John chapter 17 and verse 6 through
to verse 9. Lord Jesus Christ is speaking,
and this of course is part of his great prayer in John 17,
and he says this, 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. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word also. There were many tasks and duties
that fell to our Lord Jesus Christ under His covenant obligations. And last week, we reminded ourselves
how our Savior could truthfully testify that He had completed
them all. He told his father in this prayer,
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Now amongst these many duties
in coming into the world, We sometimes call them offices. You'll hear me speaking about
the offices, the mediatorial offices of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amongst these many duties, the
Lord Jesus Christ had prophetic duties. We're going to explain
that in a moment. He had priestly duties and he
had kingly duties. He had these duties to perform
on behalf of his people. He had a prophetic role. I don't know whether you remember,
but when Moses was dying, he made a number of fairly long
speeches to the children of Israel in preparation for the time when
he would no longer be with them. And he had told them explicitly,
he told the children of Israel as he was preparing to die, these
words. He says, the Lord thy God will
raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren like unto me. Unto him ye shall hearken. And in this messianic role, this
prophetic office, the Lord Jesus Christ was that prophet raised
up from amongst his brethren to whom they ought to have listened. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
in this prophetic office a preacher and a teacher of the gospel. Sometimes we think about prophecy
as foretelling what is going to happen. But really, the word
is bigger than that. Foretelling is only a small part
of the prophetic office. It's really about education.
It's really about declaration. It's really about teaching and
preaching the gospel. or that which was revealed by
God to be declared to the people at that particular time. And
it tells us the true nature, the prophetic office tells us
the true nature of God and the gracious purposes of God. So
that previously, or last week, we read in verse 3 of this chapter,
this is eternal life, that they might know thee the only true
God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. So that part of Christ's
prophetic office, part of his prophetic duty was that his people
might know God, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom God
had sent. So that one of Christ's principal
duties under the covenant was to reveal the only true God to
sinful men and women. Now, we know that carnal men
and women, natural men and women, men and women dead in their trespasses
and sins cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. So the
Lord Jesus Christ must obtain spiritual life for the Lord's
elect and then teach them about God in the gospel. And this is
what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He went around preaching and
teaching and he taught his disciples and his disciples then taught. As the Holy Spirit came upon
them, the disciples then taught the things that the Lord Jesus
Christ had taught to them. And this is the knowledge of
the Lord. It's this knowledge that is being
spoken about here when the Lord Jesus Christ says in his prayer,
I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me
out of the world. He had manifested or he had revealed
God's name to God's people. Now, let me just mention here,
the Jews in the Old Testament at the time of Christ, they had
a notion that God's name So when the Lord Jesus Christ here says,
I have manifested thy name, the Jews had this notion that God's
name was a secret, an unspeakable word, an ineffable mystery name. But I don't think that that is
what the Lord Jesus Christ means here. Nor do I think that it's
a reference to any particular one of the descriptive names
taken by the Lord in the Old Testament. wonderful though they
are. So for example, you remember
when Abraham was given the ram caught in the thicket at the
time when he was getting ready to sacrifice Isaac. We're told
there that God revealed himself as the Lord who provides because
he provided a ram caught in the thicket. That name that God took
was Jehovah Jireh. So that was a name of God, Jehovah,
the Lord who provides. Or when the children of Israel
were going through the wilderness and they came to the waters of
Marah, the bitter waters were made sweet when the tree was
cut down and laid in the water. And there we learn that the Lord
revealed himself as Jehovah Rapha. the Lord who heals. He healed
the bitter waters. Another example of one of these
names of the Lord was an altar that was built when the children
of Israel were fighting against Amalek. And the children of Israel
won the battle. The hands of Moses were held
up. Jehovah was revealed there as
Jehovah Nissi, the Lord who covers, who covers his people and protects
and preserves his people. And then, for a last example,
Gideon, when he saw the angel of the Lord, was terrified and
he was sure that he was going to be slain, that he was going
to die, and the Lord was revealed to him there as Jehovah Shalom. the God of peace, the Lord who
