John 17:5 — Glory with the Father before the world: eternal counsel, not personal pre-existence

“And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

John 17:5

Context: The High Priestly Prayer (John 17)

John 17 is a self-contained literary unit within the Farewell Discourses (John 13–17). Structurally the chapter consists of three movements: Jesus prays first for himself (vv.1–5), then for his immediate disciples (vv.6–19), and finally for the community of believers of all times (vv.20–26). V.5 closes the first part. It stands in direct connection with v.4 (“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do”): the completed earthly work is the precondition for the petition for the glory of exaltation.

The hermeneutical bracket is set by the chapter itself: v.3 explains what eternal life is — that they know you, the only true God (ton monon alêthinon theon), and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Thereby, within the same prayer, the doctrine of one God is marked: the Father is the only true God, Jesus is his sent one. Any interpretation of v.5 must measure itself by whether it preserves or breaks this self-statement of Christ.

Syntactically too v.5 is embedded: the kai nyn doxason me, pater, para seautoi têi doxêi hêi eichon pro tou ton kosmon einai para soi — “and now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world was” — forms a mirror figure: para seautoi (early in v.5) and para soi (at the end of v.5) bracket the statement. The language of safekeeping with you, in your own presence is the linguistic centre of gravity.

In the idiom of the Gospel of John the phrase to have something with God occurs several times in the sense of promise and safekeeping. So Jesus says to his disciples (John 14:2): en têi oikiai tou patros mou monai pollai eisin — “in my Father’s house are many rooms.” The rooms are kept, with God, for the disciples; but no one would conclude from this that the disciples themselves had already existed personally there. The same linguistic pattern is at work in 17:5.

Socinian reception. The Racovian Catechism (1605) devotes a separate, fully developed section to John 17:5 in its chapter on the true nature of Christ: The glory of Christ with the Father before the creation of the world. The argument is methodically three-layered: (1) to have something with someone means in Scripture repeatedly: to have it promised and appointed to one, not: to exist personally with him; (2) Christ’s petition for the glory excludes consubstantiality with the Father, because a being of true divine nature must already have all glory from itself; (3) the parallel with 2 Tim 1:9 (“grace given us in Christ Jesus before the ages began”) shows: the language of the having before the world concerns the divine counsel, not personal pre-existence.

The Socinian core thesis

John 17:5 is a petition for the historical realization of that glory which God had kept with himself for Christ in his eternal counsel from the beginning. The statement lies in the linguistic register of ideal pre-existence: what God has appointed for someone before the world can be designated by that person as “his,” without his having existed personally before the world. Christ is “before the world” in God’s plan; historically he appears as the born son of Mary, sent from the Father, anointed by the Holy Spirit and exalted after the completion of his work.

The “having with you” (para soi echein) is the language of promise and safekeeping, not of ontological co-existence. In the Gospel of John this language is repeatedly attested: the disciples “have” eternal life (1 John 5:12: ho echôn ton hyion echei tên zôên), although they receive it historically only in the resurrection; they “have” a room in the Father’s house (John 14:2), although they are not yet there. The language belongs to the certainty of salvation, not to the metaphysics of pre-temporal existence.

The petition itself is the strongest intra-textual argument against personal pre-existence: a being of true divine nature would not ask the Father to give back to him his own original glory — he would have it from himself, would not have been able to give it up, and would not need to pray. The petition presupposes a lack, a dependence, an expectation. That is exactly Christ’s self-description in the Gospel of John: I can do nothing on my own (5:30); the Father is greater than I (14:28); I am going to the Father (14:12).

Key terms: Language and substance

Four linguistic items decide the interpretation of John 17:5 philologically:

eichon para soi — “I had with you”

The imperfect eichon (from echô, “to have”) denotes in Greek continuous or durative having. In the trinitarian interpretation this is often read as an ontological indicator: a durative possession of the glory with the Father. Yet the Johannine echein is used over a much broader range. In 1 John 5:12 the believers “have” eternal life — although they still expect it eschatologically. In John 14:2 there “is” (i.e. is promised, kept ready) a room in the Father’s house.

