Discovery BoxJohn 17:2-3 
Context17:2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, 1 so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 2 17:3 Now this 3 is eternal life 4 – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 5 whom you sent.
John 17:6
Context17:6 “I have revealed 6 your name to the men 7 you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, 8 and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed 9 your word.
John 17:25-26
Context17:25 Righteous Father, even if the world does not know you, I know you, and these men 10 know that you sent me. 17:26 I made known your name to them, and I will continue to make it known, 11 so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.”
1 tn Or “all people”; Grk “all flesh.”
2 tn Grk “so that to everyone whom you have given to him, he may give to them eternal life.”
3 tn Using αὕτη δέ (Jauth de) to introduce an explanation is typical Johannine style; it was used before in John 1:19, 3:19, and 15:12.
4 sn This is eternal life. The author here defines eternal life for the readers, although it is worked into the prayer in such a way that many interpreters do not regard it as another of the author’s parenthetical comments. It is not just unending life in the sense of prolonged duration. Rather it is a quality of life, with its quality derived from a relationship with God. Having eternal life is here defined as being in relationship with the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent. Christ (Χριστός, Cristos) is not characteristically attached to Jesus’ name in John’s Gospel; it occurs elsewhere primarily as a title and is used with Jesus’ name only in 1:17. But that is connected to its use here: The statement here in 17:3 enables us to correlate the statement made in 1:18 of the prologue, that Jesus has fully revealed what God is like, with Jesus’ statement in 10:10 that he has come that people might have life, and have it abundantly. These two purposes are really one, according to 17:3, because (abundant) eternal life is defined as knowing (being in relationship with) the Father and the Son. The only way to gain this eternal life, that is, to obtain this knowledge of the Father, is through the Son (cf. 14:6). Although some have pointed to the use of know (γινώσκω, ginwskw) here as evidence of Gnostic influence in the Fourth Gospel, there is a crucial difference: For John this knowledge is not intellectual, but relational. It involves being in relationship.
5 tn Or “and Jesus the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).
6 tn Or “made known,” “disclosed.”
7 tn Here “men” is retained as a translation for ἀνθρώποις (anqrwpoi") rather than the more generic “people” because in context it specifically refers to the eleven men Jesus had chosen as apostles (Judas had already departed, John 13:30). If one understands the referent here to be the broader group of Jesus’ followers that included both men and women, a translation like “to the people” should be used here instead.
8 tn Grk “Yours they were.”
9 tn Or “have kept.”
10 tn The word “men” is not in the Greek text but is implied. The translation uses the word “men” here rather than a more general term like “people” because the use of the aorist verb ἔγνωσαν (egnwsan) implies that Jesus is referring to the disciples present with him as he spoke these words (presumably all of them men in the historical context), rather than to those who are yet to believe because of their testimony (see John 17:20).
11 tn The translation “will continue to make it known” is proposed by R. E. Brown (John [AB], 2:773).
