Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 6

Hamblin, John 17:5, Before the World 1 Dec 5, 2010

John 17:5, Before the World

John 17:5 (KJV, literal) John 17:5 (Greek, transliteration)

And now, O Father, glorify thou me kai« nuvn do/xaso/n me su/, pa¿ter,
with thine own self with the glory para» seautwˆ◊ thØv do/xhØ
which I had with thee hØ∞ ei•con pro\ touv
before the world was. to\n ko/smon ei•nai para» soi÷.

And now, glorify me you, Father kai nun doksason me su, pater,
beside yourself the glory para seautō tē doksē
which I-had before which hē eichon pro tou
the universe existed beside you ton kosmon einai para soi.

So, glorify me now beside yourself, Father, with the glory I had beside you
before the world existed.

17.5a: So, glorify me now beside yourself, Father,

In 17.4, the Son glorifies the Father on earth (gē). Now, in the context of the reciprocal

glorification of the Father and the Son,1 the Son asks the Father to “glorify me now beside

yourself.” There are two contrasting polarities in this reciprocal glorification--spatial and

temporal. First, the Son glorifies the Father on earth, while the Father glorifies the Son “beside

himself,” that is to say, in heaven. Second, the Son glorifies the Father now--that is, at the

“hour” (17.1) of his atonement, death and resurrection--while the Father glorified the Son

“before the world existed,” that is, in the beginning. This creates, then, a mutual and reciprocal

revelation of the Glory of the Father and Son throughout time and space, culminating in the

1The concept of reciprocal glorification of the Father and Son as the revelation of their already
extant glory--as opposed to an increase in their glory--is discussed in 17.4a.
Hamblin, John 17:5, Before the World 2 Dec 5, 2010

forthcoming universal revelation of their mutual Glory in the creation of the new heaven, earth

and the eternal cosmic dwelling of God in New Jerusalem as described in Revelation. 2

Christ’s request that the Father glorify him “beside yourself,” focuses on the forthcoming

ascent of Jesus to the Father.3 However, in the New Testament, the manifestation of the glory of

the Son in the presence of the Father has already occurred on two occasions: at the baptism of

Jesus,4 and, most clearly, at the Transfiguration.5 On the other hand, just before the beginning of

John’s narrative of the Last Supper where the intercessory prayer is found (Jn 13-17), Jesus is

preaching in the Temple and calls upon the Father to “glorify your name” (Jn 12.28a), after

which the Father’s voice from heaven proclaims, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it

again” (Jn 12.28b), prophesying of the forthcoming glorification requested by Christ in his

prayer in John 17.

But Christ’s request of the Father here is that he be glorified “beside yourself” (para

seautō), which I believe has reference to being enthroned on the right hand of the Father in

heaven.6 The Greek phrase para seautō literally means “beside yourself,” or more broadly, “with

you” or “in your presence.” On several occasions when Christ is described as enthroned on the

2Rev 21-22, see especially 21.11 and 21.22-23, where the light of New Jerusalem is “glory of
God” derived from the presence of both the Father and Son in the temple-city.
3 Described in Jn 20.17; Lk 24.51; Acts 1.9-11; Jn 6.62. Throughout Revelation, Christ the Lamb
is glorified in the temple in heaven beside the Father.
4 Mt 3.13-17; Mk 1.8-11; Lk 3.21-22; Jn 1.29-34.
5Mt 17.1-9; Mk 9.2-10; Lk 9.28-36. Paradoxically, however, the Transfiguration is not
described by John, despite his concern with the glory of the Son.
6Christ enthroned, or standing on the right hand of God is a standard New Testament description
of his post-resurrection glorification: Mk 16.19, Lk 22.69; Acts 2.33, 5.31; Rom 8.34; Col 3.1;
Heb 8.1, 10.12, 12.2; 1 Pet 3.22.
Hamblin, John 17:5, Before the World 3 Dec 5, 2010

right hand of God, it is expressly associated with the “glory of God.” The letter to the Hebrews,

describing the glorified Christ, tells us:

[Christ] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he
upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins [in
the Atonement], he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty [of the Father] on high.
(Heb 1.3)

In Stephen’s theophany at his martyrdom, he has a similar vision of the glory of God, with Christ

on the right hand of the Father.

But [Stephen], full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens
opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 7.55-56)

Thus, Christ’s request in 17.5 for glorification beside the Father has reference to this type of

enthronement at the right hand of the Father after the resurrection. Although Jesus had this glory

“before the world existed,” it has been generally hidden from most people during his mortality

(Jn 1.5, 1.10-11), but becomes manifest again upon his resurrection, ascent and enthronement on

the right hand of God.

17.5b: with the glory I had beside you before the world existed.

The idea of a preexistent Christ, who had glory with the Father before the world existed,

is most fully described in the complex and enigmatic first chapter of John, called the Prologue,

which forms the background for this phrase in 17.5. There Christ is not asking for more glory

than he had “before the world existed,” but the restoration and revelation of the glory he already

had beside the Father before creation, but which has been masked by his incarnation.

