Father-glorified-in-the-Son
Short answer: In John 17:1-5 Jesus asks the Father to glorify him so that he may glorify the Father. The glory of the Son and the glory of the Father are not rivals; they are one display. The hour of the cross, which looks like shame, is the moment when the Father's character, love, and saving purpose shine out most clearly. Jesus asks for the glory he shared with the Father before the world existed, and he receives it through obedience unto death and exaltation. So God is glorified in the Son because the Son's life, death, and risen reign reveal what God is like. This is why Jesus' prayer is not self-centered. It is the disclosure of the heart of God through the work of the Son.
What Jesus Is Asking for in John 17:1
John 17 opens with Jesus lifting his eyes to heaven, a posture of settled prayer. He says the hour has come. Throughout John's Gospel, the hour refers to his death, resurrection, and return to the Father as one saving event. He prays, as John 17:1 records, that the Father would glorify the Son so that the Son may glorify the Father. This is not a request for personal applause. It is a request that the true nature of God be put on display through what Jesus is about to do.
The timing matters. Jesus does not ask for glory after the suffering; he asks for glory in the suffering. The cross, which Rome used to humiliate and the religious leaders used to mock, becomes the throne room of divine revelation. Jesus sees his death not as defeat but as the appointed means by which the Father's love will reach the world. The request is therefore an act of trust. He entrusts the outcome to the Father and refuses to secure his own honor by his own methods.
We should notice that Jesus does not ask for glory on his own terms. He asks the Father to give it. In the Fourth Gospel, the Son never acts independently. He does what he sees the Father doing and speaks what the Father gives him to speak. So even here, the prayer is a model of dependence. Glory received from the Father is glory that returns to the Father. The two are bound together in one movement of love.
Before the World Existed: Glory Beyond Time
In John 17:5 Jesus asks the Father to glorify him with the glory he had with the Father before the world existed. This is one of the clearest statements of the Son's pre-existence in the New Testament. It places the Son with the Father before creation, sharing the divine glory. It also tells us that the glory revealed in the incarnation is not a new thing but the unveiling of an eternal reality.
For readers today, this verse guards both the deity of Christ and the centrality of the cross. If Jesus merely became glorious at his resurrection, then his death was only a prelude. But if he shared glory with the Father before the world, then the cross is the deliberate unveiling of that glory in the place where we most need to see it. The Light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
God Is Glorified in Him: John 13:31-32
At the Last Supper, after Judas leaves to betray him, Jesus says in John 13:31-32 that now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. The betrayal sets the hour in motion, and Jesus describes that hour as glory. This is a deliberate reframing of everything his disciples expected. They expected a Messiah who would take power; he shows them a Messiah who lays down his life.
The verbs are present and completed. As good as the cross has already happened. In God's purpose, the death of Jesus is so certain that it can be spoken of as accomplished. The glory is not only what happens after; it is what happens in the obedience of the Son. The Father is glorified in him because the Son's self-giving reveals the Father's self-giving love. The cross is not the Father venting wrath on an unwilling Son. It is the Father and the Son together giving themselves for the world.
This is why Christian teaching has always insisted that the atonement is the work of the triune God. The Father sends, the Son obeys, and the Spirit empowers. Every person of the Trinity is active. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is not a glory that hides behind wrath; it is a glory that bears wrath in order to rescue. That is the kind of God the Gospel reveals.
The Troubled Soul and the Father's Name
In John 12:27-28 Jesus says his soul is troubled and asks what he should say. He rejects the prayer of escape and affirms that he came for this cause. Then he prays, as the text records, that the Father would glorify his name, and a voice from heaven answers that he has glorified it and will glorify it again. This is the same pattern we find in John 17. The Father's glory and the Son's mission are one.
It is important to see that Jesus does not pretend to be unafraid. He names the trouble in his soul. The Gospel is not a story about a stoic hero who feels nothing. It is a story about a Son who feels the weight of the hour and still chooses the Father's will. His courage is not the absence of anguish but obedience in the middle of it. He is glorified not by avoiding the cup but by drinking it.
The heavenly voice confirms that the Father is glorified in the Son's obedience. The cross will not be a moment when God's reputation is rescued after the fact; it will be the moment when God's name is revealed. To glorify God's name is to make his character known. In Jesus, the character of God is made known as holy love that goes to the uttermost to save.
Highly Exalted: Philippians 2:9-11
Paul takes the same theme and applies it to the whole story. Philippians 2:9-11 declares that God also highly exalted him and gave to him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The exaltation of the Son is not a departure from the Father's glory but the means of it. The final phrase of the hymn makes that explicit: all of it redounds to the glory of God the Father.
This is a crucial point for understanding John 17. When the Father glorifies the Son, the Son does not keep the glory. He returns it. The movement is circular, not competitive. The Father exalts the Son, the Son is confessed as Lord, and the confession rises to the Father. There is no jealousy in God. The persons of the Trinity do not compete for honor; they give it to one another and receive it from one another in perfect love.
Paul's hymn also shows that the glory of God is not an abstract radiance. It is tied to a name and a confession. To say Jesus Christ is Lord is to glorify the Father. So the mission of the church, proclaiming Jesus as Lord, is itself a way in which God is glorified. Evangelism and worship are not two separate things; they are the same motion of the Spirit, declaring the worth of the Son to the glory of the Father.
