You have to understand what an incalculable priviledge it is to stand up here and look into the faces of all of you men, faithful lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and slaves of the Savior, and ministers of His Word, leaders in the church. This is just an incredibly wonderful privilege for me.

I’m going to do something a little bit different; I don’t know that I’ve done this in the past conferences that we’ve had. I started to prepare a message for this opening session, and when I was finished, I had a series, which is not uncommon for me. But I just decided that I’ll start it today and we’ll finish it up on Friday when I get to speak to you again.

I want this conference, at least from my vantage point, to be an encouragement to you. In our D.Min. program a few months ago, we had the privilege of having a wonderful week with Joel Beeke, and we were sitting around at lunch and he said, “I have a very, very serious concern,” and I said, “Well, what is it?” He said, “Everywhere I go I find pastors are greatly discouraged,” and he said, “I think we need to begin to do something to address sort of universal discouragement of pastors.”

That’s a reality, we all understand that, and we all experience discouragement. I want to just see if I can’t contribute a little bit to your encouragement this week. It’s going to take me awhile to get to that point in this message that is on my heart. It’s not really a sermon. I’m going to make you work a little bit with me. But I do want this to be an encouragement. That is the objective; that is the goal. And by the time we wrap this thing up on Friday, I want you to be exhilarated as you leave here, and thankful.

Now, we have to start at a low point to work our way to a high point. No profession in the world suffers from a more serious lack of clarity as to the basic requirement of the job than the pastorate. Everybody else seems to know what their job is – everybody, that is, but pastors. In fact, if we’re honest, clergy malpractice goes on everywhere all the time. It is ubiquitous, it is pandemic. There is definitely widespread confusion about what it means to be a pastor, and along with that comes widespread indifference to biblical duties; and as a result of that, the church has no concept of what the pastor is supposed to be or do. But one thing is clear; most pastors have no interest in being theologians, nor do congregations expect them to be theologians.

The devolution of theology and biblical scholarship as a serious matter for Christians can be traced back to the absence of doctrine and careful biblical scholarship in the pulpit. This is dereliction of duty. This is clergy malpractice. The pastorate is no longer an intellectual calling. No longer do pastors provide serious intellectual leadership. No longer do pastors move in the realm of theology; they manage programs, they give uplifting talks, they apply culturally invented principles. They give their energy to everything but scholarship, everything but an intense study of the text which yields sound doctrine. They are practitioners rather than thinkers, rather than theologians.

But they have to have content. So at the best, they broker other people’s ideas, and the ideas that they broker are selected carefully by their own whims and desires, and the popularity of certain people. So pastors have become middle managers who broker other people’s theology and other people’s ideas. Whatever happened to, “Speak the things fitting for sound doctrine,” Titus, chapter 2?

Even the goal of biblical exposition is doctrine first, doctrine then understood: its implications, its application, and it’s exhortation.  And the pastor, above all, is not only to teach doctrine. That is the whole purpose of Bible exposition, to draw out of the text the doctrine, the truth, and then to show its implications, application, and exhortation. But not only that, the pastor is also the guardian of sound doctrine. He is to guard the theological doctrinal integrity of divine truth before his people, in his place and in his generation.

For a couple of centuries, pastors have outsourced doctrine to the academy; scholarship takes place there. A little background on that. If you were to go back to 1840 in our country, the majority of university presidents were ordained pastors; 1840, the majority of university presidents were ordained pastors. Before that, all of them were, all of them. Things have changed.

It was 1977, I’d been here at Grace eight years, and I got a phone call from James Boyce, and he asked me if I would come along and serve on the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy that produced the Chicago Statement. I was actually shocked. I was just a local pastor here at Grace Church. I was in my 30s. It was out of my league. There were a hundred men that were chosen.

When I got to that first meeting in Chicago, I was stunned by the fact that there were only two pastors – myself and Jim Boyce. Ninety-eight other men came from academic institutions. And to tell you how hard it was to even find too somebody else to go with Boyce, they picked me. I sat in conversation with Jim Boyce and Roger Nicole and kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want them to know how ignorant I was, so I just nodded like I really got it.

