Love: In salvation, God wants His elect to taste first-hand[1] His special love (17:23). Jesus likens this love to the Father’s special love toward Him (17:23), and that from eternity (17:24). That was the Father’s eternal and immutable love (17:26), a perfect love of the perfect Father (Matt. 7:9-11) toward His perfect Son.[2] Though we are not perfect sons, yet in Christ the Father pours out the same kind of love into our hearts through His Spirit (Rom. 5:5). This is a love that is humanly incomprehensible except by the intervention and the power of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 3:16-19). This love of the Father toward His elect appears as His plan of adoption, the love with which He predestined us to sonship from eternity.[3] This was according to His good pleasure (Eph. 1:4-5). Though we did nothing to deserve it, God lavished on us this love to bring us into His own family “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:6).

Jesus Our Elder Brother: Jesus, God’s firstborn (Rom. 8:29), embraced this will of His Father and prayed that we would come to know experientially this love of God. Moreover, after this prayer, Jesus gave up His life so that God would bring “many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:9-10). Unlike a selfish brother who keeps to himself all the attention and affection of his father, Jesus willingly shared them with his younger adopted brethren. He even sent His Spirit (Acts 2:33) to affirm this adopted status so that we can (like Him) cry out, “Abba” (Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:17). We are sons and heirs[4] because Jesus our elder brother generously shared with us His privileged position of sonship.

[1] This is the verb “know” in 17:23, which is ginōskō (γινώσκω), which points to experiential knowledge.

[2] Cf. Matt. 3:17; 17:5; John 8:29; Isaiah 50:4; Phil. 2:8; Prov. 8:30.

[3] In Eph. 1:4-5 predestination (participle) is an eternal act of God that further describes election (finite verb).

[4] We are indeed fellow heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17; cf. also Luke 22:29; Gal. 4:7; Tit. 3:7; Rev. 21:7).