, the distribution of the Spirit's glory was accomplished for everything akin to it, beginning with the disciples.

[...] For what is given to men by grace they wish to equate with the Godhead of the Giver. Hearing that men are called sons, they imagined that they themselves are equal to the true Son by nature. Now again, hearing from the Savior, "That they may be one, as We are," they lead themselves into deception. They dare to think that they too will be as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. They do not notice that their father, the devil, fell through such self-conceit. What progress can there be in the Immortal One who took upon Himself what is mortal? What perfection can there be in the Eternal One who clothed Himself in what is temporal? What greater reward could there be for the eternal God and King, who is in the bosom of the Father? Do you not see that this also was for our sake and was written about us? It was so that the Lord, who became man, might make us, mortal and temporal, immortal and bring us into the eternal Heavenly Kingdom. [...] The Word as Word is not perfected, for He had all things and always has them. Rather, men are perfected, having in Him and through Him the beginning of reception. For when He is now said, in human terms, to be anointed, we are anointed in Him. When He is baptized, we are baptized in Him. The Savior explains all this still more clearly, saying to the Father: "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one, as We are one." Therefore He asked for glory for our sake. It is said that He "received," "gave," and "was exalted," so that we might receive, so that it might be given to us, and so that we might be exalted in Him. For our sake also He sanctifies Himself, that we might be sanctified in Him; cf. Jn 17:19.

Since all are one through the glory given to the Son and given by the Son to all believers, I ask how the Son can have a glory different from the Father's. For the glory of the Son leads all believers into the unity of the Father's glory. Perhaps the expression of human hope in this case is somewhat excessive, yet it will not contradict the faith. Even if hoping for this were rash, not believing it would be sinful. For we have one and the same Author of both hope and faith.

They say that "we have two eyes of the soul, and the benefit of vision through them is not the same. With one sight we see what is hidden in natural things, that is, God's power, His wisdom, and His providence for us, perceived through the greatness of His guidance of us. With the other sight we see the glory of His holy nature, when God is well pleased to bring us into the spiritual mysteries."

Since both are sight, what is seen by them is light. Since the benefit of the two kinds of sight is not the same, a certain duality appears in the vision of light.

By each sight a different light is seen, which is not seen by the other sight.

The divine Isaac explained to us what each of them is. He called one the apprehension of God's power, wisdom, and providence, and in general the knowledge of the Creator drawn from created things.

The other he called the vision, not of God's nature, lest slanderers again find a pretext for attack, but of "the glory of His nature."

This is the vision which the Lord gave to His disciples, and through them to all who have believed in Him and have shown their faith in deed. This is what He willed them to have.

"I desire," He says to the Father, "that these may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me, having loved Me from the foundation of the world" (Jn 17:24).

And again: "Glorify Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (Jn 17:5).

Thus He gave the glory of divinity also to human nature, but He did not give the divine nature itself. Therefore the divine nature is one thing, and its glory another, though they are not separated from one another.

At the same time, although the glory is distinct from God's nature, it cannot be numbered among things that exist in time. It surpasses existence and belongs ineffably to the nature of God.

God granted this glory, which surpasses all that exists, not only to the composite hypostatically united to Him, but also to the disciples.

"The glory which Thou hast given Me, O Father," says the Lord, "I have given them, that as We are one, so they may be one, I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in one" (Jn 17:22-23).

He also willed that the disciples should behold it. This glory is that by which we acquire God within ourselves and see Him in the proper sense of the word.

But how do we acquire and behold this glory of the divine essence? Is it by examining the laws of beings and through them grasping knowledge of divine wonderworking, wisdom, and providence?

No. All such things belong to the other sight of the soul. By it one cannot see the divine light, "the glory of His nature," according to what was said above by Saint Isaac and all the other Fathers.

Therefore the divine light is not the same as the light that shares its name with knowledge.

For this reason, God does not dwell in everyone who possesses knowledge of beings, or who sees by means of such knowledge. Such a person has only knowledge of creatures, from which he conjectures about God by probable reasoning.

By contrast, the mystical possessor of the divine light sees no longer from probability. He sees in true contemplation, which raises him above every creature.

He knows and possesses God within himself, because God is not separated from His eternal glory.

One need only not be troubled, nor lose hope because of the greatness of this benefaction. Rather, believing Him who became a partaker of our nature and imparted to it the glory of His own nature, one must seek how the gift of this vision is acquired.

And how is it acquired? By keeping the commandments. To the one who keeps them, the Lord promised His divine manifestation.

Afterward He also called this manifestation His own and the Father's dwelling, saying: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him."

And again: "I will manifest Myself to him" (Jn 14:21, 23).

It is clear that by "word" here He means His commandments. Above, instead of the "word" mentioned here, He said "commandments."

"He who has My commandments and keeps them," He says, "it is he who loves Me" (Jn 14:21).

From this too it is clear, and precisely in direct relation to the philosopher's arguments and teachings, that the gracious vision of God is in no way knowledge of beings, however displeasing this may be to him.

Only one must remember that we do not call such vision knowledge because it surpasses knowledge. Likewise, we do not call God a being, for we believe that He is above being.

How then does it follow, against the philosopher's will, from his own arguments that the divine light is not the same as knowledge?

He says that the darkness of ignorance cannot be driven from the soul by keeping the commandments. He says that only learning and persistent study can do this.

