These, the last words uttered by our Lord before he proceeded to his betrayal and passion, are words worthy of the occasion and of the Speaker. They are a prayer, or rather an address, to the Father. Yet they constitute a review of the past, a declaration of the present, a prediction of the future. They explain the reason and the purpose of his mediation and of his ministry to man.

I. THE WORLD'S IGNORANCE OF GOD WAS THE OCCASION OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. This ignorance is implicitly brought before us in the very language which the High Priest here employs: "O righteous Father, the world knew thee not."

1. The world had no conviction of God's righteousness. No one who is acquainted with heathen religions can question this. Not that there were no upright natures that traced their own love of justice and equity to the eternal Power that rules the universe; but that the gods many and lords many who were honored, feared, or propitiated among the heathen were, for the most part, lacking in the highest moral qualities. A gleam of righteousness or of generosity did now and again break through, to reveal, as it were, the darkness of the firmament. Still, broadly speaking, gross darkness covered the people. The unenlightened heathen attributed to their deities partiality, factiousness, hatred, cruelty - any quality but justice. In all this the lack of righteousness in men themselves was reflected upon their gods. The world by wisdom knew not God.

2. The world had no conviction of God's Fatherhood. If there were those who worshipped a supposed deity whom they called "the father of gods and men," we must not be misled by such language into supposing that the scriptural idea of fatherhood was involved in their religion. This idea is distinctively that of revelation, of Christianity. The moral attributes which we attach to the conception of the Divine Fatherhood have not come to our apprehension through the ministrations of pagan priests or pagan philosophers. Apart from Christ, the race of mankind is conscious only of fatherlessness and fear.

II. CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHER, GOD, WAS INTIMATE AND PERFECT. The expression Jesus here employs, "I knew thee," evidently suggests the natural and immediate knowledge which he had of the Father. He did not come to know God by a process of inquiry or reflection, or by the reception of lessons and revelations. His knowledge was direct. This we gather from his own assertions, and also from many intimations to be discerned in his words and in his conduct. There is no sign of uncertainty in any of Christ's declarations with respect to the Supreme. On the contrary, he speaks simply, directly, and decisively in all he says. He claims the closest intimacy, as when he says that he is "in the bosom" of the Father, i.e. in possession of the counsels and secrets of the eternal mind. He even goes further than this, claiming unity with the Father, as when he says, "I and my Father are one." Our Savior's knowledge of God was not inferential, but intuitive; not acquired, but natural; not imperfect, but complete.

III. CHRIST REVEALS GOD, AND THUS ENLIGHTENS MEN'S IGNORANCE.

1. The first step in this revelation is the conviction, which Christ awakens in his disciples' minds, that his mission is from God himself. The character of Christ, his discourses and conversations, his mighty works, all witnessed to his special authority and commission. They were constrained to ask, "Who is this?" "What manner of Man is this?' "Whence is he?" and When these questions were suggested, they could lead to only one answer which could satisfy the inquirers' minds. The conviction was produced, in some cases by a gradual process, in other cases as by a sudden flash of revelation, that this Being was from above, that he was the Son of' God.

2. The second step in this revelation is the declaration of the Divine "Name," by which we are to understand the character and the purposes of the Father. When the Lord Jesus had communicated to his disciples the fact that God is a Spirit, and the fact that he is the Father in heaven, he had in great measure made known the Divine Name; but it was a further and richer revelation that he made when he told of the Father's purposes of compassion and mercy towards his children - when he, in the Name of the Almighty and All-merciful, assured his faithful people of spiritual salvation and of eternal life.

3. But the glory of this assertion is not yet exhausted. Christ says that he will yet make known the Name of God. The reference may be to the approaching manifestation of the Divine heart in the sacrifice and the subsequent exaltation and victory of the Son. But it may, and probably does, include the whole future revelation of God through the Holy Spirit, and throughout the spiritual economy. There are those who consider revelation to have been continuous and progressive throughout this dispensation; there are others who consider that the objective revelation is complete in itself, but that the quickening influences of the Holy Spirit enable successive generations to discern ever new beauty, power, and preciousness in him who is "the Light of the world," and "the Life of men?'

IV. DIVINE LOVE AND FELLOWSHIP ARE THE GREAT END OF THE DIVINE REVELATION AND OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. Our acquaintance with God is a mysterious and glorious privilege, yet we may with reverence hold that it is the means to an end. We love only those whom in some measure we know; yet by loving we may learn to know them more. As Christ is formed in his people, and as his character and life are revealed by them, the Father cherishes and displays towards them the very affection with which he regards his well-beloved Son. It is thus that the incarnation and sacrifice of the Redeemer produce their precious and immortal results. Ignorance, sin, estrangement, stud hatred are, by this Divine provision, expelled; and in their place the new humanity, the spiritual kingdom, the Church of the living God, is penetrated by the Spirit of Christ, filled with the light of holy knowledge, and blessed with the enjoyment of imperishable love. - T.

The name of God is His moral character. This is the stability and glory of the universe. These words present it —

I. AS THE HIGHEST OBJECT FOR REVELATION. "I have declared." Paul said at Athens, "Him declare I unto you." Not only is this the highest function of —

1. The material universe.

2. Angels.

3. But of Christ the greatest Being.

II. AS THE GRAND ORGAN OF REFORMATION. "That the love," &c. God's character is the reformatory force.

1. Moral reformation consists in the transfusion of Divine love into souls.

2. This transfusion of love can only be accomplished through a manifestation of the Divine character. God's character alone generates love.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

I. THE FOOD OF LOVE TO GOD.

1. Knowledge. "I have made known." We cannot love a God whom we do not know. Only when the eyes are opened to behold the loveliness of God will the heart go out towards God, who is so desirable an object for the affections.

