<p>16:27 <em>For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from the Father</em>- The Comforter, the gift of the Spirit in their hearts, would enable them to have the same relationship with the Father which the Son enjoyed in His mortal life. This is the repeated request in the prayer of chapter 17. The Lord does not therefore need to persuade the Father to be loving and generous in response to us; He Himself and of Himself <em>loves us</em>. Our love of the Son is read by the Father as love of Him, because we believe that the Jesus we love is His Son, 'come from the Father'. John later extends this logic, distilling it to mean that if we love the begetter we love also the begotten- and applies this to how therefore we cannot claim to love God but not love His spiritually begotten children (1 Jn. 4:1,2). &quot;The Father Himself loves you&quot; is a phrase we need to bear in our hearts always. We do not need the Lord to as it were get us on His right side; He Himself directly loves us, and all our brethren too.</p><p>The Lord's statement that &ldquo;You&hellip; have believed that I came out from God&rdquo; elicited agreement from the disciples: &ldquo;Yes, we believe that you came forth from God&rdquo;. But to that He responds in :32: &ldquo;Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, when you shall be scattered, every man to his own home, and shall leave me alone&rdquo;. Although they didn&rsquo;t really fully believe, He said that they did. He wasn&rsquo;t so in love with them that He was blind to their failures. But He was all the same so positive about their practically non-existent faith. And what&rsquo;s more, He goes on to tell the Father His positive perspective on their faith: &ldquo;They&hellip;have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me&rdquo; (Jn. 17:8). But the Lord had only just been telling the disciples that they <em>didn&rsquo;t</em> really believe that He had come out from God&hellip; Yet He counted them as if they did, and reflected this to the Father in prayer. And this is surely how the Lord feels and speaks about us to the Father today. &nbsp;</p>