The purpose of Christ's revelation of God to us is the presence of His perfect love in us. Jesus closes His priestly prayer for us with these words dripping with tears of love. "I have made Your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26).
The Father's love for His only Son is the same love that lives in us. God revealed Himself to us in His Son for the express purpose of making His love live in us. The expression "the love with which you loved Me" (η αγαπη ην ηγαπησας με) is called a "cognate accusative" (Blass/Debrunner, Grammar, p. 85). It is a Semitic idiom consistent with the Hebrew style of writing that John often displays. The noun (αγαπη) is followed by the same root as an Aorist verb (ηγαπησας) to form a cognate accusative (Moulton, Howard, Turner, Grammar, 3:245).
The cognate accusative expresses the content of the Father's love (Robertson, Grammar, p. 477). The inner content of the Father's love for us is His love for the Son. He loves us with the same love He possesses for His only Son. It is not merely - if we can ever use such a word to describe God's love - the fact that He loves us. Jesus prays that God's love might be "in them" (εν αυτοις) so, by extension in us.
God's perfect love lives in us. It is not just that God loves us. God intends the inward presence of His perfect love to fill our lives. God's purpose is that His perfect love will rule our lives and govern our relationships (Meyer, John, p. 475). We can love others with God's love because God's love is present in our hearts in a way that was impossible for us as unbelievers. Perfect love is in us because Christ is in us! His presence creates the capacity for our love which is why Jesus adds "and I in them" (καγω εν αυτοις).
There is a rich and precious implication of these words that we should not miss. The Father loves the Son who lives in us! God's love does not attach itself eternally to sin so the object of perfect love is the perfect Christ living in us and reproducing His life in us (Godet, John, p. 905). Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:39) because Christ is in us and nothing can separate the Son from the Father (John 17:26).
Love is the perfect end to His priestly prayer for us because love is the end of God's eternal purpose for us.
"But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).
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