Pastors have abandoned their high calling and substituted lesser functions. Their success and their reputation and their sense of accomplishment is achieved my musical contexts, fashion, novelty, personality, marketing savvy, force of leadership. Rarely do you find a pastor known as a theologian, as a biblical scholar. Rarely are their minds given to the mastery of Scripture and its doctrinal truth. It can be a hard time, frankly, for those who do understand their calling, and who are expert in the interpretation exposition and doctrine of the Bible, because they’re just oddballs. This has to change. Pastors, you must become theologians, biblical scholars. You must become the guardians of sound doctrine.

In reality, de facto, pastors are the theologians of the church, not professors in institutions. They’re in their institutions talking to each other and talking to students; you’re talking to the church. The church understand theology from you, not from them. Sinclair Ferguson said, “We have made little or no impression on the world for the very reason that gospel doctrine has made a correspondingly slight impression on us.” That is a tragic reality. Every significant pastor in church history, every significant pastor – the names of whom you know in church history – has been a heavyweight in theology, every one of them; and they all developed pastoral training ministries, institutions, because the highest form of matured ecclesiology is the multiplication of pastor theologians.

It was around in 1650 that the Westminster Confession was basically developed. There were 121 scholars that were collected, spending years refining the great Westminster Confession, 121. They were the brightest minds; they were the theological heavyweights; they were the biblical scholars of their day. Out of 121, 121 were pastors; they were pastors.

We need to take back theology in the church. The academy has proven to be a very unsafe place for the Bible. It has been ravaged; we need to take it back. The academy started taking over after the enlightenment and it took theology away from the church, and since the 19th century, pastors have been steadily forfeiting scholarly, biblical, theological influence; and the money has followed the scholars into the academy. And, as I said, academia is a very unsafe place for the Bible. In our lifetime, we have all been working to salvage the Bible from academia.

How important is theology? It’s just a word that means “a divine, propositional truth revealed in Scripture.” That’s our stock and trade. Doctrine is the foundation of absolutely everything. Doctrine is the structure of one’s beliefs and convictions, and those are the things that control our lives.

In 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, is an interesting comment that Paul makes here. He’s talking about what motivates him. And we all understand how much he endured for the sake of Christ, and how much he suffered, and how challenging ministry was. And you would look at a man like that and you’d say, “Well, what is driving that man? What is motivating that man? What is moving that man? What keeps him on course?”

Talk about discouraged; comes even to the end of his life and he says, “Everybody in Asia has forsaken me.” The agonies that he went through are basically laid out in 2 Corinthians all throughout the epistle. But just this statement: “For the love of Christ controls us, constrains us, motivates us.”

Really? So what drives you, Paul? It’s the love of Christ that drives him. It’s the love of Christ for me that drives me. What’s so special about that? If you were to ask most people today, they’d think God loves everybody in the world unconditionally, equally.

What are you talking about, the love of Christ constrains you, motivates you? In this sense, “Because I have concluded that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”

Do you know what those two verses are teaching? Particular redemption, limited atonement. The one died for all, therefore all died. He died for the all who died in Him. He is saying, “What motivates me is not that the death of Jesus Christ was some kind of potential expression of love, but He died for me, and He rose for me,” and it was his understanding of particular redemption and a limited atonement that motivated him. He was Christ’s.

Does theology matter? Does that change how you view life? The church has doctrinal anemia, that’s why so many pastors are so successful who have no interest in this. So my concern is to kind of help you, in these couple of sessions that I have, to think about theology. And to do that – and now you can start timing me – I want you to turn to John 17. The rest was introduction. John 17.

