The latter part of verse 23 says, “That the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.” Here we see the Father’s love shown toward the Son as well as toward the Son’s believers. The Father has loved the Son in that He has given the Son His life, His nature, His fullness, and His glory to express Him. What love this is! In the same way, the Father has also loved the Son’s believers by giving them His life, His nature, His fullness, and His glory that they might express Him in the Son. This is a story of love as well as of glory. Not many of us appreciate this love, the love in giving us the Father’s life, nature, fullness, and glory to express Him. This is real love. It is much better and much higher than anything else.
Verse 24 says, “Father, I desire that those whom You have given Me may also be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, for You have loved Me before the foundation of the world.” The Son is in the divine glory for the Father’s expression. Therefore, if the Son’s believers are to be with Him where He is, they must be with Him in the divine glory to express the Father. The fulfillment of this began with the Son’s resurrection, when He brought His believers into participation in His resurrected life, and it will consummate in the New Jerusalem, when His believers will be fully brought into the divine glory for the ultimate corporate expression of the Triune God for eternity.
We are where the Son is. The Son is in the Father, and we also are in the Father. The Son is in the Father’s glory, and we also are in the Father’s glory. The Son went through death and resurrection that we might share the Father’s life, nature, fullness, and glory, expressing the Father with Him in the very place where He is. This is marvelous! The Son is in glory for the Father’s expression, and the believers will also be in glory for the corporate expression of the Triune God for eternity. To me, this is vastly greater than going to heaven. Eventually, the New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven (Rev. 21:2). I do not want to be in an empty heaven; I want to be in the New Jerusalem, in the glorious corporate expression of the Triune God.
In verses 25 and 26 the Lord prayed, “Righteous Father, indeed the world has not known You, but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them and will make it known, that the love with which you have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” The world neither knows the Father nor wants to know Him, but the Son and the Son’s believers do. The Father is righteous in loving the Son and His believers, giving His glory both to the Son and to His believers. In sanctifying the Son’s believers, the Father is holy (v. 11), and in loving the Son and His believers and giving the Son and His believers His glory, the Father is righteous. The Father will reveal nothing regarding life to the worldly people because they do not know the Father. However, the Father has revealed everything concerning life to the Lord Jesus and to His believers because the Lord and His believers know the Father. Hence, the Father is righteous in His discernment, for by His righteous judgment He reveals to us the matters of life. God is righteous in this matter.
The love mentioned in verse 26 is the love of the Father in giving His life and glory to the Son and to the Son’s believers so that the Son and the believers might express Him. The Son prays that, along with the Son’s abiding in His believers, this love may also abide in them, and that they may always have the sense of this love by knowing the name Father, by realizing the Father’s love toward the Son, and by abiding with the Son.