Posted by George Morrison

A recent reading of the ‘High Priestly Prayer’ (St John Chapter 17) reminded me of the first time I heard it explained. It was back in the mid 1960ies and I had recently been converted when George Young, then a retired missionary, spoke on the Chapter over four evenings. I still have the notes from those meetings!
George Young was a Civil Servant working as an assistant to Winston Churchill when he answered the call to become a missionary. Churchill’s initial anger turned to a grudging admiration as he bade his promising assistant farewell.
In China George was assigned to a Confucian Priest for language study. As a text book they used the Gospel of Luke. The Priest left George in no doubt that he thought it much inferior to the writings of Confucius! His contempt for the Gospel continued until they reached the crucifixion when the words of Jesus “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (St Luke Chapter 23 verse 34) broke through his defences and he was converted to Christ.
The love of Christ for his enemies who were in the act of torturing him to death had trumped the teachings of Confucius! There was no contest! The Priest, by God’s grace, became George’s first convert.
When I heard him speak it was to encourage us to a life of sanctification (set apart to serve God) St John Chapter 17 verse 17. He enabled us to understand who Jesus was speaking about when he prayed for “these” and “those” (“them” in some translations of verse 20). “These” are the Apostles who are referred to in verses 6 to 19). It was to be by their teaching as St Luke records in Acts Chapter 2 verse 42 that the “those” who Jesus prays for (verse 20) are the people who heard the word and became believers.
These two groups, these Apostles who taught the message of a crucified and risen saviour and those who heard down through the ages to the present day and on to the end of the age, are to be one united by faith in Christ. This Apostolic succession, where believers are united by their faith in the Apostles teaching, passing on this same teaching down through the generations in answer to Jesus’s prayer and also reflecting the unity of the Father and the Son (verses 20 and 21).
I think it was John Stott who said that this unity is not primarily one with each other but one with the Apostles and second that we may be one with the Father and the Son. The first shows that doctrine unites in the truth (verse 17) and the second models relationships in the life of the church. Both contribute to unite the church.
There is purpose in this linear unity, ‘so the world may believe’ (verses 21 and 23). And I suppose that is seen by God’s grace in George Young, to me, to you!