Okay, just look at John 17. You ready? I’m going to read it. Deep into the darkness of Friday morning, Passion Week, Judas is already gathering the group that will come into the garden of Gethsemane very soon. Jesus has left the upper room, gone through Jerusalem to the east, headed toward that garden where He’ll be arrested, later that day crucified. He has been giving promises and warnings to His disciples through chapter 13, 14, 15, and 16. And now in their presence for them to hear, He prays this prayer: “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

“But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I’ve given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one: even 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 sent Me.

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

“O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” That is a breathtaking experience to read that.

Do you remember back in Exodus 28, God had established that the tabernacle and the priesthood, and even went so far as to define the clothing that the high priest would wear? And in Exodus, chapter 28, we find that the priest put on a garment that represented the 12 tribes of Israel, Exodus 28, so that when he went into the Holy of Holies to offer atonement on the Day of Atonement and to offer incense as a symbol of prayers, he carried on his shoulders and over his heart the people of God, Israel. He first had to offer atoning blood, and then incense representing prayers. But he carried the nation into the Holy of Holies with him, on his heart and on his shoulders. That is exactly what is happening in John 17. The Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, has gone into the heavenly Holy of Holies, and He’s carrying His beloved people on His shoulders and on His heart. He is now in the presence of the Father.

In the Old Testament, the high priest went in on the Day of Atonement and came out rapidly. In the case of Christ, He went in and sat down; and He’s still there. And Hebrews 7 says, “He’s ever-living to make intercession for us.” He’s praying us into heaven. Here is the only sample of the present work of the Lord Jesus, in that chapter, that’s it. Hebrews, several times, says He’s doing it. Here, we hear His very words. He is still praying those very same requests.

You know, it is sad to me, given the incomparable uniqueness of this event, how it has been diminished in the church. I don’t know in my life that I’ve ever heard a sermon on John 17. We love to talk about the cross. We love to talk about the death of Christ. We love to talk about the resurrection, and we should. We love to talk about the cross and the resurrection as a fulfillment of prophecy. We love to talk about it as actual history recorded in the gospels. We love to reflect upon it as the New Testament writers reflect back on the meaning of the death of Christ and the resurrection. We can even get so preoccupied on the cross that we think that the only way to be sanctified is a kind of cross-centered sanctification.

Now, I’m going to say something that will surprise you. I submit, I submit that both of those glorious events – the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ – fall below the reality of John 17. This is the greatest ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. That surprise you? Turn to Romans 5. If you want to contemplate something that will contribute to your sanctification, you need to learn this.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. We exult in the hope of the glory of God,” and so forth. We have been justified; that’s the focus.

Down to verse 6: “While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Verse 7: “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

We love that, and we should, and we must; that’s the cross. But look at the first words of verse 9: “Much more then.” What? More than the cross? “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood – ” the cross, literally “ – we shall be being saved from the wrath of God through Him.”

Look at verse 10: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be being saved by His life,” pollō mallon. It’s a comparative: greater in impact, greater in extent, greater in magnitude, greater in effect. Something is much more. What is much more is that we are being saved by His life.

Well, how much more could it be? Well, drop down to verse 15: “The free gift is not like the transgression – ” comparing Adam to Christ. “For if by the transgression of the one the many died – ” oh, here we see the same exact word “ – much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.” Look at verse 17: “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

Did you get that? As the work of Christ is much more – are you ready for this? As the work of Christ is much more, comparatively speaking, than the work of Adam – and that’s a lot more, right, that’s a huge much more. And that Paul uses these terms because he wants to use them, as the work of Christ is much more than what Adam did, so what Christ does for us alive is much more than His death, much more, much more.

Listen to Hebrews 9:12, “Not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if by the blood, if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh – ” listen to this “ – how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works.” Christ’s sacrifice is much more than the animal sacrifices, Christ is much more than Adam, and so the work of Christ who ever-lives to bring us to glory is much more than the work of the cross. He died in hours; He rose in days; He ever-lives to make intercession.