Seeing the Light of the Knowledge of God's Glory
In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul draws on the creation account and the gospel together. He says that God, who said light will shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This verse tells us where the glory of God is seen. It is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. That means John 17 is not merely a report about something that happened long ago; it is a description of what happens to a person when the gospel reaches them.
Paul also describes this as light shining in darkness. The world is dark, and the human heart is dark. The gospel does not flatter the darkness; it shines into it. And the content of that light is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So whenever a sinner repents, whenever a believer beholds Christ, whenever a church gathers to worship, the Father is being glorified in the Son in exactly the way John 17 describes.
How the Father Speaks and Acts in the Son
Hebrews 1:1-4 opens with the statement that God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us in his Son. The passage goes on to say that the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the very image of his substance. This is the doctrinal backbone of John 17. God's revelation reaches its final and full form in the Son. The Son is not one messenger among many; he is the brightness of God's own glory.
This means the glory of God is not hidden behind the Son; it is revealed in him. The Son is the exact imprint of God's being, and his work of purification for sins leads to his enthronement at the right hand of majesty. The movement of Hebrews is the same as the movement of John 17: the Son descends, accomplishes his work, and is exalted, and in all of it the glory of God is made known. The Father is glorified in the Son because the Son is the perfect expression of the Father.
Hebrews also warns us not to treat the Son as one voice among many. If God has spoken definitively in the Son, then we are not free to blend his voice with other voices and call it wisdom. The glory of God in the Son is a call to listen, to hold fast, and to honor the Son as we honor the Father. That is the worship that glorifies God, not religious activity that leaves the Son on the margins.
Why This Prayer Shapes Christian Worship
John 17 is often called the high priestly prayer of Jesus. He prays for himself, for his disciples, and for those who will believe through their word. But the prayer begins with glory. Before he asks for protection, unity, or joy, he asks that the Father and the Son be glorified in each other. That order should teach us something about worship. The glory of God is not one theme among many in Christian life; it is the source and goal of everything else.
When the church gathers, it gathers to behold the glory of God in the face of Christ and to respond in praise. That is not a preliminary activity before the real work of ministry. It is the end for which we were made. The catechism question asks what the chief end of man is, and the answer is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. John 17 is that answer in the form of a prayer. It shows us that glory is not self-exaltation; it is the joy of knowing and making known the love of the Father and the Son.
This also gives us a test for our own motives. If we seek our own glory, we will use people and even use God. If we seek the glory of God in the Son, we will serve people as Christ served us. The cross is the pattern. The one who is most worthy of glory took the lowest place and was therefore exalted. That pattern does not make suffering good in itself; it makes it the path through which the Father's glory is revealed in a fallen world.
Biblical fidelity check
What does John 17:1-5 establish? It establishes that the Son and the Father are distinct persons who share divine glory, that the Son existed before the world, that the hour of the cross is the means by which glory is revealed, and that the Son's glorification serves the Father's glory rather than competing with it. It does not give us a full doctrine of the Trinity, nor does it explain the inner mechanics of the atonement, nor does it tell us exactly how the eternal glory was veiled in the incarnation. Those are taught elsewhere and by good and necessary consequence.
A common misreading is to treat the cross as the place where the Father is angry and the Son is punished in a way that turns the Father's love on and off. That reading is wrong because it separates the Father and the Son in purpose, and because passages like John 13:31-32 and Philippians 2:9-11 present the cross as the place where God is glorified, not where God's love is absent. Another misreading is to treat glory mostly as future reward or personal honor. The prayer resists that. Glory belongs to God and is revealed in self-giving love.
Other passages that speak to John 17:1-5
The themes of glory, exaltation, and the knowledge of God in Christ run through the whole witness of Scripture. Paul's teaching on the exaltation of the Son and its return of glory to the Father appears in the Philippian hymn, and the same pattern of God's glory shining in the face of Christ governs the letter's discussion of ministry. A study of the believer's calling and the unity of the church also touches on how God is honored among his people. These articles explore related passages: What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord, and 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom.
Frequently asked questions
Does John 17:1-5 teach that the Son is equal with the Father?
It teaches that the Son shares the glory the Father had before the world existed, and that the Son's glory is given by the Father and returns to him. That is not the full doctrine of the Trinity, but it is a strong foundation for it. Elsewhere the New Testament is explicit, as when Thomas confesses Jesus as his Lord and his God. The prayer assumes a relationship of mutual honor between two persons who are one in purpose and glory. Faithful readers have seen in it the deity of the Son and the mystery of the triune life.
Why does Jesus speak of his death as glory?
He speaks of his death as glory because he understands the cross as the hour when the Father's character is revealed. The world sees shame and defeat. Jesus sees the display of divine love that goes to the uttermost. In John 12:27-28 he names his troubled soul and still asks the Father to glorify his name, and the voice from heaven answers. The cross is not an accident or a tragedy that overturns the plan. It is the plan, and its glory is the glory of self-giving love that saves.
How can I glorify God in ordinary life?
The New Testament answers this in practical terms. Glorify God by trusting his Son, by honoring him with your body, by doing good works that others may see and give glory to your Father in heaven, and by serving others in love. The command is not to make yourself impressive. It is to live in such a way that the worth of Christ is seen in you. That begins with worship and continues in ordinary obedience at home, at work, and among the people God has placed around you.