2. A knowledge given by Christ. It is not knowledge that we pick up as a matter of book learning that will ever bring out our love to the Father. Not knowledge communicated by the preacher alone. "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." He that knows not Christ knows not the Father.

3. Knowledge coming gradually. "And will declare it." As if, though they knew the Father, there was far more to know.

4. Knowledge distinguishing us from the world. It is the mark by which the elect are made manifest (ver. 6).

5. Knowledge of the name of God.(1) Righteous, and yet a Father. Our joy begins when we see the two united.(2) The word "name" is used as a sort of summary of all the attributes of God. All these attributes are well adapted to win the love of all regenerate spirits. God is —

(a)Holy. To a holy mind there is nothing in the world, there is nothing in heaven more beautiful than holiness.

(b)Good;

(c)Merciful; "Who is a God like unto Thee."

(d)Love, and there is a something about love which always wins love.

II. THE LOVE ITSELF.

1. What it is not. The prayer is not that the Father's love may be set upon them, or move towards them, but be "in" them. Christ did not die to make His Father loving, but because His Father is loving.

2. This love is of a very peculiar sort. "The love wherewith Thou hast loved Me."(1) Our Lord desires us to have a distinct recognition of the Father's love to Him. God never loved anything as He loves Christ, except His people, and they have had to be lifted up to that position by the love which the Father has to His Son.(2) You are to have in your heart a sense of the Father's love to you, and to recollect that it is precisely the same love wherewith He loves His Son. When there was a choice between Christ and His people which should die of the two, the Father freely delivered up His own Son that we might live through Him.(3) We are to give back a reflection of this love, and to love Jesus as the Father loves Him. The Father is the Sun and we are the moon, but the moonlight is the same light as the sunlight. The moon has not a ray of light but what came from the sun, and we have not a live coal of love to Christ but what came from the Father. We are as the moon, shining by reflected light, but Jesus loves the moonlight of our love and rejoices in it.(4) This love of the Father in us is to go beaming forth from us to all around.

3. This indwelling of the Father's love in us has the most blessed results.(1) Has an expulsive result. As soon as ever it gets into the heart it says to all love of sin, "Get thee hence: there remains no room for thee here."(2) A repulsive power by which it repels the assaults of sin.(3) An impulsive power. It is as when an engine receives fire and steam, and so obtains the force which drives it. Then have you motive power, then are you urged on to this and that heroic deed which, apart from this sublime love, you never would have thought of.(4) How elevating it is. How it lifts a man up above self and sin; how it makes him seek the things that are above!(5) How purifying it is!(6) How happy it makes the subject of its influence! If you are unhappy you want mole of the love of God.

III. THE COMPANION OF LOVE. "I in them." Catch those two words. Here is "love" and. "I" — love and Christ come together. Oh, blessed guests!

1. We are sure that He is where love is; for, where there is love there is —(1) Life, and where there is life there is Christ, for He Himself says, I am the Life.(2) The Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for the Holy Spirit is Christ's representative.(3) Faith, for faith worketh by love, and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith.(4) God, for God is love.

2. You need not go abroad to find the Lord Jesus Christ. He lives within you.(1) What a blessed sense of power this gives to us. "I in them." Then it is no more "I" in weakness, but, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me."(2) Hence we gather the security of the believer.(3) We should give Christ good entertainment.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. THE GREAT SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. "I have declared to them Thy name." The name was the Jewish formulary for God; His perfections, glory, grace.

1. That the saving knowledge of God comes to us by direct communication from Christ. Not by wisdom, virtue, strength of our own; "for the world by wisdom knew not God," but from the discovery which Christ makes by His word and Spirit: "I have declared." See it in the woman of Samaria — in His patience with the disciples. It is Christ's prerogative to convey the saving knowledge of God to the mind; it is our privilege to seek that knowledge from Him.

2. That we need spiritual illumination from above, not only at our first conversion, but through the whole progress of our spiritual life. "I have declared — and will declare it." Paul prays for the Ephesians that God would give them the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of Him — and yet they knew Him already. Paul, who was taught not of men, but of Christ Himself, and was even caught up to the third heaven, puts himself among the number of them who know only in part; and this will be true of the most learned and holy men to the last hour of life.

3. It becomes us to acknowledge our ignorance, and to implore Divine teaching. This is a promise to be pleaded in prayer. We are like babes, unskilful in the word of righteousness. The best persons and the best churches still need more light. It is not enough that Christ has declared to them, but He must still declare — not indeed new truths, new essentials of salvation, but He conveys new impressions of truth to the mind; new aptitudes to receive, to appropriate, to exemplify and apply truth.

II. THE GREAT LOVE WHICH GOD BEARS TO HIS CHILDREN It is here compared to the love which God bears to Christ. This love is said to be in them, just as Christ is said to be in them. By God's love to Christ, learn His love to you.

1. This love is ancient in its date. "Thou hast loved Me from the foundation of the world" (Proverbs 8:22, 31).

2. Unlimited in its degree. As you can place no limit to God's love to the Mediator, so you can place no limit to His love to the people He has redeemed. Many would discourage the hopes of God's children. Satan himself would rob them of consolation. False systems of religion do this.

3. Enlightened in its exercise. God's love to Christ was enlightened, and His conduct towards Him was regulated with a view to the office He was to sustain, and He allowed Him to pass through scenes of pain, poverty, temptation. So He does us: much tribulation.

4. Constant in its duration. It is an everlasting love.

(The Evangelist.).