The gift of His consecration could not have been laid on more glorious Altar. Such Cross must have been followed by such Crown. [5806] And now again His first thought was of them for whose sake He had consecrated Himself. These He now solemnly presented to the Father. [5807] He introduced them as those (the individuals) whom the Father had specially given to him out of the world. As such they were really the Father's, and given over the Christ - and He now presented them as having kept the Word of the Father. Now they knew that all things whatsoever the Father had given the Son were of the Father. This was the outcome, then, of all His teaching, and the sum of all their learning - perfect confidence in the Person of Christ, as in His Life, Teaching, and Work sent not only of God, but of the Father. Neither less nor yet more did their knowledge' represent. All else that sprang out of it they had yet to learn. But it was enough, for it implied everything; chiefly these three things - that they received the words which He gave them as from the Father; that they knew truly that Christ had come out from the Father; and that they believed that the Father had sent Him. And, indeed, reception of Christ's Word, knowledge of His Essential Nature, and faith in His Mission: such seem the three essential characteristics of those who are Christ's.
And now He brought them in prayer before the Father. [5808] He was interceding, not for the world' that was His by right of His Messiahship, but for them whom the Father had specially given Him. They were the Father's in the special sense of covenant-mercy, and all that in that sense was the Father's was the Son's, and all that was the Son's was the Father's. Therefore, although all the world was the Son's, He prayed not now for it; and although all in earth and heaven were in the Father's Hand, He sought not now His blessing on them, but on those whom, while He was in the world, He had shielded and guided. They were to be left behind in a world of sin, evil, temptation, and sorrow, and He was going to the Father. And this was His prayer: Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me, that so (in order that) they may be one (a unity, n), as We are.' The peculiar address, Holy Father,' shows that the Saviour once more referred to the keeping in holiness, and what is of equal importance, that the unity' of the Church sought for was to be primarily one of spiritual character, and not a merely outward combination. Unity in holiness and of nature, as was that of the Father and Son, such was the great object sought, although such union would, if properly carried out, also issue in outward unity. But while moral union rather than outward unity was in His view, our present unhappy divisions,' arising so often from wilfulness and unreadiness to bear slight differences among ourselves - each other's burdens - are so entirely contrary not only to the Christian, but even to the Jewish, spirit, that we can only trace them to the heathen element in the Church.
While He was with them,' He kept' them in the Father's Name. Them whom the Father had given Him, by the effective drawing of His grace within them, He guarded (phlaxa) and none from among them was lost, except the son of perdition - and this, according to prophecy. But ere He went to the Father, He prayed thus for them, that in this realised unity of holiness the joy that was His [5809] (tn charn tn mn), might be completed' in them. [5810] And there was the more need of this, since they were left behind with nought but His Word in a world that hated them, because, as Christ, so they also were not of it [from' it, k]. Nor yet did Christ ask with a view to their being taken out of the world, but with this that' [in order that] the Father should keep them [preserve, terss] from the Evil One.' [5811] And this the more emphatically, because, even as He was not, so were they not out of the world,' which lay in the Evil One. And the preservative which He sought for them was not outward but inward, the same in kind as while He had been with them, [5812] only coming now directly from the Father. It was sanctification in the truth,' [5813] with this significant addition: The word that is Thine ( lgos ss) is truth.' [5814]