Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 7:7
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
7. Ask, and it shall be given ] The connection is again difficult. The verse may be the answer to the disciples’ unspoken questions: (1) “How shall we discriminate?” or (2) “Who are fit to receive these divine truths?” The words of Christ teach, (1) that discernment will be given, among other “good things,” in answer to prayer; (2) that prayer in itself implies fitness, because it implies desire for such truths.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ask, and it shall be given you … – There are here three different forms presented of seeking the things which we need from God – asking, seeking, and knocking. The latter is taken from the act of knocking at a door for admittance. See Luk 13:25; Rev 3:20. The phrases signify to seek with earnestness, diligence, and perseverance. The promise is, that what we seek shall be given us. It is of course implied that we seek with a proper spirit, with humility, sincerity, and perseverance. It is implied, also, that we ask the things which it may be consistent for God to give – that is, things which he has promised to give, and which would be best for us, and most for his own honor, 1Jo 5:14. Of that God is to be the judge. And here there is the utmost latitude which a creature can ask. God is willing to provide for us, to forgive our sins, to save our souls, to befriend us in trial, to comfort us in death, to extend the gospel through the world. Man can ask no higher things of God; and these he may ask, assured that he is willing to grant them.
Christ encourages us to do this by the conduct of parents. No parent turns away his child with that which would be injurious. He would not give him a stone instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish. God is better and kinder than the most tender earthly parents; and with what confidence, therefore, may we come as his children, and ask what we need! Parents, he says, are evil; that is, are imperfect, often partial, and not unfrequently passionate; but God is free from all this, and therefore is ready and willing to aid us.
Every one that asketh receiveth – That is, every one that asks aright; that prays in faith, and in submission to the will of God. He does not always give the very thing which we ask, but he gives what would be better. A parent will not always confer the very thing which a child asks, but he will seek the welfare of the child, and give what he thinks will be most for its good. Paul asked that the thorn from his flesh might be removed. God did not literally grant the request, but told him that his grace should be sufficient for him. See the notes at 2Co 12:7-9.
A fish – A fish has some resemblance to a serpent; yet no parent would attempt to deceive his child in this. So God will not give to us that which might appear to be of use, but which would be injurious.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mat 7:7
Ask, and it shall be given you.
I. We have in these words, not formal definition of prayer, but an incidental definition, and most complete. To pray is to ask of God; the more childlike the asking the better.
II. A recognition of the hindrances which we meet in prayer. We are to ask when God is nigh; mercies are sometimes hid, then seek.
III. A positive injunction. Prayer not optional; it is a duty.
IV. Christ stimulates to obedience by words of encouragement.
1. He calls attention to universal experience-Every one that asketh, receiveth. Prayer is not an experiment.
2. Christ points to the conduct of parents towards their children.
3. A gentle reference to our common depravity-If ye, being evil. God far above all earthly parents, mere willing to give good gifts. (S. Martin.)
Prayer a duty, even though there be no desire to pray
In certain states of the body men lose all appetite for food. Are they to yield to this want of appetite? If they do yield to it, they are soon starved to death. Sometimes without appetite, it becomes necessary for them to take, day by day, nourishment. Just so with prayer. If I cannot pray as a privilege, I am to pray as a duty.
Prayer not a runaway knock
Watch in prayer to see what cometh. Foolish boys, that knock at a door in wantonness, will not stay till somebody cometh to open to them; but a man that hath business will knock, and knock again, till he gets his answer. (T. Manton.)
Keeping up a suit
Keep up the suit and it will come to a hearing-day ere it be long. (T. Manton.)
Ask and receive
1. Every promise is attached to a duty.
2. That concerning any duty it is not enough that you do it, you must do it scripturally.
3. It does not say when you shall receive.
4. The whole Trinity combine before there can be prayer.
5. This is the language of entire dependence. Ask. Man is empty.
6. It is Gods method to try the grace which He intends to crown. Seek.
7. Never be afraid of being too earnest. Knock.
8. God wishes you to have a clear understanding about the certainty of prayer. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Ask: Children speaking to God
I. Ask, whom? Not to angels, saints. God is the only Being who is everywhere present, and therefore the only one to whom we should pray.
II. Ask, when? Any time; some times better than others. Morning, etc.; the time of perplexity, etc.
III. Ask, where? I will that men pray everywhere.
IV. Ask, How?
1. Orderly; think about what you are going to ask.
2. Earnestly; not carelessly.
3. Repeatedly: until you receive an answer.
4. In your own style-as children.
5. In faith.
6. In the name of Jesus, the only Mediator, etc. (A. McAuslane, D. D.)
How to find the Lord
A man said to me the other night in the inquiry-room, Mr. Moody, I wish you would tell me why I cant find the Lord. Said I: I can tell you why you cant find Him. Why is it? Why, you havent sought for Him with all your heart. He looked at me, and said he thought he had. Well, said I, I think you havent; because you will surely find Him when you seek for Him with all your heart. Now, my friend, I can tell you the day and hour you are going to be converted. The man looked at me, and I have no doubt thought I was a little wild. Said I: The Scripture tells me, He that seeketh findeth. It dont take a man long to find the Lord when he makes his mind up to do it.
Life a research
1 Life is a research.
2. Not get some one else to seek for you.
3. The Lord assigns no limit to the research. (A. Coquerel.)
Rogation Days. Ask, and it shall be given you
In May almost always the Rogation Days come. The fitness of this. These days are meant to prepare the peoples hearts for the coming festival of the Ascension; but mainly to be days of intercession for the fruits of the earth, which are then tender, that they may not be blasted, as well as for health and peace at that season of the year when war and pestilence may be expected to begin. These intentions are indeed closely blended, for when our Lord ascended up on high He received gifts for men.
I. We pray for a blessing upon the fruits of the earth. We can scarcely help it unless we are untrue to nature. Mans heart is on his fields; he has done all his work as far as crops are concerned-now he can only hope, watch, and pray. Now all depends upon what God will be pleased to do. We are not powerless: prayer is left to us. Thirteen centuries ago Rogation Days were first appointed; it was then felt that prayer was a power to secure peace and plenty. Though there is no service for these Days, there is nothing to prevent us from keeping them. Our great authority for them is found in the first and second chapters of Joel. In these days of agricultural depression we have need to remember them. (E. T. Marshall, M. A.)
Prayer, Knock with confidence
When thou standest before His gate, knock loudly and boldly, not as a beggar knocks, but as one who belongs to the house; not as a vagabond, who is afraid of the police, but as a friend and an intimate acquaintance; not as one who is apprehensive of being troublesome, or of coming at an improper time, but of a guest who may rest assured of a hearty welcome. (Dr. F. W. Krummacher.)
The nature and efficacy of prayer
I. The precept.
1. The nature of the duty.
2. A few of our obligations to this holy duty:
(1) The Divine command.
(2) The pious example of holy men.
(3) It is reasonable.
3. Some of the motives by which it is enforced:
(1) Its necessity.
(2) Its great importance in preparing the mind for the duties of the sanctuary and the family.
(3) Another motive arises from the maintenance of the power of religion within us.
(4) The pleasure of walking with God is a powerful incentive.
II. The encouragement which the text affords us.
1. The promise itself.
2. Its Divine fulness.
(1) It comprehends every human being that presents his prayer for relief.
(2) The quality of the blessing-good things.
Two reflections:
1. How happy is the believer.
2. How important to know the medium of acceptable prayer. (J. E. Good.)
Prayer the characteristic action of religion
I. Prayer is religion in action. It is the soul of man engaging in that particular form of activity which presupposes the existence of a great bond between itself and God. It is the noblest kind of human action, in which man realizes the highest capacity of his being. This estimate of prayer not universal amongst even educated people. They regard it as an outlet for feeling, a means of discipline; but less worthy the energies of a thinking man than hard work. But prayer is indeed work. The dignity of labour is proverbial.
1. Is it true that prayer is little else than the half-passive play of sentiment? Let those who have truly prayed give the answer. Jacob wrestled with an unseen Power (Mat 11:12).
2. Take prayer to pieces; it consists of three different forms of activity.
(1) To pray is to put the understanding in motion, and to direct it upon the Highest Object. How overwhelming are the ideas which thus pass before it. The issues are realized. This an absorbing occupation for the understanding.
(2) To pray is to put the affections in motion, it is to open the heart; this movement of the affections is sustained throughout prayer.
(3) To pray is to put the will in motion, just as decidedly as we do when we sit down to read hard, or when we walk up a steep hill. It enters vitally into the action of prayer, and is in proportion to sincerity. Now these three ingredients of prayer are also ingredients in all real work, whether of brain or hand; in prayer they are more evenly balanced. The dignity of prayer as being real work becomes clear if we reflect on the faculties it employs; and clearer if we consider the effect of it upon the habitual atmosphere of the soul. It places the soul face to face with facts of the first order of solemnity; with its real self and with its God. And just as labour in any department is elevating when it takes us out of and beyond the petty range of daily and material interests, while yet it quickens interest in them by kindling higher enthusiasms into life, so in a transcendent sense is it with prayer. It is so noble, because it is the work of man as man; of man realizing his being and destiny with a vividness which is necessary to him in no other occupation. The nobleness of his best form of toil must fall infinitely below that of a spirit entering consciously into converse with the eternal God.
II. But granted the dignity of prayer even as of labour: what if this labour be misapplied?
1. There is here no question as to the subjective effects of prayer; this is admitted by all.
2. Prayer is not chiefly a petition for something that we want and do not possess. It is intercourse with God, often seeking no end.
3. If prayer is to be persevered in, it must be on the conviction that it is heard by a living Person. We cannot practise trickery upon ourselves with a view to our moral edification. If God exists, if He be a Personal Being, then surely we may reach Him if we will. Where is the barrier that can arrest our thought, as it rises to the all-embracing intelligence of God. And if God be not merely an infinite intelligence, but a moral Being, a mighty heart, so that justice and tenderness are attributes of His, then surely we appeal to Him with some purpose. It is on this ground that God is said to hear prayer in Scripture. That He should do so follows from the reality of His nature as God. He who has planted in our breasts feelings of interest and pity for one another cannot be insensible to our need and pain.
III. But will God answer prayer when it takes the form of a petition for some specific blessing which must be either granted or refused?
1. The first presumed barrier against the efficacy of prayer to which men point is the scientific idea of law reigning throughout the spiritual as well as the material universe. But the laws of nature are not self-sustained forces; God can use His own laws. They have not escaped His control.
2. A second barrier to the efficacy of prayer is sometimes discovered in the truth that all which comes to pass is fore-determined in the predestination of God. Prayer, too, is a foreseen action of man, and is embraced in the eternal purpose of God.
3. The third barrier is the false idea of the Divine dignity which is borrowed from our notions of human royalties. Need not depreciate mans place in the universe; Gods best creature, and He cares for the lowest.
4. A fourth barrier to the efficacy of prayer is thought to be discernible in an inadequate conception of the interests of human beings as a whole. But Christian prayer is conditioned.
5. The last barrier is really to be discovered in mans idea of his own self-sufficiency,
6. That prayer is answered is a matter of personal experience. (Canon Liddon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. Ask – seek – knock] These three words include the ideas of want, loss, and earnestness. Ask: turn, beggar at, the door of mercy; thou art destitute of all spiritual good, and it is God alone who can give it to thee; and thou hast no claim but what his mercy has given thee on itself.
Seek: Thou hast lost thy God, thy paradise, thy soul. – Look about thee – leave no stone unturned there is no peace, no final salvation for thee till thou get thy soul restored to the favour and image of God.
Knock: Be in earnest – be importunate: Eternity is at hand! and, if thou die in thy sins, where God is thou shalt never come.
Ask with confidence and humility.
Seek with care and application.
Knock with earnestness and perseverance.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Here is a precept expressed by three words, ask, seek, knock; and a promise annexed in three distinct terms,
it shall be given you, ye shall find, it shall be opened unto you. The thing commanded is prayer; the thing promised is an audience of prayer, or an answer to prayer. The multiplying of the terms in which the precept is expressed is not idle and superfluous, it lets us know our averseness to the duty, and that God in it requireth of us faith, diligence, constancy, and importunity. Christ had before told us of whom we should ask, our Father; it is not said what we should ask, both in regard we have a liberty to ask any thing we have need of, and he had, Mat 6:8, particularly directed the matter of our prayers. The promise, that we shall have, signifies an answer, either in kind or in value; the promise of giving lets us know that our prayers are not meritorious.
For every one that asketh the things he needeth, and in faith, according to the will of God, and for a right end,
receiveth, & c. See Jam 4:3.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Ask, and it shall be given you;seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened untoyouThough there seems evidently a climax here, expressive ofmore and more importunity, yet each of these terms used presents whatwe desire of God in a different light. We ask for what wewish; we seek for what we miss; we knockfor that from which we feel ourselves shut out. Answering tothis threefold representation is the triple assurance of success toour believing efforts. “But ah!” might some humble disciplesay, “I cannot persuade myself that I have any interestwith God.” To meet this, our Lord repeats the triple assuranceHe had just given, but in such a form as to silence every suchcomplaint.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ask and it shall be given you,…. This is to be understood of asking of God in prayer, for such things as are wanting; whether of a temporal nature, as food and raiment, which Christ, in the former chapter, had warned against an immoderate and anxious concern for; or of a spiritual nature, as grace, and wisdom to behave in a proper manner, both towards God and men: and such, who ask according to the will of God, in the name of Christ, and under the direction, guidance, and influence of the Spirit, who ask in faith and fear, and with submission to the divine will, shall have what they ask for; not as what they deserve, but as a free gift.
Seek, and ye shall find. This is still meant of prayer, and of seeking God, his face and favour: which such shall find, who seek in a right way, by Christ, and with their whole hearts, diligently:
knock and it shall be opened unto you as beggars do, who use much importunity for relief and assistance. So men should stand and knock at the door of mercy, which will not always be shut against them. Faith in prayer is a key that opens this door, when a poor soul finds grace and mercy to help it in time of need. Our Lord’s design is to express the nature, fervour, and constancy of prayer, and to encourage to it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Sermon on the Mount. |
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7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Our Saviour, in the foregoing chapter, had spoken of prayer as a commanded duty, by which God is honoured, and which, if done aright, shall be rewarded; here he speaks of it as the appointed means of obtaining what we need, especially grace to obey the precepts he had given, some of which are so displeasing to flesh and blood.
I. Here is a precept in three words to the same purport, Ask, Seek, Knock (v. 7); that is, in one word, “Pray; pray often; pray with sincerity and seriousness; pray, and pray again; make conscience of prayer, and be constant in it; make a business of prayer, and be earnest in it. Ask, as a beggar asks alms.” Those that would be rich in grace, must betake themselves to the poor trade of begging, and they shall find it a thriving trade. “Ask; represent your wants and burthens to God, and refer yourselves to him for support and supply, according to his promise. Ask as a traveller asks the way; to pray is to enquire of God, Ezek. xxxvi. 37. Seek, as for a thing of value that we have lost, or as the merchantman that seeks goodly pearls. Seek by prayer, Dan. ix. 3. Knock, as he that desires to enter into the house knocks at the door.” We would be admitted to converse with God, would be taken into his love, and favour, and kingdom; sin has shut and barred the door against us; by prayer, we knock; Lord, Lord, open to us. Christ knocks at our door (Rev 3:20; Son 5:2); and allows us to knock at his, which is a favour we do not allow to common beggars. Seeking and knocking imply something more than asking and praying. 1. We must not only ask but seek; we must second our prayers with our endeavors; we must, in the use of the appointed means, seek for that which we ask for, else we tempt God. When the dresser of the vineyard asked for a year’s respite for the barren fig-tree, he added, I will dig about it,Luk 13:7; Luk 13:8. God gives knowledge and grace to those that search the scriptures, and wait at Wisdom’s gates; and power against sin to those that avoid the occasions of it. 2. We must not only ask, but knock; we must come to God’s door, must ask importunately; not only pray, but plead and wrestle with God; we must seek diligently; we must continue knocking; must persevere in prayer, and in the use of means; must endure to the end in the duty.
II. Here is a promised annexed: our labour in prayer, if indeed we do labour in it, shall not be in vain: where God finds a praying heart, he will be found a prayer-hearing God; he shall give thee an answer of peace. The precept is threefold, ask, seek, knock; there is precept upon precept; but the promise is sixfold, line upon line, for our encouragement; because a firm belief of the promise would make us cheerful and constant in our obedience. Now here,
1. The promise is made, and made so as exactly to answer the precept, v. 7. Ask, and it shall be given you; not lent you, not sold you, but given you; and what is more free than gift? Whatever you pray for, according to the promise, whatever you ask, shall be given you, if God see it fit for you, and what would you have more? It is but ask and have; ye have not, because ye ask not, or ask not aright: what is not worth asking, is not worth having, and then it is worth nothing. Seek, and ye shall find, and then you do not lose your labour; God is himself found of those that seek him, and if we find him we have enough. “Knock, and it shall be opened; the door of mercy and grace shall no longer be shut against you as enemies and intruders, but opened to you as friends and children. It will be asked, who is at the door? If you be able to say, a friend, and have the ticket of promise ready to produce in the hand of faith, doubt not of admission. If the door be not opened at the first knock, continue instant in prayer; it is an affront to a friend to knock at his door, and then go away; though he tarry, yet wait.”
2. It is repeated, v. 8. It is to the same purport, yet with some addition. (1.) It is made to extend to all that pray aright; “Not only you my disciples shall receive what you pray for, but every one that asketh, receiveth, whether Jew or Gentile, young or old, rich or poor, high or low, master or servant, learned or unlearned, they are all alike welcome to the throne of grace, if they come in faith: for God is no respecter of persons.” (2.) It is made so as to amount to a grant, in words of the present tense, which is more than a promise for the future. Every one that asketh, not only shall receive, but receiveth; by faith, applying and appropriating the promise, we are actually interested and invested in the good promised: so sure and inviolable are the promises of God, that they do, in effect, give present possession: an active believer enters immediately, and makes the blessings promised his own. What have we in hope, according to the promise, is as sure, and should be as sweet, as what we have in hand. God hath spoken in his holiness, and then Gilead is mine, Manasseh mine (Psa 108:7; Psa 108:8); it is all mine own, if I can but make it so by believing it so. Conditional grants become absolute upon the performance of the condition; so here, he that asketh, receiveth. Christ hereby puts his fiat to the petition; and he having all power, that is enough.
3. It is illustrated, by a similitude taken from earthly parents, and their innate readiness to give their children what they ask. Christ appeals to his hearers, What man is there of you, though never so morose and ill-humoured, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?Mat 7:9; Mat 7:10. Whence he infers (v. 11), If ye then, being evil, yet grant your children’s requests, much more will your heavenly Father give you the good things you ask. Now this is of use,
(1.) To direct our prayers and expectations. [1.] We must come to God, as children to a Father in heaven, with reverence and confidence. How naturally does a child in want or distress run to the father with its complaints; My head, my head; thus should the new nature send us to God for supports and supplies. [2.] We must come to him for good things, for those he gives to them that ask him; which teaches us to refer ourselves to him; we know not what is good for ourselves (Eccl. vi. 12), but he knows what is good for us, we must therefore leave it with him; Father, thy will be done. The child is here supposed to ask bread, that is necessary, and a fish, that is wholesome; but if the child should foolishly ask for a stone, or a serpent, for unripe fruit to eat, or a sharp knife to play with, the father, though kind, is so wise as to deny him. We often ask that of God which would do us harm if we had it; he knows this, and therefore does not give it to us. Denials in love are better than grants in anger; we should have been undone ere this if we had had all we desired; this is admirably well expressed by a heathen, Juvenal, Sat. 10.
| Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus,quid Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris, Nam pro jucundis aptissima quque dabunt dii. Carior est illis homo, quam sibi: nos animorum Impulsu, et cca, magnaque cupidine ducti, Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris; at illis Notum est, qui pueri, qualisque futura sit uxor. Entrust thy fortune to the powers above. Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant What their unerring wisdom sees thee want: In goodness, as in greatness, they excel; Ah, that we lov’d ourselves but half so well! We, blindly by our headstrong passions led, Seek a companion, and desire to wed; Then wish for heirs: but to the gods alone Our future offspring and our wives are known. |
(2.) To encourage our prayers and expectations. We may hope that we shall not be denied and disappointed: we shall not have a stone for bread, to break our teeth (though we have a hard crust to employ our teeth), nor a serpent for a fish, to sting us; we have reason indeed to fear it, because we deserve it, but God will be better to us than the desert of our sins. The world often gives stones for bread, and serpents for fish, but God never does; nay, we shall be heard and answered, for children are by their parents. [1.] God has put into the hearts of parents a compassionate inclination to succour and supply their children, according to their need. Even those that have had little conscience of duty, yet have done it, as it were by instinct. No law was ever thought necessary to oblige parents to maintain their legitimate children, nor, in Solomon’s time, their illegitimate ones. [2.] He has assumed the relation of a Father to us, and owns us for his children; that from the readiness we find in ourselves to relieve our children, we may be encouraged to apply ourselves to him for relief. What love and tenderness fathers have are from him; not from nature but from the God of nature; and therefore they must needs be infinitely greater in himself. He compares his concern for his people to that of a father for his children (Ps. ciii. 13), nay, to that of a mother, which is usually more tender, Isa 66:13; Isa 49:14; Isa 49:15. But here it is supposed, that his love, and tenderness, and goodness, far excel that of any earthly parent; and therefore it is argued with a much more, and it is grounded upon this undoubted truth, that God is a better Father, infinitely better than any earthly parents are; his thoughts are above theirs. Our earthly fathers have taken care of us; we have taken care of our children; much more will God take care of his; for they are evil, originally so; the degenerate seed of fallen Adam; they have lost much of the good nature that belonged to humanity, and among other corruptions, have that of crossness and unkindness in them; yet they give good things to their children, and they know how to give, suitably and seasonably; much more will God, for he takes up when they forsake, Ps. xxvii. 10. And, First, God is more knowing; parents are often foolishly fond, but God is wise, infinitely so; he knows what we need, what we desire, and what is fit for us. Secondly, God is more kind. If all the compassions of all the tender fathers in the world were crowded into the bowels of one, yet compared with the tender mercies of our God, they would be but as a candle to the sun, or a drop to the ocean. God is more rich, and more ready to give to his children than the fathers of our flesh can be; for he is the Father of our spirits, an ever-loving, ever-living Father. The bowels of Fathers yearn even towards undutiful children, towards prodigals, as David’s toward Absalom, and will not all this serve to silence disbelief?
