Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Seventeen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 1-5 continued

Certain Old Testament verses reveal that God has a higher and a lesser form of salvation for all living humans whom He loves. God will give His lesser salvation to all humans because all humans do some good in their lives. All humans have done some good in their lives because they all have the image of God in them that causes them to do some good. Psalm 50:23. This verse applies to all humans not saved by grace because they all have done some good in their lives. This verse cannot apply to salvation by grace because God knows that He gives salvation by grace solely as a gift apart from any good works done by humans. Ephesians 2:8-9. This was true in the Old Testament as well. God saved Noah by His grace before he built the Ark. Genesis 6:8. God also promised in His Word that because of the symbolism of a burnt offering that He gave to Noah, He would never "smite" living humans in the future. The word "smite" in this verse means "to kill." Genesis 8:20-21. From the time of Noah's burnt offering, God will never allow any living human that He ever creates to be eternally lost to eternal death although all humans that God killed in the flood were subject to eternal death. It was that subjection to eternal death that so terribly grieved God when He had to kill them. Genesis 6:5-7. But because of the burnt offering, God will recover and recreate every living human whom He killed in the flood. I Peter 3:19-20. The lesser form of salvation taught in the Old Testament agrees with Jesus' prophecy that in the end of the world He will raise all living humans from their graves because they have all done some good that God gave them to do including their ability to repent and believe in the Lamb of God their Savior. Revelation 5:11-14; John 5:28-29; II Timothy 4:1; I Timothy 6:13. God will forever save all living humans. Luke 6:3. The word "see" in Luke 3:6 agrees with the word "shew" in Psalm 50:23 because they both mean "to experience."

Jesus then described eternal life as being in a state where one knows God and knows Jesus. Living humans saved by grace come to know Christ when they read or hear the gospel, and the Holy Spirit convinces them that they are lost sinners in need of Jesus as their Savior, and they repent and put their faith in Christ their Savior, and the Holy Spirit immediately comes into their inner beings and washes them clean of all their sins and evil with the blood that flowed from Jesus on the cross. Matthew 26:28; I Corinthians 6:11. The Holy Spirit also cleanses all sins of the flesh from all living humans saved by grace with the water that Jesus shed on the cross as they daily repent of them. I John 1:9; John 13:1-10. All living humans not saved by grace come to know Christ as the Lamb of God their Savior when He appears to them in a great worship service near the end of the world, and He causes them all to repent and believe in Him of their own free will. Revelation 5:11-14; Luke 3:6; I Corinthians 3:11-15.

God is eternal. Therefore, God can state at any present moment in the passage of time that He has finished His eternal creations. God can also state at any moment in the passage of time that He has just begun His eternal creations. Revelation 22:13. Jesus could tell His disciples that He had finished His work of salvation before He ever went to the cross because in eternity He had. Jesus could also declare that He had finished His work of salvation when He died on the cross because He knew that He would rise from the dead. John 19:10.

Jesus then prayed that His Father would glorify Him with the same glory that they shared when He created the world. In His self-sacrifice for the salvation of humanity, Christ displayed the Eternal and Almighty Love of God. John 3:16; I Corinthians 13:8; Romans 5:6-8; I John 2:2.