Peter Barnes | John 17:11-12
SERMON NOTES
Kept to the End
John 10:22-30; John 17:6-19
The disciples were looking to the future with dread, and were wondering if all their hopes were going to fall apart. Thomas Manton preached six sermons on verse 11 but we will stick with just one.
1. Christ prays that the Father would keep His people.
– 17:11b. Yahweh is ‘I am who I am’, the eternal One. Yet there is more than that to the ‘name’ – see Psalm 54:1.
– Spurgeon cited a song:
And when I’m to die,/ Receive me I’ll cry,
For Jesus has loved me,/ I cannot tell why;
But this thing I find,/ We two are so joined,/
He won’t be in heaven/ And leave me behind.
2. Christ prays that His people will be one.
– 17:11c. Hence 1 Cor.1:10; Mal.3:16; Rom.12:16; Ps.133; Eph.4:3.
3. Not all the visible Church is the true Church.
– 17:12 (cf. Ps.41:9-10). Christ secures the salvation of His people (John 10:27-28; 18:9). He is speaking as He did in Luke 8:18. Calvin: ‘It would be wrong for anyone to infer from this that Judas’ fall should be imputed to God rather than to himself, in that necessity was laid on him by the prophecy.’
– Compare Peter and Simon Magus (Acts 8:13, 18-21).
– ‘I never knew you’ (Matt.7:21-23).