What does not drive out ignorance can in no way give knowledge. Yet precisely what, according to him, does not give knowledge leads, according to the Lord's word, to the vision of God.

Therefore this vision of God is not knowledge.

It should be reckoned and called not merely non-knowledge or unknowable, except by loose usage and equivocation, or perhaps properly, but as something unique.

I say that this vision should be reckoned not only as scarcely knowledge, but as incomparably surpassing every knowledge and every knowing contemplation.

This is true if nothing is higher than God's indwelling and manifestation in us, and if nothing is equal or even close to it.

We know that the fulfillment of God's commandments also supplies knowledge, and true knowledge. For only in this way does health come.

How can the rational soul possess rationality if its faculty of knowledge is diseased?

Thus we know that God's commandments supply knowledge, but not knowledge alone. They also supply deification.

We receive this deification when we fully acquire and behold within ourselves, by the Spirit, the glory of God, whenever God is well pleased to bring us into His spiritual mysteries, according to the saint named above.

Since the saint mentioned Fathers who say the same thing, we too shall pass over all who lived after him. Let us see what the saints before him said about the glory of God.

Only the initiated behold this glory mysteriously and ineffably. First among them are the eyewitnesses and Apostles of the one God and Father of our Jesus Christ.

Through Him "every fatherhood" is named in the fullness of the Holy Church (Eph 3:15). Before the Apostles stands again their chief, Peter.

He says: "We did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (2 Pet 1:16).

What glory of the Lord Jesus Christ did he witness? Let another Apostle show us: "When they were awake," he says, "Peter and those with him saw the glory of Christ" (Lk 9:32).

What was this glory? Let another Evangelist come forward and bear witness: "His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light" (Mt 17:2).

The Lord showed them that He is God, "clothing Himself with light as with a garment," according to the psalmist (Ps 103:2).

For this reason, after saying that he saw the glory of Christ "on the holy mountain," he speaks of the light that, wondrous to say, illumined even hearing.

For they saw there a luminous cloud sounding with words. After the vision of this glory of Christ, he says, "We have the prophetic word made more sure."

What prophetic word made more sure did you receive after the contemplation of the light, O seers of God? What could it be, except that God "clothes Himself with light as with a garment"?

"And you do well," says the Apostle, "to hold fast to this prophetic word, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns."

What day? Surely the day that shone on Tabor.

"And the morning star rises." What morning star? Surely the one that shone there upon Peter, James, and John.

"Until this morning star rises." Where? "In our hearts" (2 Pet 1:18-19).

Is it not clear that this light now shines in the hearts of the faithful and perfect?

Is it not clear that it immeasurably surpasses the light of knowledge?

It surpasses not only the knowledge acquired from Hellenic learning. Such knowledge is unworthy even to be called knowledge, since it is entirely false or mingled with falsehood.

It is closer to darkness than to light. I say that the light of this vision differs not only from this knowledge, but also from knowledge of the divine Scriptures.

The difference is so great that the light of knowledge may be compared to a lamp shining in a dark place. The light of mystical vision is like the morning star shining by day, that is, like the sun.

The glory of God is as transcendent above all that exists as God Himself. Dionysius the Areopagite calls God "non-existing" because He surpasses every kind of existence (Mystical Theology 5: PG 3, 1048A).

In the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, expressions concerning the second Person of the Trinity include "Merciful Father, Savior Christ" and "I am the Father of all these ages."

Melito of Sardis also calls Christ Father in his Homily on the Passion of Christ, 9.

Theodoret of Cyrus speaks of the saving title of Jesus Christ, saying that He is "Father of the age to come, because as Adam is called father of the present age, so He is Father of the age to come" (Commentary on Isaiah 9:6).

The name Father for Christ also occurs in certain works ascribed to Saint Macarius of Egypt, and in ascetical and mystical writings of later centuries. Yet it is not found in the great teachers of the Church.

Its basis in Holy Scripture is Isa 9:6: "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; the government is upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of eternity."

Foreseeing all this, Jesus knew that victory would not come easily to His disciples. Without special support from above, they could not even 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 preserve their faith from every temptation and wavering. He asks Him to sanctify them by His truth. He asks Him to make them worthy, after completing their earthly contest, to be where He, Christ, will be. He prays that not only they, but all who believe through their word, may be united by self-sacrificing love for one another. He prays that they may abide in constant union with Him, Jesus Christ, and with the Father who sent Him.

By this glory given to them, they will be one in this glory among themselves and with Us; cf. Jn 17:21 and parallels. May this one glorified body of the Church, with its Head, Christ, be in glorious union with the Father in the Holy Spirit.

It is the glory by which believers, even on earth, are being transformed more and more into the image of the glory of the Lord Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3:18). Such is the privilege of those who believe in Christ Jesus. O my listeners, let us treasure the lofty dignity of the Christian in ourselves and in others. Let us take care not to lower our calling in any way. What are all earthly advantages in comparison with the glory with which we are clothed in Christ? Each neighbor of ours, as a Christian, must be for us an inviolable and exalted person. May the heavenly light enlighten the eyes of our heart, "that we may see what is the hope of God's calling, and how rich is His glorious inheritance for the saints" (Eph 1:18). The purpose for which the Savior clothed believers with such glory is the same purpose for which He asked the protection of the heavenly Father for believers (v. 21). The purpose is threefold: the unity of believers in living faith, their union with Christ and God, and the world's knowledge of the Son of God. May the God of grace and mercy be with us all. Amen.