Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 6:9
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
9. Our Father ] It is of the essence of Christian prayer that God should be addressed as a Father to whose love we appeal, not as a God whose anger we appease. The analogy removes nearly all the real difficulties on the subject of prayer. A wise earthly father does not grant all requests, but all which are for the good of his children and which are in his power to grant. Again, the child asks without fear, yet no refusal shakes his trust in his father’s love or power.
Hallowed ] “held sacred,” “revered.” Each of these petitions implies an obligation to carry out on our own part what we pray God to accomplish.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
9 13. The Lord’s Prayer
St Luk 11:2-4, where the prayer is found in a different connection, and is given by our Lord in answer to a request from the disciples to teach them to pray, “even as John taught his disciples.” The text of St Luke as it stands in E. V. has probably been supplemented by additions from St Matthew.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
This passage contains the Lords prayer, a composition unequalled for comprehensiveness and for beauty. It is supposed that some of these petitions were taken from those in common use among the Jews. Indeed some of them are still to be found in Jewish writings, but they did not exist in this beautiful combination. This prayer is given as a model. It is designed to express the manner in which we are to pray, evidently not the precise words or petitions which we are to use. The substance of the prayer is recorded by Luke, Luk 11:2-4. In Luke, however, it varies from the form given in Matthew, showing that he intended not to prescribe this as a form of prayer to be used always, but to express the substance of our petitions, or to show what petitions it would be proper to present to God. That he did not intend to prescribe this as a form to be invariably used is further evident from the fact that there is no proof that either he or his disciples ever used exactly this form of prayer, but clear evidence that they prayed often in other language. See Mat 26:39-42, Mat 26:44; Luk 22:42; John 17; Act 1:24.
Mat 6:9
Our Father – God is called a Father,
1.As he is the Creator and the Great Parent of all;
2.The Preserver of the human family and the Provider for their wants, Mat 5:45; Mat 6:32;
3.In a special sense he is the Father of those who are adopted into his family; who put confidence in him; who are the true followers of Christ, and made heirs of life, Rom 8:14-17.
Hallowed be thy name – The word hallowed means to render or pronounce holy. Gods name is essentially holy; and the meaning of this petition is, Let thy name be celebrated, venerated, and esteemed as holy everywhere, and receive from all people proper honor. It is thus the expression of a wish or desire, on the part of the worshipper, that the name of God, or that God himself, should be held everywhere in proper veneration.
Mat 6:10
Thy kingdom come – The word kingdom here means reign. Note, Mat 3:2. The petition is the expression of a wish that God may reign everywhere; that his laws may be obeyed; and especially that the gospel of Christ may be advanced everywhere, until the world shall be filled with his glory.
Thy will be done – The will of God is, that people should obey his law, and be holy. The word will, here, has reference to his law, and to what would be acceptable to him. To pray, then, that his will may be done, on earth as in heaven, is to pray that his law, his revealed will, may be obeyed and loved. His law is perfectly obeyed in heaven, and his true children most ardently desire and pray that it may also be obeyed on the earth.
The object of these three first petitions, is, that Gods name should be glorified and his kingdom established; and by being placed first, we learn that his glory and kingdom are of more consequence than our wants, and that these should be first in our hearts and petitions before a throne of grace.
Mat 6:11
Give us this day … – The word bread, here, denotes doubtless everything necessary to sustain life. See the notes at Mat 4:4. Compare Deu 8:3. This petition implies our dependence on God for the supply of our wants. As we are dependent on him one day as much as another, it was evidently the intention of the Saviour that prayer should be offered every day. The petition, moreover, is expressed in the plural number – give us – and it is evidently therefore, intended to be used by more than one, or by some community of people. No community or congregation can meet every day for worship but families. It is therefore evident that this prayer contains a strong implied command for daily family prayer. It can nowhere else be used so as fully to come up to the meaning of the original intention; and nowhere else can it be breathed forth with so much propriety and beauty as from the lips of a father, the venerable priest of his household, and the pleader with God for those rich blessings which a parental bosom desires on his beloved offspring.
Mat 6:12
And forgive us our debts … – The word debts is used here figuratively.
It does not mean literally that we are debtors to God, but that our sins have a resemblance to debts. Debtors are those who are bound to others for some claim in commercial transactions; for something which we have had, and for which we are bound to pay according to contract. Literally there can be no such transaction between God and us. It must be used figuratively. We have not met the claims of law. We have violated its obligations. We are exposed to its penalty. We are guilty, and God only can forgive, in the same way as none but a creditor can forgive a debtor. The word debts here, therefore, means sins, or offences against God – offences which none but God can forgive. In the parallel place in Luk 11:4, the word sins is used. The measure by which we may expect forgiveness is that which we use in reference to others See Psa 18:25-26; Mat 18:23; Mar 11:26; Luk 11:4.
This is the invariable rule by which God dispenses pardon He that comes before him unwilling to forgive, harboring dark and revengeful thoughts, how can he expect that God will show him that mercy which he is unwilling to show to others? It is not, however, required that we should forgive debts in a pecuniary sense. To them we have a right, though they should not be pushed with an overbearing and oppressive spirit; not so as to sacrifice the feelings of mercy in order to secure the claims of justice. No one has a right to oppress; and when a debt cannot be paid, or when it would greatly distress a debtors wife and children, or a widow and an orphan, or when calamity has put it out of the power of an honest man to pay the debt, the spirit of Christianity requires that it should be forgiven. To such cases this petition in the Lords prayer doubtless extends. But it was probably intended to refer principally to injuries of character or person which we have received from others. If we cannot from the heart forgive them, we have the assurance that God will never forgive us.
Mat 6:13
And lead us not into temptation – A petition similar to this is offered by David, Psa 141:4; Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with the workers of iniquity. God tempts no man. See Jam 1:13. This phrase, then, must be used in the sense of permitting. Do not suffer us, or permit us, to be tempted to sin. In this it is implied that God has such control over the tempter as to save us from his power if we call upon him. The word temptation, however (see the note at Mat 4:1), means sometimes trial, affliction, anything that tests our virtue. If this be the meaning here, as it may be, then the import of the prayer is, Do not afflict or try us. It is not wrong to pray that we may be saved from suffering if it be the will of God. See Luk 22:42.
Deliver us from evil – The original in this place has the article – deliver us from the evil – that is, as has been supposed, the Evil One, or Satan. He is elsewhere called, by way of eminence, the Evil One, Mat 13:19; 1Jo 2:13-14; 1Jo 3:12. The meaning here is, deliver us from his power, his snares, his arts, his temptations. He is supposed to be the great parent of evil, and to be delivered from him is to be safe. Or it may mean, deliver us from the various evils and trials which beset us, the heavy and oppressive calamities into which we are continually liable to fall.
Thine is the kingdom – That is, thine is the reign or dominion. Thou hast control over all these things, and canst so order them as to answer these petitions.
Thine is the power – Thou hast power to accomplish what we ask. We are weak, and cannot do it; but thou art Almighty, and all things are possible with thee.
Thine is the glory – That is, thine is the honor or praise. Not for our honor, but that thy glory, thy goodness, may be displayed in providing for our wants; thy power exerted in defending us; thy praise be celebrated by causing thy kingdom to spread through the earth.
This doxology, or ascription of praise, is connected with the prayer by the word for, to signify that all these things – the reign, power, and glory of God – will be manifested by granting these petitions. It is not because we are to be benefited, but that Gods name and perfections may be manifested. His glory is, then, the first and principal thing which we are to seek when we approach him. We are to suffer our concerns to be lost sight of in the superior glory and honor of his name and dominion. We are to seek temporal and eternal life chiefly because the honor of our Maker will be promoted, and his name be more illustriously displayed to his creatures. He is to be first, last, supremest, best, in our view; and all selfish and worldly views are to be absorbed in that one great desire of the soul that God may be all in all. Approaching him with these feelings, our prayers will be answered; our devotions will ascend like incense, and the lifting up our hands will be like the evening sacrifice.
Amen – This is a word of Hebrew origin, from a verb signifying to be firm, secure, to be true and faithful. It is a word expressing consent or strong approbation; a word of strong asseveration. It means verily, certainly, so be it. It is probable that this word was used by the people in the synagogue to signify their assent to the prayer that was uttered by the minister, and, to some extent, it was probably so used in the Christian Church. See 1Co 14:16.
It may be proper to remark that this doxology, for thine is the kingdom, etc., is missing in many manuscripts, and that its authenticity is doubtful.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mat 6:9
Our Father which art in heaven.