John 1 essentially gives a brief synopsis of the three key elements of God’s plan of

salvation: creation (1.1-4, 10), incarnation of the Word (1.9-11), and the Word’s atonement
Hamblin, John 17:5, Before the World 4 Dec 5, 2010

(1.12-13). Christ--as the Word/logos--was “in the beginning with God” (Jn 1.1-2). “In the

beginning” here is an explicit allusion to the beginning of the creation process described in

Genesis 1.1. Christ made “all things” at creation (Jn 1.3), and is the “life” and “true light” of the

world (kosmos, ko/smoß) (Jn 1.9). The primordial glory that Christ had with the Father is thus

full divinity (1.1) and divine creator (1.3 10). Other New Testament writers also describe Christ

as the creator of the world. 7

There are two ideas from John 1 that need clarification to help us understand John 17.

First, what is the nature of Christ as the Logos/Word? I will discuss this concept in detail in the

commentary to John 17.17. Here I will briefly note three things that will more fully discussed

later. The term logos/word in Greek has a broad range of meaning such as “word, utterance,

declaration, discourse, or reason.”8 John, however, uses the word in a very technical sense to

mean Christ in a preexistent divine state. As will be discussed in chapter 17, John’s selection of

the term logos seems to related to post-biblical Jewish theological concepts of the first centuries

AD and BC which would have been familiar to John and his readers. This is not a distinctly

Christian concept; John is the only New Testament author who calls Jesus the Word.

The second question is: what is the nature of the term world? It is very important in John

17, where it appears eighteen times, always translating the Greek word kosmos (ko/smoß). It’s

primary meaning is “adornment or beautification,” from which our English term cosmetics

7 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2.


8 ABD 4:347-355; BDAG 599-601. In the Septuagint logos often translates dābār (rDb;∂d), in the
ubiquitous phrase “word of YHWH” which often introduces prophetic oracles. It is cognate with
our English term logic, and is the basis of the names of many scientific disciplines such as
geology or archaeology.
Hamblin, John 17:5, Before the World 5 Dec 5, 2010

derives.9 However, its extended meaning is to “organize or arrange,” and from that it comes to

mean “that which is ordered and beautified by God,” that is, God’s created order, or the world.

The Greek kosmos is thus the obvious origin for our word cosmos, meaning the universe. The

term appears rarely in the Septuagint, never consistently translating a single Hebrew word.10

Kosmos is generally translated as “world,” in the sense the earth and its inhabitants, but generally

not including the heavens, stars, etc.11 For example, Christ proclaimed: “I came from the Father

and have come into the kosmos, and now I am leaving the kosmos and going to the Father” (Jn

16.28), implying that heaven, where the Father dwells, is not part of the kosmos.12

The King James translation unfortunately conflates several different Greek terms, all of

which it translates as world. There are four distinct terms in Greek which are often confused by

modern readers. The first is gē (ghv) which refers to land, ground or earth. It means earth not in

the sense of planet earth, or the world/kosmos, but as land, dirt or ground, and hence province or

region. It should not be confused with kosmos. A second term is oikoumenē (oi˙koume÷nh),

which is generally rendered world in the King James translation.13 It means the civilized or

inhabited world, but can mean essentially the Roman Empire. For example, in Luke 2.1,

Augustus Caesar taxes the oikoumenē/world--that is, the Roman Empire--while in Mark 16.15

Christ commands the disciples to “go into all the kosmos and proclaim the gospel.”

9 It is used once in the New Testament in the sense of “adornment” in 1 Pet 3.3.
10 See BADG 561-3 and TDNT 3:867-98, for the discussion in this paragraph.
11 Acts 17:24 may imply that kosmos includes the heavens.
12 See also Jn 10.36, 13.1, 17.11.
13 Our English term ecumenical derives from the Greek oikoumenē.
Hamblin, John 17:5, Before the World 6 Dec 5, 2010

Unfortunately, there is sometimes no way to distinguish between these terms in many English

translations.

A final important term sometimes translated as “world” is aiōn (ai˙w¿n)--“an age, aeon,

epoch, or period of history.”14 It is usually translated as “world” in the King James version, but

is often rendered “age” in modern translations. For example, when Christ tells the disciples, “I

am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” he is talking about the aiōn/age, not the

kosmos. Indeed, all discussions of the “end of the world” in the New Testament refer to the “end

of the aiōn/age.”15 Likewise, New Testament discussions of “this world”16 and the “world to

come” refer to the present and future aiōn/age, not the kosmos.17

Although in 17.5 kosmos means created order or world, it also means the inhabitants of

that world/created order, and, more specifically, the “world” which is in opposition to Christ and

the believers. This is the sense that kosmos is most frequently used in John 17; I will discuss it in

detail in a future chapter.

14
BDAG 32-33. Note that the noun aiōn reflects the same concept as the adjective aiōnios,
which I discussed in chapter 3. The basic concept of both terms is a “long duration of time.”
15 Mt 13.39, 49, 24.3, 14, 29.20; 1 Cor 10.11; Heb 9.26.
16 Mt 12.32, 13.22; Mk 4.19; Lk 16.8, 20.34; Rom 12.2; 1 Cor 1.20. 2.6-8, etc.
17Mt 12.32; Mk 10.30; Lk 18.30. This Christian concept parallels contemporary Jewish and
Rabbinic concepts of the ‘ôlām ha-zeh (this [mortal] world), and the ‘ôlām ha-bā (the coming/
future [eschatological] world) with the Greek aiōn translating the Hebrew ‘ôlām.

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi