ABSTRACT
The great final prayer in John 17 lends itself as the third of our textual studies. The first text we interpreted, the hymn which is contained in the prologue to John's Gospel, represents, as I have shown, a very early stage of Johannine theology. The hyrnn was embedded in the Gospel, the main body of which displays a distinctive theology again. A fine example of this stage of the development of Johannine thought is the Nicodemus Discourse, which we discussed in the second case-study. The final prayer, or the 'High-Priestly-Prayer', as it is traditionally called, not only represents the last stage of theological reflection to be found in John's Gospel, but it also contains a remarkably comprehensive and distinguished theological approach, which is arguably one of the most fascinating of a11 that can be found in the New Testament. In John 17, a highly condensed language is developed to express the Johannine circle's interpretation of Christianity, or, in other words, what the presence of the living Christ means for the life of the community and, not least, for the church through a11 generations.