The Divine Father
I. In what sense God is a father.
1. With relation to Christ, as the Son of God: so the first Person is called the Father, as He is the fountain of the Deity.
2. With respect to us: for the first Person is not only the Father of Christ, but our Father. We share with Christ in all His relations: as God was His God by covenant, so He is our God.
II. By creation God is a Father. To establish the relation of a Father, there must be a communication of life and likeness. A painter that makes an image or picture like himself, he is not the father of it; for though there be likeness, yet no life.
III. What advantage have we in prayer from this common interest, or general respect of Gods being a Father by virtue of creation?
1. This common relation binds us to pray to Him. All things which God hath made, by a secret instinct they are carried to God for their supply.
2. It draweth common benefits after it. Christ saith where God hath given a life, He will give food.
3. It giveth us confidence in the power of God. The Creator who made you out of-nothing can keep and preserve life when you have nothing.
IV. How will God Perform the parts of a father?
1. In allowing us full leave to come to Him in all our necessities.
2. In supplying all our wants (Isa 49:16).
3. In pitying our miseries. Many times we forget the duty of children, but God will not forget the mercy of a Father.
4. In disciplining us, and treating us with much indulgence, wisdom, and care. A father takes a great deal of pains in forming his child, fashioning its manners and behaviour: so God doth with His children.
5. In providing able guardians for His children. None so attended as Gods children are. They have a guard of angels to watch over them.
6. In laying up an inheritance for them. (Thomas Manton, D. D.)
Our Father
I. That we should in our prayers consider and acknowledge the universality of Gods power and goodness.
II. That we should not in our conceit proudly and vainly appropriate or engross the regard of God unto ourselves, but remember that our brethren have an equal share with us therein.
III. That in all our devotions we should be mindful of those common bands which knit us together as men and Christians.
(1) The band of nature and humanity;
(2) The more strict ties of common faith and hope; of
(3) manifold relations unto God that made us, and
(4) our Saviour that redeemed us, and the
(5) Holy Spirit that animateth us and combineth us in spiritual union.
IV. That we should bear such hearty goodwill and charitable affection toward others as not only to seek and desire our own private and particular good, but that of all men.
(1) Especially of all good Christians who, in a peculiar manner, are
(2) Gods children and (b) our brethren. (Isaac Barrow, D. D.)
Lessons of the Paternoster
I. The Divine Fatherhood.
II. Christian sonship.
III. Human brotherhood. What great lessons in such little compass. (T. Spencer.)
Our Father which art in heaven
1. In prayer we address One who sustains the relationship of Father to us.
2. In prayer we direct our thoughts to One who is above us.
3. In prayer we confess that we form members of one family.
4. In prayer we depend upon and confide in God as children. (F. Edwards, B. A.)
God a Father
I. The character in which God is represented as approachable in prayer. The common Parent of all men, the bountiful supplier of their wants, His peoples covenant God and Father in Christ.
II. The privilege which this title imports, Relationship, access, protection, direction, expectations.
III. The duty connected with this privilege. To pray to Him, to glorify Him, reverence, trust, submit, love Him, and look for His coming. (Dr. Cope.)
The Invocation
I. The divine fatherhood.
II. The Fatherhood of God by creation.
III. The Fatherhood of God by redemption.
IV. The blessings involved in the Divine Fatherhood.
1. Love.
2. Sustenance.
3. Protection.
4. Education.
5. Discipline.
6. Consolation.
7. Intercourse.
8. Inheritance.
V. Universal brotherhood in the Divine Fatherhood. We pray for others; we share in the prayers of others. This brotherhood extends to the various conditions of social life. It embraces nations. What a bond to our otherwise dissevered humanity is this word our.
VI. The majesty of the Father. These were added that there may not be anything earthly in our conception of the heavenly majesty of God. In heaven:-
(1) It is suggestive of dignity;
(2) power;
(3) knowledge;
(4) purity;
(5) mystery;
(6) constancy;
(7) nearness.
VII. Practical lessons:
1. Filial confidence.
2. Reverence.
3. Gratitude.
4. Resemblance.
5. Assurance.
6. Hope.
7. Prayerfulness. (Newman Hall, LL. B.)
The Paternity of God
In our nature are quenchless affections. These call for something more than God the Creator, the Ruler.
1. We should recognize that God is our Father, in order that we may have right views of religion.
2. It is important to realize the truth of Gods paternity, because of its consolations.
3. This truth furnishes us with the profoundest motives to obedience. (E. H. Chaplin.)
The invocation
I. From the title father we know that God is a Person.
II. OUR Father belongs to God as the Father of all mankind.
III. God is our Father through Jesus Christ.
IV. In teaching us to pray Our:Father, Jesus would remind us of our brotherhood.
1. The fellowship that knits together Gods elect.
2. It is a word of love that takes in all men.
V. Which art in heaven, means Father in perfection.
1. Perfection of love.
2. Perfection of help.
3. Perfection of nearness and observation.
4. Perfection of homeliness. (Dr. Stanford.)
The doctrine of the invocation
1. God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him the Father of all who believe in the Saviour.
2. Jesus is the firstborn among many brethren, Head of the Church, the centre of union. In Him we say Our Father.
3. Jesus has opened to us heaven; and, risen with Christ, we seek the things which are above, we pray to our Father in heaven.
4. We say Our Father, because the Holy Ghost is given unto us, as the Spirit of adoption. (Dr. Saphir.)
The spirit of the invocation
I. The filial spirit.
1. It rests upon the Fatherhood of God as the source of all blessings.
2. It is a childlike spirit, earnest, unsuspicious, submits to discipline in faith.
3. As a spirit of dignity and perfection.
4. A spirit of separation from the world.
II. The brotherly spirit.
III. The heavenly spirit. All spiritual blessings are treasured up for us in :heaven. Our storehouse can never fail. (Dr. Saphir.)
In heaven
1. Power.
2. Authority.
3. Omnipresence.
4. Wisdom unsearchable.
5. Mercy unspeakable. (Downame.)
Our Father
1. A revelation.
2. When faith says Father, love says Our.
3. Contrast between earth and heaven.
4. We can speak to our Father in heaven, and yet be audible. (Dr. C. J. Vaughan.)
The opening address
I. The views here furnished of the character of God.
1. The title Father belongs to God essentially: as part of His nature He must be the Parent of all being. We are indebted to Him not only for life, but for likeness; He made us partakers of a spiritual nature.
II. The affections and emotions these views of the Divine character are fitted to inspire.
1. Admiring gratitude.
2. Confidence and trust.
3. Submission.
4. Contentment.
5. Reverent awe.
6. Purity and elevation in our desires.
7. We should remember that our inheritance is in heaven. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The filial spirit of the Lords Prayer
1. Christ confirms the fact of Gods Paternity.
2. Christ was also the personal and visible representation of the Father.
3. Christ also reveals the Paternal character of God.
4. Christ also revealed the Paternal heart of God.
Father:-
1. It is the language of the believing heart.
2. It is the language of filial love.
3. It is the language of the spirit of adoption in prayer.
4. The filial spirit exhibited not less in times of trial than in seasons of communion. (Dr. O. Winslow.)
Our Father
The catholic spirit of the Lords Prayer. The Paternal relation involves the fraternal; no engagement so uniting as prayer. Considerations for fraternal union:-
1. The equality of love with which the Father regards all His family.
2. The same spirit of adoption dwells alike in all the children of God.
3. That our Father is bringing us all to one parental and eternal home.
4. This topic belongs essentially to practical Christianity.
5. How uniting this truth upon the family institution. (Dr. O. Winslow.)
Which art in heaven. The celestial spirit of the Lords Prayer
In ascribing locality to God we must not forget that He is everywhere. How appropriate heaven as the dwelling-place of God.
1. Heaven is a glorious place.
2. It is a holy place.
3. It is a happy place.
4. It is a prepared place.
Practical lessons:
1. We are instructed to look up, the whole soul should be in the ascent.
2. To seek heavenly blessings. (Dr. O. Winslow.)
The Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man
Prayer a most exalted privilege-connected with the richest blessings; but is liable to abuse.
1. Christ admonishes His disciples to avoid the ostentatious formalities of the Pharisees.
2. To avoid the vain tautologies of the heathen.
This is to be our model prayer:-
1. Simplicity.
2. Brevity.
I. The fatherhood of God.
1. By an act of creation.
2. By an act of adoption.
3. God is in heaven.
II. The brotherhood of men.
1. The whole human race constitutes one family. They belong to different classes, climes, ages; all sprung from one Father.