reconciles. So that whether we're thinking
about Jireh, Rophe, Nisi, Shalom, the words that the Lord God took
to describe Himself as the Provider, the Healer, the Protector, the
Reconciler, the God of Peace. All of these names and others
beside them are all bound up in this revelation of God, who
God is, what He has done, His nature, His person, His attributes. And this is the sense in which
the Lord manifested the name of God. Not one particular, but
the whole of God, the whole attributes of God that are revealable, understandable,
the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed in his prophetic office. So that
the sense seems rather to be that the name of God conveys
or expresses his person and it unveils, as it were, it reveals,
it encapsulates, it summarizes all the knowable attributes of
God's being and his nature. such as his holiness, and his
truth, and his mercy, and his grace, and his power, and his
knowledge, and his wisdom, and his love. And that's what the
Lord Jesus Christ revealed. I have manifested thy name unto
the people that thou hast given me. I have manifested thy name
unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. I wonder if you've ever thought
how presumptuous it is to say that we know God. And it may well be that the Jews
had a point when they spoke about the immensity and the infinity
and therefore the unknowability of God. And yet what the Lord
Jesus Christ tells us is that we can know God and we do know
God as eternal and spiritual and omnipotent and omniscient
and transcendent as He is. We know God in Christ. Believers in Jesus Christ may
say that we know God because we have heard the voice of God
in the teaching of the man Christ Jesus. We have seen God in the
person of our Saviour and in what He has done. We have met
God face to face as a man speaketh with a friend because we have
found the Lord Jesus Christ to be that friend who sticketh closer
than a brother. And we have discovered in Christ
something of the fullness of the Godhead in the God-man. Now I do not say that we know
all there is to know about God. That would be a ridiculous claim
because he is infinite and transcendent. We shall spend eternity discovering
and marvelling at the wonders of his name. Nevertheless, we
know him whom to know is life eternal. And when Paul says Christ
has made unto us wisdom, it is the wisdom of God that Christ
has made unto us. It is the knowledge of God that
Christ has made unto us. just as he has given to us righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Christ has made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. It is this wisdom
of God that comes to us through Christ, or a knowledge of God
through Christ. So that not only must Christ
fulfill this prophetic role in revealing God to his people,
but he must also serve the will of the Father in other ways as
well. He must fulfill all the types
of scripture. You know, as we're going through,
especially these Old Testament passages with the young people
as we have our services week by week, I often say that this
thing or this person or this event was a type of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Christ was the anti-type.
Christ was the fulfillment of these Old Testament pictures.
But Christ had to fulfill these Old Testament pictures. That
was all part of Christ's work. He had to be that humble leader
like Moses. He had to be that conquering
deliverer like Joshua. the great king like David. He
must emulate the patience of Job. He had the strength of Samson,
the love of Boaz and Hosea, the wisdom of Solomon, the integrity
of Daniel, and in every way fulfill the law and obey the Father's
will, revealing himself to be the Lamb of God without spot
and without blemish. and he had a priestly role in
that capacity. He must fulfil the prophecies
of the Old Testament dispensation regarding what was true and spiritual
worship. The sacrificial lamb, the acceptance
by blood offering, the priesthood, these all pointed to the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. And he must suffer for
the sins of his people. bear their burden, carry their
guilt, endure their punishment, die in their place. And he must
establish a kingdom. We've been talking about the
temple, Solomon's temple, but he must establish a spiritual
kingdom. He must build it up, he must
defend it, he must rule over it, put down its enemies as David
did. Christ is the great king. Yet
his kingdom was not earthly, but a spiritual, heavenly, eternal
kingdom. And he must reign in that kingdom,
seated upon an everlasting throne at the right hand of the majesty
on high. And all this Christ did and more. John says, if all the things
could be written, then there wouldn't be enough books in all
the world to say the things that Christ had done. And we may take
it as read, when the Lord Jesus Christ said, it is finished on
the cross, or when he said, I've done the work which thou gavest
me to do, he had indeed satisfied every demand, fulfilled every
duty, and paid every obligation. The old writers, they would talk
about the satisfaction of Christ. It's a good phrase, it's a good
word, the satisfaction of Christ. Satisfaction in scripture is
the price paid as compensation for a life. That's what it means.