Hebrews 7 and verse 23: “The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able to save also forever those who draw near to God through Him, because He always lives to – ” do what? “ – make intercession for them.” That’s the much more. How did we miss that? How did that escape us? And all of a sudden, John 17 – you can go back to John 17 – becomes a precious treasure of incalculable value. This is His intermediary mediating ministry. Here we meet the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and here He prays.

And now I’m getting to the point. This entire prayer is all theology. It is all doctrine. So let me say it; if you don’t have theology, not only can you not preach, you can’t even pray. His prayer is all doctrine. Here is Jesus basing His entire ministry of intercession for us on sound doctrine. He pleads doctrine before His Father, and what you have in John 17 essentially is a systematic, theological document on soteriology prayed. This prayer is not sentimental, He prays sound doctrine. He was a theological prayer. He couldn’t be anything else, because His mind was full of truth. He prays in the hearing of the eleven, and all of us. He wants all of us to hear this prayer.

Look down at verse 13. He says, “These things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” This prayer is for your joy. There’s only one reason this prayer is here: for your joy. And we all know that the disciples that night needed a lot of joy; they were in the midst of sorrow. He prays for our joy. This is the comforting Christ, comforting all of us with sound doctrine, because His theology is true. It is the theology of the Father; and therefore, He prays the theology of the Father back to the Father, knowing the Father will answer.

For whom does He pray this? Verse 9: “I ask on their behalf, their behalf.” The disciples and those who believed, “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You’ve given Me; for they’re Yours. And not only those who You’ve given Me, but – ” verse 20 “ – I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” So He prays for all believers, those present at that time and those through all the rest of redemptive history.

I’m convinced this is the most comforting chapter in the Bible, because the security of my salvation is the most comforting truth. So let’s go into the Holy of Holies here and let’s listen to the divine theologian praying us into heaven. This is His much more ministry. This prayer is a preview of what He will be doing after His ascension, and what He will do until the end of redemptive history. It is a transition from His earthly ministry to believers, to His heavenly ministry for believers. These same requests that we find in the 17th chapter He has been offering constantly for the last 2,000 years, and He will continue to offer until all of God’s children are safely in heaven.

And, by the way, this is the real Lord’s Prayer, because only He could pray it. The prayer in Matthew 6 is not the Lord’s Prayer, it’s the disciples’ prayer, because the Lord couldn’t pray it, because He couldn’t say, “Forgive us our transgressions.” He is praying to the Father for the Father to bring Him to heaven – that’s the opening five verses – and bring Him safely through the dramatic events that are going to take place immediately; bring Him through death, out of the grave, through those final days to about six weeks later when He ascends into heaven and takes His place at the right hand of God. Verse 1 to 5 is a prayer for His own glory. But the desire to be glorified is so that He can be in the place to intercede for the redeemed. So from verse 6 to the end of the chapter, it’s all intercessory prayer for us. This is the current intercessory, mediating ministry of Jesus Christ, and it’s going on even this moment.

Now rather than try to move through the text, which would be a very difficult thing to do, I want you just to see the theology here, okay. So let’s do a little work on this. I don’t know exactly how far we’ll be able to go. But here is the perfect theologian with the absolutely perfect theology. We’re going to learn from Him.

Salvation starts with the doctrine of God. Salvation starts with the doctrine of God. This is where it begins. So what do we learn here about the doctrine of God? Well, verse 11: “Holy Father.” Verse 25: “Righteous Father.” Holiness, righteousness is an attribute of God.

Verse 3, we learn that there’s only one God, the only true God. There is no other God. There is only one eternal non-contingent being, all else is contingent – that is dependent for existence on Him. This attribute alone compels no grace or mercy however. To say that God is righteous and that God is holy and that God is the only God inherently doesn’t compel any act of kindness toward anybody. This is where the recent confusion has been starling to me.

But just to make the point again: God and Allah are not the same. Allah has been designed as a single solitary eternal being, not a trinity, who by virtue of his eternal singleness cannot love, because there’s never been anyone to love. Forever, he has been one and only one. Allah is not the same as God; Allah is a form of the devil. Allah possesses no relational attributes. How could he be loving when he is a single solitary person everlastingly? That’s why there’s no love, no grace, no mercy, no compassion in his life.

