Literary analysis reveals Jesus' prayer in John 17 functions as an ongoing theophany for disciples, indicating that the Spirit continues divine manifestation among believers.
At the end of the Farewell Discourse (FD) in the Gospel of John, Jesus offers a prayer that is far longer than any other in the Gospel. John 17 pauses the narrative progression, transcending both space and time as Jesus addresses his Father directly for only the third time in the Gospel (11.41–2; 12.27–8; 17.1–26). Reading this prayer in John 17 alongside Jesus’ other prayers in chapters 6, 11 and 12, this article argues that John 17 acts as the culmination of Jesus’ teaching through prayer and adds to his theophanic depiction in the Gospel. Moreover, in this prayer Jesus implicitly requests the Spirit’s presence among believers and points toward the Spirit’s work as an ongoing theophany for his disciples.
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Alicia D. Myers (2026) studied this question.
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