Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Whole Point

John 17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,



1 Ταῦτα ἐλάλησεν Ἰησοῦς καὶ ἐπάρας τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εἶπεν· πάτερ, ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα· δόξασόν σου τὸν υἱόν, ἵνα ὁ υἱὸς δοξάσῃ σέ,

This is the beginning of Jesus' "high priestly prayer" where He makes an appeal to the Father for the disciples. There is a ton to talk about in this prayer, but I want to focus on this verse. First, we see that  ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα. Here Jesus uses a perfect to say that the time has arrived for the cross. Then He uses an imperative in praying for God to δόξασόν σου τὸν υἱόν. Why should God glorify His son? Jesus answers with a ινα clause: ἵνα ὁ υἱὸς δοξάσῃ σέ.


What's the big deal about this? I think that Jesus' prayer gives us a model for how we should be focused in our lives. When we talk about the gospel we tend to focus on what Christ did for us. It is true that He died to atone for the sins of the world. To minimize that would be ridiculous. However, we should not maximize it either.


Here we see Jesus pray that the Father would be glorified in the sacrifice He was about to make. The cross is central to everything we do. But ultimately it is not about our redeemed lives, but about the glory of the Father. The change in us should be focused on glorifying God the Father.

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