In verse 23 of this chapter, Jesus says an amazing statement, talking to the Father, “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You loved Me.” Verse 24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” Verse 26: “And I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

What is He saying? He’s saying that the definition of relationships in the Trinity is love, love, everlastingly love. The true God is love, because the true God has always loved. He is pure love. God is love.

There’s more about the doctrine of God, verse 1: “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You.” Here we meet the eternal Son. Verse 5: “Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Now we know that the Father and the Son are defined by a loving relationship, which has been from all eternity.

Father and the Son share eternal nature, eternal love, eternal glory. That is why John starts his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

In verse 14: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, and it was the glory of the prōtotokos from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And verse 18: “No one has seen God at any time. The prōtotokos, the premier one, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained God.”

The apostle Paul understood this: “In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” “He is – ” Hebrews 1:3 “ – the radiance of His glory, the exact representation of His nature.” This is the very foundation of salvation. A single god with no capacity to love has no interest in saving anybody, because relationships are meaningless. God is defined by love.

Jesus is preexistent with God, coexistent with God, and self-existent with God. He said, “In Him is life.” He didn’t receive life, He is life. So He, the Son, is asking to be taken back to heaven and back to the eternal unity and love and glory He everlastingly had shared with the Father. “Father, take Me back because of who I am. Who am I? You gave Me authority over all flesh, to all whom You have allowed Me to give eternal life. This is who I am. I am the eternal life.” First John 5 ends that way, “He is the eternal life.”

“Because of what I’ve done – ” verse 4 “ – I’ve glorified You on the earth. I’ve accomplished the work you gave Me to do. Now take Me back.” Here is the real personhood of the Trinity being demonstrated. And that is why salvation even exists, because God is three and God is love.

Another statement that is really stunning is in verse 10 about the nature of God: “All things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine.” Are you looking at that statement, and do you respond to it the way I do? The first part I could say, “All things that are mine are yours,” right? I could say that. But how about this: “All things that are yours are mine”? Whoa, that is different. No one could say that but God. Verse 21: “Father, You are in Me and I am in You.” Verse 23: “You in Me.”

Verse 22: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one.” What is that? I think that’s a reference to the Holy Spirit. Luther said, “Everyone may say this, that, ‘All I have is God’s.’ But this statement is much greater that he turns it around and says, ‘All that God has is mine.’ No creature would ever say that.”

So when you start to look at the doctrines of soteriology, they begin in the relationship of the Father and the Son in the Trinity. “God, who saved us – ” Paul writes to Timothy “ – and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” The whole saving plan was a plan within the Trinity. Because God is love and is fulfilled in loving, He desired to bring to Himself many more sons to love.

Second important doctrine of soteriology is the doctrine of election, the doctrine of election. The people to whom the eternal Son gives eternal life are clearly identified. The Son gives life; it says it in verse 2: “He may give eternal life.” He gives life.

But to whom does He give that eternal life? Well, you can go down to verse 9: “I do not ask on behalf of the world.” That is a stunning statement; Jesus doesn’t pray for everyone. Did you get that? He’s not praying for everyone.

You say, “Who’s He praying for?” Verse 2: “To all whom You have given Me.” Verse 6: “To the men whom You gave Me.” Verse 9: “To those whom You have given Me.” Verse 11: “Keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me.”

Same language. As clearly as the Father has given a name to the Son, He has given people to the Son. Verse 12: “I was guarding, keeping, those You have given Me.” Verse 24: “I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me.” Anybody confused about that? That hard to get?

Who is He praying for? Those whom the Father has given Him, those whom He has been granted by the Father as love gifts, to whom He then gives eternal life. He gives eternal life to those the Father gives Him. This isn’t the first time this has been stated in John’s gospel. I know you remember the 6th chapter; just look at it for a minute, John 6:37: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.” It’s important, isn’t it, that all that the Father gives will come. This falls into the category of what theologians have called “irresistible grace.”