And Jesus gave full satisfaction to God for the lives of all that
he represented in the covenant of grace. When he said, I have finished
the work, which thou gavest me to do, he truly had finished
it. And there's another thing clearly
revealed in these verses before us that I want us to note and to
understand Christ's assumption, Christ's understanding of his
task, of his work, and of the identity of those on whose behalf
he laboured, on whose behalf he served his father and did
the work which was given him to do. Because without doubt,
the saviour differentiates between his church and the ungodly in the world. Our Lord Jesus knew exactly those
for whom he came into the world, and those for whom he would die. There was no confusion or uncertainty
in Christ's mind as to whom he was representing. And there should
be no confusion in the minds of God's people either. I want
you to be certain in this doctrine that we sometimes call the election
of God or the limited atonement or particular
grace, the fact that the Lord had a people drawn out, called
out, chosen out to be his people for whom all of these things
were done. God the Father knows precisely
and distinguishes absolutely between those who are his own
by everlasting love and those who are not. Those who are set
apart in the covenant of grace and those who are not. Those
who are redeemed by the blood of Christ and those who are not.
And God the Father knows that and so does God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit. Because these were the people
that would receive the benefits of the terms of the covenant
of grace. Our Lord Jesus knew the ransom
price for the church would be his blood. And he knew the identity
of every last individual for whom that ransom was paid. Christ explicitly says, I have
manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out
of the world. Thine they were. and thou gavest
them me. So that prophetic work, that
priestly work, that kingly work was accomplished, it was performed,
it was finished for the men which the Father gave to Christ out
of the world. They were his in electing grace,
electing love, and they were given to the Lord Jesus Christ
under the terms of the covenant of grace. Now I'm sure that there
is an element, there is a sense in which the Lord Jesus is speaking
about his own disciples here. the 12, if you like, or rather
the 11, because Judas was now gone from amongst them. And yet
Christ's words cannot be restricted to the disciples alone, but include
all those given into his hand by the Father. All those set
apart in the covenant of peace, all those ordained to eternal
life. God the Father gave Christ a
people born of divine love and set apart by the divine spirit. And it is these men and women
upon whom the attention of Christ is now fixed in this intercessory
prayer. These chosen in eternity, these
owned by God, these given into the protective custody of the
Savior. They are to be delivered out
of the total number of men in the world by this redemptive
work of Christ. These who were given to Christ
and these alone are those for whom his energy is expended and
his labour is spent and for whom his life's blood is spilled. The Saviour's intercessory prayer
is dedicated for these alone. It is a prayer for us who believe. It is a prayer for the Church
of Jesus Christ. This passage of Holy Scripture
is called Christ's intercessory prayer because in it the Lord
Jesus Christ prays to his Father on behalf of his Church and people. and he intercedes for his own
who have been given to him. He's explicit about it. He emphasises
he is not praying for the world but only for them which thou
hast given me. That is his immediate disciples
and those who would follow them and with them believe on him.
The false teachers of today who insist, of every age no doubt,
but the false teachers and preachers in so many pulpits and churches
in our lands today who insist that Christ died for the whole
world without exception. They need to explain to us how
it is that Jesus would die for the world but would not pray
for the world. Is it not easier to pray for
someone than to die for someone? Again, let us make no mistake
in this matter. Those for whom the Lord Jesus
Christ intercedes are those He saves, no more and no less. The Lord Jesus is now in heaven
interceding for His people. Paul tells us, he is making that
same intercession. He's not praying, he's praying
for those that have been given to him. The writer to the Hebrews
tells us, he saves those only. and yet he saves them to the
uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth
to make intercession for them. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not
in heaven interceding for the whole world and every individual
in the world. He did not pray and intercede
for all men and women while in the world, nor does he do so
now in heaven. The particularity of sovereign
grace and distinguishing love and mercy in God is attested
throughout scripture. And it is emphasized here in
this chapter. Only those who are purposefully
dishonest or willfully ignorant can deny it, being blind leaders
of the blind. And there's something else that
I would like to point out here. And that is the way that the
Lord Jesus Christ speaks so positively about his disciples. So kind
of we've emphasized, as it were, the doctrine and the theology,
but there's some lovely practical applications and comforting themes
in that which the Lord here prays also. And he speaks positively
of his disciples to his father. And that ought to be a comfort
to us, all of us who trust in him. The Lord Jesus uses every
opportunity in this prayer to recommend these men to his Father. Now these disciples, they had
very many limitations, as do we. And yet despite this, the
Saviour never once mentions their sin. He doesn't refer to their
shortcomings or hint at their unworthiness. He does not refer
to their sin because in the Father's eyes, they are cleansed from
sin. And here we see the Lord's great love and tender care towards
us. Because we are His, Everything
that he says about us is positive, is affirming, and is an endorsement
of us. Think about that. The Lord Jesus
Christ is speaking positively about you and about me. He tells his Father, they have
kept thy word. Oh, listen, do we think we keep
the word of God? The Lord Jesus Christ says, they
have kept thy word. They have known thy name. We
feel so ignorant and yet The Lord Jesus Christ tells his Father,
they have known thy name. They have received thy word. They believe all the Father communicated
by God the Son. They believe the Gospel of God
as it is revealed by the Son, not merely in their head, but
in their heart. And the Lord does not tell the
father these things because the father doesn't know them. He
is telling these things to his father because he wants us to
know them. He wants us to know the efficacy of his blood and
the effect of his intercession. Listen, brothers and sisters,
we are full of contradictions. We believe, but we struggle with
unbelief. We serve, but usually our service
is unprofitable. We worship, but we do so ignorantly. Paul says, the good that I would,
I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Well,
what does the father think about that? He thinks nothing at all about
that. Our Lord Jesus Christ is standing
before His Father, showing His blood, showing His nail-pierced
hands, saying, as we read in Hebrews chapter 2, behold, I
and the children which God hath given me, holy and without blame,
before Him in love. That's Ephesians. God's estimation
of you is not how you feel about yourself, but what the Lord Jesus
Christ testifies of you upon the merits of his precious blood
and his perfect righteousness before the face of his Father. And this brings me to my final
point. Observe In these few verses,
how frequently the Lord Jesus highlights all that he has done
and all that he has accomplished. He says, I have glorified thee
on the earth. He says, I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do. He says, I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. He
says, I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me. This is all the Lord's work.
It's I who have done this, says the Lord in his prayer to his
father. Let me now speak on my own behalf
and perhaps on yours also. I don't have to strive to glorify
God in this world. Why? Because Christ has done
so on my behalf and I rest by faith that promise. I don't have to finish the work
of Christ despite what the free will preachers tell us because
Christ has finished it already and I rest by faith in that promise. I don't have to find God. I don't
have to discover hidden mysteries or find my own truth. The Lord
Jesus Christ has manifested God's name in his life and in his ministry. By believing the Lord Jesus Christ,
by trusting in Him, He has given us the words of eternal life.
He has fought the fight. He's won the battle. He's redeemed
our souls. He has brought many sons home
to glory. And all that is left for me to
do is to rest by faith in that promise. The Lord Jesus Christ is at this
very moment enabling my faith by praying and interceding for
me in his Father's presence upon the merits of his blood and finished
work. I pray for them. I pray not for
the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine. These blessings belong to all
God's people because the Lord Jesus has given them to us. Our status is as heirs of all
things in Christ. Our status is sons and daughters
of the Most High God. And it's a free gift from God.
It's not an offer to be accepted or a proposal to be considered. It's a truth to be believed.
It is bestowed grace. It is beautiful. It is powerful.
It is enabling. It is the gospel. Every spiritual
blessing is freely given to God's elect in and by our Lord Jesus
Christ. He stands for us as our surety. He represents us as our substitute. He intercedes for us in heaven. He has taken all our sin and
guilt and given us all his goodness and love. He takes our transgressions
and He gives us His righteousness. He washes us in His blood and
He makes us holy and pure. David said in Psalm 51, Purge
me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be
whiter than snow. That is the reality. That is
what has been done. We are clean. We are whiter than
snow in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a promise. What a privilege.
What a blessing. May we all know the reality of
this blessed state by faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.