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
INSTRUCTION AND THE GOLDEN RULE
V. 7-12
1) “Ask, and it shall be given you;” (aiteite kai dolhesetai humin) “You all ask, and it shall be given to you;” Our Lord once again gives direct instructions to His disciples, as a church people. They are to “ask” for what they wish, according to His will. This is a fundamental procedure to answered prayer, ask or inquire of God, Jas 1:5.
2) “Seek, and ye shall find;” (zeteite, kai heuresete) “You all seek and you shall find;” They are to seek for what they miss, or lose; Search earnestly for your desire from God, as David did, Psa 27:8; Psa 40:1-3; Pro 8:17.
3) “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you:” (krouete kai anoigesetai humon) “You all knock and it shall be opened to you:” The “it” may be understanding, opportunity for service, or for fellowship, etc. Whatever the honorable desire or need may be, His people are to ask Him for it, in perservance, Luk 11:9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Mat 7:7
. Ask, and it shall be given you It is an exhortation to prayer: and as in this exercise of religion, which ought to be our first concern, we are so careless and sluggish, Christ presses the same thing upon us under three forms of expression. There is no superfluity of language, when he says, Ask, seek, knock: but lest the simple doctrine should be unimpressive, he perseveres in order to rouse us from our inactivity. Such is also the design of the promises that are added, Ye shall find, it shall be given to you, and it shall be opened Nothing is better adapted to excite us to prayer than a full conviction that we shall be heard. Those who doubt can only pray in an indifferent manner; and prayer, unaccompanied by faith, is an idle and unmeaning ceremony. Accordingly, Christ, in order to excite us powerfully to this part of our duty, not only enjoins what we ought to do, but promises that our prayers shall not be fruitless.
This ought to be carefully observed. First, we learn from it, that this rule of prayer is laid down and prescribed to us, that we may be fully convinced, that God will be gracious to us, and will listen to our requests. Again, whenever we engage in prayer, or whenever we feel that our ardor in prayer is not sufficiently strong, we ought to remember the gentle invitation, by which Christ assures us of God’s fatherly kindness. Each of us, trusting to the grace of Christ, will thus attain confidence in prayer, and will venture freely to call upon God
“
through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom (as Paul says) we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him,” (Eph 3:11.)
But, as we are too prone to distrust, Christ, in order to correct this fault also, repeats the promise in a variety of words. He uses the metaphor seek, because we think, that those things which our wants and necessities require are far distant from us — and knock, because our carnal senses imagine, that those things which are not immediately at hand are shut up.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
F. THE DANGERS FACING THE WISE AND GODLY MAN
(Mat. 7:1-27; Luk. 6:37-49)
3. THE DANGER OF FAILING TO RECOGNIZE GODS PROVISION.
TEXT: 7:7-11
7. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;
8. for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him a loaf, will give him a stone;
10. or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent?
11. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
THOUGHT QUESTIONS
a. Why did Jesus use so many words for praying to God for something? (Ask , , , seek . , , knock) Would not is have been much simpler merely to say: Pray, and God will answer you? What, then, is suggested by this variety of words?
b. Jesus has been talking about judging others and discerning important differences, Why did He change the subject-or did He? If He did not, what is the connection between this section and the general subject of judging?
c. What if we ask for the wrong thing, in the wrong way or for the right thing but for the wrong motive? (Mat. 7:7-11) Will God give to us, help us to find and open to us?
d. Does Jesus really mean every one in Mat. 7:8, that is, just anyone who prays? If so, how? If not, why not?
e. What is the point of comparing God to a human father? What good could be accomplished by doing that?
PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY
Keep on asking, and your prayer shall be granted. Keep on searching, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. After all, they who receive are the ones who keep asking, and they who find are the ones who keep searching, and the door is opened to him who keeps knocking. Or, if his son ask for some bread, no father among you would give him a stone, would he? Or if he ask for some fish, he would not give him a snake, would he? Or should he ask for an egg, would he give him a scorpion? No! Therefore, if you, despite your wickedness, know how to provide good gifts for your children, how much more likely it is that your heavenly Father give good things, yes, and the Holy Spirit too, to those who are asking Him!
SUMMARY
We must pray constantly, persistently and with determination; only thus will we receive what is needed. A human father would not cheat his child, because he knows what is good for him. God our heavenly Father can much more surely be trusted to provide what is god for us, if we ask Him.
NOTES
Why does Jesus bring up prayer at this point in His paragraph on judging? At first, any connection seems vague. But the connection is Gods grace, because prayer, by its very nature, admits ones dependence upon God on the basis of His continuing mercy. But he who is dependent upon God for all His gifts, especially for pardon, is hardly in a right position to be the carping critic of his peers. If so, Jesus is saying, Consider how God is dealing with you; treat your neighbor likewise.
Lenski (292) notes another close connection, that is, although Jesus has admonished us to judge ourselves, we must never doubt or mistrust our true relation to God. Although we must severely analyze our own souls, we must never question the fact that, despite all our character failures, God has made us His children and He is ever ready to bless us with all we need.
Again, this section may be the practical application of all that Jesus said (in Mat. 6:19-34) about dependence upon God. These exhortations have been put in this section instead of that because failure to trust Gad is a failure to distinguish ones true Source of blessing and supply from only apparent sources. Thus, even prayer is an evidence of the necessity for intelligent discrimination and moral judgment.
Mat. 7:7 (Cf. Luk. 11:9-13) Ask . . . seek . . . knock. These three words, all of which are present imperative indicating continuing action, suggest an increasingly unrelenting insistence in prayer. Luke (Luk. 11:5-8) notes how Jesus definitely connected this teaching with exhortations to keep praying. Ask is the simple prayer that indicates the dependence of the petitioner upon God, and his consciousness of his need. (Cf. Mat. 6:14-15; Mat. 18:19; Mat. 21:22; Mar. 11:24; Mar. 11:24; Joh. 14:13; Joh. 15:17; Joh. 16:23-24; Jas. 1:5-8; Jas. 5:16-18; 1Jn. 3:22; 1Jn. 5:14) But those who ask for themselves, in order that they might continue to rule in their own sovereignty, will never receive from God, for they have not really acknowledged their dependence upon Him. (Jas. 4:3-4; cf. Luk. 18:9-14) Seek suggests the personal effort of the one who prays to do his part toward getting his own prayers answered. (Cf. Isa. 55:6) It also suggests concentration, through prayer, of all of ones powers upon the realization of what is prayed. Knock savors of perseverant importunity despite difficulties and hindrances, a vital factor in effective prayer. God does not always answer our request upon the first two or three utterances of it, probably to test our seriousness, to prepare us to receive it, and to work out the combination of circumstances and of persons necessary to its answer, (Luk. 11:5-13; Luk. 18:1-8; Gal. 6:9 ) Illustrations of knocking are: Abraham (Gen. 19:22-23); Jacob (Gen. 32:26); Elijah (Jas. 5:16-18); Jesus (Luk. 22:44); the Syrophoenician woman (Mat. 15:21-28); the early Church (Act. 12:5).
Mat. 7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth. At first hearing, this phrase seems to open the channels of promised answers to prayer to anyone who would call upon God. Jesus is talking to Jews who, of course, already enjoyed a privileged relationship to God, Thus, to them and even to others, Jesus word becomes a great invitation to unburden their hearts before the Father. But Jesus is not committing God to honor the blasphemies of those who flout His commands and refuse His Lordship. Jesus has already qualified the kind of prayer that is acceptable (Mat. 6:5-15; also cf. Jas. 1:6-7; Jas. 4:3; 1Jn. 5:14-15). Thus, this whosoever will refers to those who are willing to commit themselves to seeking first Gods kingdom and the kind of righteousness that Jesus is preaching (Mat. 6:10; Mat. 6:33). Receiveth . , . findeth . . . to him it shall be opened. God always keeps His promises (Cf. Deu. 7:9; Jos. 21:45; Neh. 1:5; Neh. 9:32; Dan. 9:4) but He would have us toil in prayer to get what we desire. Blessings that would come too easy or cost us nothing would ruin our appetite, dull our sensitivity and would give us what we wanted before we had been driven to our highest longing and most noble efforts to attain them
Mat. 7:9-11 Next, Jesus asks a series of rapid-fire rhetorical questions
not only to arouse individual interest, stimulate curiosity and draw
attention to the conclusion which follows, but also to draw out of
His hearers a moral decision. Here again Jesus shows His followers
that they are constantly making moral judgments, and already have
a conscience about certain things, even in the most simple family
situations.
Mat. 7:9-10 Or what man is there of you, who if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? Luke (Luk. 11:12) adds: or a scorpion for an egg? Each of Jesus questions in Greek begins and me, the negative which expects a negative answer: No, he would not. A human father would not mock his childrens request by giving what is useless, unclean or positively harmful. Natural parental affection requires that a father give what is needed. This is a human judgment that is deeply felt and rightly arrived at. Upon it Jesus will base His argument.
It might well be wondered whether these heart-touching questions are not echoes of Jesus thought when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. (Cf. Mat. 4:2-4) Even if not, the same logic of heroic faith is in the conclusion which Jesus offers.
Mat. 7:11 Ye know how to give good gifts unto your children. This is the right conclusion to the rhetorical questions Jesus posed. If ye, being evil: in what sense does Jesus intend this to describe the audience? Probably in the relative sense, because there were undoubtedly some of the earths finest people present that day. But in relation to God, they were yet &ked by comparison. They were imperfect, sometimes unwise, sometimes partial, sometimes fickle toward their children. But God is always wise and helpful. Being evil is Jesus judgment upon us: it must humble us and it is a judgment that will keep us from pronouncing self-righteous judgments upon others. Although Jesus calls us wicked, He would have us remember that we are, for all our unworthiness, still Gods beloved children. Again, at this critical point, Jesus calls God your heavenly Father. (See notes on Mat. 5:45; Mat. 5:48; Mat. 6:1; Mat. 6:8; Mat. 6:26; Mat. 6:32) Whoever believes all that Jesus has revealed about the Father and believes that God is all that the word Father conveys, cannot but pray, knowing that his Father will be better and kinder than the most tender parents, and will give him what is truly best. How much more? is an argument from the lesser to the greater and a call for a moral judgment.
He will give good things to them that ask him. Jesus does not promise that He will always or necessarily grant the thing we ask, but what He judges to be good for us. (Cf. 2Co. 12:7-10; Jas. 1:16; Psa. 84:11) Too often we are blinded by the seeming desirability of earths treasures. How shocked we would be to learn how often we have asked God for stones, serpents and scorpions, being deceived into thinking they would contribute to our happiness! (Cf. 1Ti. 6:9-10)
Yes, Jesus invites us to ask, to seek, to knock. He is offering us the key to Gods wealth! Therefore, whose fault is it if we are poor, miserable and hungry? (Jas. 4:2 c)
But we must be careful about reversing Jesus argument by deciding that our attitudes and actions toward our children automatically commit God to react the same way towards us. Too easily we forgive our children when they do wrong; too often we do not enforce our word and fail to punish in cases where they definitely did need it. To suppose that our heavenly Father would do nothing that we parents would do is to ignore His plain declarations to the contrary. He has definitely declared that He will disinherit those who were once His children, who, as time went by, gradually drifted away into sin and died in that condition. (Cf. Mat. 13:41-42; Mat. 8:12; Mat. 22:11-13; Mat. 24:45-51; Mat. 25:30; Heb. 2:1-3; Heb. 3:12-14; Heb. 4:1; Heb. 4:11; Heb. 6:9-12) The concept of eternal punishment for unforgiven sins, in whomever they may be found, is Gods idea, and man is a fool to argue with Him about it.
What would be the result of such praying as Jesus describes here?
1. There would be no censorious judging done (Mat. 7:1-5); more humility.
2. There would be wisdom to make right judgments and be good judges of character. (Cf. Jas. 1:5-8; Mat. 7:6, Mat. 7:15-20)
3. There would be no foolish dependence upon earthly wealth (Mat. 6:19-34)
FACT QUESTIONS
1.
What Scriptural limitations are there which restrict the seemingly unlimited character of Jesus promise of answer to prayer?
2.
What is meant by the three different words denoting prayer (Mat. 7:7-8),?
3.
Why would Jesus use so many expressions? Would not a simple command to pray be sufficient?
4.
Explain the connection between the possibility of a sons asking for a loaf of bread and the father’s giving him a stone. And why mention a fish in connection with a serpent? What is the connection?
5.
What is the logical structure of Jesus argument based on the comparison between a human father and God?
6.
In what sense does Jesus intend to call His disciples evil? (Mat. 7:11)
7.
What is the contextual connection between this section and the general topic under study: judging ones fellows?
8.
What is the connection between this section and the contextual arguments of the sixth chapter of Matthew?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(7) Ask, and it shall be given.The transition is again abrupt, and suggests the idea that some links are missing. The latent sequence of thought would seem to be this, If the work of reforming others and ourselves, men might say, is so difficult, how shall we dare to enter on it? Where shall we find the courage and the wisdom which we need? And the answer is, In prayer for those gifts.
Here, once more, the words are absolute and unqualified, and yet are clearly limited by implied conditions. It is assumed (1) that we ask for good giftsfor bread and not for a stone, for a fish and not for a serpent; and (2) that we ask, as Christ has taught us, in His name and according to His spirit. Otherwise we may ask and receive not, because we ask amiss.
The three words imply distinct degrees of intensity. There is the asking in the spoken words of prayer, the seeking in the efforts and labours which are acted prayers, the knocking at the gate with the urgent importunity which claims admission into our Fathers house.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(2.) Confide in God as a more than earthly father, 7-12.
In coming into the kingdom ye must entertain faith in God’s paternity, (Mat 7:7-12😉 ye must pass through the strait gate of life, (Mat 7:13-14😉 ye must elude false guides, (Mat 7:15-20😉 ye must show something more than mere profession, (Mat 7:21-23😉 for by these my words you stand or fall, (Mat 7:24-29.)
7. Ask, and it shall be given you Under the threefold symbol of asking, seeking, and knocking, all the expressions of our desire are included, rising in the force of climax. Our bounteous heavenly Father has a corresponding response for each. For the asking he has gifts; for the seeking, discovery, for the knocking, admissions.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
A Ask, and it will be given to you,
B Seek, and you will find,
C Knock, and it will be opened to you.
As we have seen these words connect back to their dealings with ‘what is holy’ (Mat 7:6). While His disciples are not to degrade what is holy by offering it to those not ready to receive it, they are to make the greatest of efforts to obtain it for themselves. The tense of the verbs indicates persistence. They are to ‘Ask and go on asking, seek and go on seeking, knock and go on knocking.’ And in response they are to know that what they ask for will be given to them, that what they seek they will find, and that as they knock on their Father’s door it will be opened to them. In other words they are to have an absolute assurance that He will give them what is holy, that is, will give them all that Jesus has been speaking about.
But the question must then be asked as to why we are given this threefold description. Certainly one reason is for emphasis and in order to indicate what should be the urgency of their requests. But we may probably also see it in terms of how a son comes to his father. When he has a need a son comes to his father and asks, and because his needs are continual it is a continual process day by day. He asks continually because of his confidence in his father’s love and because he is dependent on his father. And if he is then aware at some stage of his father’s absence he is not satisfied with just waiting for him to seek him out, but he himself seeks out his father until he finds him, for he loves his father and he cannot bear to go on too long without seeing him. Indeed he is not content until he finds him. And if he discovers that he is behind a door that he cannot open he knocks on that door until the door is opened to him. For he cannot be satisfied until he is actually with his father, and he knows that his father will be pleased to see him, because he knows that he loves him. Thus these words place great emphasis on God as their heavenly Father, One to Whom they may come as confidently and persistently as a child, something which Jesus has been building up to during the Sermon. And because they are seeking Him as their heavenly Father, it includes the persistence with which they will continue to seek both Him and His Kingly Rule, for they are personally involved in both. So Jesus says that like a child looking for his father they are to allow nothing to prevent them from coming into His presence, because, like the child looking for his father, they know how welcome they will be. Note how this indicates that such prayer is not to be just a matter of asking. It is also to be a matter of wanting to be with their Father.
We should note that the thought here is that they can, as it were, enter Heaven itself. Asking might be accomplished by a call from afar, but seeking, and especially knocking, indicate making an approach right into His presence. (Compare for the idea Luk 13:25; Rev 3:20 in both of which the knocking is with the purpose of immediate entry). They are taking to heart the words of Isa 57:15, ‘For thus says the high and lofty One Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy, “I dwell in the high and holy place with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones”.’ ‘So’, says Jesus, ‘He is waiting for you. Go and ask, go and seek Him, go and knock until He responds, and go on doing it again and again.’
And as Jesus has previously given a pattern of prayer they are not left in any doubt as to what they are to ask for and what it is that they are to seek. They are to ask for and seek the hallowing of His Name, the coming of His Kingly Rule and the bringing about of His will on earth (Mat 6:9-10; Mat 6:33). These are the ‘good things’ that they are to ‘seek first before anything else on earth’ (Mat 6:33), and in Luke we find this related to the Holy Spirit as at present available to the disciples (Luk 11:13), something which Matthew also assumes on the basis of Mat 3:11. In other words they are to seek the successful establishment through themselves of the Messianic age by means of the Holy Spirit with Whom Jesus has drenched them (Mat 3:11). And this is something which goes along with His giving to them the gift of His Kingly Rule present on earth as a gift for those who come to Him, along with the gift of His inworked righteousness as promised by Isaiah (for in Matthew we are at this stage in the middle of the Isaiah quotations, see introduction). And that is why they are greater than John the Baptist (Mat 11:11). And along with these greater gifts we may also see the gifts promised in the beatitudes, and the ‘rewards’ and ‘recompense’ which are promised throughout the Sermon. God is no man’s debtor. All God’s true riches are theirs (Eph 2:6) if only they will pray and seek His face continually and walk as in His presence. These are the ‘good things’ that He will give them.
The idea of knocking as indicating prayer is also found in Rabbinic teaching, but not in the same context as the thought of a son coming to his heavenly Father. It is, however, there also an indication of an awareness that God does wish us to be insistent in the right way. Thus in the Talmud we read of Mordecai as ‘knocking at the gates of mercy’, indicating his sense of urgency and his confidence that God will hear him.
We can compare here also Luk 11:5-13. There the lesson is that they were to knock in order to receive the bread of the age to come, the Holy Spirit. The disciples are therefore left in no doubt as to what the source of their strength must be. But here the knocking is even more intimate, for it is knocking at the Father’s easily opened door.
