"6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me."
John 17:6-8
In 6-19, the central section of our Lord's intercession, we have His prayer for the disciples. His words are full not only of instruction but of encouragement for all who seek to follow Him. It is surely clear that to have listened to them, as the disciples did in the Upper Room, must have made an indelible impression on their hearts. It would not be misleading to paraphrase the opening phrase of 6 thus: 'I have introduced them to Thee; let them know what Thou art like'. Philip's cry in 14:8, 'Show us the Father and it sufficeth us' was deeper than he knew, for to see the Father, to know Him, to have His name manifested, is to have eternal life. 'This is life eternal, that they might know
Thee' (3). This is what Christ has done in manifesting God's name to them. The manifestation of the name is a revelation of the character of God. And this He has done by His teaching to show Him to be the God of love, by His miracles to be the God of power and might, and by Himself to show God as full of truth and grace. The whole of the gospel record can be read into these words, for this is what He came to do, and this is what He did do. We should particularly note 8a (which is further underlined in 14), which indicate that it is through the Word that Christ manifests the name of God and gives us eternal life. In this, the pattern is always the same: the Word is given, received, known and believed; this is ever the way of enlightenment.