John 17:24-26

John 17:24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am so that they will experience my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation.
John 17:25 Righteous Father, the world has not discovered you. However, I have been aware of you, and they have discovered that you sent me.
John 17:26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”

being with Christ will have to wait

Dick Tripp reads this passage as evidence of an immediate meeting with Christ at death, but the flow of Jesus’ prayer points in a different direction. When the words are allowed to stand in their own context, the emphasis is not on a post‑mortem encounter but on Jesus’ longing for His disciples to be with Him in the fullness of His future glory. He desires their presence, but He also acknowledges that they cannot be with Him yet. They have been entrusted with a mission—to continue making the Father known in the world through the love they have received.

Jesus’ desire is clear: “I want them to be with me.” But His prayer does not place that fulfillment at the moment of death. Instead, He immediately turns to the present task. The disciples have come to know God through Him, and because of that knowledge they are now sent into the world to reveal God’s love. Their absence from His side is not a sign of loss; it is the necessary condition for their mission. They remain in the world because the world still needs to hear and see the truth of God’s love.

The New Testament consistently locates the hope of being “with Christ” (μετὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ) at the resurrection, when the faithful are raised to reign with Him (Revelation 20:4). That is the moment when separation ends and presence begins. Until then, the emphasis falls not on going to Christ but on Christ coming to His people—first through the Spirit, and finally in His return.

In this passage, Jesus shifts the focus from being with Him to Him being in them. Twice He emphasizes that God’s love is in them (ἐν αὐτοῖς) and that He Himself is in them (ἐν αὐτοῖς). This indwelling presence is the defining reality of the present age. The disciples do not yet stand beside Him in glory, but they carry His life, His love, and His mission within them. The world encounters Christ through their witness.

The longing to be with Christ is real and right. Scripture affirms it, and Jesus Himself expresses it. But His prayer teaches that the present priority is the work entrusted to His people—the work of making God known through the love that has taken root within them.

Lord, we await your return, because we also want to be with you. But right now, energize us to share the gospel of God’s love with those around us.

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1  Dick Tripp and Derek Eaton. Life After Death: Christianity’s Hope and Challenge. (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2015), 67.