We should note here that the reason that we have to pray is not in order to persuade God to do what He is unwilling to do, but so that we might rather have a part in it, and so that we might come to know Him better as we work together with Him. It is so that we might have the privilege of having a share in the fulfilment of His eternal purposes, so that in the ages to come great glory might be brought to His Name because of what He has accomplished through His people. God intends to do it with or without us, but He also intends to do it through the loving and earnest participation of those who love Him. That has always been His way. That is the story of the Scriptures. He uses earthen vessels through the greatness of His power so that the glory might be His (2Co 4:7). Ours is the privilege to share in it with Him, and if we refuse to have our part in it, ours alone will be the loss.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Means By Which the Law and the Prophets Will Be Fulfilled In The Coming Of The Messianic Age Through The Prayers Of His People (7:7-12).
Having outlined in some depths the Messianic interpretation of the Law and some of the ‘holy teachings’ connected with it, Jesus now explains to His disciples how they can obtain the means by which to fulfil it. He had made clear that their righteousness had to exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat 5:20). To some extent how they can exceed the righteousness of the Scribes (the teachers of the Law) has been explained in Mat 5:20-48 by His reinterpretation and expansion of the Law, and how they can exceed that of the Pharisees (those rigid if often hypocritical adherents to that Law) has been explained in Mat 6:1 to Mat 7:6. It was, however, one thing to receive guidance as to how they should live, it would be quite another for them to actually achieve it. So Jesus will now show them how to do that. It will be:
By constant prayer to their heavenly Father for what is holy.
By themselves treasuring the pearls that He has sent them, and will give them, as gifts from their Father.
By their constantly spending time in His presence, asking, seeking, knocking.
And by the subsequent reception of the good things of the Messianic age into which they have entered, which will all come from God as He provides for them as a Father provides for His children.
In terms of Luk 11:13 this includes the power of the Holy Spirit, Who along with Jesus Christ Himself is the greatest gift of all. And later we will also learn that it will include the power of the risen Christ (Mat 28:20). It is true that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned here, but Matthew has already made clear that the drenching with the Holy Spirit is an essential part of Jesus’ Messianic ministry (Mat 3:11; compare Mat 12:18; Mat 12:28), and that as an introduction to what follows in his Gospel. So His presence within them can be assumed, for it was that that John the Baptist had promised that the Messiah would do. Thus Matthew’s emphasis is on the presence of Jesus with His people as the baptiser in the Holy Spirit. That is why in Mat 28:20 it is the continuing presence of Jesus with His disciples, as the baptiser in the Holy Spirit (note the connection with what is probably the institution of baptism into the Name, which itself emphasises the gift of the Holy Spirit), that he mentions.
So the purpose of this small section is to offer His disciples something beyond price (Mat 13:45). They have learned much about their heavenly Father’s goodness (Mat 5:45; Mat 5:48), and how they can pray to Him (Mat 6:9), and come secretly into His presence (Mat 6:6), and trust Him for full provision as they seek His Kingly Rule and the working of His righteousness (Mat 6:26; Mat 6:32-33). But that has all been building up to what He will now reveal. For having spoken of not giving ‘that which is holy’ to the wrong people, He will now explain how that which is holy’ can come as a gift to them, and at the same time He will deal with something that is most holy of all, and that is that as sons of their heavenly Father they are privileged to enter right into His presence, that is, into Heaven itself (Isa 57:15).
We should note in this regard how this passage, which at first appears to be a command disconnected from the context, does in fact directly connect back to Mat 7:6 as the antecedent to ‘it’. There He had spoken of ‘what is holy’ (which in fact summed up Mat 6:1 to Mat 7:5), now He tells them that while it is true that their antagonists will reject such things when they are offered, they themselves are to seek what is holy with all their hearts. They are to go on asking that it might be given to them, they are to go on seeking until they find it, they are to go on knocking until the door is opened to them. For it is ‘what is holy’ that will enable them, both in their lives and in their witness, to be what they ought to be. And in asking, they can be absolutely sure that they will receive because they are His sons.
We might see this more clearly if we select from Jesus’ words and present them together, for the danger of splitting up His teaching into passages is that we can sometimes lose the continuity between passages. Thus Mat 7:6-7 reads, ‘do not give (dowte) what is holy to dogs — ask and it will be given (dothesetai) to you’, for as He will then point out, it is such good things that their Father wants to give them. (This abrupt use of a command without a conjunction is typical of this last part of the Sermon. See Mat 6:19; Mat 7:1; Mat 7:6 and compare the first part of the Lord’s Prayer with the second). So what they must not offer to dogs because it is so holy is precisely what they themselves must seek to receive from their heavenly Father.
And in speaking of this, something of what He has spoken about all too briefly will now be emphasised and brought home to them so that they might have the confidence to go forward in fulfilling His will as laid down in the Sermon. For they will now be made aware of their great privilege, that they can, as it were, enter right into His Dwellingplace.
We should note that we again have here the ‘divine Passive’, for ‘It shall be given you’ means, ‘your Father will give you it’, and so on. Thus the idea here is that they can ask of Him the things He delights to give them, they can seek His presence continually and find the holy things that He has for them, they can knock on His door, and be sure that He will open His door to them and invite them into His heavenly presence (compare Luk 11:5-8 in a similar context). They can enter into His holy place (Isa 57:15), where He will provide to them what is holy. And they can thus be confident of a Father’s response, a Father Who desires only to do them good and give them what is ‘good’ and what is ‘holy’.
(How pleased we should be that He does not always give us what we ask. How wrong of Him that would be. For He wants only to give us what is eternally for our good, and we so often want what is eternally for our harm).
And the result will be they can know that all the good things which He has promised to them, will be freely bestowed on them.
Some see this passage as not connected with what has gone before, but that is to miss the connection with, and change of direction from, Mat 7:6 that we have described above. For the whole emphasis here is that while what is holy must not be given to dogs and pigs, it is certainly to be sought most earnestly by those who love Him. And the sudden abrupt change of emphasis forcibly brings home the distinction. It is in fact putting the cap on all that He has said about their heavenly Father. ‘Do not give — ask and it will be given to you’. Here is what can actually happen when they enter their inner room (Mat 6:6). Here is the recompense that they can receive. And once they have received all the ‘good things’ that He has for them, they will then be enabled to do to others what they would have them do to them, thus fulfilling the Law and the Prophets.
These verses also conclude the central portion of the Sermon which can be entitled the Law and the Prophets (Mat 5:17; Mat 7:12). And because they are so important as capping the whole, before we look at the verses in detail, we must first briefly recapitulate the whole portion.
Recapitulation of THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS.
a
b He outlined five expansions and fuller explanations of the Law, each following the pattern ‘you have heard that it was said — but I say to you –’, stressing the inner meaning of each Law, and calling for their fulfilment. He was not describing rules to be obeyed, so much as a way of life to be followed, and by it He was exhorting His disciples to be true sons of their Father, and be perfect as He is. And this leads up to His stress on the benevolence of their Father, and His perfection in love (Mat 5:17-43).
b He outlined seven warnings concerning men’s outlook on life, the first four relating to the need for their religious observance, connected with almsgiving, prayer and fasting, with a stress on the need for them to be genuinely Godward so that they might know their Father’s presence. And these were followed by the next three which were related to the need for a positive approach towards the use of wealth, which they must store in Heaven, in their Father’s holy place; a positive approach towards the Kingly Rule of God and the experiencing of His righteousness as they enjoyed provision from their Father; and a positive approach towards helpful judgment which will result in assisting family members to achieve His aims, ending with the exclusion of outsiders (who have no place in the Kingly Rule of Heaven).
a The promise then is that if they seek their heavenly Father with all their hearts with a view to receiving what is holy, so that by that means they might be enabled to achieve His aims – persistently asking, seeking and knocking so as to enjoy His presence – then they can be sure that their heavenly Father will grant them the ‘good things’ (the Holy Spirit – Luk 11:13) necessary in order to achieve all that He requires, for it is His delight as their Father that they should receive all the good things that He has for them. This is finally how the fulfilment of the Messianic aims will be achieved, as they go out as their Father’s sons (Mat 5:9; Mat 5:45; Mat 7:9-11), in order to do to others what they would have them do to them, thus fulfilling the Law and the Prophets (Mat 7:7-12), and by it pleasing their Father as Jesus had (Mat 3:17).
Note that in ‘a’ He promised the fulfilment of the Law or the Prophets, and in the parallel He explains how it will be fulfilled as they enjoy their Father’s presence, while in ‘b’ and its parallel are outlined what is involved for them in terms of that fulfilment under His hand.
As well as demonstrating the means by which the Law and the Prophets will be fulfilled, these verses must also be seen as connecting back to the Lord’s Prayer. It is difficult to see how Jesus could have exhorted prayer in this context without it being intended that His disciples should refer back to that (in the same way as similar words in Luke 11 similarly refer back to the Lord’s Prayer). Here He has in mind that they are to pray for ‘what is holy’, that is, for what is included in the Lord’s Prayer; the hallowing of God’s Name by His effective working in men’s hearts, the coming in of the Kingly Rule of God by His establishing His righteousness within men (Mat 6:33), and the bringing in of the doing of His will, which would result from both. These are some of the things for which they are to ‘ask, and go on asking, until they receive, seek and go on seeking until they find, and knock and go on knocking until it is opened to them’.
As seen above ‘asking’ in order to be given looks back to Mat 7:6. We may then also refer ‘seek and go on seeking’ not only to their seeking their Father’s presence, but also to their ‘seeking first His Kingly Rule and His righteousness’ in their prayers as in Mat 6:33. For both go together. They seek their Father and they seek His Kingly Rule. In finding One they find the other. He is only Father to those who come under His Kingly Rule. Thus what Jesus is exhorting here is that they learn to enjoy His Father’s presence in the same way as He Himself has, and that they engage in unceasing and continuing prayer for the establishing of their Father’s Rule and the exaltation of God and His will, just as He does. In other words that they seek with His divine assistance, and in oneness with Him, the successful establishment of the Messianic age (Mat 28:18-20).
Analysis of Mat 7:7-11 .
a
b For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Mat 7:8).
c Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone (Mat 7:9).
c Or if he will ask for a fish, will give him a snake? (Mat 7:10).
b If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children (Mat 7:11 a).
a How much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? (Mat 7:11 b).
Note how in ‘a’ we have the call for persistent prayer and seeking of their Father’s presence, while in the parallel is the certainty of their heavenly Father’s reply in the giving of good things to His ‘sons’. In ‘b’ we have the assurance of a reply to their requests and to their seeking, which can be paralleled with their generosity towards their own children. Centrally in ‘c’ we learn of the impossibility of a good father refusing reasonable requests for true sustenance.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Trusting God in Prayer ( Luk 11:5-13 ) In Mat 7:7-12 Jesus teaches us to trust God in our prayers to Him. We are to be persistent and not grow weary in our Christian lives knowing that God will hear our cries and will bring us through every situation.
A Pure Heart – God does not reward those who seek Him with worldly sins in their hearts. We must come to God with genuine repentance in a pure heart. Note these words from Frances J. Roberts:
“O My people, I have called thee to repentance and confession and forgiveness and cleansing; but ye have listened to My words as though they were but slight rustlings in the tree-tops as though they were of little consequence and could be brushed aside at will. Behold, I say unto thee: Ye cannot resist My Spirit without suffering pain; and ye cannot turn a deaf ear to My words without falling thereafter into the snare of the enemy. Ye have not cried unto Me with all your hearts, buy ye have complained that I have not heard your prayers. Lo, is it not written, ‘The Lord is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him?’ And again, ‘ Then shall ye find Me, when ye seek for Me with all thy heart .’ Look no more to My hand to supply freely thy needs when ye have not humbled your hearts and cleansed your hands and come to Me with the sacrifice which I have required even a broken and a contrite heart. Ye need not listen for Me to speak to thee when your ears are heavy from listening to evil reports.” [396]
[396] Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved (Ojai, California: King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 54.
“Hold fast that which thou hast, and let no man take thy crown. Let no man hinder thee in pursuit of the reward. Let nothing stand in the way of thy complete victory. Let no weariness or discouraging thought cause thee to unloose the rope of faith, but bind it the tighter and anchor fast to My Word. For My Word can never fail, yea, and all My good promises I will surely fulfill. Have not I said, ‘He that seeketh shall find’? And have not I promised to be the rewarder of them that diligently seek Me? Not of the dilatory seeker, but of the diligent seeker. Not of him whose seeking is in reality only wishing, but of him who has grown so intent in his quest that he has become wholly absorbed to the extent that he is unmindful in hi toiling of the sweat upon his brow. To the extent that he has ceased reckoning the cost, indeed, verily, has quit offering bribes, as though the fullness of God might be purchased, and has set out on foot, deserting all else to follow the call of the Spirit untilUntil hunger is swallowed up in fullness.” [397]
[397] Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved (Ojai, California: King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 108.
Praying for Good Things – In Mat 7:7-12 Jesus teaches on prayer. He tells us to believe that when we pray God hears and answers our prayer (Mat 7:7-8). Jesus then gives an earthly illustration of a father and a son in order to explain a heavenly truth (Mat 7:9-11). It is important to note that Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father will give His children the “good” things that they have asked for. In other words, one condition to answered prayer is that we must pray for things that are good for us and not harmful to our spiritual, mental, physical, and financial wellbeing. James addresses this issue in Jas 4:3 by saying, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” In other words, we are to learn how to ask for good things and not pray amiss.
Mat 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Mat 7:7
Illustrations:
1Ki 3:5
Jer 29:13, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
Mat 7:11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Mat 7:11
Mat 7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Mat 7:12
“for this is the law and the prophets” – Comments Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments by saying we are to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we are to love our neighbour as ourselves (Mat 22:36-40). This is the essence of the entire Old Testament commandments.
Mat 22:36-40, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Scripture Reference – Note similar verses in the Scriptures about abstaining from retribution:
Lev 19:18, “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”
Rom 13:8, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”
Gal 5:14, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
An admonition to prayer:
v. 7. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
v. 8. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. The Lord’s entire sermon had dealt with the righteousness of life as expected from men by God. A great and hard lesson, demanding more strength than any man, even the most earnest Christian, possesses by nature and after conversion. But He from whom all spiritual strength must come is willing to help our infirmities, if we but approach Him with persistent supplication. Jesus piles up the verbs for the sake of emphasis; He builds up a double climax in order to teach men always to pray and not to grow faint, to be importunate in pleading, Luk 18:1; Luk 11:5-10. To the mere asking must be added an eager seeking, and this must be supplemented with a persistent knocking. Such methods cannot fail; the promises of God are too plain. God will hear, He will give. He will let us find. He will open unto us. It may not always be at just the time and in just the manner which we think best, but it will, in the end, always prove the best. Only, note the repetition: “Ask,” in all humility, but with firm confidence; “seek,” with untiring application, but also with painstaking care; “knock,” with both earnestness and perseverance. Every one, he says, shall receive if he will but come as a child to its father.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mat 7:7. Ask, &c. There is often a latent connection in the discourses of our Lord, which obviates difficulties and answers doubts that may arise from what has been said; as here, when he had taught how they who take upon them to instruct others ought to be qualified, and had cautioned them who were so qualified not to prostitute the precious truths of religion to such as were not in a condition to profit by them;a doubt might justly arise in their minds, how they should be able to discern who were proper or not proper subjects of admonition; and to answer this, he subjoins what immediately follows: Ask, and it shall be given you. When the case is dubious, and the monitor himself so far purified by grace as to have no beam in his own eye, there will be no danger of enthusiasm, if, after lifting up his heart to the Father of lights, he in simplicity does what he believes tobe the will of God. See Heylin. But, though this be the immediate connection of the words, they may be understood in a more general sense, as referring to all mankind; teaching us, that God always grants our requests, provided we ask in faith, and pray for what is agreeable to his will. See 1Jn 5:14 and compare Joh 9:31. See Calmet.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 7:7-9 . The new passage concerning prayer begins, without any trace of connection with what goes before. Comp. note on Mat 7:1 . It is otherwise in Luk 11:9 , which, however, does not affect Matthew’s originality (in answer to Holtzmann, Weiss, Weizscker), nor does it warrant the opinion that some connecting terms have been omitted. Influenced by a later tradition, Luke has given the sayings in a connection of his own, and one that, so far as can be discovered, has no claim to be preferred to that of Matthew.
, , ] Climax depicting the rising of the prayer into intense fervour, that “he may thereby urge us all the more powerfully to prayer” (Luther).
Mat 7:8 . The obvious limitation to this promise is sufficiently indicated by in Mat 7:11 (1Jn 5:14 ), just as the childlike , therefore believing , disposition of the petitioner is presupposed [426] in Mat 7:9-11 .
Mat 7:9 . ] or , if that were not the case, then, in the analogous human relation must, and so on.
. ] Dropping of the interrogative construction with which the sentence had begun, and transition to another. A similar change in Luk 11:11 . See Fritzsche, Conject . p. 34 ff.; Buttmann, neut. Gr . p. 243 f. [E. T. 284]. This irregularity is occasioned by the intervening clause, quem si filius poposcerit panem . The sentence is so constructed that it should have run thus: , ( i.e. , , see Khner, II. 2, p. 913), , (without ); but after the relative clause the construction with supersedes that at the beginning of the sentence.
. ] surely he will not give him a stone? With regard to the things compared, notice the resemblance between the piece of bread and a stone, and between a fish and a serpent; and on the other hand, the contrast with regard to the persons: , and . . .
[426] The specific determination of prayer that will certainly be heard, as prayer offered in the name of Jesus (John 14-16), was reserved for a further stage of development. Comp. on Mat 6:13 , note 1. It is not the divine relation to men in general (Baur), but to His own believing ones, that Jesus has in view. Comp. Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 67 f., Exo 2 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
III
Directions how to avoid the errors and sins of the Pharisees and scribes, and to enter upon the way which leads into the kingdom of heaven. Practical order of grace.Conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount.
Mat 7:7-29
( Mat 7:15-23 the Gospel for the 8th Sunday after Trinity.)
7Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened4 [it is opened]. 9Or what man is there of you,5 whom6 [of whom] if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which [who] is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? 12Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
13Enter ye in at [through, ] the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be [are they] which [who] go in 14thereat: Because [for]7 strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be [are they] that find it.
15Beware of false prophets, which [who] come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gathergrapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17Even so every good tree bringeth forth goodfruit; but a [the, ] corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [nor] can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom ofheaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which [who] is in heaven. 22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock8: 25And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.9 26And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which [who] built his house upon the sand5: 27And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
28And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: 29For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the [their]10 scribes.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Connection with the context.De Wette and Meyer deny the connection with the preceding section.Heubner correctly: In order to attain the Christian wisdom formerly mentioned, it is absolutely necessary to seek it by prayer.
To our mind, the transition is plain. In the former section, the awful danger of the judgment to come was set before the disciples. Weak, helpless, and conscious of their inability to escape this judgment in their own strength, or to attain the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, the encouraging call meets them, Ask, and it shall be given you, etc. Seek a refuge in the New Dispensation, since the Old is to perish amid such judgments. But the general connection is even more definite. In the Sermon on the Mount, properly so called, the Lord had described the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven; while in its application, or in the practical address which followed it, He had exposed the false righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes, both in doctrine and in life. In the passage before us, He now teaches them how to avoid the way of destruction, and to enter upon that of life. Methodology or order of succession in the kingdom of heaven: 1. What to seek, Mat 7:7-14; Matthew 2. what to avoid, Mat 7:13-23; Matthew 3. the evidence of genuine religion, as exhibited in the parable of the judgment, Mat 7:24-27.
Mat 7:7. Ask, and it shall be given you.The three terms, ask, seek, and knock, , , , indicate a gradation. Some critics, as de Wette and Meyer, hold that all the three terms refer to prayer, in accordance with the remark of Luther: By this the Lord exhorts us the more strenuously to prayer. Somewhat differently, Bengel seems to refer the terms to different acts: 1. Contra indigentiam vestram dona petite; 2. qurite qu amisistis occulta, recipientes vos ex errore; 3. pulsate, qui foris estis, ut intromittamini. [Ask for gifts to meet your needs; seek the hidden things which you have lost, and return from your error; knock ye who are without, that ye may be admitted within.] But Bengel evidently connects the idea of prayer with the second and third degree as well as with the first; and Luther meant to say that the burden and the object of our prayers were increasingly to assume a more definite shape. Tholuck: In practical application, the term is generally referred to prayer, to our endeavors, and to the investigation of the Scriptures. We regard the passage as marking a climax,the word , like in Jer 29:13-14, indicating earnest desire; and perseverance, even though an answer seemed denied. To ask, indicates the want of an object, which can only be obtained by free gift; to seek, that it has been lost; to knock, that it has been shut uphence this prayer which is both the work of life and the evidence of life.
