The Father is glorified through the organic union of Christ’s believers with the Father in the Son in oneness (17:23). In John 15 the fact of our being in Christ and Christ being in us is clearly revealed (vv. 4-5). But in John 17 the Lord prayed for our realization of this fact (vv. 20-21). He prayed so that we would realize that we are in Him just as He is in the Father, and He is in us just as the Father is in Him. With the Divine Trinity there is such a wonderful coinhering oneness. This coinhering oneness has been duplicated by Christ with His believers. Today Christ is in His believers, causing His believers to be in Him. This is like the Father being in the Son, causing the Son to be in the Father. The prayer of Christ in John 17 is a revelation of such a coinhering oneness.
Christ’s prayer was for the glorification of the Son that the Father might be glorified as the Son glorified the Father in His earthly living and ministry (vv. 1b, 4-5). This traffic of glorification, where the Son prayed asking the Father to glorify the Son that the Son may glorify the Father, is based on the believers’ oneness (vv. 2-3, 6-23a). If we are not one, the Son cannot be glorified, and the Father cannot be glorified by the Son. When we are one, Christ is glorified. When Christ is glorified, God the Father is glorified in Christ the Son’s glorification.
The oneness of the believers is by the Father’s eternal life conveyed in the Father’s name and in the Father’s word (vv. 2-3, 6-12). Our oneness is also by the Father’s sanctifying word as the truth—the divine reality—through the coinhering of the Triune God and the believers (vv. 13-21). The sanctifying God is in us, and we are in the sanctifying God; therefore, we are spontaneously sanctified.
The oneness of the believers is also by the glory given to the believers by Christ the Son through the coinhering of the Triune God incorporated with the believers. In John 17:22-23 the Son prayed to the Father: “And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” The believers can be one as the three of the Trinity are one. The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the disciples all coinhere. This is the glory. In this coinhering, Christ is glorified, and the Father is glorified.
The oneness revealed in chapter seventeen is for the Father’s glorification in the Son. This oneness is actually the divine glorification. The Son is glorified in the church, and the Father is glorified in the Son. In chapters fourteen through seventeen we see five main things: the Father’s house, the vine, the new man, the divine glorification, and the oneness. Actually, all of these five things are one. This is the unique subject of the Lord’s message in chapters fourteen through sixteen, and it is the main point of His prayer in chapter seventeen. The oneness is the glorification, the glorification is the new man, the new man is the vine, and the vine is the Father’s house. The glorification for which the Lord prayed is actually the divine mingling with humanity, and this mingling is the marvelous oneness revealed in chapter seventeen. This oneness is safeguarded in the name of the Father, in the Triune God, and in the glorious expression of the Triune God. This is the central point of the revelation of the New Testament.
In John 17 the Lord prayed that the Father would glorify the Son so that the Son might glorify Him. To glorify the Son is actually to build the Father’s house. Hence, glorification is the building. Furthermore, the building is the cultivation of the vine. The vine tree comes into being through the birth of the new man. When the new man was born, the vine with all its branches came into being. Now the vine is growing and spreading, and this spreading is the divine glorification. Therefore, the glorification of the Son is for the glorification of the Father, and the glorification is the building of the Father’s house, the spreading of the vine, and the growth is the new man.
In the divine glorification the Triune God is glorified in humanity, and humanity is glorified in divinity. One day the Lord Jesus will come in a physical manifestation of glory, and we shall be brought into that glory. Then there will be glorification upon glorification and glorification within glorification. Eventually, there will be the ultimate consummation—the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:10-11). The New Jerusalem will be the completion of the new man, the consummation of the vine, and the full building of the Father’s house. May we all see that the Father’s house, the vine, the new man, and the glorification are all one thing—Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God for our experience and enjoyment.