I.　The Lord's prayer in John 17 was for the glorification, the manifestation, the expression, of the Triune God; God's eternal purpose is to manifest, to express, Himself— vv. 1-5; Gen. 1:26; Eph. 3:8-11:

A.　The Lord Jesus was God incarnated in the flesh, and His flesh was a tabernacle in which God could dwell on earth (John 1:14); the Lord's divine element was confined in His humanity, just as God's shekinah glory had been concealed within the tabernacle.

B.　Once, on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord's divine element was released from within His flesh and expressed in glory, being seen by three disciples, but then it was concealed again in His flesh—Matt. 17:1-4; John 1:14.

C.　Before His prayer in John 17, He predicted that He would be glorified and that the Father would be glorified in Him; now He was about to pass through death so that the concealing shell of His humanity might be broken and His divine element, His divine life, might be released—12:23; 13:31-32.

D.　Also, He would resurrect so that He might uplift His humanity into the divine element and so that His divine element might be expressed, with the result that His entire being, His divinity and humanity, would be glorified; the Father would thus be glorified in Him; hence, He prayed for this—Luke 12:49-50; John 12:23-24; 17:1.

E.　The Lord's prayer here concerning the divine mystery of glorification is fulfilled in three stages:

1.　First, it was fulfilled in His resurrection, in that His divine element, His divine life, was released from within His humanity into His many believers (12:23-24), and His whole being, including His humanity, was brought into glory (Luke 24:26; cf. 1 Cor. 15:45b; Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:3-4; Col. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:3), and in that the Father's divine element was expressed in His resurrection and glorification; in His resurrection God answered and fulfilled His prayer (Acts 3:13-15).

2.　Second, it has been fulfilled in the church, in that as His resurrection life has been expressed through His many members, He has been glorified in them, and the Father has been glorified in Him through the church—Eph. 3:21; 1 Tim. 3:15-16.

3.　Third, it will ultimately be fulfilled in the New Jerusalem, in that He will be fully expressed in glory, and God will be glorified in Him through the holy city for eternity— Rev. 21:11, 23-24.

F.　In the Lord's last words to the believers in John 14 through 16, there are three concrete expressions of this glory: the Father's house (the church) in 14:2, the branches of the vine (the constituents of the Body of Christ) in 15:1-5, and a newborn corporate man (the new man) in 16:21:

1.　All three denote the church, showing that the church is the glorious increase produced by Christ through His death and resurrection—12:23-24.

2.　In this glorious increase Christ, the Son of God, is glorified, causing God the Father also to be glorified in Christ's glorification, that is, to be fully expressed through the church— 17:1, 4; Eph. 3:19-21; cf. 1 Cor. 6:20; 10:31.

3.　This expression needs to be maintained in the oneness of the Triune God; therefore, the Lord prayed in particular for this matter in His concluding prayer in John 17.

4.　The top attribute of the Triune God is oneness; thus, for Him to be glorified, expressed, in His believers is for Him to be expressed in His oneness—v. 21.

II.　The Lord's prayer in John 17 was for the oneness of the Body of Christ, the oneness of the believers in the Triune God:

A.　The first level of oneness is the oneness in the Father's name and by the Father's divine life—vv. 6-13:

1.　The Father's name denotes the person of the Father, the Father Himself as the source of life, the source of oneness—vv. 6, 11; 5:26, 43:

a.　We must take the Father as the source of life and blessing—cf. Matt. 14:19; Rom. 11:36.

b.　We must not live by our human life but by the Father's divine life in our spirit to enjoy our all-inclusive sonship—John 6:57; Rom. 8:15-16.

2.　The Father's life with His nature is the element of the oneness—John 17:2; cf. Eph. 1:4-5; Heb. 2:10-11; 1 Cor. 6:17.

B.　The second level of oneness is the oneness in the reality of the sanctifying word—John 17:14-21:

1.　The Father's word is the truth (v. 17), and the truth is the Triune God (14:6; 1 John 5:6b); to be sanctified by the reality of the word is to be sanctified by the Triune God Himself.

2.　The word, which is the truth, sanctifies God's people from the world (John 17:17) and keeps them from the ruler of the world, the evil one (v. 15):

a.　The Father's word of reality sanctifies us and makes us pure, delivering us from the mixed-up world to separate us unto our God, the God of purity; the more a person is in the word of God, the purer he becomes—Psa. 12:6; 119:140.

b.　The Father's sanctifying word is the means of our oneness, bringing us into the sphere of oneness—John 17:21; Eph. 5:26.

C.　The third level of oneness is the oneness in the divine glory for the expression of the processed, mingled, and incorporated Triune God—John 17:22-24:

1.　The oneness of all the believers in the divine glory is the oneness in the expressed sonship with the Father's life and nature—v. 22; 5:26.

2.　The glory of God is the expression of God; this splendid expression of divinity delivers us from our self and makes us fully one—cf. Rev. 21:11.

3.　In this stage of the oneness the self is fully denied:

a.　We must be saved from our self, including ambition, self-exaltation, and opinions and concepts—John 17:21-23; Rom. 5:10; 1 Cor. 1:10-13; 3 John 9.

b.　If we would give up the self, lose the self, and turn to the spirit, right away we would be in the reality of the Body—Eph. 2:22; John 16:13.

c.　If we live by our life with our nature to express ourselves, there will be no glory of God; in the expression of ourselves there is division.

d.　To live and act in the Father's life with the Father's nature to express the Father is glory, and it is in this glory that we all are one.

4.　Our Christian life should be a life of "glory to glory"—2 Cor. 3:16-18.

III.　We need to emphasize the oneness that the Lord has given us and that to preserve this oneness we need to be constantly mingled with the Triune God (thus nullifying the natural man, the world with Satan, and the self) to satisfy the Lord's desire—Eph. 4:1-6.