2. All Christians constitute one family. (J. Morgan.)
The Paternal relationship of God to us
1. It confers noble privileges (1Jn 3:1; Rom 13:7; Psa 113:5; 1Sa 2:8).
2. Such a name and title we could never have dared to take upon us had not God permitted.
3. This is no barren title (Rom 1:21; Isa 49:14-15; Isa 63:16).
4. This first word of the Lords Prayer is designed to give us access with confidence to God (Eph 3:12; Psa 81:10).
5. This sonship has its duties. (F. C. Blyth, M. A.)
Children worthy of the Divine Father
It is recorded of Alexander the Great that to one who bore his name he gave this admonition, Remember thy name is Alexander; implying that such a remembrance would keep him from doing anything that would stain and tarnish, and so render him unworthy to hold it.
The title of Father enables us to understand God
Luther was one day catechising some country people in a village in Saxony. When one of the men had repeated these words, I believe in God the Father Almighty, Luther asked him what was the meaning of Almighty? The countryman honestly replied, I do not know. Nor do I know, said the catechist, nor do all the learned men in the world know; however, you may safely believe that God is your Father, and that He is both able and willing to save and protect yourself and all your neighbours.
Fatherhood indicative of Personality
You never say Father, to a force; Father, to a law; Father, to a mist; Father, to a mile, nor to infinite millions of miles in a line; Father is not the name for Thought apart from the Thinker, nor for Friendship apart from the Friend; nor for a Link, though the first link in a long chain of grand phenomena. If we mean more than a figurative father, we mean by that word a living Person. (Dr. Stanford.)
The Lords Prayer an intercession for others as well as for ourselves
It was a law among the Romans that no one should approach the Emperors tent at night, under penalty of death. One night, however, a soldier was found near the royal tent, holding in his hand a petition which he meant to present to his master and thereupon he was sentenced to death. But the Emperor, hearing voices, and asking what was amiss, and hearing that a soldier had intruded within the forbidden bounds to present a petition, and that they were about to deal with him according to the law, said-If the petition be for himself, let him die; but if for another, spare his life. It was found that it was for two of his fellow-soldiers that he had come to intercede, who had been taken asleep while they were posted on the watch. The Emperor, well pleased, commanded that he should escape death, and that they also should escape punishment.
The look of the soul ever toward its heavenly home
It is related of Cicero when he was banished from Italy, end of Demosthenes when he was banished from Athens, that they wept every time they looked towards their own country, so great was their love for their fatherland, and so keen their desire to return thither: so should our soul long after our home above.
Which art in heaven
I. The residence of God. Heaven is the seat of His government; the region of holiness and enjoyment; the abode of angels and saints.
II. His stupendous concerns. Arranging all the affairs of the universe; receiving the homage of the celestial inhabitants (Rev 4:2); issuing His commands and executing His threatenings; attending to the supplication of His people; protecting His Church (Zec 2:5).
III. The influence of the subject upon our mind. Humility, reverence, spiritual desires, confidence, expectation, joy. (Dr. Cope.)
Looking up to God
in heaven, showeth us:-
(1) Prayer is an act of the heart, not of the lips. It is not the sound of the voice which can enter into the ears of the Lord of Hosts, but sighs and groans of the Spirit The commerce and communion of spirits is not hindered by local distance.
(2) The work of prayer is to lift up the heart to God; to withdraw the heart from all created things, that we may converse with God in heaven. (Thomas Manton, D. D.)
Which art in heaven
I. Our Saviour, to oppose narrowness of opinion, requires us to pray to our Father which art in heaven, showing by this, that our petitions have equal access to Him from all places.
II. This acknowledgment of our Father in heaven, shows His great kindness in suffering us to approach Him. Though distant in station, and unprofitable in our service.
III. By calling God our Father we express the greatness of those blessings we have received; and by professing this our Father to be in heaven, we own the great dignity of the person that hath conferred them upon us; and the sense of both these together will naturally prepare our hope, reverence, and attention, to send up the following prayer. (Thomas Mangey.)
Hallowed be Thy name.–
How and when may Gods name be sanctified?-
(1) Upon us, by the righteous executions and judgments of His providence;
(2) By us, in our thoughts, words, and actions; in our hearts, and life. Not only when we speak of the name of God, but when we think of it;
(3) When in straits, difficulties, and dangers;
(4) When we speak of the Lord with reverence;
(5) In our actions;
(6) In our worship;
(7) In ordinary conversation. Let this be your care, and let these be your directions in hallowing and sanctifying the Lords name.
1. Be holy.
2. Study His name if ye would sanctify it.
3. Submit to His providence without murmuring.
4. Live to public ends. Allure others, and recommend God to them.
5. Be fully sensible when Gods name is dishonoured by yourselves and others; not enduring the least profanation of it. (Thomas Manton, D. D.)
Hallowed be Thy name
As to the substance of this particular, we may consider, that sanctity implying-
I. A Discrimination;
II. A distance;
III. An exaltment in nature or use of the thing which is denominated thereby. (Isaac Barrow, D. D.)
The Sanctification of Jehovahs name
I. The objects of the petition. The name of God denotes His titles, perfections, etc. To hallow His name denotes-A reverential acknowledgment of God; profound veneration for His Being, attributes, ordinances, word, etc.; sanctification of Him in thought, word, and action; the diffusion of His name through the world; removal of the causes which prevent His name from being hallowed.
II. The sins deprecated. A thoughtless and irreverent use of His name; appeals to God in common conversation; perjury.
III. The grounds on which this petition rests. God is jealous of the glory of His name; He has commanded it to be reverenced; punishment is annexed to a violation of that command. (Dr. Cope.)
Hallowed be Thy name
1. This prayer is a confession of our ignorance.
2. It is a supplication for knowledge.
3. It is an acknowledgment of our sin.
4. It is an entreaty for holiness in ourselves.
5. It ought to be increasingly comprehensive. (F. Edwards, B. A.)
The first petition
I. The place of this petition.
II. The meaning of the petition.
III. What is involved in this petition.
1. Honour to Jesus, as revealing the name of the Father.
2. Appropriate thoughts of God.
3. Suitable emotions towards God.
4. Reverential use of the name.
5. Confession of the name.
6. Private and public worship of the name.
7. Observance of special institutions: sacraments.
8. Subjection to the name.
9. Making known the name.
IV. Reasons for offering this petition.
1. The welfare of the world.
2. For the good of ourselves.
3. For the glory of God. (Newman Hall, LL. B.)
The first petition
I. What do we mean by the name of the father.
1. His name is the expression of Himself through the language of nature.
2. It includes the further expression of Himself through the medium of inspired words.
3. His name is perfectly expressed in the language of the Incarnation.
II. How can we hallow it?
1. In the language of the Old Testament to hallow a thing is to set it apart ceremonially, as a thing sacred.
2. Hallowed be Thy name by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in us.
3. By our trust.
4. In the spirit of our prayers.
5. In our lives.
6. In our language.
7. In Thy Church by the ascription to Thee alone of honours due.
8. In the overthrow of idolatry. (Dr. Stanford.)
Hallowed be Thy name
I. In breathing this prayer we ask that God would hallow his own name, or cause it to be hallowed. It is not the tribute which we pay to mere power and magnitude. Nature appears in forms of greatness; we do not reverence her. Nor do we reverence mere kindness. A full knowledge of God is necessary in order to hallow His name. To avoid superstition. Terror is not reverence. Some view the Divine Being as too good-natured to punish; the guilt of sin is not felt. By this theory Gods name is acknowledged, but not hallowed.
II. We can also pray that we and all men may hallow the name of God. We should consecrate His name-
1. On our lips.
2. In our lives.
3. In our hearts. (E. H. Chaplin.)
The fundamental petition
I. What is meant by the name of God? God has revealed His name-
1. In creation.
2. In Israel.
3. In His Law.
4. In the sacrifices.
5. In the names of His servants. Elijah means, Jehovah is my strength.
6. In the face of Jesus.
II. Halllowed be Thy name. All the works of God glorify His name. The petition implies-
(1) The desire to know Gods name;
(2) To treat it as a reality;
(3) To rejoice in it;
(4) To separate it from our corrupt thoughts and desires;
(5) To regard it as inviolable in its unity;
(6) That we be manifestations of God.
(7) This prayer is universal; there is no health for the nation or family but by the knowledge of Gods name. (Dr. Saphir.)
The reverential spirit of the Lords prayer
This petition takes precedence in the Lords prayer: all things must resolve themselves into a manifestation of the Divine glory.
1. Gods name is Holy (Lev 22:2).
2. He is jealous of it (Eze 39:25).
3. God notices the hallowing of His name by His people (Mat 2:5).
4. God has hallowed His own name
(1) in His revealed word;
(2) in the Lord Jesus Christ;
(3) in His dealings with His saints. How is Gods name to be hallowed?
