I READ the Gospel in English (NRSV), then in Greek, then in Greek again. My re-evaluation on the Greek was not reflective, within the spirit of lectio divina, that slow-burn type of spiritual reading. Something had attracted my curiosity. Conspicuous within the Greek (but not the English) was a small word: hina. It often indicates purpose — “so that”, “in order that”, or just “that”. John 17.20-26 incorporates this word hina nine times. Could these nine uses of “in order that”/hina all be expressing purpose?
Hina has many shades of meaning, and purpose is simply one among them. Whatever language we read the Bible in, the identical principle directs our reading: if doubtful, return to the text. Read it again. Carefully. Now it is obvious: seven of the nine examples of hina on this passage express some type of purpose. Now we are saying for certain that, at this moment in his ministry, Jesus is driven by a way of purpose.
Or perhaps “purposes”, plural; for Jesus expresses several. In verses 20-21, a single sentence incorporates hina thrice, and in it each successive element in God’s divine plan relies on the one before: Jesus asks that they could be one (first purpose), in order that they could be “in us” (Jesus and the Father: second purpose), in order that the world may consider (third purpose).
Much of John 14-17 may be complex and slippery, making it difficult for us to search out our option to the message. But repeated reading, with close attention to detail, brings that message into focus. After all, not every part value finding (in scripture or in other elements of life) lies on the surface. What comes first, Jesus says, is the unity of believers. That will result in — second — incorporation into God (“in us”). Third, it’ll enable them to affect the world.
This last purpose is one which we’re looking forward to; for the shift from Easter into Pentecost is just across the corner. The technique of communicating God’s purpose in Christ is about to be lavished on the apostles, after which on all believers. As on this Gospel, so within the Church’s seasons: there’s a transparent direction of movement, from God, through Christ, to the world.
To drive home the importance of this sequence of purposes, Jesus returns twice more to the matter of unity. In verse 22, he has bestowed God’s glory on the disciples, “in order that they could be one”. In verse 23, he amplifies the message, making it more emphatic, “that they could change into completely one”. If this reading of the sequence of purposes within the Gospel is true, then every part in regards to the Christian mission to the world relies on Christian believers’ becoming completely one.
But we will not be. We have never been “completely one”, not even in the times of the apostles themselves. From the start, Christians disagreed in regards to the meaning of circumcision, about meat offered to “idols”, and about practices akin to holding goods in common.
It is simple to sidestep the issue by saying that Christian unity is like Christian righteousness: a self-evident good to be striven for, because within the striving is the mark of our true discipleship; but that unity just isn’t a goal to be achieved on this side of eternity.
If, nonetheless, the sequence of purposes in John reflects Jesus’s understanding of his mission to the world (because it surely must), then unity must come first. It is the inspiration on which every part else is to be built — not an aim, or final result, or a prize to be striven for (like Paul’s “pressing on toward the goal”, Philippians 3.14).
One doesn’t have to be an authority analyst to know that unity between Christian Churches is fractured, by ethical and cultural differences, even by doctrine. We may not fight each other nowadays in regards to the relationship of the individuals within the Godhead, but disputation over authority (scripture, tradition, episcopacy) and morality (divorce, homosexuality, feminism) is flourishing.
This leaves two possible conclusions: either God’s holy purposes in Christ have failed, and can go on failing (because Christians will not be “one” as God and his Word are “one”); or being “one” doesn’t mean what we predict it does. “Unity” is one thing, a self-evident good. “Unification”— the Churches’ efforts to make all Christians think and behave alike — is something else, not self-evidently good, perhaps not even good in any respect.
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