The Racovian Catechism brings this out precisely: to have something with another is often said of what has been promised and appointed to him. Christ’s glory was with God in the sense of appointment and safekeeping. The word choice para soi (“with you”) reinforces this aspect: it is the language of safekeeping and appointment, not the language of ontological co-existence.

Add to this: Christ does not simply say eichon, but eichon para soi — “I had with you.” The prepositional turn para soi is the semantic key. In the LXX and Johannine usage it repeatedly designates a place of divine appointment, the divine storehouse, the counsel: what is “with God” is in God’s plan and safekeeping; it is not necessarily personally present.

pro tou ton kosmon einai — “before the world existed”

The phrase pro tou ton kosmon einai (or similarly: pro katabolês kosmou) appears in the NT several times — and it is nowhere an unambiguous indicator of personal pre-existence. On the contrary: the whole semantic field designates God’s eternal counsel:

Eph 1:4: God has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. No one infers that all Christians personally existed before the world; the language concerns election in the counsel. 1 Pet 1:20: Christ is foreknown before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times. The two moments — foreknowledge and manifestation — are distinguished: plan and appearance. Rev 13:8: the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world — manifestly not in a biographical sense, but as an eternal decree of salvation.

2 Tim 1:9 is the key parallel verse: grace given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began (pro chronôn aiôniôn). The grace given to us did not exist personally before the ages began; it was in the counsel of God. The Racovian Catechism cites exactly this verse as the key witness: what Christ says of himself in John 17:5 is analogous to what Paul says of the grace of believers.

doxason me — “glorify me”

The imperative doxason is a petition. The one who petitions does not possess what is asked for. The one who is God by nature — almighty, all-glorious — does not petition; he is what he is. This logical tension is central to the Socinian argument: the petition itself shows that Christ is not the one true God, but his sent one, who receives everything from the Father — including the glory of exaltation.

This fits the Johannine Christology as a whole: Jesus is the Father’s sent one (3:17; 5:30; 6:38; 7:29; 17:18), who can do nothing of himself (5:19; 5:30), into whose hand the Father has given everything (3:35; 13:3). In this logic the petition for the glory of exaltation is a natural prayer of trust — not the lodging of a claim to metaphysical self-possession.

kai nyn — “and now”

The imperative is introduced by the kai nyn (“and now”). The “now” is linguistically the hinge: now, after the earthly work has been completed (v.4), Jesus petitions for the realization of the glory of exaltation. The whole linguistic pattern points forward: what God has appointed for him in his counsel before the world should now enter into historical actuality.

The prayer is not: “Father, give me back what I gave up” (that would be pre-existence language), but: “Father, complete now what you had appointed for me.” The temporal logic is set by the plan: before the world (appointment) → on earth (work completed) → now (exaltation). That is the salvation-historical line that shapes the whole High Priestly Prayer.

Sozzini in the original: The Racovian Catechism on John 17:5

The Racovian Catechism devotes to the question how John 17:5 is to be understood its own section in the chapter on the true nature of Christ (§ The glory of Christ with the Father before the creation of the world). Three key passages are reproduced here.

“That someone can have something — and therefore also glory — with the Father before the world was created, and yet that it does not follow from this that he then actually existed, much less that he possesses the same nature as the Father, becomes clear from 2 Tim 1:9, where the Apostle says of the believers that grace was given them before the ages began.”

Racovian Catechism, § “The glory of Christ with the Father before the creation of the world”

The argument is cleanly set: Scripture itself knows the language of having before the world without thereby asserting personal pre-existence. What Paul says of the grace given before the ages began to the believers in Christ is the exact linguistic parallel to what Christ says in John 17:5 of the glory appointed to him with God before the world was. Anyone who infers from the one ontological pre-existence would have to derive ontological pre-existence of all believers from the other. No one does that — and the same measure must apply to John 17:5.

“Moreover it is written here that Jesus petitions for this glory, which is wholly incompatible with a divine nature. The sense of the passage is that Christ asks God that he would actually give him with himself the glory that he had with him by his appointment and counsel before the world was created.”

