<p>17:11&nbsp;<i>I am no more in the world; but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them whom You have given me in Your Name, that they may be one, even as we are one</i>- As noted on 14:2,3, the going to the Father meant going to the cross. His presence with the Father meant that the Father would &quot;keep&quot; them just as the Lord had &quot;kept&quot; them whilst physically present with them (:12). This 'keeping' was and is achieved through the gift of the Spirit, keeping hearts and minds faithful. Those begotten by the Spirit are thereby &quot;kept&quot; from the wicked one and sin generally (1 Jn. 5:18; 2 Thess. 3:3), &quot;preserved s.w. &quot;kept&quot; in Christ&quot; and from falling (Jude 1,24), kept by the Holy Spirit which dwells within us (2 Tim. 1:14). This 'keeping' is part of a mutual relationship, for often we read of the need to 'keep' the Lord's words.</p><p>There are many points of contact between the Lord as the seed of the woman in the garden of Gethsemane and Eve in the garden of Eden- e.g. &quot;Those whom you gave me&quot; recalls Adam's &quot;the woman which Thou gavest Me&quot; (caused me to be sinful in Your sight- as we did to Jesus on the cross in the same garden). Not least there is the contrast between the struggles against temptation which took place in the same garden.</p><p>1 Jn. 3:23 associates believing on the Name with loving each other; and in Jn. 17:11 Christ prays that God will keep us all as one <i>through His own Name</i>. So often God's Name is associated with unity. God's Name is connected with His being &quot;the Holy <i>One</i>&quot; (Is. 29:23; 47:4; 54:5; 57:15; 60:9; Ez. 39:7). God being the Holy <i>One</i> is a further statement of His unity. Of course, we are speaking of ideal things. False doctrine and practice, the uncertainty of knowing exactly who carries God's Name, these and many other limitations of our humanity make it hard to achieve the unity which this theory speaks of. But the unity we do achieve is a foretaste of the Kingdom; unless we <i>love</i> this idea of unity, we will find ourselves out of place in the Kingdom. &quot;In <i>that day</i> there shall be one Lord, and His Name one&quot; (Zech. 14:9). It may well be that Eph. 4:4-6 is alluding back to this verse; this passage inspires us to keep the unity of the Spirit, because here and now &quot;there is one body, and one Spirit... <i>one Lord</i> ...one baptism, one God&quot;; in other words, Paul is saying that the unity of the Kingdom, as spoken of in Zech. 14:9, must be found in the ecclesia of today. See on Jn. 5:23; Mk. 13:32. There are several connections between there being one Name of God- one set of principles with which He identifies Himself- and unity between believers. David bad his people exalt God's Name &quot;together&quot;, in unity (Ps. 34:3). The fact that there will be one Lord and His Name one in the future will inspire unity amongst the whole world. By being kept &quot;in the name&quot;, we are made one (Jn. 17:11)- by sharing in and developing that unique set of characteristics that comprise God's Name / personality, unity between us is enabled by the love, forgiveness, justice etc. which we will show.</p><p>The account of the tabernacle labours the point that the whole house of God, this huge but delicate structure, was held together by &quot;clasps of brass to couple the tent together, that it might be one&quot; (Ex. 36:18 and often). &quot;That it might be one&quot; is alluded to by the Lord when He prayed for His people, &quot;that they might be one&quot; (Jn. 17:11,21-23). The record of the tabernacle stresses how the system was based around a mass of boards, tenons, curtain couplings etc. God's dwelling place, His house, hangs together by millions of inter-personal connections. &quot;Out of church Christians&quot;, in the sense of those who think they can go it alone in splendid isolation, are totally missing the point. We are encouraged to see the allusion by realizing that &ldquo;Holy Father&hellip; righteous Father&rdquo; (Jn. 17:11,25) was a form of address which the Lord had in a sense lifted from Moses when he addresses God as &ldquo;righteous and holy&rdquo; (Dt. 32:4 LXX). &nbsp;</p>