Mat 7:8. For every one that asketh, receiveth.Such, indeed, is the invariable rule. Perseverance in prosecuting that to which we may fairly lay claim, is generally crowned with success even among men. How much more, then, if our object be the kingdom of heaven, and our efforts those of prayer! (The conditions of it appear from the context.) This applies, in the first place, to the subjective bearing of our spiritual efforts. The following verses show that it is equally true objectively, or with reference to Him from whom the blessing is sought.
Mat 7:9-10. Or what man?The word or does not mark the antithesis,If it were not so,but refers to the contrast between the objective and the subjective certitude of prayer.The sudden turn in the address is exceedingly striking: Or where is there a man of you whom his son shall ask for bread (and who shallno!),he will surely not give him a stone? The meaning is: However wicked any of you may be, if his son were to ask him for bread, surely he would not give him a stone, etc. Bread and stone, fish and serpent, however similar in outward appearance, are vastly different in reference to the nourishment they afford. There is evidently a gradation in the expressions. The most hardened parent would not meet the entreaty of his child by such cruel deception. It is noticeable that the text does not refer to the possibility of not being heard, but that it sets before us the alternative of a genuine and a deceptive answer. This indicates that, if God were not to hear our prayer, our state would not simply continue what it had been before, but that the heart would become a stone, and meat for the serpent.
Mat 7:11. Being evil.Meyer: Although, compared with God, ye are morally evil (, Euthymius Zigabenus). But this comparison with God must not be pressed. We had rather explain it: Before God, measured even according to the human standard, ye are evil. The statement undoubtedly implies the sinfulness of man, both in its universality and in its limitation by traits of humanity and kindness.11
Know how to give good giftsnot, soletis dare (Maldonatus). The reference here is not to the ability of man, in opposition to his actual performance but to the powerful and ineradicable instinct of paternal affection, which, in a certain sense, and for certain purposes, is capable of overcoming even our . If the paternal feelings of man are indestructible, how much more will the goodness of God continue for ever!A conclusion a minori ad majus. Good things; in Luk 11:13, more definitely, the Holy Spirit. The object is here left more indefinite, as opening up in measure as we seek it.
Mat 7:12. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would.Ewald maintains that this should have been inserted in Mat 5:44, before the word . The word therefore implies, indeed, a reference to the preceding context; which, however, we find in the close of the former verse, where the free mercy of God was set before the disciples. As if it were said: In prayer commit yourself with perfect confidence to the God who giveth every good and perfect gift; but on that very ground imitate Him in your conduct toward your neighbors. God answers prayer, for it is His Spirit who teaches us to pray. Do to your neighbor what is due to him: the demand which he addresses to you will be found in your own heart, in the shape of your demand upon your neighbor. Pray with unbounded confidence, and with the same measure bestow your affection upon your neighbor. You will descry in your own hearts what this measure should be. From this the connection will be evident. The sentence is the ethical counterpart to the promise: Ask, and it shall be given you, and is analogous to the addition: as we forgive our debtors, in the fifth petition of the Lords Prayer. On similar sayings among heathen philosophers, comp. Tholuck. Wetstein quotes the following from the Rabbins: Quod tibi ipsi odiosum est, proximo ne facias, nam hc est tota lex. There the rule is given negatively, but here positively; and hence in infinitely richer and deeper bearing. De Wette thinks that the injunction to love our neighbor as ourselves, implies much the same thing, viz., moral equality, and does not express the distinctive excellency of Christian morality, which is pure, disinterested love; for it refers not to the matter of our conduct, and we may possibly expect from others something that is evil, such as flattery. But it should be noticed that the statement applies, in the first instance, to the form or mode of our conduct. It is not said, Do ye even that to them, but, Do ye even so to them (). We are not to do to people whatsoever they ask from us, but we are to act toward them according to what we would expect at their hands. The measure of our demands is also to be the measure of our self-denial and devotion. Thus our own heart will tell us, by our requests upon others, what is the request, and what the claim, of our neighbor. In other words, our every demand must become a performance. But this implies the mortification of egotism; and thus, what in the first place referred to the manner, applies also to the matter, of our conduct. Viewed in this light, the statement contains an injunction of love to our neighbor, according to the measure of our love to ourselves. The peculiarly Christian element in this injunction, is the novelty of the measure which we are to apply to our love to our neighbor. None of us would ask flattery from our neighbor, knowing it to be such. What we desire from our neighbors is, that they shall be ministers of good, not of evil, angels, not devils, to us: hence our duty toward them corresponds with this our demand.For this is the law and the prophets.Mat 22:39; Rom 13:9.
Mat 7:13-14. Enter ye in through the strait gate.First the gate, and then the way (Meyer, Bengel); and not the reverse, as ascetic misunderstanding would have it,first the way, and then the gate (Calovius: the way,the life on earth; the gate,exitus vit). Similarly de Wette and Tholuck. Perhaps the mistake has arisen from mixing up this with another figurative expression: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, etc., Mat 19:24. Nor can the expression , in Mat 7:13, determine our interpretation, since the same words are afterward applied to the broad way ( ). The figure becomes even more striking, if we recall to mind the former advice, to knock. We see, as it were, two cities before us. The pilgrim must quit the one, which is the old world, over which judgment is to burst (Bunyans Pilgrimage), and enter into the other, which is the kingdom of heaven, where alone the soul can find a refuge. Again, viewing the passage in the light of the judgment, which, according to our Lords prediction, was to overtake Pharisaism, we may consider ancient Jerusalem as the city which must be forsaken. But there are two gates by which it may be left. One of these is strait,12 being the righteousness of Christ; the road is narrowthe seven beatitudes; and few are they that enter in thereat to eternal life. But there is also a wide gatethe legalism of the Pharisees, and a broad waythat of external Judaism; and many there are which hurry along this road to that awful historical destruction,the great of the Jewish nation. All this is but the outward manifestation of the eternal contrast between the children of light and the children of darkness. In this sense, the gate serves as the figure of their choice; and the way, as that of their walk and conduct. By the strait gate we understand humility, repentance, and renunciation of the world, through poverty in spirit. The wide gate is the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, or the spurious riches of a piety which is combined with the service of mammon. Similarly, the narrow way is the prosecution of those spiritual attainments described in the seven beatitudes; while the broad way indicates that corruption in doctrine and life, which, passing from one extreme to the other, renders the way so wide and ill-defined. The contrast between the goal of these two ways is exceedingly significant. In the one case, it is life; in the other, destruction,first, as matter of inward experience, then of outward fact, and, lastly, of eternal destiny (rest and unrest, deliverance and destruction, salvation and condemnation). The figurative language of this passage is closely connected with what precedes about the relation of Christians to their fellow-men. It is your duty to devote yourselves to others,not according to the measure which they demand at your hand, but according as you would have them do to you. You are not to follow the multitude on the broad way, but to seek with the few, the elect, the strait gate, in order to knock at the door of the kingdom of heaven. Such is the transition from the injunction of what we are to seek, to that of what we are to avoid.
Mat 7:15. Beware of false prophets.If it is our duty to beware of the dangerous example given us by the great crowd of those who go astray, we must be even more careful against the small but strong influence of false prophets, derived from the powers of darkness. Meyer: The are not Pharisees, nor impostors such as Judas of Galilee (Act 5:37; Joseph. De Bell. Jud. ii. 13, 4), but false Christian teachers (Mat 24:11; Mat 24:24), as appears from Mat 7:21-23. Comp. Chrysostom, Calvin, Grotius. But the admonition to beware is evidently connected with the last clause of the former verse, few are they that find it; showing that these false prophets must somehow stand related to the Pharisees.The great danger which ye shall have to encounter upon the new or narrow way, will arise from the influence of false prophets. The Lord foresaw that Pharisaism would in part merge with Christianity, when its representatives would become false prophets, or heresiarchs. It was easy to infer, that along with such Jewish forms of error, the corruptions of heathen philosophy and mythology would find their way into the Church. The main idea of the simile is the disguise of an old and evil kind under a new garb of piety. They come to you (already) in sheeps clothing. De Wette: Not literally in sheeps skins, which the old prophets wore (Grotius, Kuinoel), but in clothing such as sheep wear, i.e., gentle and meek in their outward appearance. Bengel: Vestibus ut si essent oves. The expression refers, however, not merely to their gentle and mild exterior, but also to their profession of Christianitythe garb of the lamb; while the term, inwardly ravening wolves (Act 20:29), indicates not only their malice generally, but the old enmity and opposition to Christianity, Mat 10:16.
Mat 7:16. By their fruits.This is the decisive evidence. Jerome, Calvin, Calovius, and others, refer the expression fruits to the false doctrine of these prophets; Tholuck, Meyer, and others, to their works.13 But the passage alludes not to the works of ordinary professors, but to those of false prophets. These, as Spener remarks, are schools, institutions, doctrinal principles, etc.; which, of course, are closely connected with their moral characters and conduct (comp. 1Jn 4:1). The character of the Ebionite and Gnostic heresies certainly appeared in the works of their professors, in the harsh fanaticism of the one, and the antinomianism of the other, while both exhibited the sectarianism, proselytism, and hypocrisy common to all heresies.
Mat 7:16-19. Illustration of this principle from nature. At first sight, we might have expected that the idea should be presented in the opposite form. Shall we look for thorns upon the vine, etc.? But the Lord first shows what we should seek, viz., good fruit, such as grapes and figs. Compared with such fruit, the false prophets are thorns and thistles. , or , is the general name for all kinds of thorns, of which the most common bears small black berries not unlike grapes, while the flower of the may be compared with the fig. The false prophets resemble sharp thorns, from their fanatical and harsh traditionalism; and thistles, from their proselytizing spirit, which takes hold of and clings to every part of your person and dress. Then follows the general law of nature: As the tree, such is its fruit; as the state of mind, so the outward manifestation. Nor can it be other wise. What applies to thorns and thistles, holds equally true of every kind of tree.By the good tree is evidently meant the fruit-tree. It is not so easy to determine what is meant by the . signifies, in the first place, rotten; but Meyer is wrong in applying the expression to decayed trees, which yielded only unwholesome fruit. means also what is bad or unuseable; Mat 13:48, applied to fish (de Wette). Even old wine, if acrid, may be designated as . Hence the idea here implied, seems to be that of the old and wild growth of nature, in opposition to the new and precious fruit (comp. Genesis 2 and Col 2:8. Philosophy ).The judgment denounced against false prophets in Mat 7:19, is intended to give emphasis to the admonition repeated in Mat 7:20, By their fruits ye shall know them.
Mat 7:21. Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord.De Wette: A warning against merely external worship of the Saviour, or merely external communion with Him, Mat 7:21. Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Maldonatus, and after them Tholuck, erroneously refer this to the false prophets, as if it were a further explanation of the judgment denounced upon them in Mat 7:19. Meyer regards it as an application of the preceding verses to Christian teachers. But these are only spoken of in Mat 7:22. In another point also we dissent from this critic. He considers this verse as expressing in plain and literal terms what had been figuratively conveyed in Mat 7:16. The real connection between this and the preceding verses is as follows: In Mat 7:15-20, the Lord had spoken of those who taught destructive doctrines (mark the images of wolves, thorns, and thistles); while here He refers to all (whether teachers or taught) who rest satisfied with a mere profession, without reality.Not every one, etc. The truly pious, therefore, are among the professors.
Mat 7:22. Many will say to Me.This marks another stage, being addressed to those who have done certain things in the name of Jesus, but without His Spirit. De Wette rightly observes, that it does not apply to those who spread dangerous doctrines. Meyer holds that the term prophesied points back to the false prophets of Mat 7:16. Against this, see, however, 1Co 13:2. In general, the passage is intended further to develop the idea formerly expressed.
In that day.As in Mat 11:24, and in Luk 10:12, .
, by Thy name, or through Thy name, not in Thy name (Mar 9:38),i.e., by means of Thy name.
Prophesied, .Grotius and Fritzsche understand it as prophesying; Meyer, as referring to the prophetic office of the early teachers, 1Co 12:10. But this included prophesying in the stricter sense.
We have cast out devils, etc., , etc.On the difference between this and , . . ., comp. 1 Corinthians 12. The latter passage applies more especially to miracles of healing ( ), while the casting out of devils has its analogon in the . The last clause of the verse, however, must be taken rather in a general sense than as applying to any particular manifestation. It applies to religious enthusiasm generally, whether operating on the intellect, the will, or the sympathies but of a theurgic character ( , not ), for purposes of self-exaltation, and in the spirit of boastfulness, which Luther points out by repeating, in his version, the expression, have we not, three times. But, despite their works, the true foundation is awanting,Christian love having never been called into exercise: 1 Corinthians 13; Joh 13:34-35.
Mat 7:23. And then will I profess unto them.The expression may mean, explain; although it alludes, no doubt, to their profession, as if the Judge Himself were grieved in having to explain it to those self-deluded persons. At any rate, it indicates that the hollowness of many a fair appearance will only be exposed on that day.
I never knew you.If the fruit of love does not appear, the inmost individuality of man, that which constitutes his personal character, is not brought out. For practical purposes we may explain it: I never knew you as My people.
Depart from MePsa 6:8; Mat 25:41ye that work iniquity.Not merely on account of what is awanting in them, but as having deceived themselves and others, and unwarrantably used the name of the Lord for the purpose of advancing their own honor.
Mat 7:24-27. Therefore, whosoever heareth.This is an inference from the preceding warning, presenting the most terrible form of judgmentthat which is to overtake those who feign greatness of faith, or high spiritual advancement. At the same time, it forms also a most solemn and striking conclusion to the whole Sermon on the Mount.
.The meaning of the active mood is explained by the passive reading , which is supported by many authorities. The latter evidently signifies, he shall be esteemed, or treated like. Accordingly, the active mood here must be rendered: I shall esteem, or treat, him in the judgment (Tholuck and Meyer). The circumstance, that the verb in the active mood generally signifies, to liken (Mat 11:16; Luk 13:18-21), would appear to favor the passive reading.
Upon a [the] rock.Theophylact, Jerome, Olshausen [Alford, Wordsworth], refer this to Christ; others take it in a more general sense.14 But the bearing of the whole passage implies that Christ is the spiritual Rock upon which to build the house. Here it is true more implicite than explicite.
The sand.According to Olshausen, human opinions; but more properly, according to the connection, all that which is transitorythe teaching and works of man.
The winds.Bengel: temptations; Meyer: the dolores Messi. We take it more generally, as the trials intervening between this and the judgment.
It fell not.Implying not merely life, but triumph; just as the falling involves not merely , but the shame of being rejected.15
Mat 7:28-29. Conclusion of the narrative..The verb is added to the participle by way of increasing its force. It frequently denotes duration, continuance: He was teaching.
As having authority, viz., to teach; referring not merely to human authority, nor to capacity (Fritzsche: docendi copia), nor even to Divine mission, but to the full power of the word which is at the same time the full authority of the word.
.Some codd. add. . Another reading, still less approved, adds, . Not that the scribes appeared, in comparison with Jesus, as having arrogated to themselves the office of teacher (de Wette); but as wanting the seal of the Spirit, and hence of their Divine mission and authority.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The Messianic character and claims of Christ appear repeatedly throughout the Sermon on the Mount. Not that He overstepped the landmarks of His historical progress by asserting His dignity in so many words, but that the authority of His teaching and person must have been felt by all. Even the beatitudes would show that He who uttered them was a Divine personage. In Mat 5:11, Christ calls them blessed who are persecuted for His namean expression which is explained in Mat 7:10 as equivalent to suffering for righteousness sake. His Divine authority further appears when He designates His disciples the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and still more in the declaration that He came to fulfil the law (Mat 5:17). In the course of His sermon, He claims the right both of interpreting the law, and of enjoining its obligations upon His disciples: But I say unto you. His Divine authority appears still further in the denunciation of the representatives of a spurious and carnal worship. All His admonitions imply the existence of a contrast between men, whose nature is evil, and Himself, who is the Holy One. Finally, His Messianic dignity and office are clearly brought out in the concluding part, Mat 7:21-23. The people, also, gradually seem to have been more fully impressed with the fact that He was sent from on high, and that all power and authority were committed to Him; although, as yet, the feeling may to a considerable extent have been vague and ill defined.
2. Christ conveys a twofold assurance of the safety of the way on which He would have us enter. He not only gives His own full and personal guarantee, but He illustrates and enforces what He recommends by grounds derived from life, from nature, and from experience. Among them, He adduces, 1. the success of earnest human endeavors ( Mat 7:8); 2. the affectionate care of earthly parents, although themselves evil ( Mat 7:9; comp. also Isa 49:15; Eph 3:14); 3. the moral duty implied in the ordinary demands which we make upon our neighbors ( Mat 7:12); 4. the contrast between the highway along which the multitude travels, and the narrow path on which the elect walk ( Mat 7:13); 5. the natural law, according to which the fruits correspond to the tree, and the contrast between good and bad trees ( Mat 7:16); 6. the right and proper disposition of things: the evil tree is cast into the fire ( Mat 7:19); 7. the teaching of experience, as illustrated by the house reared upon the rock, and that erected upon a foundation of sand ( Mat 7:24).
3. The following are the leading characteristics of the way of salvation: I. In reference to what we are to seek,(a) Religious aspirations: asking, seeking, knocking (the evidence of true asking is, that it is followed by seeking, just as knocking is the evidence of seeking. The expression, to seek, alludes to the hidden path between the rocks; hence it is said, Few here be that find it). (b) Moral aspirations springing from inward sincerity and earnestness. (c) Actual decision: we are to leave the city of destruction, and to enter that of salvation. This forms a transition, II. to what we are to avoid: (1) With reference to that which is without. (a) We are not to be carried away by the multitude,to avoid that which is easy, mere passiveness. (b) We are not to be led astray by false prophets. Search and try beyond the outward appearance (not as it may appear at the time, but wait for the autumn and the fruits). (2) With reference to that which is within. (a) We are to beware of a dead profession and merely nominal Christianity, which will prove equally discordant with God, with His will, and with Christian duty to our neighbor. (b) Above all, we are to beware of confounding enthusiasm or excitement with spiritual life, love to the Saviour, and fellowship with Him. III. The true test. The prospect into the future, which at the same time implies an examination into the foundation of our present state: (a) Anticipation of the storm which is to burst; (b) of the sunshine which is to follow, and to shed its light either upon a ruin, or on a fabric that has stood the tempest; (c) anticipation of the revelation of Christ as Judge, by receiving Him into our inmost hearts as the foundation of our faith and life.
4. Heresy; dead orthodoxy, or adherence to the letter; and religious fanaticism without spiritual experience: what an awful climax!
5. True prudence consists in spiritual wisdom. In building our house, we must look forward to the ultimate catastrophe and to eternity. What applies to the individual, is equally true of the community. The simile here used has received its grand fulfilment in the contrast presented between the unbelieving and the believing portion of the synagogue at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. (Comp. Romans 9-11. Leben Jesu ii. 2, 635; iii. 88.)
6. Special remarks.(1) As to prayer. The words of the Lord imply that every prayer will certainly be heard and answered. Of course, this remark only holds true of genuine prayer,which presupposes, (a) a right motive (from God); (b) a right spirit (self-surrender); (c) a corresponding expression (filialness); (d) a right object (our salvation in the glory of God, or the glory of God in our salvation). Heubner: We cannot be absolutely certain that our prayers shall be heard, unless they concern the kingdom of God or our own salvation. For temporal blessings we can only pray conditionally (which will, at any rate, be the case in every genuine prayer); nor is the promise of an answer absolute in such circumstances. Still, we are both permitted and encouraged to make known all our requests; and the more necessary the object is which we seek, the more confidently may we hope for an answer.The Lord bestows temporal gifts even without our supplication; but spiritual blessings are granted only in answer to prayer. (Comp. the passage in the Apolog. of Tertullian about prayer, as the only kind of violence allowed to Christians,Hc vis Deo grata est.)It is remarkable that, despite mans sinfulness, such love for their offspring remains in the heart of fathers and mothers. A glorious symbol this of the in finite love of our heavenly Father.(2) Rule for our conduct toward our neighbornegatively: Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto yourself. (Tobith Mat 4:15. The opinion of Salvianus on this passage, see in Heubners Com., p. 101.) With this, Kants celebrated moral principle may be compared: Act in such a manner that your conduct may be capable of being elevated into a maxim applicable to all, or a universal principle. The rule here laid down by the Lord finds an echo in every breast. But it deserves notice, that while others may have expressed it in an imperfect and negative manner, the Saviour alone disclosed it in all its richness and fulness.(3) The narrow way and the strait gate, the broad way and the wide gate. We must not overlook the historical application of this simile; nor yet its general import, as relating to penitence and impenitence, to faith and unbelief, to sanctification and destruction. Heubner: Oh! how many go on the broad way! Thus the majority of men hasten to ruin, and will ultimately be condemned. But Heubner here combines two very different statements, which are not necessarily connected. Does not grace rescue many a soul from the path of destruction even at the last hour? But apart from this, it is well to call attention to the awful prospect set before man in this passage. See the sentences of Augustine, Luther, and others, on the passage, quoted by Heubner, p. 102.Beware, etc., Mat 7:15.The three kinds of false spirits among Christians are here described with marvellous accuracy and delicacy of touch: (1) False prophets, manifestly referring to heretics; (2) false professors; (3) spurious enthusiasts. On the different explanations of fruits, see Heubner, p. 106.
