After the Lord spoke that long discourse in chapters fourteen through sixteen, He prayed a prayer in chapter seventeen. The first verse in this chapter is quite crucial: “These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.” This word matches John 12:23 where the Lord said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The only difference is that here that word has become a prayer. The Lord prayed that the Father might glorify Him that He might glorify the Father. For many years I could not understand what the main subject of the Lord’s prayer in chapter seventeen was. Now we can see that the subject of this long prayer is the glorification of Jesus.
In 17:21 the Lord prayed, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” The issue of Jesus being glorified is that His believers will be brought into the Triune God, into the divine “Us.” There is a coinherence in the Divine Trinity. In this verse the Lord says that the Father is in Him and that He is in the Father. This is the coinherence of the Divine Trinity, and this coinherence has to be applied to His believers that all His believers may be in the divine Us, in the Divine Trinity. This is the issue of the glorification of Jesus.
John 17:24 says, “Father, concerning that which You have given Me, I desire that they also may be with Me where I am.” Now we have to ask where Jesus is. John 14:3 says, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” Many Christian readers and teachers unconsciously change the word Myself in this verse to heaven—“I will receive you to heaven.” However, the Lord says that He will receive the believers not to heaven but to Himself that where He is they also may be. Also, many Christian teachers say that He is in the heavens that we also may be in the heavens. This is their interpretation. To answer the question of where the Lord is, we must let the Lord Jesus Himself answer. In verse 10 of the same chapter, chapter fourteen, the Lord says, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?” Where is the Lord? He is in the Father. He was going to prepare a place for the disciples that where He was they also might be. He is in the Father so that we may also be there in the Father. He was going to prepare a place through His death and resurrection to bring us into the Father. His death and resurrection was His preparation to bring us into the Father in whom He was. Then where He is, we may be also. He said this at the beginning of chapter fourteen in verse 3, and He prayed about this at the end of chapter seventeen in verse 24. In verse 24 the Lord says, “Father, concerning that which You have given Me, I desire that they also may be with Me where I am.” The Lord was saying, “I am in You, Father, but they are not. I desire that they all may be in You as I am, that they may be with Me in You.” “That they may behold My glory, which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (17:24). The glory in this verse is the glory to be the Son of God, possessing God’s life to express God. This is the glory of Jesus. He has given us this glory and now we are all the sons of God possessing God’s life to express God Himself.
In John 14:20 the Lord tells us that in the day of resurrection “you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” The Lord is in the Father and we are in Him, so we are in the Father by being in Him. This could transpire by His death and resurrection.
Then 14:23 says, “Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” The Son and the Father through the Spirit come to the lover of Jesus to make an abode with him. In 14:2 the Lord said, “In My Father’s house are many abodes.” What are the abodes? The abodes according to verse 23 are the believers, the lovers of Jesus.