NOTES for Joh 17:1-13
Today we read a passage from the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He offered during His final conversation with the disciples. It was largely on the words of this prayer that the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council based their faith and ours in the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. The Lord speaks of His glory, which He had before the world existed, that is, from eternity. Therefore, the fathers of the Council argued, the Arians are wrong to think that the Son is lower than the Father, that He is a creature. Addressing the Father with the words "all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine," the Lord speaks of the fullness of His authority, and this too serves as an argument for our faith in the equality and equal honor of the Father and the Son.
It would seem that after seventeen centuries the dispute that then shook the Church has become the property of history. But in the true doctrine formulated at the Council, in the victory of Nicene theology, we see the fulfillment of Christ's promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. In addition, in our time various near-Christian sects include people with Arian tendencies, so the acts of the fathers of the First Council have by no means lost their relevance.
In the Gospel passage itself, the most important words for us are perhaps Christ's words about what eternal life is. Because of historical circumstances, we have become accustomed to an idea of eternal life that comes from Hellenic mythology. In European culture we imagine paradise as a place where the souls of the dead enjoy bliss among flowers and innocent pleasures. And little cupids fly about... This sanatorium of the Olympian gods is a pleasant picture for a vacation, but to be stuck there forever would be endlessly boring.
This picture is completely foreign to the Bible, including the New Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ formulates the essence of eternal life this way: "And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." To know God: this is the chief condition of life. To know Christ: this is what transfigures any existence, even the most miserable, building paradise out of it. That is why half-starved hermits freezing in the forests of Northern Rus' or languishing from heat in the deserts of Egypt are already in paradise, living eternal life. That is why eternal life is available to everyone who knows God and does His will. It is fundamentally important that the eternal life of which Christ speaks is open to us right now, not sometime later, after death.