Racovian Catechism, § “The glory of Christ with the Father before the creation of the world” (continued)

The second key passage sets the logical argument: a truly divine being does not petition for its own glory — it has it from itself. The petition is not a rhetorical act, but a real request; it presupposes a lack and a dependence which contradict consubstantiality with the Father. The Catechism formulates here exactly what Johannine Christology itself says (5:19; 5:30; 14:28): Christ does nothing of himself; the Father is greater than he; he receives from the Father. John 17:5 is a prayer of trust in precisely this logic.

“That someone has something with another is often said of what has been promised and appointed to him; in this way the believers are, more than once in the same John, said to have eternal life. Moreover, Christ does not simply say that he had this glory, but that he had it with the Father, as though to say that it had long since been kept for him with the Father and before the creation of the world; but now he asks that it actually be conferred upon him.”

Racovian Catechism, § “The glory of Christ with the Father before the creation of the world” (conclusion)

The third passage is methodically pioneering. The Catechism argues philologically from the inner consistency of Johannine usage: the believers “have” eternal life (1 John 5:12: ho echôn ton hyion echei tên zôên); they do not hold it in hand, they await its consummation — and yet John says: they have it. Exactly this linguistic pattern John 17:5 takes up. Christ’s glory was kept with God, in his counsel, in his plan. The “now” (v.5: kai nyn) is the petition that this kept glory should now historically be conferred — in the resurrection and exaltation.

Fausto Sozzini himself develops this idea in his christological polemical writings and systematically connects John 17:5 with 2 Tim 1:9, 1 Pet 1:20 and Eph 1:4: the language of pre-temporal election in the counsel of God is its own, repeatedly attested linguistic order within the NT. Anyone who reads v.5 without these comparative passages loses the linguistic register.

Logical arguments

From John 17:5 the following linguistic-exegetical and systematic arguments against the trinitarian pre-existence reading emerge:

1. Argument from the linguistic register “to have something with God.” In Johannine usage the phrase to have something with God / with the Father is repeatedly the language of promise and safekeeping. The believers “have” eternal life (1 John 5:12); they “have” a room in the Father’s house (John 14:2). No one would conclude from this that they personally pre-exist in time. The very same linguistic schema is at work in John 17:5 — and is to be read in the very same way.
2. Argument from the petitionary character of the verse. Christ petitions for the glory (doxason me). The one who is of true divine nature would have it from himself and would not need to pray. The petition itself presupposes a lack and a dependence which are incompatible with consubstantiality with the Father. The Racovian Catechism highlights this as the central argument.
3. Argument from 2 Tim 1:9 as linguistic parallel. Paul says of the grace given to the believers that it was given to them before the ages began in Christ. No one infers from this the pre-existence of grace as a personal entity. The same philological measure must apply to John 17:5: the language of the having before the world is the language of appointment in the counsel, not of ontological presence.
4. Argument from 1 Pet 1:20. Christ is foreknown before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times. Peter distinguishes two moments expressly: foreknowledge and manifestation. Anyone who reads John 17:5 as personal pre-existence must argue against 1 Pet 1:20, which expressly separates the two moments. Anyone who reads John 17:5 as election language in the counsel has 1 Pet 1:20 on his side.
5. Argument from v.3 as hermeneutical guide-verse. In the same prayer, only two verses before v.5, Christ calls the Father monon alêthinon theon, the only true God; himself he calls the one whom you have sent. V.5 must be expounded in the light of v.3, not against it. Anyone who reads v.5 trinitarianly comes into open contradiction with Christ’s self-statement two verses before.
6. Argument from the context of v.4. Immediately before v.5 Jesus says: I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. V.4 is temporal-historical: earthly work completed. V.5 builds on it: and now — now, after this work — the glory of exaltation should come. The temporal logic is set forward by the plan, not backward.
7. Argument from Eph 1:4 / Rev 13:8. The believers are chosen before the foundation of the world in Christ (Eph 1:4); the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). Both passages use the same language of pre-temporal setting in God’s counsel — and no one reads them biographically. John 17:5 belongs in the same linguistic order.
8. Argument from John 14:2. Jesus tells his disciples: in my Father’s house are many rooms. The rooms are kept “with God,” prepared, appointed. But no one would conclude from this that the disciples had already personally existed there. The same linguistic order applies to Christ’s glory “with God” before the world: kept, prepared, appointed.
9. Argument from the Jewish “ideal pre-existence.” Early Judaism knew the category of “ideal pre-existence”: things that God had foreseen in his plan were regarded as “with God” before they appeared historically. The rabbinic tradition (b.Pesachim 54a) speaks of seven things that were created before the world — among them the name of the Messiah. This is plan-language, not biography. John 17:5 stands in this linguistic horizon.
10. Argument from the overall Johannine Christology. Jesus is throughout the Gospel of John the sent one of the Father, who does nothing of himself, into whose hand the Father has given everything, who goes to the Father. The Father is greater than I (14:28). Anyone who reads v.5 as a statement of consubstantiality breaks the Christology of the whole Gospel.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “The imperfect eichon asserts a durative possession.”

