In John 17:4-5, just before his arrest, Jesus prays:
“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”
Many Christians have read this as evidence that Jesus existed with God before his birth. Jesus speaks of having “glory” with God before the world began. Read naturally in English, the scene almost constructs itself: Jesus was with God before creation, possessed divine glory there, came to earth, and now asks to receive that glory again.
But look more closely at what Jesus actually says. Jesus speaks of “the doxa I had with you before the world existed.”
The key word is doxa, translated as “glory.” Its related verb, doxazō, is translated as “glorify.” In English, these have become deeply theological words. “Glory” evokes heaven, radiance, majesty, even divinity. But the Greek word carries a wider idea: honor, reputation, worth, importance, significance. To doxazō someone is to honor or exalt them, to make their importance apparent.
And John has already shown us what Jesus means by this.
“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”
Jesus brought God doxa by doing God’s work on earth. The idea is not that Jesus somehow made God more glorious. By carrying out God’s work, Jesus made God known. He made God’s significance visible in the world.
Then the prayer turns.
Jesus has spent his life making God’s significance visible. He has finished the work he was given. He is about to be killed. Now he asks the Father to make his significance visible.
This changes how we can hear that final phrase: “the doxa I had with you before the world existed.” What was with God before the world existed, in the sentence itself, is Jesus’ doxa. His significance.
Suddenly another reading comes into view.
Jesus need not be describing a memory of personally living beside God before creation. He can be speaking about something that preceded his earthly life: the significance his life already held with God. Before Abraham, before Israel, before the world itself, what Jesus would become and what his life would mean already belonged to God’s plan.
Now that plan has been lived out.
Jesus has done the work. He has taught what God gave him to teach. He has gathered the people God gave him. He has made God known. And with death immediately ahead of him, there is nothing more he can do to establish what his life meant. That final step belongs to God.
The prayer can therefore be heard not as, “Give me back the divine splendor I possessed when I lived with you in heaven,” but as something much simpler: “I have shown the world who you are by completing the work you gave me. Now show the world who I am.”
Read this way, the two verses form a beautiful symmetry. Jesus has brought significance to God on earth by completing God’s work. Now he asks God to reveal the significance that belonged to Jesus with God from the beginning.
Once doxa is allowed to carry its broader sense of significance, the verse no longer has to point to the pre-existence of a person, but rather to the pre-existence of his significance. His doxa.
Give this the verse can be retranslated as:
“I have brought you significance on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, show my significance, the significance I had with you before the world began.”