O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

People's New Testament

17:22,23 The glory which thou gavest to me I have given to them. God gave Christ the glory of Sonship and this resulted in their unity. So Christ gives to his disciples the glory of becoming the sons of God (Joh 1:12 1Jo 3:1). This glory, the adoption and gift of the Spirit, ought to effect

that they may be one as we are one. We cannot pray this prayer of Jesus and have the party spirit or labor to build up sectarianism. In the spirit of love we should oppose it, and labor to destroy sectarian names, creeds, organizations and interests. As the Son and the Father are one, have one work, one kingdom, one spirit, one interest, so must all that are Christ's. We must keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:3). There is one body and one Spirit, as there is one Lord (Eph 4:4,5).

Wesley's Notes

17:25 Righteous Father - The admission of believers to God through Christ, flows even from the justice of God.

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin world

kosmos = mankind. See Scofield Note: "Mt 4:8".

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee-knew thee not.

but I have known thee-knew thee.

and these have known-knew.

that thou hast sent-sentest

me-As before He said "Holy Father," when desiring the display of that perfection on His disciples (Joh 17:11), so here He styles Him "Righteous Father," because He is appealing to His righteousness or justice, to make a distinction between those two diametrically opposite classes-"the world," on the one hand, which would not "know the Father, though brought so nigh to it in the Son of His love, and, on the other, Himself, who recognized and owned Him, and even His disciples, who owned His mission from the Father.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:24-26 Christ, as one with the Father, claimed on behalf of all that had been given to him, and should in due time believe on him, that they should be brought to heaven; and that there the whole company of the redeemed might behold his glory as their beloved Friend and Brother, and therein find happiness. He had declared and would further declare the name or character of God, by his doctrine and his Spirit, that, being one with him, the love of the Father to him might abide with them also. Thus, being joined to Him by one Spirit, they might be filled with all the fulness of God, and enjoy a blessedness of which we can form no right idea in our present state.