⁷ “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You …”

Cryptic is this saying of Jesus in the Upper Room, seemingly redundant: everything given to Jesus by God is from God. Though the original language leaves this verse somewhat ambiguous, as do the majority of English translations, the New Living Translation gives the correct sense: “Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you…” Jesus emphasizees that the Father is the source of what has been given Him. The inner workings of and the relationship between.

What we know from the previous verse is that there is no doubt in their minds that they are God’s gift to Jesus. Secondly, although they had often misunderstood Jesus and fell short in their faith, there is no evidence that the eleven in the Upper Room doubted or rejected the truths that Jesus had been teaching them. It may have taken them a while to understand, to comprehend what He taught, but they had certainly come to recognize the divine origin of their Master’s teachings: “Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God” (John 16:30).

Keep in mind, this comment from Jesus is actually part of His conversation with His Father. The Father knows this, being an omniscient Being, so in this example of prayer, we see that the goal of prayer is not communicating things to God that He doesn’t already know. Rather, by including this, Jesus is raising the level of focus to the importance of this truth. Jesus had been successful in manifesting the Name of God, as we have seen. And now in reviewing the success of His ministry, He brings together the highlights and the implications. M.C. Tenney comments, “The gift was irrevocable and the Father was able to guarantee it. Jesus had no doubt of the final outcome.”

Paul puts it this way, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38–39). Nothing can snatch us from the hand of God. We are secure because we have believed through the testimony of the eleven in the Upper Room (John 17:20).

This is true of everything Jesus said, it is all from the Father, and therefore as sure as the Law of Moses. Shortly, they would come into full realization of the truth of Jesus’ puzzling teaching concerning the immediate near future.

Lord Jesus, Your words are truth and life, and I live by them.