"20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just 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 have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”'
John 17:2-26
We must next consider why our Lord was so concerned that His disciples should behold His glory (24). There are several things to be said here. One thinks, for example of Paul's experience on the Damascus Road, when the glory of the Son of God broke upon his soul and conscience. 'I could not see', he said, 'for the glory of that light'. This is a parable as well as being literally true, because Paul never saw the world in the same way again - he saw it with new eyes, and he was blinded to anything save the things of God. This is one reason why Jesus so prayed. Another reason can be discerned in 2 Corinthians 3:18: to behold the glory of the Lord is a life-transforming experience, and for disciples once to see His glory is for that change to begin to work. Yet another New Testament reference can help us; in Hebrews 11:27 it is said of Moses that 'he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible'. We need to read this into our Lord's prayer here. How deeply the Apostle Peter needed this! It was precisely because he had not beheld the glory of Christ as he needed to have done that he ultimately denied the Lord. But how are we, the disciples of today, to behold His glory? The simple answer is: in the Word of the Scriptures. By our reading and study of the Scriptures our eyes are going to be blinded to this world's empty glory and we will catch a vision of something that will bear us through the whole of life; by that reading and study our lives are going to be changed from glory into glory, and made strong and steadfast. This is what our Lord means when He prays so earnestly that His disciples may behold His glory. Wonderful, wonderful thought.