Earlier, Jesus stated his desire to bring all his sheep into “one flock with one shepherd” (10:16), and in the next chapter the narrator commented that Jesus’ death would be for “the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one” (11:52). Here, the unity of the disciples serves a still wider purpose, expressed in the two additional purpose clauses referring to the world:

so that the world may believe that you have sent me (v. 21b)

to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them [i.e., believers in Jesus] even as you have loved me (v. 23b; cf. 13:35).

None of these purposes, either for the disciples or for the world, should be regarded as already realized from the narrator’s standpoint. Though the unity of believers with (and in) the Father and the Son is…