We cannot make it more holy, yet may hallow it
(1) By a deepening sense of its holiness;
(2) By bringing it into the daily exercise of faith;
(3) By a meek, submissive spirit, under the discipline of our Fathers correcting hand;
(4) By a full trust in the name, Person, work of Jesus. (Dr. O. Winslow.)
The first petition
This prayer directory for the matter and order of our desires.
I. What we should include in this prayer.
1. Just and worthy apprehensions of the Divine character and attributes.
2. That fresh accessions of glory may be constantly accruing to that name from the Person and work of Christ.
3. That in everything which pertains to God, due regard may be had to the sanctities of His holy nature.
4. To emphasize the utterance of the sacred name by some act of mental worship.
5. A reverent observance of His ordinances.
II. What we may learn from this petition.
1. That in all our prayers, regard must be had to certain fixed principles of moral government.
2. The law of subordination according to which we are to frame our desires.
3. He may not allow praise to be given to any other name. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The Holy name
I. The name.
II. The holy name. Who so worthy of honour:
(1) He is the God of Nature;
(2) of Providence;
(3) of Grace;
(4) of Glory.
(5) The redeemed saints in glory honour and venerate Him; the angelic host worship Him.
(6) The other Persons in the adorable Trinity honour Him-He shall glorify Me.
III. How can we honour Jesus?
1. By giving Him the first place in our thoughts and affections.
2. By a reverential use of all the appellations by which He is distinguished from all other beings.
3. By solemn and grateful acts of worship.
4. By keeping holy the Sabbath day.
5. By living holily before our fellow men.
6. By praising, and recommending Him to all who dwell around us. (J. Morgan.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. After this manner therefore pray ye] Forms of prayer were frequent among the Jews; and every public teacher gave one to his disciples. Some forms were drawn out to a considerable length, and from these abridgments were made: to the latter sort the following prayer properly belongs, and consequently, besides its own very important use, it is a plan for a more extended devotion. What satisfaction must it be to learn from God himself, with what words, and in what manner, he would have us pray to him, so as not to pray in vain! A king, who draws up the petition which he allows to be presented to himself, has doubtless the fullest determination to grant the request. We do not sufficiently consider the value of this prayer; the respect and attention which it requires; the preference to be given to it; its fulness and perfection: the frequent use we should make of it; and the spirit which we should bring with it. “Lord, teach us how to pray!” is a prayer necessary to prayer; for unless we are divinely instructed in the manner, and influenced by the spirit of true devotion, even the prayer taught us by Jesus Christ may be repeated without profit to our souls.
Our Father] It was a maxim of the Jews, that a man should not pray alone, but join with the Church; by which they particularly meant that he should, whether alone or with the synagogue, use the plural number as comprehending all the followers of God. Hence, they say, Let none pray the short prayer, i.e. as the gloss expounds it, the prayer in the singular, but in the plural number. See Lightfoot on this place.
This prayer was evidently made in a peculiar manner for the children of God. And hence we are taught to say, not MY Father, but OUR Father. The heart, says one, of a child of God, is a brotherly heart, in respect of all other Christians: it asks nothing but in the spirit of unity, fellowship, and Christian charity; desiring that for its brethren which it desires for itself.
The word Father, placed here at the beginning of this prayer, includes two grand ideas, which should serve as a foundation to all our petitions:
1st. That tender and respectful love which we should feel for God, such as that which children feel for their fathers.
2dly. That strong confidence in God’s love to us, such as fathers have for their children.
Thus all the petitions in this prayer stand in strictest reference to the word Father; the first three referring to the love we have for God; and the three last, to that confidence which we have in the love he bears to us.
The relation we stand in to this first and best of beings dictates to us reverence for his person, zeal for his honour, obedience to his will, submission to his dispensations and chastisements, and resemblance to his nature.
Which art in heaven] The phrase , abinu sheboshemayim, our Father who art in heaven, was very common among the ancient Jews; and was used by them precisely in the same sense as it is used here by our Lord.
This phrase in the Scriptures seems used to express:
1st. His OMNIPRESENCE. The heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. 1Kg 8:27: that is, Thou fillest immensity.
2dly. His MAJESTY and DOMINION over his creatures. Art thou not God in heaven, and rulest thou not over all the kingdoms of the heathen? 2Ch 20:6.
3dly. His POWER and MIGHT. Art thou not God in heaven, and in thy hand is there not power and might, so that no creature is able to withstand thee! 2Ch 20:6. Our God is in heaven, and hath done whatsoever he pleased. Ps 115:3.
4thly. His OMNISCIENCE. The Lord’s throne is in heaven, his eyes behold, his eye-lids try the children of men. Ps 11:4. The Lord looketh down from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. Ps 33:13-15.
5thly. His infinite PURITY and HOLINESS. Look down from thy holy habitation, c. De 26:15. Thou art the high and lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. Isa 57:15.
Hallowed] . from a negative, and , the earth, a thing separated from the earth, or from earthly purposes and employments. As the word sanctified, or hallowed, in Scripture, is frequently used for the consecration of a thing or person to a holy use or office, as the Levites, first-born, tabernacle, temple, and their utensils, which were all set apart from every earthly, common, or profane use, and employed wholly in the service of God, so the Divine Majesty may be said to be sanctified by us, in analogy to those things, viz. when, we separate him from, and in our conceptions and desires exalt him above, earth and all things.
Thy name.] That is, GOD himself, with all the attributes of his Divine nature-his power, wisdom, justice, mercy, c.
We hallow God’s name,
1st. With our lips, when all our conversation is holy, and we speak of those things which are meet to minister grace to the hearers.
2dly. In our thoughts, when we suppress every rising evil, and have our tempers regulated by his grace and Spirit.
3dly. In our lives, when we begin, continue, and end our works to his glory. If we have an eye to God in all we perform, then every act of our common employment will be an act of religious worship.
4thly. In our families, when we endeavour to bring up our children in the discipline and admonition or the Lord instructing also our servants in the way of righteousness.
5thly. In a particular calling or business, when we separate the falsity, deception, and lying, commonly practised, from it buying and selling as in the sight of the holy and just God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Not always in these words, but always to this sense, and in this manner. None ever thought Christians obliged to use no other words than these in prayer, though none must deny the lawfulness of using those words which Christ hath sanctified.
After this manner; first seeking the kingdom of God, and begging those things which more immediately concern Gods glory, and then those things which more immediately concern yourselves. Or, After this manner, praying only in particular for such things as are more generally couched in the following petitions.
Our Father which art in heaven: a compellation speaking our faith both in the power and in the goodness of God; our eyeing him as in heaven speaketh his power, Psa 115:3, our considering him as our Father speaks our faith in his goodness, Mat 7:11.
Hallowed be they name. Gods name is whatsoever he hath made himself known by: Let the Lord be glorified in every thing whereby he hath made himself known.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
After this manner therefore pray ye,…. That is, in such a concise and short way, without much speaking and vain repetitions; making use of such like words and expressions as the following: not that Christ meant to pin down his disciples to these express words, and no other; for this prayer is not a strict form, but a pattern of prayer, and a directory to it, both as to brevity, order, and matter; for we do not find the disciples ever making use of it in form; and when it is recited by another Evangelist, it is not in the selfsame words as here; which it would have been, had it been designed as an exact form. Besides, Christ does not bid them pray in these very words, but “after this manner”; somewhat like this: not but that it is very lawful to use the very express words of this prayer in any of the petitions here directed to; and which indeed were no other than what good people among the Jews did frequently make use of; and which were collected and singled out by Christ, as what he approved of, in distinction from, and opposition to, other impertinent expressions, and vain repetitions, which some used; as will appear by a particular consideration of them.
Our Father which art in heaven. This may be looked upon as the preface and introduction to the prayer, and regards the object of it, and his character, which is an epithet of God, often to be met with in Jewish writings, and particularly in their prayers; for thus they k say,
“Mymvbv wnyba, “our Father which art in heaven”, show mercy “to us, because thy great name is called upon us.”
Again l, let the prayers and the requests of all Israel be received by , “their Father, which is in heaven”. They seem to have a regard to this prayer, when they apply that passage in Pr 3:35 “shame shall be the promotion of fools”, to the nations of the earth, who, they say m,
“do not consider the glory of the law; and how, say they, “our Father which art in heaven”, hear our voice, have mercy on us, and receive our prayer?”