First: The argument over-burdens Greek verbal morphology. The imperfect denotes in Greek duration, repetition, or unfinished past — but it does so on the plane that the context sets. On the plane of appointment and safekeeping in the divine counsel Christ had this glory with the Father — it was appointed to him, kept ready with God. This is a wholly normal use of the imperfect.

Second: The same verb echein (in various tenses) is used repeatedly in the Gospel of John and in the Johannine letters for kept, promised, appointed saving goods (1 John 5:12; John 14:2; John 6:40 echein zôên aiônion — to “have” eternal life). No one draws ontological inferences from these passages, and no one should draw them from John 17:5.

Third: The safekeeping language para soi (“with you”) makes the ontological argument wholly untenable. If Christ had wanted to say: “I was glorious in myself from eternity,” he would have said it differently — perhaps: doxan en emautoi eichon or doxa ên moi. The choice of para soi shifts the statement into the language of appointment and safekeeping.

Fourth: The Racovian Catechism makes the argument from internal consistency: what holds in the same Johannine usage for the believers (they “have” eternal life, they “have” a room) must hold also for Christ’s glory. Anyone who demands a special reading for v.5 must justify it from the context — and the context (petition, glorification, completed earthly work) does not carry it.

Objection 2: “Christ petitions for the return of a glory which he actually had before the incarnation and gave up by becoming man (kenosis).”

First: The kenotic reading of Phil 2:6–7 is itself exegetically contested. Heauton ekenosen (“he emptied himself”) is understood in the Socinian tradition as an ethical self-divestment, not as an ontological giving up of an original essential fullness. Even if one accepted the kenotic reading, one would have to align it with John 17:3 (the Father is the only true God) and John 14:28 (the Father is greater than I) — and both verses contradict a consubstantiality that would have been given up in the incarnation.

Second: The petition is linguistically not a return-petition, but a completion-petition. The “kai nyn” (“and now”) links v.5 with v.4 (earthly work completed), not with a pre-earthly phase. The linguistic pattern is: before the world (appointment) → on earth (work) → now (exaltation). The exaltation is not a return, but the completion of the plan of salvation.

Third: If Christ had given up a personal pre-temporal glory, this would itself be incompatible with the divine nature — for the true divine nature is unchangeable (Mal 3:6; Jas 1:17). A nature which gives up its own glory and later petitions to get it back is not the unchangeable nature of God. The kenosis reading bursts its own doctrinal edifice.

Fourth: The Socinian reading preserves both the deity of God and the truth of Christ’s humanity. Christ is true man, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin, sanctified by the Father and sent into the world, endowed with divine authority and wisdom, after the completed work exalted and glorified with the glory that had been appointed for him in God’s plan from eternity. That is an internally consistent Christology without a kenotic rupture.

Objection 3: “If Christ did not personally pre-exist, how could he call his glory my glory?”

First: Possessive language in God’s plan of salvation is normal and unproblematic. What God has appointed for someone can be designated in possessive language as “his” — even if it has not yet come to him historically. Thus Paul speaks in Gal 3:8 of God’s preaching the gospel beforehand to Abraham. The gospel “was”, in a certain sense, already there then — in God’s plan, in the promise — although it was historically realized only in Christ.

