Our blessed Lord expressed seven requests to the Father. The above verse contains the Son’s last request. “I desire” is sometimes translated as “I will,” for it is a desire of the will. In verse 22 the Lord Jesus, referring to the glory His Father has given Him now as a Man in heaven, says that He has given it to us. How can we understand this? The unity in verse 22 is because we see Him crowned with glory and honor (Heb. 2:9), whereas in the world to come every eye will see Him.

Christ expressed His desire for us in verse 24: “that they may behold My glory.” This is something He has only asked for the believers of the day of grace. Although He gives us His glory (v. 22), the Son is greater than what He gives. And so it is also His desire that we may behold Him—“My glory.” Though sharing with us, He is necessarily greater than we are, for He is the Firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:29). We will contemplate and admire Him, worship and bless Him forever; this is expressed in John 17:25–26 as a matter of what is right. The righteous Father will answer the Son’s desire because we have responded to Christ’s glory, whereas the world did not, nor did it know the Father. Christ made known to us the Father’s name, and He has secured for us an ongoing enjoyment of this relationship.

To secure a lasting response, the Son will continue to make known to us the Father’s name, “that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (v. 26). This implies a work of the Holy Spirit, not through new revelations, but in love’s constant activities to sustain and renew us.