Jesus prayer to be glorified is based upon a grant of authority from God the Father.   Describe this grant authority and what it involves (Daniel 7:14; John 5:26, 27, 36; 6:37, 39; Matt. 28:18).

The authority granted to Jesus in the vision of Daniel is comprehensive. It is a divine authority over all people the authority of Dominion, a position that deserves worship, and bestowal of the kingdom that cannot be destroyed.  In John chapter 5 the authority given to Jesus by his heavenly Father is twofold.  He has the power to grant turn a life and the position as our judge.   John 5:36 points out that the work Jesus had been given was assigned with authority from the Father.  In John six, Jesus speaks about the gift that God has given him, the gift of people over whom he has a special authority.   In Matthew 28:18, after the resurrection Jesus confessed bluntly that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him.  In the light of the previous passages, we are certainly in error if we think that all this authority descended on him only after the resurrection.

What does Jesus mean by “The people given to him”?

In John six, Jesus also speaks about those people who had been given to him by his heavenly Father.   It is of great interest to us to ask who are these people.   Marcus Rainsford (p. 53) “There is nothing more calculated to bring out the delight the Lord Jesus has in the possession of this gift to him, and by noticing how frequently he alludes to it in this prayer. In seven different places he speaks of his Father’s gift of his people to him.”  (Verses 2, 6 twice, 9, 11, 12, 24).  Jesus defines who these people are that are given to him.  It is not  so much a theological  definition as a practical one.  with five characteristics; they are those accepted the words of Christ (v. 8), who obeyed his word (v. 6), who knew with certainty that Jesus came from the Father and that the Father was the source of  Jesus’ words and gifts , and they have believed in him (vv. 7,8).

According to Jesus’ prayer what is eternal life?

  Marcus Rainsford p. 57 “Eternal life is not a faculty – however divine that faculty might be – bestowed on us apart from God; but a principle laid up in Christ for us, “hid with Christ in God,” and imparted to the soul by the Holy Ghost, in the knowledge of God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. The Father himself is the source and fountainhead of it; Jesus Christ is the channel; and the Holy Ghost the communicating power. Faith is a heaven-born faculty in the soul, by which we see, hear, taste, receive, know, and enjoy God, and Jesus Christ whom God has sent.”

Our modern evangelical tendency is to associate eternal life more with our decisions to follow God then with our knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. But it is to the latter that Jesus points in his prayer. So let’s look up some Scriptures that associate knowledge of God with spiritual life.  (2 Peter 1:2-4; Philippians 1:9; Psalm 9:10)  

So what is this knowledge of God that brings eternal life?

1.   It certainly begins with the knowledge of the existence of God (Hebrews 11:6) but this in itself is insufficient, as even demons believe in the existence of God (James 2:19).  2. It certainly includes understanding of the attributes of God as well.  But this is more than a head knowledge as understanding the attributes of God might lead to misunderstanding God as distant.   

From William Barclay in The Daily Bible Study Series: “Habbakuk’s dream of the Golden age is that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God  (Habbakuk 2: 14) … A rabbinic exposition asks what is the smallest section of Scripture on which all the essentials of law hang? It answers, Proverbs 3:6, which literally means: Know him, and he shall direct thy paths. Again there was a rabbinic exposition which said that Amos had reduced all the many commands of the Law to one, when he said: seek me and live (Amos 5:4) for seeking God means seeking to know him. The Jewish teachers had long insisted that to know God is necessary to true life.”

3. So what is the kind of knowledge of God that we need?   Without the knowledge of Christ, our knowledge of God is incomplete.  Knowing Jesus makes our knowledge of God personable, more immediate, more intimate, and more understandable; and because of all these, also  more effective (I John 1:2, 3). In addition, to know Jesus is to know the one who demonstrated in his own sacrifice the perfect love of God for us.   That is why Jesus himself in this prayer described those who were given to him of God as those who had believed in him, accepted his words and obeyed his words.   Think of it this way; Jesus has the power of life and authority to give life away to others.  In the gospel of John we read that he gives that life to those who receive him, who believe in his name.  It is a metaphor of hospitality telling us that Jesus awards eternal life to those who listen to him and got to know him and opened their hearts to him.

Merrill C. Tenny in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Vol. 9 p. 162) defined eternal life this way.

Life is active involvement with environment; death is the cessation of involvement with the environment, whether it be physical or personal. The highest kind of life is involvement with the highest kind of environment. A worm is content to live in soil; we need not only the wider environment of Earth, see, and sky but also contact with other human beings. For the complete fulfillment of our being, we must know God. This, said Jesus, constitute eternal life. Not only is it endless, since the knowledge of God would require an eternity to fully develop, but qualitatively it must exist in an eternal dimension. As Jesus said further on in his prayer, eternal life would ultimately bring his disciples to a lasting Association with him in his divine glory (v. 24).