John 17:9

John 17:9. I ask concerning them; I ask not concerning the world, but concerning them which thou hast given me. In the preceding verses the mind of Jesus has been filled with the thought of the position of the disciples: He now proceeds directly to pray for them; and the substance of His prayer is that they, occupying His place, may be so preserved as to be what He had been, true to the word given them, victorious over the devil, consecrated, filled with joy, to His glory and the glory of the Father in Him. So fully, too, are His thoughts occupied with them, that the whole energy of His prayer is devoted to them alone. He will not for the present ask concerning the enemy to be assailed, but about the assailants who are to take His place. Without denouncing the ‘world,' therefore, He simply sets it aside. It may indeed be asked, Why mention it at all? The answer probably is, to bring out that perfect correspondence between the will of the Son and of the Father, which is the ground of the Son's confidence in prayer. Hence the emphatic ‘I' with which the verse begins, ‘I, who came forth from the Father, who am sent of the Father (John 17:8); I, who am the perfect expression of the Father, willing only what He wills, I do not go beyond those whom He has given Me.' This last thought then finds utterance.

Because they are thine. In John 17:6 it had been ‘They were thine:' then they had been looked at only as the possession of the Father. Now ‘they are thine:' they have been brought back to Him and united to Him in a closer, dearer bond than ever, the bond of fellowship in the Son.