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not reject.” Why? “For I’ve come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose none, but raise him up on the last day.”

And then verse 44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him on the last day.” And then verse 65: “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” This is the doctrine of divine sovereign election. Believers are those whom the Father gives to the Son as an expression of the Father’s love to the Son, a collective bride to forever honor, worship, love, and serve the Son.

Now there’s a fact behind the gift. How did God choose who He would give? The only answer to that is in two places, verses 6 and 9. It’s really stunning. “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world – ” then notice this, “ – they were Yours, they were Yours, and You gave them to Me.” Verse 9: “I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You’ve given me; for they are Yours.” What is that saying? That they belonged to God.

The Bible tells us this by sovereign decree, John 15: “You have not chosen Me, but – ” what? “ – I’ve chosen you.” How did they become His? By His own uninfluenced choice. This is clearly what is meant when Scripture says, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” Ephesians 1. Book of Revelation talks about names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world.

The Father, He draws them at the appropriate time in history and gives them as a love gift to the Son. The Son receives them and the Son’s responsibility then becomes to make sure they get to glory; and that’s why He incessantly prays us into heaven. For every purpose of God, there is a means; and the purpose of God is to bring us to glory, and the means is the intercession of Jesus Christ.

He says in verse 9, “I ask on their behalf. It is for those who were Yours by choice; it is for those that I pray. I’m praying to bring all those who belong to You to glory. I do not ask, I do not ask for the world. I do not pray for the world.” Then in verse 20, “I do not ask on behalf of these current believers alone, but for those who will believe in Me through their word – ” and He stretches “ – through all of redemptive history.”

Now, there are many people who would say, “Well, Christ died for the whole world.” Really? If Christ died for the entire world, then His will is at odds with God’s. That can’t be. God willed to save those He chose; Christ couldn’t therefore have died for the whole world, or He would have been out of the will of God.

Christ came to do the Father’s will, and only the Father’s will. And if the Father’s will is to save all that belonged to Him by choice, then the Son’s atonement was sufficient for those whom the Father had chosen. Any idea that He died for everyone who ever lived means He was not in submission to the Father’s will. Be like saying the Father was a Calvinist and the Son was an Arminian. There’s only one will in the Trinity, right? He doesn’t pray for those who aren’t the Father’s; He doesn’t die for those who aren’t the Father’s.

You say, “Well, whoa, whoa. What about Judas? What about Judas?” Glad you asked. Verse 12 – the Lord knew you’d ask: “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have give Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” Judas is not an exception, he fulfilled exactly what Scripture said he would do. He was never a son of God, he was always a son of destruction and damnation.

So God loves. He is a Trinity. He’s defined as love. His love is so vast that it stretches beyond even the fulfillment of loving the Son and the Spirit. And He wants many sons to love, and so He chooses, He gives them to the Son that the Son may grant them eternal life, and then intercede for them to pray them all into heaven. They had to have, however, they had to have a Savior. There had to be a Savior, because you couldn’t bring unrighteous people to heaven, right?

So that leads to the third doctrine here, the doctrine of the incarnation, the doctrine of the incarnation. We’ve already seen the deity of Christ indicated as we looked at the Trinity. You only need to glance again at verse 10: “All things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine.” That’s deity. Or verse 2, “You have given Him authority over all flesh.” That alone belongs to God; that defines God. He is the one who gives eternal life; that is what only God can do, give life. That’s the fundamental reality of God.

You could look at verse 5: “The glory that I had with You before the world began.” And all of those are references to His deity, and then you start to see the humanity, verse 8: “I came forth from You.” That’s incarnation, virgin birth. “You sent Me.” Verse 3 ends: “Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” He equates Himself with God in that verse as well, “Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

Verse 8: “I came forth from You.” Verse 18: “You sent Me into the world.” Verse 21: “You sent Me,” that’s how the verse ends. Verse 23: “You sent Me.” Verse 25, “You sent Me.”