As the thorns and thistles must have shown, at first sight, that the tree on which they grew was corrupt, it is evidently a mistake to refer that simile to trees which never bare fruit, or to such as are half decayed, but which, as is well known, of times yield some excellent fruit. Undoubtedly, it must apply to degenerate trees. Accordingly, the expression is significant, and indicates that our Lord acknowledged a gradual depravation of nature corresponding to the progress of moral evil in the world, of which the thorns and thistles are the symbol. (Genesis 3; Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 645.)
In the concluding simile, the contrast between a life of true faith and mere profession is set before us, just as the figure of the twofold building represents, on the one hand, the Church as the great structure reared by Christ, and, on the other, the building raised by the hierarchy.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Directions of the Lord how to seek the kingdom of heaven.Essential outlines of the way to heaven: 1. Turning to God (to ask, to seek, to knock). 2. Turning away from the world,(a) to give in love, instead of taking in selfishness; (b) to deny ourselves; (c) not to follow the multitude. We must beware of following the example of the multitude, the teaching of false prophets, the delusions of dead professors, and the deceitfulness of apparent achievements. 3. Rearing our heavenly house upon the Divine Rock.
Ask.The unconditional promise of answer in every real want, or infinite and prevening love: 1. Expressed in the Divine arrangement: askseekknock; 2. illustrated by a general principle, applicable to temporal as well as spiritual things: For every one that asketh, etc.; 3. symbolized and proved by the affection of earthly parents.Every genuine spiritual aspiration shall be satisfied; for every one that asketh, etc.The characteristics of true prayer. It Isaiah , 1. genuine asking; and becomes, 2. earnest seeking; and 3. urgent knocking.Gradual progress in seeking after the kingdom of God. The search becomes,1. increasingly definite in reference to its object (a) the gift of God; (b) spiritual treasure; (c) the door of heaven; 2. leads to an increased sense of our own poverty and ruin (want; sense of having lost; sense of standing without, of being lost); 3. increasingly urgent in its manifestations; and hence, 4. results in increasing dependence upon God (He must give, disclose, and open).The love of an earthly father a dim representation of the love of our heavenly Father: (a) From its character; (b) from the confidence in His disposition which we cherish; (c) from our experience of past benefits.The ruins of true humanity left in our sinful nature, an indication and proof of our Divine origin.Christ presupposes the corruption of man, 1. to such an extent, as to speak of it only in connection with promises of salvation; 2. so fully, as to except none; 3. so kindly, that He mentions at the same time any features of genuine humanity still left.
Therefore all things ( Mat 7:12)the law and the prophets, as included in the principle laid down by the Lord: therefore all things, etc.: 1. Proof of it; 2. inference from it.This principle, as describing the conduct of Christ Himself (Mat 5:17-18); as explaining the nature of true love, Rom 13:10; as both the gift and the requirement of His Spirit.The claims of others upon us are pled by the voice in our own hearts.Our demands the measure of our bestowing upon others.
Enter ye in.Entrance into life rendered difficult: 1. From certain peculiarities which deter: (a) The gate is strait; (b) the way is narrow; (c) difficult to find; (d) there are few companions on it. 2. By the attractions of the other road: (a) The gate is wide (the principal entrance); (b) the way broad (highway); (c) many walk on it; and do not merely walk, out intend and expect to go into the city by it ( ).Marks of the true way.Marks of the false way.We are neither to follow the multitude along the highways, nor false prophets into byeways.Beware of false prophets: 1. Why? Because they are false prophets, (a) in sheeps clothing
Very deceptive; (b) inwardly, ravening wolves
Very destructive. 2. By what marks shall we know them? (a) By their fruits. From prophets we expect good fruit, such as figs and grapes; but these yield only the fruits of the wildernessthorns and thistles. (b) From the judgment which quickly overtakes them.False comfort flowing from trust in a dead profession.Dead profession is not rendered better by our surrendering the Christian name, but by a spiritual renewal.Who shall enter into the kingdom of heaven? 1. He only who confesses the Lord; 2. not every one who outwardly confesses Him; 3. he who proves the truth of his profession by a holy obedience.Life in Christ, the will of the Father concerning us.It is one thing to do many works by the name of Christ, and another to do them in the name of Christ.Even enthusiasm and outward success are not sufficient evidence of our discipleship.Spurious enthusiasm generally betrays itself by its boastfulness.Many who appear great in Church and State, will in that day be deprived of their assumed character, and of their claims to respect.The threefold judgment upon false prophets, dead professors, and zealots and selfish enthusiastsThe judgment implied in the words, I never know you. This means: 1. Ye have never known Me 2. never known yourselves; 3. and therefore cannot be known of Me.To know, to love, and to praise, go hand in hand.
The house built upon the rock, and that reared upon the sand.The rock and the sand; or the Eternal Word in its compactness and firmness, and the world, resembling particles of sand, without cohesion.Every spiritual structure shall be tried. 1. The truth of this statement: (a) As proved by experience; (b) even the kingdom of God, or the inner life, has its tempests. 2. Inferences: (a) Many a false building has already been swept away; (b) how careful should we be in rearing our own structure!The word of Christ a word of power: 1. Of real power (of truth, of love, of life, of the Spirit); 2. of perfect power (of full authority and omnipotence).The teaching of the scribes and the teaching of Christ. The former powerless, despite their appearance of power, authority, science, and enthusiasm; the latter all powerful, in the midst of deepest outward poverty and contempt.
Starke:Ask: Psa 50:15; Isa 55:6; Psa 21:2-3; Zec 10:1; Jam 1:5. Seek: Jer 29:13-14; Luk 15:5-9. Knock: Luk 13:24; Act 12:13-16; Rev 3:20; Gen 32:26-29.Augustine: Ideo non vult cito dare, ut tu discas ardentius orare.He who would show others the way, must himself seek everything from God in prayer: 2Co 3:5-6; Act 10:9.True prayer is converse with God. Psa 19:14.Quesnel: O Lord, we ofttimes ask for the stone of temporal possessions, which would make our heart a stone; but, instead of it, Thou hast given us the bread of Thy grace, of Thy word, and of Thy Son: Pro 30:7.Foolish children that we are, how often do we regard as a stone what is better for soul and body than the finest bread, and as the poison of serpents, what proves the most blessed medicine for our hearts! Pro 20:24.Every earthly parent may help to remind us of the love and faithfulness of God toward His own: Isa 63:7; Isa 49:15.Even if it were possible that all earthly parents should forget their duty, yet will God prove a Father: Isa 49:15.The affection of parents toward their children, a symbol of the hearing of prayer.Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would. En speculum paratissimum, justiti breviarium, compendiosum commonitorium. Jerome.Each one of us carries in his breast an adviser, judge, and monitor of his conduct toward his neighbor: Psa 15:3; Mat 22:39; Eph 4:25 : 1Ti 1:5; Gal 5:14; Rom 13:10.Here you have the test of what you owe to your neighborsthe spring of equity and the bond of mutual forbearance.Selfishness will always find a ready excuse: 1Co 4:7; Luk 18:11.Enter ye in at the strait gate. There are only two roads which lead to eternity,that of the world and of the flesh, which leads to hell and condemnation; and that of the Spirit, which leads to heaven and eternal life. Therefore be sure which of these two thou hast chosen.Strive to enter in at the strait gate: Luk 13:24; Php 2:12.Christians are pilgrims: Psa 39:12; Heb 11:13.In its folly, the world hastens along the broad way to hell, to the sound of music and revelry.The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed: 2Co 4:17; Rom 8:18.Luther:It is not the Lord Jesus who makes the road to heaven so strait and narrow, but rather the devil, the world, and our own flesh: Mat 19:21-22; Pro 26:13.Why is it that so few find the way to heaven? Because of their negligence in seeking, their sloth in striving, their daring in resisting God, and their malice in sinning. Hence their condemnation rests upon their own heads: 2Pe 1:8; Act 14:16; Joh 8:12; Act 14:22; Rev 7:14.Let us not be offended at the small number of believers, Isa 1:8; Zep 3:12; nor at their many afflictions; but comfort ourselves in view of their blessed end, Zep 3:17; Rev 3:20.BewarePhp 3:18; 1Jn 4:1of false prophets, Jer 14:14; Jer 23:26; Mic 3:5-12; Zep 3:4; 2Pe 2:1; Rev 16:13.Sheeps clothing, Joh 10:5; 2Co 11:13-15; Jer 23:21.Ravening wolves, Joh 10:8-12; Act 20:29; 2Ti 2:17-18; Eze 21:29; Mat 10:16; 2Co 11:13-14.Qunam sunt ist pelles ovium, nisi nominis Christiani extrinsecus facies? (Tertullian.)Hretici sunt habitu oves, astu vulpes, actu et crudelitate lupi. (Bernhard.)Trust not every spirit, nor every talker or seducer.To speak like an angel, to pamper the flesh, to gain the simple by outward devotion, by authority, by age, by tears or groans, to give ones body to be burned, to do miracles,are not the signs of a true prophet: the worst deceivers have exhibited all these, Mat 24:4-11; 2Th 2:9-10.Sound doctrine and the fruits of sanctification the evidence of a true prophet: 2Ti 4:3-4; Eze 13:18; Jer 23:25-26; Jer 23:32; Hos 12:1.Majus:Every Christian should try the spirits, and recognize the truth: Act 17:11, the men of Berea.All who lead us astray from the narrow way are false teachers, Jer 5:31; Hos 11:1-2.Let no one imagine that there is any Church entirely free from heretics, sectarians, or false teachers.By their fruits. Luther:As if He would say,The appearance of false prophets may be fair, as if it were a precious thing; but wait a while, until it is time to gather and to collect the fruits, and see what you will then find upon them.Behold the goodness and the severity of God in the fruits of the earth. By reason of sin it bears thorns and thistles, but it also brings grapes and figs.False teachers are like thorns and thistles. Their teaching affords no consolation, and only wounds the heart and conscience. Son 5:7.The marks of false teachers appear in the way they administer their office, in their doctrine, life, and conversation, in their motives, and in the conduct of their disciples, Joh 15:20. Zeisius.The hireling and the false prophet.It is the duty of Christians to prove all things, and to hold fast the word of God, 1Th 5:21; Exo 18:15.Quesnel: Love, or rather faith, is the root of the good tree. So long as this root remains healthy, the tree will not yield the corrupt fruit of sin; but if it is awanting, you will in vain look for the fruits of righteousness, 1Ti 1:5.Majus: A wicked person may be transformed into a righteous; but, so long as he remains wicked, he cannot do anything that is good, Mat 12:34; Phm 1:11-12.Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit. Joh 15:2-6; 2Ti 3:9; Isa 8:20; Rev 19:20; Gal 5:12; Mat 13:30; Psa 109:2.Not every one who saith. 1Jn 5:12; 1Th 4:3; 1Pe 1:15; Mat 5:19; Joh 4:23; Rom 2:13; Jam 1:22; Joh 3:16-36.Quesnel: To call God our Lord, and yet not to honor Him by our works, is to condemn ourselves, 2Co 5:15; Luk 10:28.Much knowledge, without corresponding practice, entails the heavier judgment; do what thou knowest. Hedinger. Joh 15:14.False Christianity makes its boast in words, in knowledge, and appearancech. Mat 23:27; 2Ti 3:5,but true religion consists in deed, and is spirit and life. The former may be likened to a painted figure; the latter, to a living man, Mat 5:16.Many will say to Me in that day. Mat 24:36; 1Co 13:1-2; Php 1:15; Act 19:13; 2Co 11:13; 2Th 2:9; Rev 13:13.So deeply rooted is false conceit in our minds, that even in the day of judgment men will not be able to comprehend how they incurred condemnation, Mat 25:44.Quesnel: How many preachers are there, who in the pulpit seem to be prophets; and how many ministers whose success is admired, but who, in the sight of God, are nothing, because they neglect His will! Luk 13:26.Then will I profess unto them,openly on that day. Joh 10:14; 2Ti 2:19; 1Co 8:3; Mat 25:12; Joh 10:27; Psa 1:6.Dei agnoscere servare est; Dei agnoscere custodire est; non agnoscere damnare est. Augustine.The grace of God saves a soul, and not gifts.Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, etc. Joh 3:17.The Rock is Christ, Mat 16:18; 1Co 3:11; 1Co 10:4; Jer 17:7; Psa 118:22; Isa 28:16; Act 4:11-12; Rom 9:33; 1Pe 2:5-7.To build on Him, is to believe on Him.At the close of a sermon, we should admonish our hearers to obedience and earnest application of the word.Quesnel: To employ ourselves in this building, is to be truly wise, Isa 58:11-12.The wisdom of the just appears in their showing their faith by their works.And the rain descended. Psa 124:5; Psa 18:5; Rev 12:15; Jer 51:1; Eph 4:14; Psa 46:6; Isa 25:4; Isa 32:2; Rom 8:35.Quesnel:By the practice of piety do we make our calling and election sure, 2Pe 1:10; 1Ti 4:7-8.Cramer: True Christians are exposed to many a tempest and storm, but we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.Perseverance to the end the crowning manifestation of faithful allegiance to Christ, 2Ti 4:7-8; Rev 2:10.And doeth them not. Jam 1:22-24.Majus: Hypocrisy bears to the world the aspect of a great building, but it has no foundation, and will fall, Luk 18:11-14.And the rain descended; i. e., adversity and strong temptations befell him, Psa 32:6; Pro 16:4. Under such trials a merely external Christianity speedily fails.This refers to the final judgment, when body and soul shall be destroyed in hell, Gen 7:21; Exo 14:27-28; Job 8:14; Psa 1:5; Psa 34:22; Psa 73:19.Quesnel: That fall cannot be repaired again.
Heubner:Ask grace and the forgiveness of sin. Seek, earnestly aim after, perfection. Knock at the door of heaven, and it shall be opened.Whatever is needful for our salvation shall be granted in answer to our prayers.Ask in a childlike spirit for what you may stand in as absolute need of, as of bread, and God will give it you.Therefore, all things whatsoever, etc. In your dealings, put yourself mentally in the place of your neighbor.The strait gate: true repentance.Strait refers to the anxiety of the heart in the matter.The wide gate: impenitence.Appearances deceive.Beware of mere appearance.Neither good works alone, nor sound doctrine alone, constitutes good fruits; the latter are the results of both life and doctrine.A good tree is that which has been ennobled, and refers to a regenerate man; a corrupt tree is that which has degenerated, and means the unrenewed or natural man.The culture of grace alone can ennoble a man.A corrupt tree has no place in the garden of God.Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord.The most splendid talents are oftentimes combined with a wicked heart; the most splendid deeds are ofttimes of dubious value. A man may be the most enthusiastic speaker, the opponent of every injustice and wrong, and the bold champion of all that is good and noble,yet all from selfishness and unworthy ambition.Each sin renders a man more untrue to himself.The future judgment will consist in the manifestation of the secrets of our hearts. Then the game is up, and it will be said: Off with the masks. This applies especially to unworthy ministers.
The pericope, Mat 7:15-23.Warning of the Lord against byeways which lead to destruction: 1. Warning against being led astray by othersby false prophets, i. e., either by false teachers, or by any who would seduce us from the truth; 2. against being led astray by our own hearts, by hypocrisy, and mere profession.Fourfold form of the call of the Lord: (a) As a Divine call; (b) as the utterance of Divine truth; (c) as that of the pure and holy heart; (d) as that of His love and concern for the souls of men.
The pericope, Mat 7:15-23. Erdmann:Concerning the true import of human works.Drseke: The desire to appear good: 1. Its nature; 2. its origin; 3. its moral character; 4. its unavoidable dangers.Reinhard:On the only certain mark of a state pleasing to God. It consists not, 1. in outward decency; nor, 2. in a public profession of the Gospel; nor, 3. in personal attachment to Jesus (?); nor, 4. in extraordinary works (?); but, 5. in faith in Jesus, and in an endeavor to attain holiness by that faith,our aim being directed toward the reality, rather than the outward form.Marheineks:How do we prove ourselves to be true professors of Christ? 1. Not by outward appearances merely, but by the power and life of faith; 2. by works of love; 3. by joy, peace, and hope. Nitzsch:The true value of good works (Selections of Sermons i., p. 12). Zimmermann:The tree an image of man (root, stem, marrow, branches, leaves, blossoms, fruit). Fr. Krummacher:Who enters into the kingdom of heaven (Voices of the Church, Langenberg, 1852, p. 49). Sermons on Mat 7:15, by Rautenberg, Souchon, Ahlfeld. Hpfner:Four things necessary to constitute a Christian: 1. Faith makes a Christian; 2. life proves a Christian; 3. trials confirm a Christian; 4. death crowns a Christian.
ADDENDA
BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR
The Sinaitic Manuscript of the Bible, which Professor Tischendorf rescued from the obscurity of the Convent of St Catharine on Mount Sinai, and carefully edited in two editions in 1862 and 1863,* two years after the issue of the third edition of Dr. Langes Commentary on Matthew, has been carefully compared in preparing the American edition of this work from Chapter 8 to the close of the Gospel of Matthew. I thought I was the first to do so, but just before I finished the last pages of this volume, I found that Bumlein, in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John,** and Meyer, in the fifth edition of his Commentary on Matthew, both of which appeared in 1864, had preceded me, at least in print. No critical scholar can ignore this manuscript hereafter. For it is the only complete, and perhaps the oldest of all the uncial codices of the Bible, or at least of the same age and authority as the celebrated Vatican Codex (which is traced by some to the middle of the fourth century), and far better edited by the German Protestant Professor, Tischendorf, than the latter was by the Italian Cardinal, Angelo Mai. In the absence of a simpler mark agreed upon by critics (the proposed designation by the Hebrew has not yet been adopted, and is justly objected to by Tregelles and others on the ground of typographical inconvenience), I introduce it always as Cod. Sin., and I find that Dr. Meyer in the fifth edition does the same. As I could not procure a copy of the printed edition of this Codex till I had finished the first seven chapters, I now complete the critical part of the work by adding its more important readings in the first seven chapters where they differ from the textus receptus, on which the authorized English, as well as all the older Protestant Versions of the Greek Testament are substantially based.
*Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum, sive Novum Testamentum cum Epistola Barnab et Fragmentis Pastoris (Herm). Ex Codice Sinaitico auspiciis Alexandri II., omnium Russiarum imperatoris, ex tenebris protracto orbique litterarum tradito accurate descripsit notheus Friderious Constantinus Tischendorf, theol. et phil. Dr., etc. etc. Lipsi, 1863. The text is arranged in four columns and covers 148 folios; the learned Prolegomena of the editor 81 folios. There is besides a magnificent photo-lithographed fac-simile edition of the whole Sinaitic Bible, published at the expense of the Emperor of Russia, in 4 volumes (3 for the Old and 1 for the New Testament, the latter in 148 folios), under the title: Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus. Auspiciis augustissimis imperatoris Alexandri II. ed. Const. Tischendorf. Petropoli, 1862. A copy of this rare edition I have also consulted occasionally, in the Astor Library of New York. For fuller information on this important Codex (in the words of Tischendorf: omnium codicum uncialium solus integer omniumque antiquissimus), we must refer the reader to the ample Prolegomena of Tischendorf, also to an article of Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschrift fr wissenschaftliche Theologie, vol. vii. (1864), p. 74 ff. (who is disposed to assign it to a somewhat later age), and to Scriveners treatise, which I have not seen.
**Hengstenberg, in his Commentary on John, concluded in 1863, pays no attention whatever to this Codex, and is very defective in a critical point of view
Mat 7:12.Cod. Sin. (also B., Z.): (have forgiven) against the lect. rec.: , and the reading of D., E., L., etc.: , which may have been taken from Luk 11:4. Lachm., Tischend., Alford, and Meyer, favor .
