20-23. He prays for all the faithful.
24-26. His last prayer for the Apostles.
| 1. Haec locutus est Iesus: et sublevatis oculis in coelum, dixit: Pater venit hora, clarifica Filium tuum ut Filius tuus clarificet te: | 1. These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. |
1. These things, we understand here of all that is comprised in the discourses just recorded (xiii. 31-xvi. 33). Having completed His words of warning and consolation and love, Jesus now turns from teaching to prayer, from earth to heaven, from His children to His Father.
Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. Christ, as man, prays to His Father; and the sense is: The time of My trial is come; do not desert Me, but glorify Me by exalting My humanity to a participation in the glory of the Divinity; that so, by My resurrection and ascension, I may give glory to Thee, by giving eternal life to all whom Thou hast given me[107] (verse 2).
| 2. (a) Sicut dedisti ei potestatem omnis carnis, ut omne quod dedisti ei, det eis vitam aeternam. | 2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. |
2. These words explain how Christ will glorify the Father, namely, by giving eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him.
All flesh is a Hebraism for all mankind (John [i. 14]); and by another Hebraism the nominative “omne” of the Vulgate is redundant, the sense being as in our English version.
This verse we connect with the last clause of verse 1, and take the sense to be: That [pg 295] Thy Son may glorify Thee, according as Thou hast given Him power over all men, in order that in them He may glorify Thee. In other words, Christ prays that the Father may bring about His own glory, which He had in view in giving Christ power over all men. There are various other interpretations, but the above seems to us best, as it connects naturally with the preceding, and retains the ordinary signification of καθώς and ἵνα.
This power over all men, Christ, as God, possessed from eternity, and as God-man He obtained at His incarnation.