Nearly 30 times in the gospel of John, nearly 30 times, Jesus said He was sent by the Father, He was sent by the Father. He indicates His humanity here in verse 4: “I have glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. I glorified You on the earth.” That speaks of His humanity. Verse 13 He anticipates, “Now I’m coming back to You,” which means He has been on earth, He’s returning back in the ascension. So there are indications all through this chapter of His deity, and obviously, His incarnation and His humanity.

But more importantly, look at His work, if you will for just a couple of moments, verse 4: “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” So understanding the incarnation means you understand not only the nature of Christ, but the work of Christ. He was given the task of providing eternal life to the chosen. And by what work would He do that? How did He do that? How could He provide that eternal life for those who belonged to the Father who were given to Him? How could He do that?

There were two necessary realities. Number One: He had to make an atonement for their sins. He had to make an atonement for their sins. Theologians call this “passive righteousness.” He came to give His life a ransom for many. He bore in His own body our sins. Isaiah 53: “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.”

He had to die as a substitutionary sacrifice for His bride. He had to pay the price of death with a full penalty for their sins, satisfying the Father’s justice propitiating the Father, and then be raised from the dead as the Father validated His sacrifice. He had to die. He had to die. But He also had to live. He also had to live.

And please notice verse 4: “I glorified You on the earth. I glorified You on the earth.” And the Father affirmed that: “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” He did nothing but glorify God on earth. He was holy, harmless, undefiled. John 13:31 and 32 says essentially the same thing.

But look at verse 19: “I sanctify Myself. I sanctify Myself and I do it for their sakes.” That is a powerful statement about what is called “active righteousness.” Christ, during His life, had self-sanctifying power for us. How does His self-sanctifying power apply to us? Because not only is His death imputed to us, but His life is imputed to us. Only one who is holy could sanctify Himself. He lived a full life in order that that full life might be credited to our account. He died a substitutionary death so that that death could be credited to our account. This is the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ passively and actively.

Then in verse 12 it even adds, “And while I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished.” While He’s on earth, He’s living a perfect, righteous – perfectly righteous life that’ll be credited to them. He’s going to die a substitutionary death. And up to that point, at the point that He comes to death, He has also been protecting and securing His own.

I think sometimes we get the idea that because the Lord says we’re secure and because the Lord says our salvation is forever, it just sort of automatically happened. But there are always divine means. The Lord had, while He was on earth, to guard His own.

It happens immediately in the next chapter, the 18th chapter, where He protects His own disciples from a situation that could cause their faith to be destroyed; so He never lets it happen. Because of His work, because He sanctified Himself and lived a righteous life that could be credited to the people that God had chosen, because He died a substitutionary death and satisfied the justice of God in the place of sinners, He, because of that, has been given authority over all flesh to give eternal life. This is eternal life: “That they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You’ve sent.”

What is salvation? Salvation is to know God, to know Christ. That verse 3 is the verse preached on more by the Puritans than any other verse.

Now, all this truth had to be revealed. The gospel had to be preached; the gospel had to be written down. That leads us to the next doctrine, the doctrine of revelation, divine revelation. But our time is gone, so we’ll come back on Friday and pick it up there, and see if we can’t bring it to a conclusion.

Lord, thank You for a wonderful, wonderful beginning to our fellowship and our study. We are so blessed to have been able to reach down into this incredible portion of Scripture and just pull up some of the richness of it. It’s wonderful to look back at the cross and what Christ did. It’s wonderful to contemplate the resurrection. But how much more exhilarating and comforting is it to know that this very split second, this very moment, He is alive at Your right hand, O God, praying us into heaven. What a sanctifying realization.

Give us a rich and wonderful time together today and throughout this conference, and accomplish Your perfect purpose in every life we pray for the sake of our Savior. Amen.