Matthew Poole and continuators on John 17:4

4 I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do .

By Preaching the Gospel, by living up to the rule of thy Law, by the Miracles which I have wrought; God could not be glorified by Christ, by the addition of any thing to his Essential glory; onely by manifesting to the World his Fathers goodness, justice, mercy, truth, wisdom, and others of his Attributes.

One way by which he had glorified his Father, is exprest, viz. by finishing the work which he had given him in Commission. But how could Christ say this, who had not yet died for the sins of men, which was the principal piece of his work? Ans. It was so nigh, that he speaks of it as already done; so ver. 11. he saith, I am not in the world, because he was to be so little a time in the world. Again, he speaks of what he was fully resolved to do, as if it were already done.

Marginal references: Chap. 13.32. and 14.13.; Chap. 4.34. and 19.30.