John 18:9 Commentary and Bible Study

This is a little confusing in a way, because it is a quotation from John 17.12, the great prayer that we have recently dealing with. ‘While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name.’ Now that refers to the spiritual preservation of the disciples while Christ was with them, but when we come back to John 18.9 this refers only to the earthly protection of the disciples from arrest. However the two statements are reconciled in this way: that the earthly protection of the disciples at that point while Christ was still with them of course symbolised the spiritual protection of all disciples, the doctrine of the preservation, the perseverance, of the saints.