Mat 7:13.Cod. Sin. omits the doxology and the amen in the Lords Prayer, with other ancient witnesses and all the modern critical editors, German and English, except Matthaei, whose exclusive adherence to his own Moscow manuscripts gives his edition the character of partiality. It is generally regarded as an insertion from the ecclesiastical liturgies in the fourth century. On the other hand, it is strongly defended as genuine, not only by Stier, as mentioned on p. 122, but also by Scrivener (A Supplement to the authorized English Version of the N. T., vol. i. 1845, p. 155 ff.). Alfords testimony against it, as quoted on p. 122, is certainly too strong. The importance of the case will justify us in adding here the principal arguments on both sides of the question. It must be admitted that the weight (though by no means the number) of critical testimony is rather against the doxology. Four of the most ancient uncial MSS., Cod. Sin. (4th cent.), Vaticanus (B., 4th cent.), Cantabrigiensis, or Codex Bez (D., 5th or 6th cent.), Dublinensis rescriptus (Z., of the 6th cent., containing, of the N. T., the Gospel of Matthew with many lacun), and five cursive MSS. (1, 17, 118, 130, 209, of much later date), moreover the ancient Latin versions, and most of the early fathers, especially the Latin ones, including Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian, who wrote practical commentaries on the Lords Prayer, omit the doxology. The other uncial MSS. are here defective, and cannot be quoted for or against. Cod. Alexandrinus (A., 5th cent.) is mutilated from Mat 1:1 to Mat 25:6 (its first leaf commencing: ), and Cod. Ephraemi Syri (C., 5th cent.) omits Mat 5:16 to Mat 7:4 (according to Tischendorfs edition, which is, however, unfortunately not in fac-simile). Its omission from the text is, moreover, much more difficult to account for than its insertion from the ancient liturgies. But on the other hand, the doxology is already found in the venerable Peschito (of the second century), and the two younger syriac Versions (Philoxeniana and Hierosolymitana), in the Sahidic or Thebaic Egyptian Version (which ranks next to the Peschito on the score of antiquity), the thiopie, Armenian, Gothic and Gregorian Versions, in the Apostolical Constitutions, Chrysostom, as well as in nearly all the five hundred or more cursive man uscripts in which the sixth chapter of Matthew is preserved. As to internal reasons, it can hardly be urged that the doxology interrupts the context or the logical connection between vers.12 and 14 (Scholz, Meyer, Alford), for this argument would require us to cancel the whole of Mat 6:13 (Scrivener). No one can doubt the eminent propriety of this solemn conclusion which we are accustomed to regard from infancy as an integral part of the prayer of prayers, and which we would now never think of sacrificing to critical considerations in our popular Bibles and public and private devotions. Probably it was the prevailing custom of the Christians in the East from the beginning to pray the Lords Prayer with the doxology, comp. 2Ti 4:18. Chrysostom comments on it without the least consciousness that its authenticity is doubtful.
In the seventh chapter Cod. Sin. offers no important deviations from the received text.
Mat 7:2.Cod. Sin. sustains with the best ancient authorities , shall be measured, which is now adopt ed by the editors of the Greek text (even Stier and Theile, and Words, worth, who adhere closely to the Elzevir text), against the lect. rec. , shall be measured again, or in turn (from Luk 6:38).
Cod. Sin.
Text. Pec.
Mat 7:4. ()
.
Mat 7:13.
.
Mat 7:14. *
Mat 7:14.
.(so B)
Mat 7:21.
(so also B.).
Mat 7:24.
.
Mat 7:27.
.
Mat 7:28.
.
Mat 7:29.
.
*But it is not certain whether or was the original reading. Tischendorf remarks, Proleg. xliii. ad membranam iv. exteriorem: : o litter punctum impositum; nescio an ante Cg. jam B imposuerit; obelum vero solus Cg. addidit. , for strait, Is the reading of the text. rec. and retained by Tischendorf and Alford, but it may easily have arisen from , Mat 7:13. Lachmann, Meyer, and Scrivener prefer , how strait (Vulgata: quam angusta), which has the balance of external evidence in its favor
Footnotes:
[4] Mat 7:8.[It shall be opened according to the text rec.: . But some of the oldest authorities, among which is the Vatican Cod. B. (see the ed. of Angelo Mai, and Buttmann), also Lachmann, Tregelles, and Conant, read , it is opened, which seems to correspond better to the preceding receiveth, and findeth. Dr. Conants remark is not without force: The beautiful antithesis, made by the future and present tenses in Mat 7:7-8, is marred at the close by the return to the future, in the faulty form of the Received Text, and in the Versions that follow it. In Mat 7:7 the imperative is properly followed by the future tense, because the compliance and its reward are both in the future time; but in Mat 7:8. the present (he that asketh) is properly followed by the same (receiveth), and so of the other two clauses. The propriety and point of expression, which are so striking a characteristic of our Lords manner in all His discourses, should not be lost or marred in the version of them. Tischendorf, Alford, Wordsworth, and Lange in his G. version, adhere to the Received Text. Meyer, otherwise so accurate in all that pertains to verbal exegesis, and Lange take no notice of this difference.P. S.]
[5] Mat 7:9.[Tregelles edits: , omitting , on the authority of Cod. Vaticanus as compared by Birch. But both Angelo Mai and Buttmann in their editions of the Vatican Codex give . The discrepancy is solved by the fact that the marginal reading, but not a correctore, as Birch supposed, but a prima manu as Verceilone in the second ed. of the published text, and Buttmann explain.P. S.]
[6] Mat 7:9. in Codd. B. C., etc. The Recepta adds , if. [Dr. Conant: Of whom; for whom, which is un grammatical. The construction of the sentence is not, indeed, rhetorically exact; but it belongs to that graceful negligence of art and rule, which is the peculiar charm of the colloquial style, and is no less so in English than in Greek.P. S.]
[7] Mat 7:14. [for]. This could easily be changed into [how strait], which is supported by many authorities and adopted by Griesbach, Lachmann, Scholz.
[8] Mat 7:24[It would be better here and in Mat 7:25-26 to leave out the art. in Engl. and to translate upon rock and upon sand, instead of a rock (which might mean some particular rock), and the sand. The Greek has both cases the definite art. ( and ), which here designates classes of substances. Some commentators refer the rock to Christ, as Cornel. Lapide: Mystice petra est Christus; unde Glossa Ille dificat in Christo qui quod audit ab illo facit. So also Alford and Wordsworth. In this case we ought to translate upon the rock, and upon sand.P. S.]
[9] Mat 7:29.[The word one is inserted by the E. V. and rather weakens the force of the expression . Lange translates: wie im Besitz der Macht.P. S.]
[10] Mat 7:29.[The critical editions read , and Lange translates accordingly. Some add: .P. S.]
[11][Not: in its inseparable connection with human nature, as the Edinb. trsl. misunderstands the original: Bedingtheit durch die Zge der Humanitt, der Menschlichkeit.P. S.]
[12][Chrysostom: , , strait is the gate, but not the heavenly city to which it leads.P. S.]
[13][Alford: The are both their corrupt doctrines and their vicious practices, as contrasted with the outward shows of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, their sheeps clothing to deceive. Wordsworth: From the fruits of their teaching; not from their acts alone, because acts seemingly virtuous are often nothing more than the sheeps clothing in which the wolf wraps himself in order that he may deceive and devour the sheep. Whedon: Their fruitstheir own actions and the moral tendency of their doctrines. D. Brown: Not their doctrines for that corresponds to the tree itself; but the practical effect of their teaching, which is the proper fruit of the tree.P. S.]
[14][D. Brown: the rock of true discipleship, or genuine subjection to Christ.]
[15][D. Brown: How lively must this imagery have been to an audience accustomed to the fierceness of an Eastern tempest, and the suddenness and completeness with which it sweeps everything unsteady before it! Chrysostom: The rain descended, etc. A prophecy verified in the primitive church, bearing all the brunt of the waves and storms of the world, of people, of tyrants, of friends, of strangers, of the devil himself persecuting her, and venting all the hurricane of his rage upon her. She stood firm, because she was built upon a rock. So far from being injured, she was made more glorious by the assault.P. S.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 1328
THE IMPORTANCE AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER
Mat 7:7-8. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
WE need not look for a connexion in every part of our Lords Sermon on the Mount; because the account of it which we have in this Gospel is nothing more than an epitome, in which only the principal heads, together with some important sayings, are recorded. But, if we suppose the words of our text to arise from what has just preceded them, the connexion may easily be found. The commands, to abstain from all uncharitable judgment, and to be intent rather on searching out and removing our own imperfections, and even when the faults of our neighbour are most glaring, to exercise much prudence and caution in reproving him; these commands, I say, are difficult to be obeyed: and therefore our Lord encourages us by the consideration, that we may obtain by prayer whatever wisdom or strength we may stand in need of. The import of the text, however, will be the same, whether we take it as detached from the preceding context, or as connected with it; and it will naturally lead us to set before you the nature, the importance, and the efficacy of prayer.
I.
Its nature
Prayer is not indeed defined in the words before us; but we may collect from the different terms by which it is designated, what are its inseparable attendants and its characteristic marks;
1.
Earnest desires
[The words, ask, seek, knock, must certainly imply a solicitude to obtain some specific object. Now this is the very life and essence of prayer. It is not the posture of the body, or a repeating of any words, either with or without a form, that can be called prayer; but a prostration of the soul before God, accompanied with an ardent desire of acceptance with him. We may confess our vileness in the most humiliating terms, or petition for mercy with the most suitable pleas, or render thanks to God in copious and devout acknowledgments; and yet, if our hearts have not felt what our lips have uttered, we have offered no acceptable service to God; we have worshipped him in vain, because we have drawn nigh to him with our lips when our hearts were far from him. Desires in the soul will be accounted as prayer, though not expressed in words [Note: Isa 26:8-9. Psa 38:9. Rom 8:26.]; but words without desires are no better than a solemn mockery.]
2.
Persevering endeavours
[A mere exclamation under an impression of terror cannot be considered as prayer; prayer imports such a desire after divine blessings as engages us in the pursuit of them from day to day; and this also is intimated in the very terms of our text. Asking only is not prayer, unless we seek also for the things in Gods appointed way; nor is seeking sufficient, if we do not, like persons anxious to obtain an answer, continue knocking at the door of mercy. We do not indeed deny but that a prayer may be offered by one who speedily turns back again from God; but it is not accepted; and it is of acceptable prayer that we speak; for nothing else deserves the name of prayer. Whatever therefore a person may do on some particular occasion, he prays not to any good purpose, unless he set his face determinately to seek after God, and to obtain from him those daily supplies of mercy and grace which his soul needeth. Hence the command of God is, Pray without ceasing; Continue instant in prayer; Pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance [Note: Eph 6:18.]]
3.
Humble expectation
[Here again the terms of our text afford us a correct idea of the duty of prayer. It is evident that when a person asks, it is with some hope of receiving; and when he seeks, he has some prospect of finding; and if he knock at a door, it is with some expectation that it shall be opened to him. Now this, beyond every thing else, marks the true character of prayer. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, says the Psalmist, and will look up [Note: Psa 5:3.]; that is, I will look up in expectation of receiving an answer to my prayers. It is to the prayer of faith that the promise of an answer is given: Whatsoever ye shall ask, believing, ye shall receive. Prayer destitute of this qualification is declared to be of no avail whatever: the man that offers it must not think of receiving any thing from the Lord [Note: Jam 1:5-7.]. Hence the true and acceptable suppliant is distinguished as looking unto God as a servant does to the hand of his master [Note: Psa 123:2.], and as waiting upon God for his salvation [Note: Psa 130:5-6.].]
The nature of prayer being explained from the text, we proceed to notice,
II.
Its importance
[We cannot but observe throughout the whole text the inseparable connexion between the means and the end. It is thought by many that it is unnecessary to pray; because God, being omniscient, stands in no need of information from us; and being of his own nature inclined to mercy, he needs not our importunity to prevail upon him. But these objections betray an utter ignorance of the intent of prayer. Prayer is not intended to give information to God, but to impress our own minds with a sense of our dependence upon him, and to give him glory as the only fountain of all our benefits. Moreover, prayer, though often represented as prevailing with God, is not designed to dispose him to any thing to which he was before averse; but only to bring our souls to such a state as may prepare us for a worthy reception of those blessings which God has previously determined to bestow. Though, therefore, prayer does not answer, nor is intended to answer, the ends which ignorant persons are ready to suppose, it does answer the most valuable ends; which are intimately connected with the salvation of our souls.
But we will suppose that there were no connexion whatever between the means and the end; still, if God has united them, it does not become us to put them asunder; nor can we ever expect the Divine blessing, if we attempt to separate them. Moses was commanded to take his stick, or rod, and with that to work miracles in Egypt. What would he have wrought, if, in contempt of such means, he had left his rod behind him? The Israelites were commanded to march round Jericho on seven successive days, and then to blow with rams horns. Suppose they had disregarded these means on account of their inadequacy to produce any important result, would the walls of Jericho have fallen down? Or if Naaman had persisted in preferring the waters of Abana and Pharpar to those of Jordan, would he have been healed of his leprosy? Thus then, whether prayer have any proper effect or not, we must use it as Gods ordinance; and if we will not use it, we shall infallibly lose those blessings, which, in the use of the appointed means, we might otherwise attain. True, it is said of the Gentiles, that God was found of them that sought him not; but this refers only to their heathen state: for none ever ultimately found him, who did not walk with him in the daily exercise of faith and prayer: nor can there be found in all the sacred volume one single word that justifies a hope of obtaining any thing at Gods hands in the neglect of this sacred duty [Note: Jam 4:2.].]
On the contrary, when prayer is offered aright, the whole inspired volume attests,
III.
Its efficacy
[Nothing can be more express than the declarations of our text on this subject. The repetition of them is intended to assure us that no man shall ever seek Gods face in vain. It is of importance to observe, that in the promises before us there is no limitation whatever, either as to the person asking or the blessing desired. A person may have been as wicked as Manasseh himself, yet shall he not be cast out, provided he come to God with unfeigned penitence in the name of Jesus Christ. It must be remembered, that, since the coming of Christ, it is indispensably necessary that we should offer all our petitions in his name. This, in fact, was done even under the Jewish dispensation: for every penitent was obliged to put his hand upon the head of his sacrifice; and, when the Jews were in captivity, and consequently were unable to offer sacrifices, they must look towards the temple; which was a distinguished type of Christ, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Let but our prayers be offered in an humble dependence on the sacrifice and intercession of Jesus Christ, and they shall assuredly prevail. God may not indeed answer us immediately; and, it may be, that he may not grant the precise thing which we pray for; but he will answer in the best time, and in the best manner, granting that which eventually will be most conducive to his own glory and to our good. David and the Canaanitish woman were suffered to wait for the blessings they desired [Note: Psa 40:1-3; Psa 69:3. Mat 15:22-27.]; and St. Paul, yea, and Christ himself too, were answered, not so much according to the letter, as according to the spirit, of their petitions [Note: 2Co 12:7-9. Heb 5:7.]. But if we tarry the Lords leisure, we may be as confident of an answer to our prayers, as of our own existence [Note: 1Jn 5:14-15.].]
In this subject we may find abundant matter,
1.
For reproof
[How many have never gone beyond the mere forms of prayer; and remain unmoved even when their self-deceit and hypocrisy are thus plainly set before them! How astonishing is this! Methinks, if God had appointed only one hour in a mans life, wherein he should be at liberty to avail himself of the gracious promises in the text, one would suppose that the whole universe should not be able to divert his attention from this sacred duty: he would long for the appointed season to arrive; he would meditate beforehand on every thing which he could desire to obtain; and he would employ every moment of the prescribed time in most importunate supplications. So, I say, we might suppose; but experience proves, that, notwithstanding there is not an hour in our whole lives wherein we may not avail ourselves of this privilege, the generality have never found one single hour for that holy employment. But would it be thus if God were for one hour to allow this privilege to those who are shut up in hell? If the doors of hell might be opened for their escape, would they neglect to knock? If all the blessings of grace and glory might be obtained by them, would they neglect to ask? O then, let us seek the Lord whilst he is near; let us call upon him, whilst he may be found. Think what a bitter reflection it will be in the eternal world, that we might have escaped the miseries of hell, and obtained the glory of heaven, by the exercise of humble and believing prayer, and we would not: we did not regard either the one or the other, as worth asking for. O that we may now be convinced of our folly, and not be left to bewail it to all eternity!]
2.
For encouragement
[If God had bidden us do some great thing to obtain his favour, we should have been ready to do it. The poor benighted heathen, what pains and penances do not they undergo to obtain the favour of their gods! Yet no such things are required of us: we have nothing to do, but to ask, and seek, and knock. Surely we should rejoice in so great a privilege, and determine to take the kingdom of heaven by the holy violence of faith and prayer.
But some are discouraged, because they cannot pray with any fluency or enlargement of heart. Let not this however distress the minds of any. It is humility, and not fluency, that makes our prayers acceptable: and many a person who can only seek the Lord with sighs, and groans, and tears, will find acceptance with him, whilst others, who are admired by men, or filled with self-complacency, will be rejected. Never, from the foundation of the world, was there a better prayer than that of the publican, God be merciful to me a sinner!
But some are discouraged because they have prayed long without receiving any answer to their prayers. Let not, however, any despond on this account. God may have answered them, though not precisely in the way that they expected: and the very continuance of their prayers is an evidence that they have not prayed in vain. It is evident at least that God has given them his Holy Spirit, as a Spirit of grace and of supplication; and this is a pledge and earnest of other blessings which they stand in need of. Let them tarry the Lords leisure, and he will comfort their hearts; let them wait, I say, upon the Lord [Note: See Isa 40:30-31. exemplified by Luk 11:1-4; Luk 18:1-7.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 25
The Conditions of Prayer The Text and the Context the Filial Relation to God Much Given Without Prayer—-the Blossom and Fruit of History
Prayer
Almighty God, do thou send a plentiful rain upon thine inheritance, and make this people rejoice with great joy. Do thou nourish us and comfort us with the bread of heaven, and with all the tender solaces of thine heart. Our life is in thine hand and not in our own, our days thou dost number, and our appointments thou dost make, yea, the day of our birth and the day of our death are both set down in the book which is open before thee. Thou hast assured us of thy presence, if we cry for it mightily through Jesus Christ our Priest and Saviour; for thy presence we do now cry, yea, our whole heart gathers itself up into one vehement desire that we might know where to find thee, that we might come into thy presence, that thou mightest dwell with us, and abide with us, and bear dominion over our whole life. This is our prayer, and to it thou hast but one answer: thy reply is an answer of love, thou wilt not deny the request of the heart that begs thy presence, through all the wondrous ministry of the Cross.
Thou hast kept us and not we ourselves; thou hast lighted our lamp, and the strong wind has not blown it out; thou hast established us in sureness, and behold the storm has vanished and we are still alive. It is because the good hand of the Lord our God is upon us that we are continued unto this day with root unshaken and branch unbroken, and with all the spring light pouring its tender blessing upon us, every beam a prophecy and every ray a blessing. We are in thine house now to eat and to drink according to the abundance of thine own welcome; we bring our hunger and our thirst where they can alone be satisfied. In our Father’s house there is bread enough and to spare, and as for the river of God it is full of water, and if a man drink thereof he shall thirst no more. Whilst we are in thine house may the light fill our life, may the love of the cross burn in our hearts, may the infinite work of thy Son our Saviour disclose unto us all the beauteousness and all the sufficiency which he intended it to disclose. May our hearts glow with a new ardour, may our spirits rise with still higher and purer aspiration, may our heart go out after the Living One in cries of distress and yet of hope, until thou dost come to every heart amongst us, and make it thy chosen dwelling-place.
Few and evil have been the days of thy servants upon the earth, yea, though they be counted as many among men, yet has their number been few in thy sight and evil in our own. Behold we are of yesterday and know nothing, we are afraid of the dust, we tremble before the shadow, we turn away from the stroke of thy rod, and our hearts are melted with fear like water. Do thou therefore visit us in our weakness and come as the physician conies to men that die, and breathe upon us with all gentleness, subduing the wind of thine infinity, breathing upon us thy tender blessing. We are bruised reeds, unfit for music; do thou bind up our wounds and heal us and then breathe into us, and may our answer be one of gentle music. We are as smoking flax, we flicker before thee like a flame and die. O, that thou wouldst breathe upon it, and strengthen the fire by thy breathing, until our whole nature is aflame and aglow with thy presence; then would our life be always in the Sabbath, and our whole hope would be set upon things invisible.
