Reading the last few verses of John 17 this morning . . . the part of Jesus’ priestly prayer where He “shifts gears” slightly and focuses His attention on those who would believe in Jesus as a result of the apostles’ words. Uh . . . that would be us . . . we who have believed the gospel . . . and received the work of Christ on the cross on our behalf. It’s here, at the end of John 17, that Jesus prayers specifically for us. Don’t know about you, but I like being prayed for . . . especially by someone who seems “connected” to the pulse of heaven.

And in essence, the prayer is for unity . . . a unity among believers . . . a unity derived from a common association with divinity . . . a unity within a unity.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that 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 become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me.” (John 17:20-23 ESV)

You need to slow down a bit as you take in Jesus’ prayer here. As he talks about “them” and “You” and “Me” . . . as He desires that “they” are one . . . just as God the Father and God the Son are one . . . and that this oneness among believers is intrinsically linked to the oneness they have with Son as those given to the Son by the Father . . . and their unity with the Father which comes through being in the Son, and the Son being in them. Keeping it straight? My head’s spinning a bit.

But at a “big picture” level, what’s impressed this morning is that, if we consider “those who believe” as an entity, then what Jesus is praying for and describes is a tri-entity union . . . Father, Son, and believer. Now, when I think of a triune, or a trinity, I immediately go to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit . . . and that’s when it hit me. It’s the Holy Spirit given to believers . . . it’s the Spirit indwelling those who are Christ’s . . . it’s the diffusing of the Third Person of the Godhead within those redeemed by the cross of Christ . . . it’s the One Jesus promised to send after He left, who enables Jesus’ prayer to be fulfilled. The “Helper,” who Jesus promised, is not only the seal guaranteeing our inheritance (Eph. 1:14) but is also the glue by which we are intimately linked to the Father . . . and to the Son . . . and with one another.

It seems to me that the Holy Spirit is the unspoken dynamic in this prayer. The oneness that Jesus prays for, that we would be one as Father and Son are one . . . God manifest in Jesus . . . Jesus living through believers . . . believers abiding in Jesus . . . believers possessing the mind of God . . . the church “perfectly one” . . . is only possible, as those rescued from sin, are enabled to participate in the divine nature. And that enabling is through the 24/7 sanctifying work of that member of the Trinity who abides in us. That, just as God-the-Spirit is at perfect one-ness with God-the-Father and God-the-Son, so are those He possesses and fills . . . who through His divine agency are wired into the things of heaven . . . enveloped in a dynamic of perfect unity.

Stretches my brain a bit . . . but as I “listen” to Jesus pray this morning, I find myself wanting to say, “Amen! Make us one, Father. I in Your Son . . . Your Son in me . . . both of us in You . . . all through the unspoken dynamic of the Spirit . . . all for Your glory! And again, Amen!”