"As Thou Hast Loved Me."
HE seventeenth chapter of John is a prayer that Christ offered for His disciples. The prayer was offered shortly before the Master's betrayal and His agonies in the Garden. The prayer was for the disciples that were with Him, then He asked that the Father would strengthen and keep them thru the dark and trying days of His trial before the Jewish and Roman courts, and finally of His crucifixion and burial.
The prayer, as already stated, was for the disciples then with Christ. But it was also in a special sense for all the followers of the Master, clear down to the end. For we find right in the prayer itself the earnest petition:
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me thru their word.
John 17:20.
Every believer in Christ since the time that prayer was uttered, down to the present moment, has believed
thru their word
—thru the words of Christ given to us by the inspired apostles of Christ. Therefore the believer of to-day has the privilege of knowing that the Master had him in mind when He prayed that prayer.
Individuals will frequently ask others to pray for them. But here is the clear fact that the Lord Himself prays for us; for the prayer that He uttered then is a living prayer. That prayer is before the Father's throne to-day, and thru it in living tones the divine Son of God is interceding for you and for me.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me thru their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.
John 17: 20-23.
In the foregoing scripture we have not only the comforting truth that the Lord is praying for us, but we learn that a part of the burden of His prayer is that
the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.
The Saviour would have us know that He loves us, and He would also have the world know that He loves us. But more than this, He would have the world know that the Father loves us even as He loves His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Can you get the force of the truth so plainly stated in the foregoing Bible text? You have understood and believed that the Father loved His own Son, the Saviour, with an infinite depth. But have you understood that the same Father loves you also as He loves His own Son? If such a great truth seems too much to be true, read the text again and again until you see that the Lord is actually praying, even now, that the world may see that the Father loves the children that are saved by His grace the same as He loves His only-begotten Son.
This is indeed a soul-enrapturing truth. Since the Father loves us so deeply there can be no doubt about His saving all who will give themselves to Him. Who can find it in his heart to refuse to yield to such self-sacrificing and marvelous love?