So in confessions, thanksgivings, and sacrifices of praise, they required, and looked upon it, as the main thing, for a man to direct his heart , “to his Father which is in heaven n.” By “father”, our Lord means the first person in the Trinity, who is the Father of all men by creation, and of the saints by adoption; who are to address him in prayer under the character of “our Father”, partly to command a reverential fear of him, and partly to secure boldness and liberty of speech before him; and also to express fiducial confidence in him, faith of interest in him, and relation to him; which arises from some experience of his paternal love, and requires the witnessings of the Spirit of adoption; and inasmuch as the direction is not to say “my Father”, but “our Father”; it shows that we should pray for others as well as for ourselves, even for all the dear children of God. It is a rule o with the Jews,
“that a man ought always to join himself in prayer with the church;”
upon which the gloss says,
“let him not pray the short prayer
, “in the singular, but in the plural number”, that so his prayer may be heard.”
The object of prayer is further described by the place of his residence, “in heaven”; not that he is included in any place, but that the heaven of heavens is the place where he most eminently displays his glory: and this may teach us to look upwards in prayer, and seek those things which are above; and also, that this earth, on which we dwell, is not our native country, but heaven is, where our Father dwells. Next follows the first petition,
hallowed, or sanctified be thy name; so the Jews p in their prayers,
“Kmv vdqty, “let thy name be hallowed”, or “sanctified by us”, O Lord our God, before the eyes of all living.”
And very often q,
“let his great name be magnified and sanctified in the world, which he hath created according to his will.”
And again r,
“let us sanctify thy name in the world, as they sanctify it in the highest heavens.”
By the “name” of God is meant he himself, the perfections of his nature, and the several names by which he is known, and which we are to think and speak of with holy reverence. By sanctifying his name, is not meant a making him holy, but acknowledging, and declaring him to be holy, and a glorifying him, and all his perfections. He is sanctified by himself, by declaring himself to be holy; by glorifying his perfections in his works; by implanting grace and holiness in the hearts of his people; by restoring the purity of his worship; by diffusing the knowledge of himself in the world; and by taking vengeance on the wicked: and he is sanctified by others, when they fear him, believe in him, call upon his name, use it reverently, submit to his will, acknowledge his mercies, regard his commands aud ordinances, and live a holy life and conversation; all which is earnestly desired by truly gracious souls.
k Seder Tephillot, fol. 4. 2. Ed. Basil. l Ib. fol. 33. 2. m Raya Mehimna in Zohar in Lev. fol. 34. 1. n T. Bab. Shebuot, fol. 15. 1. o T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 30. 1. p Seder Tephillot, fol. 78. 1. Ed. Amstelod. Zohar in Exod. fol. 43. 4. q Seder Tephillot, fol. 17. 2, Ed. Basil. & passim. r Seder Tephillot, fol. 22. 1. & passim.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Sermon on the Mount. |
| |
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. 14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
When Christ had condemned what was amiss, he directs to do better; for his are reproofs of instruction. Because we know not what to pray for as we ought, he here helps our infirmities, by putting words into our mouths; after this manner therefore pray ye, v. 9. So many were the corruptions that had crept into this duty of prayer among the Jews, that Christ saw it needful to give a new directory for prayer, to show his disciples what must ordinarily be the matter and method of their prayer, which he gives in words that may very well be used as a form; as the summary or contents of the several particulars of our prayers. Not that we are tied up to the use of this form only, or of this always, as if this were necessary to the consecrating of our other prayers; we are here bid to pray after this manner, with these words, or to this effect. That in Luke differs from this; we do not find it used by the apostles; we are not here taught to pray in the name of Christ, as we are afterward; we are here taught to pray that the kingdom might come which did come when the Spirit was poured out: yet, without doubt, it is very good to use it as a form, and it is a pledge of the communion of saints, it having been used by the church in all ages, at least (says Dr. Whitby) from the third century. It is our Lord’s prayer, it is of his composing, of his appointing; it is very compendious, yet very comprehensive, in compassion to our infirmities in praying. The matter is choice and necessary, the method instructive, and the expression very concise. It has much in a little, and it is requisite that we acquaint ourselves with the sense and meaning of it, for it is used acceptably no further than it is used with understanding and without vain repetition.
The Lord’s prayer (as indeed every prayer) is a letter sent from earth to heaven. Here is the inscription of the letter, the person to whom it is directed, our Father; the where, in heaven; the contents of it in several errands of request; the close, for thine is the kingdom; the seal, Amen; and if you will, the date too, this day.
Plainly thus: there are three parts of the prayer.
I. The preface, Our Father who art in heaven. Before we come to our business, there must be a solemn address to him with whom our business lies; Our Father. Intimating, that we must pray, not only alone and for ourselves, but with and for others; for we are members one of another, and are called into fellowship with each other. We are here taught to whom to pray, to God only, and not to saints and angels, for they are ignorant of us, are not to have the high honours we give in prayer, nor can give favours we expect. We are taught how to address ourselves to God, and what title to give him, that which speaks him rather beneficent than magnificent, for we are to come boldly to the throne of grace.
1. We must address ourselves to him as our Father, and must call him so. He is a common Father to all mankind by creation, Mal 2:10; Act 17:28. He is in a special manner a Father to the saints, by adoption and regeneration (Eph 1:5; Gal 4:6); and an unspeakable privilege it is. Thus we must eye him in prayer, keep up good thoughts of him, such as are encouraging and not affrighting; nothing more pleasing to God, nor pleasant to ourselves, than to call God Father. Christ in prayer mostly called God Father. If he be our Father, he will pity us under our weaknesses and infirmities (Ps. ciii. 13), will spare us (Mal. iii. 17), will make the best of our performances, though very defective, will deny us nothing that is good for us, Luke xi. 11-13. We have access with boldness to him, as to a father, and have an advocate with the Father, and the Spirit of adoption. When we come repenting of our sins, we must eye God as a Father, as the prodigal did (Luk 15:18; Jer 3:19); when we come begging for grace, and peace, and the inheritance and blessing of sons, it is an encouragement that we come to God, not as an unreconciled, avenging Judge, but as a loving, gracious, reconciled Father in Christ, Jer. iii. 4.
2. As our Father in heaven: so in heaven as to be every where else, for the heaven cannot contain him; yet so in heaven as there to manifest his glory, for it is his throne (Ps. ciii. 19), and it is to believers a throne of grace: thitherward we must direct our prayers, for Christ the Mediator is now in heaven, Heb. viii. 1. Heaven is out of sight, and a world of spirits, therefore our converse with God in prayer must be spiritual; it is on high, therefore in prayer we must be raised above the world, and lift up our hearts, Ps. v. 1. Heaven is a place of perfect purity, and we must therefore lift up pure hands, must study to sanctify his name, who is the Holy One, and dwells in that holy place, Lev. x. 3. From heaven God beholds the children of men, Psa 33:13; Psa 33:14. And we must in prayer see his eye upon us: thence he has a full and clear view of all our wants and burdens and desires, and all our infirmities. It is the firmament of his power likewise, as well as of his prospect, Ps. cl. 1. He is not only, as a Father, able to help us, able to do great things for us, more than we can ask or think; he has wherewith to supply our needs, for every good gift is from above. He is a Father, and therefore we may come to him with boldness, but a Father in heaven, and therefore we must come with reverence, Eccl. v. 2. Thus all our prayers should correspond with that which is our great aim as Christians, and that is, to be with God in heaven. God and heaven, the end of our whole conversation, must be particularly eyed in every prayer; there is the centre to which we are all tending. By prayer, we send before us thither, where we profess to be going.
II. The petitions, and those are six; the three first relating more immediately to God and his honour, the three last to our own concerns, both temporal and spiritual; as in the ten commandments, the four first teach us our duty toward God, and the last six our duty toward our neighbour. The method of this prayer teaches us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then to hope that other things shall be added.
