Jesus asks the Father to protect us. Can we be any more secure than that?! Twice Jesus will use the term "keep" (τηρεω) in His prayer for us. He asks the Father to guard us in God's name (John 17:11), and He asks the Father to protect us from the Evil One (John 17:15). Jesus establishes the keeping work of the Father by the intercessory prayer of the Son making us eternally secure in God.
Jesus prays for us, not the world. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours (John 17:9). Jesus certainly loves the whole world. Why does He not pray for the whole world? Because He prays here as our High Priest seeking the protection of those He is leaving in this world. Such a prayer can only be prayed for believers, not the world.
Jesus uses the verb "ask" (ερωτω) twice in this verse. It is a present tense verb best understood as a progressive present indicating action in progress at the time (Burton, Moods and Tenses, p.7). The verb (ερωτω) can mean either to ask a question or make a request on behalf of another (BAGD, pp. 311-312). Here Jesus is requesting the Father's help on our behalf. Jesus uses another verb (αιτεω) for the prayers of men but always uses ερωταω for His prayers because it implies equality with the Father (Morris, John, p. 549, fn 48).
The preposition περι with a genitive object usually means "about or concerning" (BAGD, p. 644). However, περι can be used, as it is here, as a substitute for υπερ meaning "on behalf of" (Blass/Debrunner, Grammar, p. 121). The second use of περι connects the relative pronoun "whom" (ων) with its antecedent "their" (αυτων) making both prayer requests for the same group - His followers (Robertson, Grammar, p. 721).
The Father has given (δεδωκας) us to Jesus. The perfect tense expresses past action with a current result (Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 37). Even before the cross, the Father had already given the disciples to the Son. They were His even as they abandoned Him! We too, are His, the love gift of the Father to the Son, even though we don't always live as if are His.
We had belonged to the Father before the Father gave us (εδωκας) to the Son (John 17:6). The gift is not a handoff as we no longer belong to the Father because Jesus says to the Father "they are yours" now (σοι εισιν). The verb (εισιν) is a present progressive tense. "They continue to be yours, Father, even as they are mine," Jesus asserts (John 17:10).
Our eternal security is secured by the gift of the Father and the prayers of the Son so that we need never worry about our eternal destiny.
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