Second: The disciples of Christ say in similar idiom of their room in the Father’s house, of their eternal life, of their inheritance in heaven. The possessive pronouns express the saving address, not an ontological possession. Anyone who derives personal pre-existence from “my glory” in John 17:5 would have to derive personal pre-existence of the believers from “my eternal life” — which no one does.

Third: The possessive language is, in context, even remarkably circumscribed. Christ does not say: “the glory which I had from the beginning in myself,” but: “the glory which I had with you.” The safekeeping language para soi lifts the possessive claim back into the dimension of appointment: the glory was indeed “mine” (in the sense of appointment), but it was with you kept — not personally realized in me.

Fourth: Sozzini treated this objection precisely in his polemical writings: the possessive language my glory describes that which God has appointed for Christ from eternity as his destiny. This appointment Christ can call “mine,” because it concerns him from the beginning — without his having personally existed from the beginning. Biblical linguistic practice is here surprisingly precise.

Objection 4: “The petition for the glory presupposes a distinction between Father and Son that is explicable only in trinitarian doctrine.”

First: The Socinian reading does not lose the distinction — it sharpens it. The Father is the only true God (v.3); Christ is the man sent by the Father, endowed with divine authority and wisdom, exalted after the completion of his work. The distinction is clear and biblical — it is only not the distinction between two divine persons within the one divine essence, but the distinction between the one God and his unique sent one.

Second: The trinitarian doctrine does not solve the problem of the petition. If the Son is consubstantial with the Father, he would have to have the glory from himself. The trinitarian answer — he has the glory of the one divine nature, but petitions it for his human nature — leads into the two-natures christological complexity which Sozzini himself described as overstrained. It does not solve anything but shifts the problem into a secondary construction.

Third: The Socinian reading is markedly more parsimonious and linguistically more natural: Christ is man, sanctified and sent by the Father, endowed with divine authority, exalted by the Father at his time. This is a simple, coherent, scriptural reading — and it dispenses with metaphysical presuppositions that the text does not supply.

Fourth: The petition itself is the prayer of trust of a son to the Father. It has parallels in Jewish prayer (cf. the royal Psalms, especially Ps 2 and Ps 110): the anointed king, installed by God, petitions for support and completion of his commission. The hermeneutical register is royal-messianic, not trinitarian-metaphysical.

Objection 5: “The Socinian reading reduces the glory of exaltation to mere reward and deprives it of its cosmic dimension.”

First: The Socinian reading reduces nothing. Christ is in God’s plan from eternity the centre of the saving event; the whole drama of salvation runs towards him and through him. This is a cosmic-soteriological dimension that corresponds to the christological depth of Scripture — without requiring pre-existence as a second divine person. Eph 1:10 (to sum up all things in Christ) and Col 1:15–20 are well housed in this reading when one reads them in the language of appointment and gathering in God’s plan of salvation.

Second: The glory of exaltation is not “mere reward,” but the completion of the plan of salvation. It is the enthronement of the Son of Man at the right hand of God (Phil 2:9–11; Acts 2:33; Eph 1:20–22), the consecration to the heavenly high-priesthood (Heb 9:11–14), the appointment to universal rule over the living and the dead (Rom 14:9). That is of considerable cosmic and soteriological reach.

Third: The Socinian Christology preserves at once the truth of Christ’s humanity and the unique mission. Christ is not one hero among others — he is the uniquely Spirit-conceived, Father-sanctified, fully Spirit-endowed sent one, who after the completed work is exalted to the right hand of God. That is a high Christology without metaphysical doubling.

Fourth: The Racovian Catechism stresses that the Socinian Christology especially strengthens the resurrection hope of the believers: because Christ was true man, who was raised from the dead by the Father, his resurrection is example and firstfruits of our resurrection (1 Cor 15). The trinitarian Christology weakens this evidential force by claiming that Christ rose by his own divine nature — which can be no example to us mortals. The Socinian reading is soteriologically richer rather than poorer.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages are essential for the right understanding of John 17:5:

2 Timothy 1:9 — grace given before the ages began

“Who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and the grace given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began (pro chronôn aiôniôn).” The key witness which the Racovian Catechism adduces for the interpretation of John 17:5: grace is given to the believers before the ages began — not in the sense of personal presence, but as the eternal counsel of God. The same linguistic pattern holds for Christ’s glory in John 17:5.