1. Hallowed be thy name. It is the same word that in other places is translated sanctified. But here the old word hallowed is retained, only because people were used to it in the Lord’s prayer. In these words, (1.) We give glory to God; it may be taken not as a petition, but as an adoration; as that, the Lord be magnified, or glorified, for God’s holiness is the greatness and glory of all his perfections. We must begin our prayers with praising God, and it is very fit he should be first served, and that we should give glory to God, before we expect to receive mercy and grace from him. Let him have praise of his perfections, and then let us have the benefit of them. (2.) We fix our end, and it is the right end to be aimed at, and ought to be our chief and ultimate end in all our petitions, that God may be glorified; all our other requests must be in subordination to this, and in pursuance of it. “Father, glorify thyself in giving me my daily bread and pardoning my sins,” c. Since all is of him and through him, all must be to him and for him. In prayer our thoughts and affections should be carried out most to the glory of God. The Pharisees made their own name the chief end of their prayers (<i>v. 5, to be seen of men), in opposition to which we are directed to make the name of God our chief end; let all our petitions centre in this and be regulated by it. “Do so and so for me, for the glory of thy name, and as far as is for the glory of it.” (3.) We desire and pray that the name of God, that is, God himself, in all that whereby he has made himself known, may be sanctified and glorified both by us and others, and especially by himself. “Father, let thy name be glorified as a Father, and a Father in heaven; glorify thy goodness and thy highness, thy majesty and mercy. Let thy name be sanctified, for it is a holy name; no matter what becomes of our polluted names, but, Lord, what wilt thou do to thy great name?” When we pray that God’s name may be glorified, [1.] We make a virtue of necessity; for God will sanctify his own name, whether we desire it or not; I will be exalted among the heathen, Ps. lxvi. 10. [2.] We ask for that which we are sure shall be granted; for when our Saviour prayed, Father glorify thy name, it was immediately answered, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.
2. Thy kingdom come. This petition has plainly a reference to the doctrine which Christ preached at this time, which John Baptist had preached before, and which he afterwards sent his apostles out to preach–the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of your Father who is in heaven, the kingdom of the Messiah, this is at hand, pray that it may come. Note, We should turn the word we hear into prayer, our hearts should echo to it; does Christ promise, surely I come quickly? our hearts should answer, Even so, come. Ministers should pray over the word: when they preach, the kingdom of God is at hand, they should pray, Father, thy kingdom come. What God has promised we must pray for; for promises are given, not to supersede, but to quicken and encourage prayer; and when the accomplishment of a promise is near and at the door, when the kingdom of heaven is at hand, we should then pray for it the more earnestly; thy kingdom come; as Daniel set his face to pray for the deliverance of Israel, when he understood that the time of it was at hand, Dan. ix. 2. See Luke xix. 11. It was the Jews’ daily prayer to God, Let him make his kingdom reign, let his redemption flourish, and let his Messiah come and deliver his people. Dr. Whitby, ex Vitringa. “Let thy kingdom come, let the gospel be preached to all and embraced by all; let all be brought to subscribe to the record God has given in his word concerning his Son, and to embrace him as their Saviour and Sovereign. Let the bounds of the gospel-church be enlarged, the kingdom of the world be made Christ’s kingdom, and all men become subjects to it, and live as becomes their character.”
3. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. We pray that God’s kingdom being come, we and others may be brought into obedience to all the laws and ordinances of it. By this let it appear that Christ’s kingdom is come, let God’s will be done; and by this let is appear that it is come as a kingdom of heaven, let it introduce a heaven upon earth. We make Christ but a titular Prince, if we call him King, and do not do his will: having prayed that he may rule us, we pray that we may in every thing be ruled by him. Observe, (1.) The thing prayed for, thy will be done; “Lord, do what thou pleasest with me and mine; 1 Sam. iii. 18. I refer myself to thee, and am well satisfied that all thy counsel concerning me should be performed.” In this sense Christ prayed, not my will, but thine be done. “Enable me to do what is pleasing to thee; give me that grace that is necessary to the right knowledge of thy will, and an acceptable obedience to it. Let thy will be done conscientiously by me and others, not our own will, the will of the flesh, or the mind, not the will of men (1 Pet. iv. 2), much less Satan’s will (John viii. 44), that we may neither displease God in any thing we do (ut nihil nostrum displiceat Deo), nor be displeased at any thing God does” (ut nihil Dei displiceat nobis). (2.) The pattern of it, that it might be done on earth, in this place of our trial and probation (where our work must be done, or it never will be done), as it is done in heaven, that place of rest and joy. We pray that earth may be made more like heaven by the observance of God’s will (this earth, which, through the prevalency of Satan’s will, has become so near akin to hell), and that saints may be made more like the holy angels in their devotion and obedience. We are on earth, blessed be God, not yet under the earth; we pray for the living only, not for the dead that have gone down into silence.
4. Give us this day our daily bread. Because our natural being is necessary to our spiritual well-being in this world, therefore, after the things of God’s glory, kingdom, and will, we pray for the necessary supports and comforts of this present life, which are the gifts of God, and must be asked of him, Ton arton epiousion—Bread for the day approaching, for all the remainder of our lives. Bread for the time to come, or bread for our being and subsistence, that which is agreeable to our condition in the world (Prov. xxx. 8), food convenient for us and our families, according to our rank and station.
Every word here has a lesson in it: (1.) We ask for bread; that teaches us sobriety and temperance; we ask for bread, not dainties, not superfluities; that which is wholesome, though it be not nice. (2.) We ask for our bread; that teaches us honesty and industry: we do not ask for the bread out of other people’s mouths, not the bread of deceit (Prov. xx. 17), not the brad of idleness (Prov. xxxi. 27), but the bread honestly gotten. (3.) We ask for our daily bread; which teaches us not to take thought for the morrow (v. 34), but constantly to depend upon divine Providence, as those that live from hand to mouth. (4.) We beg of God to give it us, not sell it us, nor lend it us, but give it. The greatest of men must be beholden to the mercy of God for their daily bread, (5.) We pray, “Give it to us; not to me only, but to others in common with me.” This teaches us charity, and a compassionate concern for the poor and needy. It intimates also, that we ought to pray with our families; we and our households eat together, and therefore ought to pray together. (6.) We pray that God would give us this day; which teaches us to renew the desire of our souls toward God, as the wants of our bodies are renewed; as duly as the day comes, we must pray to our heavenly Father, and reckon we could as well go a day without meat, as without prayer.
5. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, This is connected with the former; and forgive, intimating, that unless our sins be pardoned, we can have no comfort in life, or the supports of it. Our daily bread does but feed us as lambs for the slaughter, if our sins be not pardoned. It intimates, likewise, that we must pray for daily pardon, as duly as we pray for daily bread. He that is washed, needeth to wash his feet. Here we have,
(1.) A petition; Father in heaven forgive us our debts, our debts to thee. Note, [1.] Our sins are our debts; there is a debt of duty, which, as creatures, we owe to our Creator; we do not pray to be discharged from that, but upon the non-payment of that there arises a debt of punishment; in default of obedience to the will of God, we become obnoxious to the wrath of God; and for not observing the precept of the law, we stand obliged to the penalty. A debtor is liable to process, so are we; a malefactor is a debtor to the law, so are we. [2.] Our hearts’ desire and prayer to our heavenly Father every day should be, that he would forgive us our debts; that the obligation to punishment may be cancelled and vacated, that we may not come into condemnation; that we may be discharged, and have the comfort of it. In suing out the pardon of our sins, the great plea we have to rely upon is the satisfaction that was made to the justice of God for the sin of man, by the dying of the Lord Jesus our Surety, or rather Bail to the action, that undertook our discharge.
(2.) An argument to enforce this petition; as we forgive our debtors. This is not a plea of merit, but a plea of grace. Note, Those that come to God for the forgiveness of their sins against him, must make conscience of forgiving those who have offended them, else they curse themselves when they say the Lord’s prayer. Our duty is to forgive our debtors; as to debts of money, we must not be rigorous and severe in exacting them from those that cannot pay them without ruining themselves and their families; but this means debt of injury; our debtors are those that trespass against us, that smite us (Mat 5:39; Mat 5:40), and in strictness of law, might be prosecuted for it; we must forbear, and forgive, and forget the affronts put upon us, and the wrongs done us; and this is a moral qualification for pardon and peace; it encourages to hope, that God will forgive us; for if there be in us this gracious disposition, it is wrought of God, and therefore is a perfection eminently and transcendently in himself; it will be an evidence to us that he has forgiven us, having wrought in us the condition of forgiveness.
6. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This petition is expressed,
(1.) Negatively: Lead us not into temptation. Having prayed that the guilt of sin may be removed, we pray, as it is fit, that we may never return again to folly, that we may not be tempted to it. It is not as if God tempted any to sin; but, “Lord, do not let Satan loose upon us; chain up that roaring lion, for he is subtle and spiteful; Lord, do not leave us to ourselves (Ps. xix. 13), for we are very weak; Lord, do not lay stumbling-blocks and snares before us, nor put us into circumstances that may be an occasion of falling.” Temptations are to be prayed against, both because of the discomfort and trouble of them, and because of the danger we are in of being overcome by them, and the guilt and grief that then follow.
