Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary John 17:2

"even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given him, he should give eternal life." — John 17:2 (ASV)

The two sentences following the initial petition are parenthetical and explanatory. The first (v.2) indicates the scope of the authority Christ exercised in his incarnate state. He was empowered to impart eternal life to those who had been given to him. This gospel is replete with assertions that life is in Christ (3:15–16; 4:14; 5:21, 26; 6:33, 54; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6). These words emphatically express the central purpose of Jesus: to glorify the Father by imparting life to humans.

The second sentence (v.3) defines the nature of eternal life. It is not described in chronological terms but by a relationship. Life is active involvement with environment. The highest kind of life is involvement with the highest kind of environment. A worm is content to live in soil; we need not only the wider environment of earth, sea, and sky but also contact with other human beings. For the complete fulfillment of our being, we must know God. This, said Jesus, constitutes eternal life. Not only is it endless, since the knowledge of God requires an eternity to develop fully, but qualitatively it must exist in an eternal dimension. As Jesus said further on in this prayer, eternal life will ultimately bring his disciples to a lasting association with him in his divine glory (v.24).