Pity us in our sorrows and distresses, do not mock us in our miscalculations and follies, do not discourage us with bitter taunting from heaven when our own souls misgive us and we are afraid to try the good again; but with all gentleness and comfortableness do thou encourage us once more to do that which is right and to attempt that which is holy, and with every attempt do thou give increase of strength.
The Lord visit us according to the breadth and depth of our painful necessity. What every heart needs thou knowest: the prayer we dare not speak thou hearest; the gentlest knocking at thy door is heard as thunder in thine house. When we seek may we find. Thou knowest what we would be, what we would have, and what we would do, and we lay this before thee in uttered words or in silent desire, and we would desire to say at last, having completed the tale of our want and the prayer of our ignorance, “Nevertheless, not our will but thine be done.” Amen.
Mat 7:7-12
7. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10. Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
12. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
So, then, the commerce between earth and heaven is perfectly honest and straightforward. There is nothing of moral jugglery about it. The wayfaring man, though a fool, may read these plain words and understand them. Do not attempt to steal anything from heaven; ask for it. Do not try any illegitimate methods of getting, finding, or anything else. The plan is simple, honest, perfectly intelligible and available to every sincere and simple-minded heart. Did you suppose that any man got aught from heaven by a species of legerdemain? Has it ever entered into your heart that some man was richer in spiritual graces than you are because he deluded God? Such is an infinite mistake on your part: the human side of this transaction is beautiful in its simplicity ask, seek, knock. You thought religion was an affair of mystery, deep and dark clouding, and impenetrable haze. It is the commerce between a child and his father. There is no mystery whatever about it, it is honest commerce. The bread we get from heaven we get honestly; you are not ill-used if you have not got that bread: ye have not, because ye ask not, or because ye ask amiss.
It is something to know that the human side of this transaction is perfectly intelligible and simple, and it is something to know that the human side of this transaction is that which applies to all our progress in life whatsoever it be, in so far as it is honest, substantial, and really good and durable. There is no particular masonic word to get hold of, nor is there any Eleusinian grip of the hand to learn. This is not a trick in the black art; it is asking, receiving seeking, finding knocking and having the door opened in reply to the appeal. All religion will be found at last, in so far as it is true, to be equally simple, equally to illustrate the law of cause and effect. The mystery that we find in the Christian religion we too often bring to it: it is but a gilding of the cloud of our own ignorance. The way of the Lord is equal, and his path among men is often such as can be apprehended by sanctified intelligence.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” If you want your income increased, ask for it; if you want your health re-established, seek the Physician God, the one Healer, in whose heart grow all plants with healing juice flowing in their salubrious veins. If you want to advance in life knock at the door, and while you are knocking it shall be thrown open to you. There is no condition specified, there is no particular class of persons identified as the favoured sect or denomination for every one that asketh receiveth. There is no condition of title, character, claim: words cannot be more simple and more inclusive. If you want increase, health, joy, satisfaction, advancement, riches, honour ask, and ye shall receive, for every one that asketh receiveth. Why sit we here, therefore, poor dwarfs, empty of pocket, feeble of hand, blind of intellect, failing in health, crushed before the moth and the worm, and courting with cowardly spirit our own grave, that we may be hidden from the light of the day? Nothing lies between me and what I want but honest supplication. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication make known your requests unto God. Never mind how bad you are you have simply to ask what you like and you shall have it.
There is not one word of truth in that statement, and yet who would wonder if some persons who read the Bible in fragments and morsels should openly and emphatically declare that to be the divine revelation. Learn to trust not only in the text but in the context. What I have now laid down to you would seem to be the very first meaning of the words I have read. That meaning seems to be written upon the very face of the text, and yet every sentence I have uttered in the latter part of the exposition is utterly false. How can that be proved to be so? By Christ’s own words. But is there any condition signified in the text? Most undoubtedly there is a vital condition, not only signified but explicitly laid down in so many words. You must not break in on the Saviour whilst he is preaching and teaching; you must hear his whole statement and compare part with part, and by comparing one part with another you must establish the truth which he came to reveal and enforce. Let us, therefore, look at the illustration which he himself gives of the doctrine which he has laid down.
“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread will he give him a stone, or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent?” Then there is a certain class specified in the text? Undoubtedly. What is that class? “What man is there of you whom if his son ask bread.” It is a filial relation, it is a child praying to his father. It is not an alien, a stranger, a rebel, it is a child’s heart praying a child’s prayer. What further condition is there specified in the text? The next condition laid down in the text is that what we ask for is good. Read again. “What man is there of you whom if his son ask bread, ox fish, or egg.” Why, these are necessary to life. You talked just now about asking for a double income, and a larger house, and fifty more fields added to your small estate. No, no the doctrine relates to bread, fish, egg food necessaries of life, and it is the son that prays. So, then, the foolish man who first ran away with the idea that we only had to go and ask and have, is altogether disqualified for the exposition of this portion of Scripture. He talks a foreign tongue, he utters the fool’s swift language that hath no faith or sense in it. The strong limitation, the definition of boundary that is not to be trespassed, is Son, as the suppliant: Bread, Fish, Egg as the subjects of petition. Bodily nutriment, intellectual nutriment, spiritual nutriment, the bread, the fish, the egg applied to all the necessities of our multifold hunger and thirst that evermore besiege and urge and distress our nature. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs. Dog, you cannot pray. This is a portion of meat for the king’s children; it is a special household that sits down at this table and eats and drinks abundantly of this divine hospitality.
“What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread will he give him a stone, or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent,” and elsewhere, “if he ask an egg will he give him a scorpion?” What is the great deduction of the divine Teacher? “If ye then, being evil, short-sighted, mean-hearted, children of miscalculation, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” This is the true method of teaching, climbing up step by step from the human to the divine. Said I not unto you ye are gods? Learn from the little divinity that is in yourself, O man, the infinite divinity that is in God. When you are at your very best, in love, pity, sacrifice, care for others, multiply that condition of heart by infinity, and the result will be your Father which is in heaven. Let common-sense assist you in all these expositions, and you will have no difficulty in getting down to the root.
Look at the case of your own family to-day, and your child shall come and say to you, “Give me your most precious possession.” What would be your reply to the little child? Would it be an instant imparting of the gift? Nothing of the kind. Your child shall come to you and say, “Let me go out all to-day and all tomorrow, and never you ask where I am or what I am doing. Now I have asked you, you give.” What would you say to your seven-year-old little boy who came with that prayer? If ye then, being evil, children of the night, and of the bewildering shadows, unable to see straight and clear, know how to say “No” under the inspiration of love, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven say “No” to your poor prayers, your mean and ignorant supplications, your asking for scorpions under the supposition that they are eggs? For the naturalist tells us that the scorpion coils itself up so as to look very like an egg; hardhearted would be our Father in heaven, having heard our prayer when we have mistaken a coiled scorpion for an egg, if his answer would be the reply of death.
How do I stand then towards this Giver? Just as a child stands towards a wise father. Why, sometimes a father says to a child, when the child asks for more bread, “You have had enough, child.” The father does not begrudge the bread, he delights in the child’s appetite for food, but having some regard to the child’s capacity and health, he may, even in that direction, interpose the suggestion that the boundary has been reached. Is he therefore cruel? Is he therefore unkind? He may simply be wise and thoughtful, a prudent father whose love asserts itself even in the form of prohibition. Is he a wise father who lets his child do exactly what the child wants to do, who gives a hearty “Yes” to every appeal of the child, who has no will of his own, no love, no firmness? What can become of a child brought up under such Loose government, if the word government in that connection be not wholly a misapplication of the word? The child will come to ruin. It is not love that suspends discipline, it is love that adjusts it, measures it, lifts it into a sacrament, making it holy, often straining the sensibilities of him who enforces or inflicts it, but under the sweet and bright hope that its infliction will terminate in health and blessing. We have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much more be subject unto the Father of spirits and live?
So we find the element of character and discipline and prohibitive wisdom even in this domain of supplication and desire. Be sure you ask for good things and your answer shall be plentiful; and thank God that he says “No” to some prayers. I have gone, as no doubt you have, with prayers to God to be sent, or to be spared, or to be directed thus and so, and if the answer had been “Yes” we should not have been living men to-day. Let us, therefore, learn to put our prayers into the court of heaven, and having delivered them word by word, it may be sometimes with strong crying and tears, as if our life depended upon an instant reply, let us learn to say, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”
Read again. “Ask, seek, knock.” That might be the development of one action; these may not be three distinct services on our part, but this line may mark the growing intensity of our religious application. Ask the easiest and simplest of exercises: seek implying more industry and anxiety: knock suggestive of vehement desire and perhaps impatience of spirit and eagerness of will and resoluteness. Our prayer has passed through all these transitions. Hear the good man’s wise, rich prayer, how he asks in quiet, deep, fluent speech, how he passes on into seeking, stooping, lighting a candle and sweeping the house diligently, as if in search of that which is more precious than gold. See how he betakes himself to one supreme effort, laying down torch and broom, and going with both hands to the door of heaven, and knocking as if God had hardly time to open the door, because the wolf was so near. It is one grand prayer, beginning with the ease of a child’s communion, ending with the resoluteness and the violence of a man who feels that time is dying and opportunity closing swiftly.
Do you know all the manners of prayer? Is your prayer quite an easy exercise, or does it strain the soul and awaken the highest efforts? Look how much we have that we do not ask for, and that does not come as the result of our seeking, knocking, or any variety of our supplication and appeal to heaven. And yet they must have come in answer to some word that is equivalent to prayer. For example all the light of day: the sun does not come out of his eastern chamber because some suppliant begged that he might return. And all the beauty of the spring, the luxuriance of the summer, the infinite largess of the autumn these are not God’s “Amens” to your small petitions, they are divine anticipations of human necessity, they are answers before the prayer is spoken he pre vents us with his goodness, and his goodness should lead us to repentance. And we learn from the infinitude of his gifts, laid upon our life without our asking, how to utter big prayers, vast petitions, petitions worthy of himself.
Have we not, poor drivelling souls, measured our prayers by ourselves, and only stretched our supplications over the mean breadth of our own conception of life? When shall we learn to fill our mouth with great words and to utter prayers meant for heaven? Ye have not, because ye ask not. God says, “Bring your vessels, and the oil shall flow.” More vessels, more oil; more still, and still more oil. Who gives up? Man. He says, “I have no more vessels” and God causes the oil to cease its flow. Never did God say, “There is no more oil;” it is always man that says, “There is no more room.”
I have spoken of the gift of the light of the day, I have spoken of the beauty and richness of the succeeding seasons, but these are mean gifts. He who gave them gave us without our asking Christ. And he that spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Christ did not come in answer to prayer, the cross was not set up because some ardent heart desired its elevation; Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, God’s answer to God’s own prayer. So also is the gift of our life and all its responsibilities; we did not ask to live, we did not ask for one talent, or two, or five: I did not ask to be preacher or teacher, you did not ask to be merchantman or writer or thinker, or leader of human opinion we are what we are in all these matters of capacity and appointment by the grace or wisdom of God.
So then there is a region in which prayer seems to be uncalled for, or to be utterly without opportunity and avail. The gifts of God in nature, in redemption, in life, in responsibility, these are determined by his own will and not by our prayer. Yet there are, in relation to our life, many interstices which are to be filled by our own supplications and prayers. A man comes to feel somewhat of the range of his own capacity, then he besieges the throne of grace for direction, sanctification, and for the upholding and comforting of holy grace that he may not waste his life, pouring it out like a plentiful rain upon the unanswering sand. The man comes to find that he was born into the world with feeble constitution, with an irritable temperament, with physical defects or excesses that require the continual vigilance of his heart and the continual sanctification of God. There he begins to pray, God having in all things left an opening for prayer. There be those who pray for fine days I do not now: all days are fine. There be those who pray for health: I would like to live to be able to pray for health with this supplement to my prayer Nevertheless, if sickness be better for me, the Lord make me sick every day.
Now the Saviour comes to his last word. Let me ask you to read it. “Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.” Who has an eye acute enough in vision to see the connection between this therefore and the argument that has gone before? It startled me: I did not know that the argument stretched itself beyond the eleventh verse “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more .” Said I, “The argument ends with that enquiry,” and behold in the twelfth verse I was challenged with a great therefore, as if the syllogism did not complete itself until we came to this conclusion “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” What has that to do with the subject? “Evidently nothing,” say you. “Evidently much,” says Christ. This is no incoherence on the part of the divine Teacher. He does sometimes startle by taking what are called new departures, but in this Ergo he stands steadily by the argument he has been establishing. Let us read it with the intent of discovering his meaning.
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children the good gifts being indicated in the ninth and tenth verses what man is there of you whom if his son ask bread will he give him a stone? None. Therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, giving you bread when you ask bread, and not a stone. Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? No. Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, in answer to your prayers, never giving a serpent for a fish, a stone for bread, a scorpion for an egg, do ye even so to them. How would you feel, if asking your father for an egg, he gave you a scorpion? Would he not disqualify himself for the paternal relation? Therefore go by your own judgment, follow out your own reasoning if you would not receive a scorpion for an egg, as an act of love and of honour, never perpetrate that bitter and disastrous irony in your own dealings with mankind, for this is the law and the prophets this is the blossom, this the fruit of all history: it grows up into this, blossoming into love and fructifying into noble charity and honour.
Does not this seem a small result for so great a prophecy? Did it require thousands of years to grow this tree and to mould and mellow, in complete sweetness, this fruit? What is the fruit? Love. All the law is fulfilled in one word Love. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. For this the ages have travailed in birth, and this the child Love. This is the law and the prophets.
Where are you? Still in the region of opinions still discussing tiny metaphysics, still asking one another about your little narrow hazy theological views? I despise you”, if you mean to rest there, chaffering and chattering about your denominational peculiarities and your metaphysical and theological distinctions, your orthodoxy and your heterodoxy, your isms and your ations. If you are there and still mean to stop there, I want to go on. What to? Love. Again and again remember that Love is the fulfilling of the law. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? I am more anxious to cure the disease of your affections than to correct your purely intellectual mistakes. Believe what you may intellectually, if your spirit be not bathed in the very love of God you have not entered into the inner places of the holy kingdom. This blessed love is often the best guide of the intellect. It makes men modest, it prostrates them in the lowliness which is acceptable to God, and it expels from the heart every passion that would contest the supremacy of Christ. I do not call you to brilliance or grandeur of intellect, but I do most strenuously exhort you to follow in the upward direction that is ever taken by the spirit of heavenly love.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Ver. 7. Ask, and it shall be given you, &c. ] Whereas it might be objected, -These are hard lessons, neither know we how to quit ourselves in the discharge of them; our Saviour answers, as Isaiah did before him, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near,” Isa 55:6 ; and as St James adviseth after him, Jam 1:5 “If any man want wisdom, let him ask it of God.” “Ask,” saith he, “and it shall be given you.” Run to the great Doctor of the Church, as Agur did to Ithiel and Ucal, Pro 30:1 , and he will teach you; seek his face and favour, and ye shall surely find it; knock at the beautiful gate of heaven with the hand of faith, and it shall open unto you (as the iron gate did to Peter) of its own accord, Act 12:10 . Elisha’s staff was laid (by his appointment) upon the dead child’s face, but there was neither voice nor hearing. He went therefore himself, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord, 2Ki 4:31 ; 2Ki 4:33 . This staff he knew was long enough to reach up to heaven, to knock at those gates, yea, to wrench them open. “Ask, therefore, that your joy may be full.” “Hitherto ye have asked me nothing,” saith Christ, disliking our dulness to this duty. Quid est cur nihil petis? pete ne privatus de me queraris, said Severus the emperor to his courtiers: What meanest thou to ask nothing of me? Ask, that thou mayest have no cause of complaint against me. And Pope Nicholas V (a great favourer of learning), when he was told of some in Rome that made good verses; “They cannot be good poets,” said he, “and I not know them. Why come they not to me, if good, qui poetis etiam malis pateo, who am a friend to poets though not so good?” Christ soliciteth suitors, “and the Father seeketh such to worship him,” Joh 4:23 ; not for anything he gets by it, but merely for our benefit; as the sun draws up vapours from the earth not for itself, but to moisten and fatten the earth therewith. And although he come not ever at first call, yet be not discouraged with silence or sad answers. He is nearest to such suitors as, with Mary, cannot see him for their tears and griefs; if, with her, they continue to seek him in humility; if they rest not rapping and bouncing at his gates, he will open unto them, for their importunity, Luk 18:5-7 . The saints sometimes have present audience, as Eliezer, Gen 24:15 ; Daniel; Dan 9:23 the disciples, Act 4:31 ; and Luther, who came leaping out of his closet with Vicimus, Vicimus We conquer, we conquer, in his mouth. But what if they have not? far be it from them to think that God is asleep or gone a journey, as the prophet jeereth at Baal; or that he wanteth ears, as the image of Jupiter did at Crete. ( Cretae Iovis est imago, auribus carens. ) The Creteans have an image of Jupiter without ears. Questionless he that bids us ask, meaneth to give; as when we bid our children say, “I pray you, father, give me such a thing,” we do it not but when we mean to give it them. If he defer help let it humble us, as it did David, Psa 22:2 ; “I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not,” &c. “But thou art holy,” &c. Others have prayed and sped: “Our fathers trusted in thee, they cried unto thee and were delivered: but I am a worm and no man, yet will I call upon him” (not only in my sinking, but) from the bottom of the deeps. Let it also quicken us to further fervency, as it did St Paul, 2Co 12:8 , and the Church, Psa 80:3 ; Psa 80:7-19 ; never giving over the suit (with the importunate widow, Luk 18:5 ) till we have obtained it. He that prayeth, moveth God, not as an orator moveth hearers, but as a child his father. The end of oratory is to speak persuasively, not always to persuade; but the end of prayer is to prevail and speed; ye which are God’s remembrancers, give him no rest till ye have what ye beg. a Ask, seek, knock; use an unwearied importunity; slip not any opportunity, pray without ceasing, pray continually; set aside all for prayer, wait upon it (as the word signifieth), Col 4:2 ; cf. Act 10:7 . b But must we never leave praying, may some say, till we have our request granted? there are other things to be done. True, and you must give over the words of a prayer for a season, but never the suit of prayer. A beggar, for example, comes to a rich man’s gate, and cries for an alms, but none there answers him. He being a poor man hath something else to do than to beg; and therefore he sits him down and knits or knocks, or patches, &c., and between the times, begs and works, works and begs. So should we, follow our necessary business, and yet continue our suit for grace. And the rather because beggars hold out to ask, where yet they have no promise it shall be given them; nay, when (many times) they are frowned upon, threatened, punished for begging. And whereas beggars come no nearer the house than the porch or entry, and so know not whether the master of the house be providing for them an alms or a cudgel. All God’s petitioners, that call upon him in truth, are admitted into the parlour, as I may so say, into God’s special presence. “An hypocrite shall not come before him,” Job 13:16 ; “but the upright shall dwell in his presence,” Psa 140:13 ; “He hideth not his face from such, but when they cry he heareth,” Psa 22:24 .
And it shall be given you ] It is not said what shall be given, because the gift is above all name, saith Austin. Like as Amo 4:12 ; “Thus will I do unto thee:” thus? how? Non nominat mala, ut omnia timeant, saith Ribera out of Jerome. No evil is named, that they may fear all.
a Isa 62:7 . It shows instantissimam necessitatem. Aug.
b , Col 4:2 ; Rom 12:12 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7. ] The three similitudes are all to be understood of prayer , and form a climax: . Chrys. Hom, xxiii. 4, p. 289.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 7:7-11 . Admonition to prayer : presupposes deferred answer to prayer, tempting to doubt as to its utility, and consequent discontinuance of the practice. A lesson more natural at a later stage, when the disciples had a more developed religious experience. The whole subject more adequately handled in Luk 11:1-13 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mat 7:7 . , , , threefold exhortation with a view to impressiveness; first literally, then twice in figurative language: seek as for an object lost, knock as at a barred door, appropriate after the parable of the neighbour in bed (Luk 11:5-8 ). The promise of answer is stated in corresponding terms. , , .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 7:7-11
7Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will ?Hebrews 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
Mat 7:7 “ask. . .seek. . .knock” These are all present imperatives which speak of habitual, lifestyle commands (cf. Deu 4:29; Jer 29:13). It is important that one balance human persistence with God’s responsive character. Believers cannot force God to do that which is not good for them. However, at the same time, they can bring any need to their heavenly Father. Jesus prayed the same prayer in Gethsemane three times (cf. Mar 15:36; Mar 15:39; Mar 15:41; Mat 26:39; Mat 26:42; Mat 26:44). Paul also prayed three times about his thorn in the flesh (cf. 2Co 12:8). But the great thing about prayer is not that one receives a specific answer to his request, but that he has spent time with the Father. See SPECIAL TOPIC: PRAYER, UNLIMITED YET LIMITED at Mat 18:19.
