CH Spurgeon on John 17 verses 6–10

How does Christ’s prayer assure His people of His faithful care? Reflecting on John 17:6–10, C. H. Spurgeon considers believers as the Father’s gift to the Son, the Saviour’s intercession and the glory He receives through their faith. He encourages us to draw freely upon Christ’s grace and devote the strength He gives to His service.

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Spurgeon on John chapter 17 verses 6 - 10

Taken from a sermon preached 1st September 1889 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle

Verse 6–8. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

Our Lord Jesus pleads for His own people. When He puts on His priestly breastplate, it is for the tribes whose names are there. When He presents the atoning sacrifice, it is for Israel whom God has chosen.

The reason why Christ prays for His people is this: He puts it, “For they are thine,” as if they were all the dearer to Him because they were the Father’s. We might have half thought that Jesus would have said, “They are Mine, and therefore I pray for them.” It would have been true, but there would not have been the beauty of truth about it which we have here. He loves us all the better and He prays for us all the more fervently because we are the Father’s. Such is His love to His Father that our being the Father’s sheds upon us an extra halo of beauty.

Our Lord had undertaken suretyship engagements on account of His people. He undertook to preserve the Father’s gift: “Those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost.” He looked upon the sheep of His pasture as belonging to His Father, and the Father had put them into His charge.

Understand this twofold reason, then, for Christ’s pastoral prayer for His people. He first prays for them because they belong to the Father, and therefore have a peculiar value in His eyes; and next, because they belong to the Father, He is under suretyship engagements to deliver them all to the Father in that last great day when the sheep shall pass under the rod of Him that counts them.

Verse 9–10. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

There are certain persons so precious to Christ that they are marked all over with special tokens that they belong to Him, as I have known a man write his name in a book which he has greatly valued, and then he has turned over some pages, and he has written his name again.

So notice how the Lord seems to have the seal in His hand and He stamps it all over His peculiar possession: “They are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine.” It is all possessive pronouns, to show that God looks upon His people as His portion, His possession, His property.

These notes of possession occur in the private communion between the Father and the Son. It is in our Lord’s prayer, when He is in the inner sanctuary speaking with the Father, that we have these words, “All mine are thine, and thine are mine.”

What people talk about when they are alone lays bare their heart. Here is the Son speaking to the Father, not about thrones and royalties, nor cherubim and seraphim, but about poor men and women who believed on Him. They are talking about these people, and the Son is taking His own solace with the Father in their secret privacy by talking about these precious jewels, these dear ones that are their peculiar treasure.

You have not any notion how much God loves you. Dear brother, dear sister, you have never yet had half an idea, or the tithe of an idea, of how precious you are to Christ. You think, because you are so imperfect, and you fall so much below your own ideal, that therefore He does not love you much. Have you ever measured the depth of Christ’s agony in Gethsemane and of His death on Calvary? If you have tried to do so, you will be quite sure that, apart from anything in you or about you, He loves you with a love that passes knowledge. Believe it.

All that Jesus says is about all His people, for He says, “All mine are thine, and thine are mine.” These high, secret talks are not about some few saints who have reached a “higher life,” but about all of us who belong to Him. Jesus bears all of us on His heart and He speaks of us all to the Father.

Jesus loves us because we belong to the Father. “My Father has chosen them, My Father loves them. Therefore,” says Jesus, “I love them and I lay down My life for them, and I will take My life again for them, and live throughout eternity for them. They are dear to Me because they are dear to My Father.”

Now turn that thought round the other way: the Father loves us because we belong to Christ. He has given us over to Christ, and He takes delight in us. “They are My Son’s sheep,” He says, “He bought them with His blood.” Better still, “That is My Son’s spouse. That is My Son’s bride. I love her for His sake.”

Jesus loves us because we belong to the Father and the Father loves us because we belong to Jesus.

“All mine are thine.” All who are the Son’s are the Father’s. Do we belong to Jesus? Then we belong to the Father. Are you trusting in Christ? Then you are one of God’s elect. That high and deep mystery of predestination need trouble no man’s heart if he is a believer in Christ. If you believe in Christ, Christ has redeemed you and the Father chose you from before the foundation of the world. Rest you happy in that firm belief, “All mine are thine.”

But now look at the other part of it, “and thine are mine.” All who are the Father’s are the Son’s. If you belong to the Father, you belong to the Son. If you are elect, and so the Father’s, you are redeemed, and so the Son’s. If you are adopted, and so the Father’s, you are justified in Christ, and so you are the Son’s.

What a wonderful mixture all this is! The Father and the Son are one and we are one with the Father and with the Son. A mystic union is established between us and the Father by reason of our union with the Son and the Son’s union with the Father.

Verse 10. And I am glorified in them.

How can this be? Christ is glorified in His people in many ways. He is glorified by saving such sinners—taking these people, so sinful, so lost, so unworthy. When the Lord lays hold upon the far-off one, the abandoned, the fallen, and says, “These shall be Mine. I will wash these in My blood,” then He is glorified in them.

And Christ is glorified by the perseverance which He shows in their salvation. You would have broken loose long ago if your great Shepherd had not penned you up within the fold. Many of you would have started aside and have lost yourselves if it had not been for constraints of sovereign grace which have kept you to this day and will not let you go. Christ is glorified in you.

We actively glorify Christ when we display Christian graces. You who are loving, forgiving, tender-hearted, gentle, meek, self-sacrificing, you glorify Him. You who are upright and who will not be moved from your integrity, you who are bold and brave for Christ, you who can bear and suffer for His name’s sake—all your graces come from Him. As all the flowers are bred and begotten of the sun, so all that is in you that is good comes from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness.

When God’s people make Him the object of all their trust, they glorify Him. When they say, “Though I am the chief of sinners, yet, I trust Him. Though my mind is dark and though my temptations abound, I believe that He can save to the uttermost, I trust Him,” Christ is glorified.

Verse 11. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

Is it not a most wonderful thing that the Lord Jesus should bear His people upon His heart before the Father? Christ will not lose a sheep of His flock. They are His, and they are the Father’s.

Come, empty pitcher, come and be filled. And when you are filled, pour all out at the dear feet of Him who filled you. Come, trembler, come and let Him touch you with His strengthening hand, and then go out and work, and use the strength which He has given you.

He glorifies Christ most who takes most from Him and who then gives most back to Him.