In the petition itself (v. 11b), observe the invocation 'Holy Father!' with special reference to the prayer for preservation from the corruption of the world. God's holiness is the pledge that He will make us holy, since He is 'Father' as well. Observe the substance of the request, that the disciples should be kept, as in a fortress, within the enclosing circle of the name which God has given to Jesus. The name is the manifestation of the divine nature. It was given to Jesus, inasmuch as He, 'the Word,' had from the beginning the office of revealing God; and that which was spoken of the Angel of the Covenant is true in highest reality of Jesus: 'My name is in Him.' 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it and is safe.'
Observe the issue of this keeping; namely, the unity of believers. The depths of that saying are beyond us, but we can at least see thus far--that the true bond of unity is the name in which all who are one are kept; that the pattern of the true unity of believers is the ineffable union of Father and Son, which is oneness of will and nature, along with distinctness of persons; and that therefore this purpose goes far deeper than outward unity of organisation.
Then follow other pleas, which are principally drawn from Christ's relation to the disciples, now ending; whereas the former ones were chiefly deduced from the disciples' relation to Him. He can no more do what He has done, and commits it to the Father. Happy we if we can leave our unfinished tasks to be taken up by God, and trust those whom we leave undefended to be shielded by Him! 'I kept' is, in the Greek, expressive of continuous, repeated action, while 'I guarded' gives the single issue of the many acts of keeping. Jesus keeps His disciples now as He did then, by sedulous, patient, reiterated acts, so that they are safe from evil. But note where He kept them--'in Thy name.' That is our place of safety, a sure defence and inexpugnable fortress. One, indeed, was lost; but that was not any slur on Christ's keeping, but resulted from his own evil nature, as being 'a son of loss' (if we may so preserve the affinity of the words in the Greek), and from the divine decree from of old. Sharply defined and closely united are the two apparent contradictories of man's free choice of destruction and God's foreknowledge. Christ saw them in harmony, and we shall do so one day.
Then the flow of the prayer recurs to former thoughts. Going away so soon, He yearned to leave them sharers of His own emotions in the prospect of His departure to the Father, and therefore He had admitted them (and us) to hear this sacred outpouring of His desires. If we laid to heart the blessed revelations of this disclosure of Christ's heart, and followed Him with faithful gaze as He ascends to the Father, and realised our share in that triumph, our empty vessels would be filled by some of that same joy which was His. Earthly joy can never be full; Christian joy should never be anything less than full.
Then follows a final glance at the disciples' relation to the world, to which they are alien because they are of kindred to Him. This is the ground for the repetition of the prayer 'keep', with the difference that formerly it was 'keep _in_ Thy name,' and now it is '_from_ the evil.' It is good to gaze first on our defence, the 'munitions of rocks' where we lie safely, and then we can venture to face the thought of 'the evil,' from which that keeps us, whether it be personal or abstract.
III. Verses 16-19 give the final petition for the immediate circle of disciples, with its grounds. The position of alienation from the world, in which the disciples stand by reason of their assimilation to Jesus, is repeated here. It was the reason for the former prayer, 'keep'; it is the reason for the new petition, 'sanctify.' Keeping comes first, and then sanctifying, or consecration. Security from evil is given that we may be wholly devoted to the service of God. The evil in the world is the great hindrance to that. The likeness to Jesus is the great ground of hope that we shall be truly consecrated. We are kept 'in the name'; we are consecrated 'in the truth,' which is the revelation made by Jesus, and in a very deep sense is Himself. That truth is, as it were, the element in which the believer lives, and by abiding in which his real consecration is possible.