Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Seventeen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 11-13

Jesus began to pray as if He had already left His Church and had returned to His Father. But He prayed in this way to let His disciples know that His Father would keep them and protect them just as Jesus had done when He was with them. Jesus' disciples heard Him pray that His Father would unite His Church into one body by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the inner being of every believer. Jesus and His Father can be two persons, but the Holy Spirit unites them into One Being. John 1:1. Jesus prayed that His Father would unite every individual believer into one body in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit after His ascension. Jesus ascended to heaven in His body, but He left His Church behind to be His body on earth filled with the Holy Spirit. Although the Spirit unites the Church into the body of Christ on the earth, the Church never becomes any part of the Being of God. I Corinthians 12:12-14. Only the absolutely perfect human body of Christ can become One in Being with God. I John 5:7; John 1:14.

Jesus reminded His disciples as He prayed that He had kept them while He was with them, and He had lost none of them but the traitor, Judas Iscariot. The Old Testament prophesied this event. Psalm 41:9. Jesus said that He had lost Judas Iscariot to the Devil, but Jesus did not say that He had lost Judas forever. Jesus called all of His disciples His friends, and Jesus called Judas Iscariot His friend when Judas came with a mob to arrest Jesus. John 15:15; Matthew 26:50. Except for the Anti-Christ, Judas Iscariot has to be no doubt the most demonic human who ever lived. More demonic than even the maniac of Gadara. Yet, Jesus called him friend. This fact can only mean that even as evil as Judas Iscariot was, he still had that living image of God in him. That living nature of Judas Iscariot, as small and weak as it had become, will repent and believe in Christ the Lamb of God when He appears to all His living humans confined to the regions of death in a great worship service near the end of the world. Revelation 5:11-14. Christ will save and recreate the living nature of even Judas Iscariot. Revelation 21:1-5.

Jesus' disciples heard Him pray that He was going home to Heaven, but He would leave His Word and His Spirit behind to provide joy to His believers. Just as His believers would have great joy in His resurrection, so Jesus' Spirit would provide His believers with that same joy throughout the Church Age. Jesus let His disciples know that He would never leave them. John 14:18; Hebrews 13:5.