1 Peter 1:20 — foreknown before the foundation of the world

“Foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times for your sake.” Peter expressly distinguishes two moments: foreknowledge (in God’s counsel) and manifestation (historical appearance). The two moments are not two phases of one and the same personal existence, but two different modes of reality: appointment in the counsel and appearance in time. John 17:5 stands in the same linguistic register.

Ephesians 1:4 — chosen in him before the foundation of the world

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world (pro katabolês kosmou), that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.” The believers are chosen before the foundation of the world in Christ — and no one infers from this the pre-existence of the believers. The language of election in God’s counsel is established in the NT. John 17:5 uses the same language for Christ himself.

Revelation 13:8 — the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world

“All who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain (apo katabolês kosmou).” The Lamb is not biographically slain from the foundation of the world — that is manifestly plan-language. God’s counsel encompasses the whole saving event from eternity. Christ’s standing “with God” before the world stands in the same logic.

John 17:3 — to know the only true God

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God (ton monon alêthinon theon), and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Two verses before v.5 Christ calls the Father monon alêthinon theon; himself he calls the one whom you have sent. The hermeneutical guide-verse in the same prayer. Anyone who reads v.5 trinitarianly comes into open contradiction with v.3.

John 14:28 — the Father is greater than I

“If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I (ho patêr meizôn mou estin).” In the same evening (Farewell Discourses) Jesus says the Father is greater than he. The statement is incompatible with consubstantiality between Father and Son. It is wholly compatible with the Socinian reading of 17:5 (Christ as sent one, to whom the glory of exaltation is conferred).

Galatians 3:8 — the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham

“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham.” The gospel “was”, in a certain sense, already there in the time of Abraham — in the promise, in God’s plan — although it was historically realized only in Christ. Precisely this linguistic order holds for Christ’s glory in John 17:5.

Philippians 2:9–11 — exaltation beyond all measure

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” The exaltation is a conferral — the echarisato (“has given him”) and the final goal to the glory of God the Father are the exact parallels to the petition and answer in John 17:5. The glory comes from the Father to the Son; it is a conferral, not an ontological self-endowment.

Acts 2:33 — exalted at the right hand of God

“Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” Peter predicates Christ’s exaltation as a divine conferral. The conferral is the historical realization of what was appointed in God’s counsel — that is the exact answer to the petition in John 17:5.

Theological consequences

Summary

John 17:5 is Christ’s petition for the historical realization of that glory which God had kept for him with himself in his eternal counsel. The statement lies in the linguistic register of ideal pre-existence in God’s plan of salvation: what God has appointed for someone before the world can be designated by that person as “his,” without his having existed personally before the world. Christ is “before the world” in God’s plan; historically he appears as the born son of Mary, sent and endowed by the Father, exalted after the completed work.

The argument stands on four legs: (1) the Johannine to have something with God is in the NT repeatedly the language of promise and safekeeping (John 14:2; 1 John 5:12) — not of ontological co-existence; (2) the petition for the glory excludes consubstantiality with the Father, because a being of true divine nature would not have to petition for its own glory; (3) the parallels 2 Tim 1:9; 1 Pet 1:20; Eph 1:4; Rev 13:8 establish the NT linguistic order of pre-temporal election in God’s counsel — in this linguistic order John 17:5 too is to be read; (4) the hermeneutical guide-verse v.3 of the same prayer calls the Father monon alêthinon theon: any trinitarian reading of v.5 comes into open contradiction with the self-statement of Christ two verses before.

Socinianly understood, John 17:5 is a powerful petition of the sent one to the Father for the realization of the glory of exaltation appointed for him in the counsel from eternity. Christ is in God’s plan from eternity — yet he is not the one true God; he is his unique sent one, conceived of the Holy Spirit, sanctified by the Father, exalted after the completed work and glorified with the glory which had been appointed for him in God’s counsel from eternity. Thus the Socinian reading preserves both biblical monotheism and the unique majesty of Christ — without taking refuge in metaphysical constructions that the text itself does not enforce.