Mat 7:8-10 Persistence is important (cf. Luk 18:2-8). However, it does not coerce a reluctant God but reveals the level of interest and concern of the person. Neither one’s many words nor his repeated prayers will motivate the Father to give that which is not in one’s best interest. The best thing believers get in prayer is a growing relationship and dependence on God.
Mat 7:9-10 Jesus used the analogy of a father and son to describe the mystery of prayer. Matthew gives two examples while Luke gives three (cf. Luk 11:12). The whole point of the illustrations was that God will give believers the “good things.” Luke defines this “good” as “the Holy Spirit” (cf. Luk 11:13). Often the worst thing our Father could do for us is answer our inappropriate, selfish prayers! All three examples are a play on things that look alike: stone as bread, fish as eel, and egg as a coiled, pale scorpion.
The questions of Mat 7:9-10 expect a “no” answer (like Mat 7:16).
Mat 7:11 “If you then” This is a first class conditional sentence, which is assumed to be true from the author’s perspective or for his literary purposes. In rather an oblique way this is an affirmation of the sinfulness of all men (cf. Rom 3:9; Rom 3:23). The contrast is between evil human beings and a loving God. God shows His character by the analogy of the human family.
“give what is good to those who ask Him” The parallel in Luk 11:13 has “Holy Spirit” in place of “good.” There is no article in Luke; therefore, it could mean “the gifts” given by the Holy Spirit. This cannot be used as a proof text that one must ask God for the Holy Spirit, for the thrust of Scripture is that the Holy Spirit indwells believers at salvation (cf. Rom 8:9 and Gal 3:2-3; Gal 3:5; Gal 3:14). Yet there is a sense in which the filling of the Spirit is repeatable based on believers’volition (cf. Eph 5:18).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Ask. Greek. aileo. App-134.
it shall be opened. This is never done in the East to this day. The one who knocks is always first questioned. L Tr. WH m. read “it is opened”
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
7.] The three similitudes are all to be understood of prayer, and form a climax: . Chrys. Hom, xxiii. 4, p. 289.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 7:7. Ask, and it shall be given you;
He that will not ask for it deserves to go without it. Have you ever asked for it? If not, whose fault is it that you have it not?
Mat 7:7. Seek, and ye shall find;
How can you hope to find if you do not seek? Have you never found it? Have you never sought it? And if you have never sought it, how do you excuse yourselves for your neglect?
Mat 7:7. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Is that all-knock? Is the gate of heaven not opened to you? Have you never knocked? Do you wonder, therefore, that the door is shut? Take care; for the time may come when you will knock, and the door will not be opened to you; for, when once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, then knocking shall be in vain. But at present this verse is still Gods gracious word of command and promise; let me read it to you again: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Mat 7:8. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
When you are dealing with men, this is not always true. You may ask, and not receive; you may seek, and not find; you may knock, and not have the door opened to you. But when you deal with God, there are no failures or refusals. Every true asker receives; every true seeker finds; and every true knocker has the door opened to him. Will you not try it, and prove for yourself that it is even so?
Mat 7:9-11. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
You not only give, but you know how to give so as not to disappoint the asker. It is most blessedly so with the great Father in heaven. He will not give you that which will mock and disappoint you: he will give you bread, not a stone; fish, not a serpent; nay, more, he will give you the bread of life, and the water of life, that you may live for ever.
Mat 7:12. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
This is rightly called the golden rule. Christ says of it that it is the law and the prophets. It is the essence of them, it is the sum and substance of the highest morality. What you would that others should do to you, do that to them. Do not let that golden rule remain merely as a record in this Book, but take it out with you into your daily life. If we did all act to others as we would that others should act to us, how different would the lives of many men become! Ours would be a happy world if this law of Christ were the law of England, and the law of all nations. God send us the Spirit by whom alone we shall be able to obey so high a rule!
Mat 7:13. Enter ye in at the strait gate
The narrow gate
Mat 7:13-14. For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Do not try to go with the majority; truth is usually with the minority. Do not count heads, and say, I am for that which has the most on its side; but prefer that which is least liked among men, choose that which is most difficult, most trying to flesh and blood, that which gives you least license, because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. You will not hit upon it, then, in a happy-go-lucky sort of style. Heavens gate is not found open by accident; there never was anybody yet who was saved by accident. No: few there be that find it, is still true. God grant that we may be among the few! And why should we not be?
Mat 7:15. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
There are always plenty of them about; there is nothing of the sheep about them but the skin, and there is no connection between that skin and those that wear it.
Mat 7:16-20. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth-good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth-evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
You may judge men as well as trees that way; and you may judge doctrines that way. That which gives a license to sin cannot be true; but that which makes for holiness is true; for, somehow, truth of doctrine and holiness of life run together. We cannot expect holiness to grow out of falsehood, but we may expect all manner of evil to come out of false teaching.
Mat 7:21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Practice is the true test, not words. Not he that saith, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of God; not he that merely has good words on his tongue, but he that has the will of God laid up in his heart, and wrought out in his life, that is the man who shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 7:22-23. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
If our lives are evil, it does not matter to what denomination we belong; we may be clever preachers, or mighty teachers, we may fancy that we have had dreams and visions, we may set ourselves up to be some great ones; but if we have not done the will of God, we shall at the last hear Christ say to us, Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Mat 7:24-25. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
He was a good man, and a practical man; yet he was also a tried man. His house was built on the rock, but that did not prevent the rain descending, and the floods coming, and the winds blowing. The highest type of godliness will not save you from troubles and trials; it will, in some measure, even necessitate them. But, blessed be God, here lies the gem of the parable or narrative: It fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. It could stand the strain and endure the test, for it had a good foundation.
Mat 7:26-27. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
He was a great hearer, but he was a bad doer; yet he thought that he was a good doer, for he built a house. Alas, the house was on the sand! There was no real obedience to Christ, no true trusting in him; and so, when the time of trouble came, and trouble will come even to the hypocrite and to the false professor, we read of his house, It fell: and great was the fall of it, because it could never be built up again. It fell hopelessly; it fell forever; therefore, Great was the fall of it.
Mat 7:28-29. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
There was a force and power about what Jesus said, he spoke from the heart, he spoke with the accent of conviction; whereas the scribes and Pharisees only spoke magisterially and officially, with no heart in their utterance, and there was therefore no power about it. God give to all of us the grace to know the power of the words of Christ! Amen.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Mat 7:7. , ask) Ask for gifts to meet your needs.-, seek) sc. the hidden things which you have lost, and return from your error.-, knock) sc. ye who are without, that ye may be admitted within. See 2Co 6:17, fin. Ask, seek, knock, without intermission.[307]
[307] Never cease, I pray thee, Reader, to turn such a promise to thy advantage, as often soever as the opportunity presents itself.-V. g.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
and it: Mat 7:11, Mat 21:22, 1Ki 3:5, Psa 10:17, Psa 50:15, Psa 86:5, Psa 145:18, Psa 145:19, Isa 55:6, Isa 55:7, Jer 29:12, Jer 29:13, Jer 33:3, Mar 11:24, Luk 11:9, Luk 11:10, Luk 11:13, Luk 18:1, Joh 4:10, Joh 14:13, Joh 14:14, Joh 15:7, Joh 15:16, Joh 16:23, Joh 16:24, Jam 1:5, Jam 1:6, Jam 5:15, 1Jo 3:22, 1Jo 5:14, 1Jo 5:15, Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18
seek: Mat 6:33, Psa 10:4, Psa 27:8, Psa 69:32, Psa 70:4, Psa 105:3, Psa 105:4, Psa 119:12, Pro 8:17, Son 3:2, Amo 5:4, Rom 2:7, Rom 3:11, Heb 11:6
knock: Luk 13:25
Reciprocal: Gen 18:31 – General Gen 18:32 – I will not Gen 20:17 – General Gen 24:45 – before Gen 26:32 – We have Exo 33:7 – sought Jdg 13:9 – hearkened 1Sa 1:27 – For this 1Sa 23:11 – And the Lord 1Ki 2:20 – Ask on 1Ch 4:10 – God granted 1Ch 16:10 – let the heart 1Ch 28:9 – if thou seek 2Ch 1:7 – Ask 2Ch 12:14 – to seek 2Ch 15:2 – if ye seek him 2Ch 33:13 – he was entreated Ezr 8:23 – and he was entreated Job 8:5 – thou wouldest Job 21:15 – if we Psa 3:4 – I cried Psa 27:4 – seek Psa 34:4 – sought Pro 2:5 – shalt Son 3:4 – but Isa 30:19 – he will Isa 58:9 – shalt thou Eze 36:37 – I will yet Zep 2:3 – Seek ye Zec 10:1 – ye Mat 6:5 – when Mat 7:24 – whosoever Mat 20:31 – but they cried Mar 10:51 – What Luk 18:39 – but Act 8:22 – pray Act 9:11 – for Act 10:2 – and prayed Phi 4:6 – in Heb 4:16 – obtain Jam 4:2 – because Jam 5:16 – The effectual 1Pe 1:17 – call
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
ASK AND RECEIVE
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Mat 7:7
Three thoughts, similar, yet distinct, rolled up together here, make one precept and one promise. To ask, is a single, suppliant action: to seek, is a continuous patient action: to knock, is an earnest, importunate action. The three must not be divided. It is not three repetitions of the same thing. God often repeats His will; but the more you look into it, the more you will see there is no tautologyi.e. there is no saying the same thing over again in Gods Word.
It will be well to define, a little, the general encouragement which the text holds out to prayer. Now observe three points concerning this whole passage.
I. Every promise is attached to a dutyfor God never separates promises from duty. It is true the blessing immeasurably outranges the means used for its attainment, so that there is no proportion between the machinery and the resultstill the machinery must be planted before the result can be looked fori.e. we must really ask, really seek, really knock, before we can expect anythingfor in the very command, Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto youthe negative is involved,If you do not ask, you shall not receive; if you do not seek, you shall not find; if you do not knock, it shall not be opened unto you. Therefore, be careful that the applicationbefore you allow any expectation to go forthis real prayerasking, seeking, knocking.
II. Concerning any duty, you must do it scripturally.We cannot conceive of a promise without a condition. The condition may be expressed, or the condition may be understood; but it is evident that every promise has a condition. If you wish to arrive at the true meaning of any passage of Scripture, you must put together the different parts of the Bible which bear upon the same subject; and then, from the whole collectively, you will arrive at the true meaning of the original verse. It is Gods revealed will, to make over to every one of His redeemed people, all that He has covenanted to Christ in His word. Therefore the promises of the Bible are the field through which faith is to travel. If a prayer wanders outside the promise, it has forfeited its title to be heard; but, so long as it is within the promise, it may command God. Therefore it is not only necessary that we ask, seek, and knock, but that we ask, seek, and knock, in proportion to the promisei.e. that the boon which we ask, is a boon covenanted; that the treasure we seek, is a treasure revealed; and that the door we knock at, is the door appointed.
III. The promise lies at an indefinite future.God says, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; but, in no instance, does He say when. He has pledged Himself to His children what shall be given them; but He has reserved to Himself the when, and the how; and Gods futures may seem long to the weary mind of man; nevertheless Gods futures are all sure. You may have been praying, all your life long, for a promised favouryou may be within five minutes of your death: you must expect it still. God will do it yet.
The Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
Another encouraging thing in connection with the work of the Universities Mission to Central Africa is the reconversion of the Nyasas. Years ago, the first event in this district was the bringing a great number of freed slaves from Zanzibar to form a village. At first they settled near Masasi, they migrated to Newala, and gradually they fell away terribly, and many became just like heathen again; but for the last few years they have, one by one, been coming back to their religion, saying that they want to be true Christians, and not only saying it, but actually giving up their bad ways. There has been no visible reason for this, but we believe it is a direct answer to the prayers of one man especially who, when he knew of any trouble such as this, made a note of the peoples names and prayed continually for them.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
7:7
The favors of God are offered to us on conditions. Thus the invitation to ask is restricted to the things that are “according to his will” (1Jn 5:14). The promise of obtaining what we seek for is to be in harmony with chapter 6:33, and the same principle would apply to knocking, which is merely a sign that we wish to be admitted into the favor of God.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 7:7. The thoughts of judgment and unworthiness (Mat 7:1-6), might discourage; encouragement is given by showing Gods willingness to give. The objection to connecting this verse with chap. Mat 5:34, is that it must then refer to temporal things. At the same time it shows that the trust there spoken of is a prayerful trust
Ask, and it shall be given to you etc. Ask, seek, knock, refer to prayer, forming a climax. The first implies simple petition, the second earnest desire, the third perseverance. To ask, indicates the want of an object, which can only be obtained by free gift; to seek, that it has been lost; to knocks that it has been shut up hence this prayer, which is both the work of life and the evidence of life. Others apply ask to prayer, seek to our endeavors, knock to our investigation of the Scripture; the former explanation is simpler.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, a precept and a promise; the precept, or duty commanded, is importunity and constancy in prayer, we must ask, seek, and knock; the promise, or mercy indured,, is audience and acceptance with God.
Note, 1. That man, is a poor, indigent, and necessitous creature, full of wants, but unable to supply them.
2. That God is an all-sufficient good, able to supply the wants and to relieve the necessities of his creatures, if they call upon him, and cry unto him.
3. Yet if we do not presently receive what we ask, we must still continue to seek and knock; though prayer be not always answered in our time, yet it shall never fail of an answer in God’s time.
4. That natural propensity which we find in our breasts to hear the desires and to supply the wants of our own children, ought to raise in us a confident expectation, that Almighty God will hear our prayers, and supply our wants, when we call upon him: if a father will give when a child asks, much more will God. If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, &c. God loves to be giving and to give good gifts is his delight.
But prayer is the key that opens both his heart and hand: yet not every person nor every prayer shall find acceptance with God: the person praying must be a doer of God’s will, and the manner of our prayer must be in faith, and with fervency, and unfeigned perseverance.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Mat 7:7-11. Ask, &c. The exhortation contained in these verses may be considered as connected with the caution given in those immediately preceding, and then the sense of it will be, If you be at a loss to know who are and who are not proper subjects of reproof or admonition; or to whom you may with propriety speak of the higher truths of Christianity, even of those of experimental religion, and therefore want wisdom to guide you in these difficulties, ask, and it shall be given you, &c. Or the passage may refer to the whole preceding discourse, and Christ might intend thereby to prevent his disciples from being discouraged by the holiness of the doctrine, and the strictness of the precepts he had been inculcating, and therefore thus directs them to apply to God for supernatural aid; and assures them, if they did so with fervency, importunity, and perseverance, they should not apply in vain. But, independent of their connection with what precedes or follows in this most admirable sermon, these verses contain a most important direction and encouraging exhortation to the people of God to seek help of him in all difficulties whatsoever, and all those aids of his Spirit, and other blessings necessary to their salvation. Seek, and ye shall find Add to your asking your own diligent endeavours in the use of all other appointed means; and knock Persevere importunately in that diligence, and your efforts shall not be in vain. What you ask shall be given you, provided you ask what is agreeable to Gods will: the spiritual blessings which you seek, in this way, you shall find: and the door of mercy and salvation, at which you knock, shall certainly be opened to you. For every one that thus asketh, receiveth, &c. Such is the goodness and faithfulness of God to his children.
Our Lord next, to give his followers greater assurance of obtaining from God the blessings which they should ask and seek aright, illustrates the divine goodness by reminding them of the imperfect goodness and bounty of men to their offspring. What man is there of you, or, among you; . The words are very emphatical, and give great strength to our Lords argument. As if he had said, I appeal to yourselves, is there a man among you, in all this numerous assembly, who, if his son ask bread of him, will give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, &c. Can you imagine any father could be so unnatural as to deny necessary supplies to his hungry child; and instead thereof give him what would be useless or hurtful, would starve or poison him? Consider, if the wickedest wretches among yourselves, the most peevish, weak, and ill-natured of you all, will readily give good gifts to their children when they cry for them, how much rather will the great God, infinite in goodness, bestow blessings on his children who endeavour to resemble him in his perfections, and for that end ask his grace and other spiritual and heavenly blessings? If ye then, being evil If you, imperfect and evil as you are, and some of you tenacious, froward, and unkind, yet know, being taught by natural affection, to give good gifts to your children If you find your hearts disposed and ready to communicate the best of what you have for their relief and sustenance, how much more will your almighty and most beneficent Father in heaven, who has a perfect knowledge of all your wants, and can with perfect ease supply them, and who himself has wrought in your hearts these benevolent dispositions, be ready to exceed you in so expressing his kindness, as freely to give all needful good things to them that by fervent prayer ask them of him.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
XLII.
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
(A Mountain Plateau not far from Capernaum.)
Subdivision H.
CONCERNING PRAYER.
aMATT. VII. 7-11.
a7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you [The words here are slightly climacteric. Asking is a simple use of voice, seeking is a motion of the body, and knocking is an effort to open and pass through obstacles]: 8 for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. [Jesus here uses the universal “every one,” but he means every one of a class, for the term is modified by the prescribed conditions of acceptable prayer ( Mat 6:14, Mat 6:15, Jam 1:6, Jam 1:7, Jam 4:3, 1Jo 5:14). We see also by the Mat 7:9 that it means every one who is recognized by God as a son. All God’s children who pray rightly are heard.] 9 Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; 10 or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? [Fish and bread were the common food of the peasants of Galilee. A stone might resemble a cake, but if given it would deceive the child. A serpent might resemble an eel or a perch, but if given it would be both deceptive and injurious. We often misunderstand God’s answer thus. But our sense of sonship should teach us better.] 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? [Here is an argument from analogy. It is assumed that the paternal feeling which prompts us to give good [264] things to our children, is still a higher degree in God with reference to his children; and hence it is argued that he will much more give good things to those who ask him. Since it is Jesus who assumes the likeness on which the argument rests, we may rely on the correctness of the reasoning; but we must be cautious how we derive arguments of our own from the analogy between God’s attributes and the corresponding characteristics of man. For example, this attribute of paternal feeling has been employed to disprove the reality of the eternal punishment with which God himself threatens the sinner, because the paternal feeling in man would prevent him from so punishing his own children. The fallacy in the argument consists in assuming that the feeling in question must work the same results in every particular in God that it does in man. But Revelation teaches that such is not the case.]
[FFG 264-265]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Mat 7:7-11. The Value of Prayer.An interpolation with no relation to the context. It is more suitably placed in Luk 11:9-13. The emphasis is on asking, seeking, knocking; no conditions or limitations are mentioned, but we must perforce understand Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Seek and knock are pictorial illustrations of ask. Fish was, next to bread, the commonest article of diet round the Sea of Galilee; stones on the shore and perhaps water-snakes suggested themselves as substitutes. Lk. adds an egg and a scorpion. Evil is not simply stingy (Mat 6:23*); compared with God even loving parents are evil.good things is more original than Lk.s Holy Spirit; it includes material as well as spiritual blessings.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 7
Ask; that is, ask of God. The whole passage (Matthew 7:7-11) offers to the Christian a strong assurance of favorable answers to sincere prayer. According to the usual custom of our Savior in his instructions, the principle is stated in a broad and unqualified manner, on the presumption that the good sense and candor of the hearer would apply the qualifications to which all general statements are liable. The very illustration which the Savior uses, show that these limitations are implied. The great Father of all like human parents, sometimes finds best to deny the requests, of his children, and often to answer them unexpected ways.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
7:7 {3} Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
(3) Prayers are a sure refuge in all miseries.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The disciple’s relationship to God 7:7-12
This section of verses brings the main body of the Sermon to a climactic conclusion.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
In view of such hard opposition Jesus’ disciples need to pray for God’s help. He will always respond positively to their words, though others may reject them (Mat 7:6). Still, their petitions must be for His glory rather than for selfish ends (cf. Jas 4:2-3). All that the disciple needs to serve Jesus Christ successfully is available for the asking.
"Jesus’ disciples will pray (’ask’) with earnest sincerity (’seek’) and active, diligent pursuit of God’s way (’knock’). Like a human father, the heavenly Father uses these means to teach his children courtesy, persistence, and diligence. If the child prevails with a thoughtful father, it is because the father has molded the child to his way." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 186.]
The force of each present imperative is iterative. [Note: Tasker, p. 80.] We could translate them, "Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking" (cf. Luk 11:9-10). However, no matter the level of intensity with which we seek God’s help, He will respond to every one of His disciples who calls to Him.