(2.) Positively: But deliver us from evil; apo tou ponerou—from the evil one, the devil, the tempter; “keep us, that either we may not be assaulted by him, or we may not be overcome by those assaults:” Or from the evil thing, sin, the worst of evils; an evil, an only evil; that evil thing which God hates, and which Satan tempts men to and destroys them by. “Lord, deliver us from the evil of the world, the corruption that is in the world through lust; from the evil of every condition in the world; from the evil of death; from the sting of death, which is sin: deliver us from ourselves, from our own evil hearts: deliver us from evil men, that they may not be a snare to us, nor we a prey to them.”
III. The conclusion: For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen. Some refer this to David’s doxology, 1 Chron. xxix. 11. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness. It is,
1. A form of plea to enforce the foregoing petitions. It is our duty to plead with God in prayer, to fill our mouth with arguments (Job xxiii. 4) not to move God, but to affect ourselves; to encourage the faith, to excite our fervency, and to evidence both. Now the best pleas in prayer are those that are taken from God himself, and from that which he has made known of himself. We must wrestle with God in his own strength, both as to the nature of our pleas and the urging of them. The plea here has special reference to the first three petitions; “Father in heaven, thy kingdom come, for thine is the kingdom; thy will be done, for thine is the power; hallowed be thy name, for thine is the glory.” And as to our own particular errands, these are encouraging: “Thine is the kingdom; thou hast the government of the world, and the protection of the saints, thy willing subjects in it;” God gives and saves like a king. “Thine is the power, to maintain and support that kingdom, and to make good all thine engagements to thy people.” Thine is the glory, as the end of all that which is given to, and done for, the saints, in answer to their prayers; for their praise waiteth for him. This is matter of comfort and holy confidence in prayer.
2. It is a form of praise and thanksgiving. The best pleading with God is praising of him; it is the way to obtain further mercy, as it qualifies us to receive it. In all our addresses to God, it is fit that praise should have a considerable share, for praise becometh the saints; they are to be our God for a name and for a praise. It is just and equal; we praise God, and give him glory, not because he needs it–he is praised by a world of angels, but because he deserves it; and it is our duty to give him glory, in compliance with his design in revealing himself to us. Praise is the work and happiness of heaven; and all that would go to heaven hereafter, must begin their heaven now. Observe, how full this doxology is, The kingdom, and the power, and the glory, it is all thine. Note, It becomes us to be copious in praising God. A true saint never thinks he can speak honourably enough of God: here there should be a gracious fluency, and this for ever. Ascribing glory to God for ever, intimates an acknowledgement, that it is eternally due, and an earnest desire to be eternally doing it, with angels and saints above, Ps. lxxi. 14.
Lastly, To all this we are taught to affix our Amen, so be it. God’s Amen is a grant; his fiat is, it shall be so; our Amen is only a summary desire; our fiat is, let it be so: it is in the token of our desire and assurance to be heard, that we say Amen. Amen refers to every petition going before, and thus, in compassion to our infirmities, we are taught to knit up the whole in one word, and so to gather up, in the general, what we have lost and let slip in the particulars. It is good to conclude religious duties with some warmth and vigour, that we may go from them with a sweet savour upon our spirits. It was of old the practice of good people to say, Amen, audibly at the end of every prayer, and it is a commendable practice, provided it be done with understanding, as the apostle directs (1 Cor. xiv. 16), and uprightly, with life and liveliness, and inward expressions, answerable to that outward expression of desire and confidence.
Most of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer had been commonly used by the Jews in their devotions, or words to the same effect: but that clause in the fifth petition, As we forgive our debtors, was perfectly new, and therefore our Saviour here shows for what reason he added it, not with any personal reflection upon the peevishness, litigiousness, and ill nature of the men of that generation, though there was cause enough for it, but only from the necessity and importance of the thing itself. God, in forgiving us, has a peculiar respect to our forgiving those that have injured us; and therefore, when we pray for pardon, we must mention our making conscience of that duty, not only to remind ourselves of it, but to bind ourselves to it. See that parable, ch. xviii. 23-35. Selfish nature is loth to comply with this, and therefore it is here inculcated, Mat 6:14; Mat 6:15.
1. In a promise. If ye forgive, your heavenly Father will also forgive. Not as if this were the only condition required; there must be repentance and faith, and new obedience; but as where other graces are in truth, there will be this, so this will be a good evidence of the sincerity of our other graces. He that relents toward his brother, thereby shows that he repents toward his God. Those which in the prayer are called debts, are here called trespasses, debts of injury, wrongs done to us in our bodies, goods, or reputation: trespasses is an extenuating term for offences, paraptomata—stumbles, slips, falls. Note, It is a good evidence, and a good help of our forgiving others, to call the injuries done us by a mollifying, excusing name. Call them not treasons, but trespasses; not wilful injuries, but casual inadvertencies; peradventure it was an oversight (Gen. xliii. 12), therefore make the best of it. We must forgive, as we hope to be forgiven; and therefore must not only bear no malice, nor mediate revenge, but must not upbraid our brother with the injuries he has done us, nor rejoice in any hurt that befals him, but must be ready to help him and do him good, and if he repent and desire to be friends again, we must be free and familiar with him, as before.
2. In a threatening. “But if you forgive not those that have injured you, that is a bad sign you have not the other requisite conditions, but are altogether unqualified for pardon: and therefore your Father, whom you call Father, and who, as a father, offers you his grace upon reasonable terms, will nevertheless not forgive you. And if other grace be sincere, and yet you be defective greatly in forgiving, you cannot expect the comfort of your pardon, but to have your spirit brought down by some affliction or other to comply with this duty.” Note, Those who would have found mercy with God must show mercy to their brethren; no can we expect that he should stretch out the hands of his favour to us, unless we lift up to him pure hands, without wrath, 1 Tim. ii. 8. If we pray in anger, we have reason to fear God will answer in anger. It has been said, Prayers made in wrath are written in gall. What reason is it that God should forgive us the talents we are indebted to him, if we forgive not our brethren the pence they are indebted to us? Christ came into the world as the great Peace-Maker, and not only to reconcile us to God, but one to another, and in this we must comply with him. It is great presumption and of dangerous consequence, for any to make a light matter of that which Christ here lays such a stress upon. Men’s passions shall not frustrate God’s word.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
After this manner therefore pray ye ( ). “You” expressed in contrast with “the Gentiles.” It should be called “The Model Prayer” rather than “The Lord’s Prayer.” “Thus” pray as he gives them a model. He himself did not use it as a liturgy (cf. Joh 17). There is no evidence that Jesus meant it for liturgical use by others. In Lu 11:2-4 practically the same prayer though briefer is given at a later time by Jesus to the apostles in response to a request that he teach them how to pray. McNeile argues that the form in Luke is the original to which Matthew has made additions: “The tendency of liturgical formulas is towards enrichment rather than abbreviation.” But there is no evidence whatever that Jesus designed it as a set formula. There is no real harm in a liturgical formula if one likes it, but no one sticks to just one formula in prayer. There is good and not harm in children learning and saying this noble prayer. Some people are disturbed over the words “Our Father” and say that no one has a right to call God Father who has not been “born again.” But that is to say that an unconverted sinner cannot pray until he is converted, an absurd contradiction. God is the Father of all men in one sense; the recognition of Him as the Father in the full sense is the first step in coming back to him in regeneration and conversion.
Hallowed be thy name ( ). In the Greek the verb comes first as in the petitions in verse 10. They are all aorist imperatives, punctiliar action expressing urgency.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
THE MODEL PRAYER OUR LORD TAUGHT HIS
CHURCH DISCIPLES,
V. 9-15
1) “After this manner therefore pray ye:” (houtos oun proseuchesthe humeis) “Therefore you all are to pray habitually, in this manner,” in a style, concise, comprehensive, to the point of honoring God, and helping men, Luk 11:1-4; Joh 16:24; Jude 6:18; Eph 6:18.
2) “Our Father which art in heaven,” (pater hemon ho en tois ouranois) “Our Father, thou the one in heaven;” Note it is to be “our” Father, not “mine” alone, Jer 31:11; Eph 3:15; Heb 12:9; Mat 5:9; Mat 5:16. Heaven is an high place, an holy place, an exalted place of purity and glory, to be held in reverence.
