John 17:25-26 25Righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, but I know you, and these ones know that you have sent me. 26And I made known to them your name, and I will continue making it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Earlier in verse 11, Jesus addressed the Father as “holy” and here, describes the Father as righteous (). This word can be taken in an ethical way, in that God is beyond anything that corruption or sin, or a judicial way, with God as the just judge. The world stands condemned already for it reject of the light of Jesus (1:9). God knows the thoughts and motives of people. Only God can determine the sincerity of people whose experience of the true Light has been limited. The world does not know the Father because it has not known the Son. To know the Son is to know the Father. To reject the Son is to reject the Father.
A different knowledge of God is now available by knowing Jesus. Words for knowing occur five times in these two verses. The goal of our life on earth is to come to know God. This knowledge is not simply facts in the head, although we need to study theology and learn about God; this knowledge is relational and experiential, as we abide in Jesus and he in us. The disciples had come to a firm conviction that Jesus was the true revelation from God. Jesus’ mission with them was complete because he had faithfully bore witness to the Father. What remained was the deeper work of the cross and resurrection, which would take their knowledge and make it transformative in everything they did and thought.
Jesus switches to the future tense will make known. The verb has an implied strong continuous sense, which many English translations use, to show that coming to know Jesus does not end with initial faith at repentance but continues through one’s lifetime and, through implication, into eternity. The disciples would experience deeper knowledge through the presence of the Holy Spirit, who would teach them more about Jesus.
The goal of this growth in deeper relational knowledge of Jesus is so that we may experience more of God’s love. Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 has a similar goal. This love of God is experienced through abiding in Jesus, which comes through believing in him and obeying his commands, especially the command to love one another. His prayer has as one of its focuses the goal of the unity of the disciples and all believers. This unity will come when the love of Jesus flows through us by the grace of the Holy Spirit. This love will be on full display in the following chapters.
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