markable. I take it to mean, " Through Thine own attributes of power, love, and wisdom." The " name " of God, as before remarked, is frequently used in Scripture to signify His char- acter and attributes.
[TJiat tlieymay he one, as we are.] Here our Lord mentions one special object for which He desires that His people may be kept : viz., their unity : that they may be one. — "Keep them, thai they may be of one heart and one mind, striving together against common foes and for common ends, and not broken up, weakened, and paralyzed by internal quarrels and divisions."
He adds the highest model and pattern of unity, — " one, as we are," — the unity of the Father and the Son. Of course there cannot be literally such union between Christian and Christian, as there is between two Persons in the Trinity. But the unity which Jesus prays the disciples may aim at, should be a close, intimate, unbroken unity of mind, and will, and opinion, and feeling.
Burgon remarks here, " The word rendered ' as,' both here and in ver. 21, does not denote strict correspondence, but only general resemblance ; as in the Athanasian Creed, where the union of two natures in the one Person of Christ, is popularly illustrated by the union of the ' reasonable soul and flesh ' in man." (Comp. Matt. v. 48 ; Luke vi. 86.)
The importance attached by our Lord to " unity " among Christians, is very strikingly illustrated by the prominent place assigned to it in this verse. The very first object for which He desires the preservation of the disciples, is that they may be kept from division. Nor can we wonder at this, when we con- sider the interminable divisions of Christians in every age, the immense harm they have done in the world, and the astound- ing indifference with which many regard them, as if they were perfectly innocent things, and as if the formation of new sects was a laudable work !
12. — [While.. Mith tJiem... kept... Thy name.] Our Lord here recites what He had done for the disciples during His ministry : " Throughout the three years in which I have been with these eleven discij^les in the world, I used to keep them from all harm, through Thy power and name." — I can see no reason why the same Greek words should not be rendered " through Thy name," in this verse, as well as in the preceding one. In both cases the idea seems the same, — a preservation through the grace, power, and attributes of God the Father.
[T7iou...gavest...kept...none...lost.] The word rendered " kept " in this clause, is quite different from the word so rendered in the first part of the verse. There it means simply, "I have preserved." Here it means, " I have guarded," like a shepherd guarding a flock, or a soldier guarding a treasure. " 1 have sc