3) “Hallowed be thy name.” (hagiastheto to onoma sou) “Let your name be hallowed,” above even the name of thy son, whom you gave a “name above every name,” Php_2:9-10; Isa 45:23; Rev 5:13. Hallowed means “sanctified” as Deity and Divinity, to be worshiped, Exo 20:1-3. A good name can be received only through faith in the name of Jesus, Act 4:12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Mat 6:9
Do ye therefore pray thus Instead of this Luke says, when ye pray, say: though Christ does not enjoin his people to pray in a prepared form of words, (431) but only points out what ought to be the object of all our wishes and prayers. He embraces, therefore, in six petitions what we are at liberty to ask from God. Nothing is more advantageous to us than such instruction. Though this is the most important exercise of piety, yet in forming our prayers, and regulating our wishes, all our senses fail us. No man will pray aright, unless his lips and heart shall be directed by the Heavenly Master. For that purpose he has laid down this rule, by which we must frame our prayers, if we desire to have them accounted lawful and approved by God. It was not the intention of the Son of God, (as we have already said), to prescribe the words which we must use, so as not to leave us at liberty to depart from the form which he has dictated. His intention rather was, to guide and restrain our wishes, that they might not go beyond those limits and hence we infer, that the rule which he has given us for praying aright relates not to the words, but to the things themselves.
This form of prayer consists, as I have said, of six petitions. The first three, it ought to be known, relate to the glory of God, without any regard to ourselves; and the remaining three relate to those things which are necessary for our salvation. As the law of God is divided into two tables, of which the former contains the duties of piety, and the latter the duties of charity, (432) so in prayer Christ enjoins us to consider and seek the glory of God, and, at the same time, permits us to consult our own interests. Let us therefore know, that we shall be in a state of mind for praying in a right manner, if we not only are in earnest about ourselves and our own advantage, but assign the first place to the glory of God: for it would be altogether preposterous to mind only what belongs to ourselves, and to disregard the kingdom of God, which is of far greater importance.
Our Father who art in heaven Whenever we engage in prayer, there are two things to be considered, both that we may have access to God, and that we may rely on Him with full and unshaken confidence: his fatherly love toward us, and his boundless power. Let us therefore entertain no doubt, that God is willing to receive us graciously, that he is ready to listen to our prayers, — in a word, that of Himself he is disposed to aid us. Father is the appellation given to him; and under this title Christ supplies us with sufficiently copious materials for confidence. But as it is only the half of our reliance that is founded on the goodness of God, in the next clause, who art in heaven, he gives us a lofty idea of the power of God. When the Scripture says, that God is in heaven, the meaning is, that all things are subject to his dominions, — that the world, and everything in it, is held by his hand, — that his power is everywhere diffused, — that all things are arranged by his providence. David says, “He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh at them,” (Psa 2:4); and again, “Our God is in heaven: he hath done whatever he hath pleased,” (Psa 115:3).
When God is said to be in heaven, we must not suppose that he dwells only there; but, on the contrary, must hold what is said in another passage, that “the heavens of heavens do not contain him,” (2Ch 2:6). This mode of expression separates him from the rank of creatures, and reminds us that, when we think of him, we ought not to form any low or earthly conceptions: for he is higher than the whole world. We have now ascertained the design of Christ. In the commencement of the prayer, he desired his own people to rest their confidence on the goodness and power of God; because, unless our prayers are founded on faith, they will be of no advantage. Now, as it would be the folly and madness of presumption, to call God our Father, except on the ground that, through our union to the body of Christ, we are acknowledged as his children, we conclude, that there is no other way of praying aright, but by approaching God with reliance on the Mediator.
May thy name be sanctified This makes still more manifest what I have said, that in the first three petitions we ought to lose sight of ourselves, and seek the glory of God: not that it is separated from our salvation, but that the majesty of God ought to be greatly preferred by us to every other object of solicitude. It is of unspeakable advantage to us that God reigns, and that he receives the honor which is due to him: but no man has a sufficiently earnest desire to promote the glory of God, unless (so to speak) he forgets himself, and raises his mind to seek God’s exalted greatness. There is a close connection and resemblance between those three petitions. The sanctification of the name of God is always connected with his kingdom; and the most important part of his kingdom lies in his will being done. Whoever considers how cold and negligent we are in desiring the greatest of those blessings for which we are here commanded to pray, will acknowledge that nothing here is superfluous, but that it is proper that the three petitions should be thus distinguished.
To sanctify the name of God means nothing else, than to give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name, so that men may never think or speak of him but with the deepest veneration. The opposite of this is the profanation of the name of God, which takes place, when men either speak disrespectfully of the divine majesty, or at least without that reverence which they ought to feel. Now, the glory, by which it is sanctified, flows and results from the acknowledgments made by men as to the wisdom, goodness, righteousness, power, and all the other attributes of God. For holiness always dwells, and permanently remains, in God: but men obscure it by their malice and depravity, or dishonor and pollute it by sacrilegious contempt. The substance of this petition is, that the glory of God may shine in the world, and may be duly acknowledged by men. But religion is in its highest purity and rigour, when men believe, that whatever proceeds from God is right and proper, full of righteousness and wisdom: for the consequence is, that they embrace his word with the obedience of faith, and approve of all his ordinances and works. That faith which we yield to the word of God is, so to speak, our subscription, (433) by which we “ set to our seal that God is faithful,” (Joh 3:33😉 as the highest dishonor that can be done to him is unbelief and contempt of his word.
We now see, what wickedness is displayed by most men in judging of the works of God, and how freely they allow themselves to indulge in censure. If any of us are chastised, they grumble, and murmur, and complain, and some break out into open blasphemies: if he does not grant our wishes, we think that he is not sufficiently kind to us. (434) Many turn into matter of idle talk and jesting his incomprehensible providence and secret judgments. Even his holy and sacred name is often treated with the grossest mockery. In short, a part of the world profane his holiness to the utmost of their power. We need not then wonder, if we are commanded to ask, in the first place, that the reverence which is due to it may be given by the world. Besides, this is no small honor done to us, when God recommends to us the advancement of his glory.
(431) “ Combien Christ ne commande pas aux siens en priant de s’attacher scrupuleusement a certains mots;” — “though Christ does not command his people to adhere scrupulously to certain words.
(432) “ Comme la Loy de Dieu est divisee en deux Tables, desquelles la premiere contient les choses dont nous sommes redevables a Dieu pour honorer sa majeste: la seconde ce que nous devons a nostre prochain selon charite.” — “As the Law of God is divided into two Tables, of which the first contains the things which we owe to God to honor his majesty: the second, what we owe to our neighbor according to charity.”
(433) “ Comme si nous signions de nostre propre main, declarans que Dieu est veritable;” — “as if we signed with our own hand, declaring that God is true.”
(434) “ Il nous semble qu’il nous fait tort;” — “we think that he wrongs us.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE PRAYER OF PRAYERS
Mat 6:9-13.
Sermon by Dr. W. B. Riley, First Baptist Church, Minneapolis. March 28, 1925.
ONE feels almost ashamed to admit that he remained thirty years in the ministry before attempting an exposition of the Lords Prayer; and yet, when one mines in such riches as characterize the Revelation, however many years God may give him, he must leave the most of it untouched.
It would be interesting to know how long one might remain in the Sermon on the Mount and yet speak with profit every time he appeared before his people. Truly when Jesus went up into the Mount and took His seat and opened His mouth and taught, He went also into a great mount of experience, a bright mount of thought, a beautiful mount of utterance, and ever since that day the world has had an illumination hitherto unknown.
But the best teaching is interjected with prayer, and into this lofty discussion our Lord brought the model prayer of the millenniums, encouraging His disciples to say,
Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed he Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
As I have mused upon this petition it seemed to me to cover three great themes: The Revelation of Gods character: The Expectation of Gods Kingdom: and The Manifestation of Gods Grace.
THE REVELATION OF GODS CHARACTER.
Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed, be Thy Name,
is a phrase involving three distinct and somewhat separate suggestions.
1. Our Father. The very phrase lays a limitation upon God. It limits Him in space. He is no longer a force working unconsciously in a well-nigh limitless universe. He is no longer the Creator of heaven and earth; He is no longer the Holy One of Israel, manifesting Himself in the Holy of holies, He is God at the hearth-stone, God brought into the home-relation: God dwelling with His people, God the center of the family circle, sweetly surrounded by His own children; God who takes time to give attention to His beloved ones.
If the theology of the present day ever succeeds in putting this thought aside the result will be an orphanage for Christians. Dr. A. J. Gordon, when he was alive, reminded us of the fact that formerly God (in Christ) came down to the level of our common humanity, but now the disposition is to lift up humanity to the level of God in Christ; and the result is the deadly doctrine that all men by nature are sons of God. The revival of this Pelagian heresy is plainly opposed by the Sacred Scripture, As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on His Name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God.
Paternity is always a limited experience; and the relationship is determined by generation, and only those begotten of God are His children; and only such can pray the prayer of the text. Others may repeat the words, but they do not pray. The prince of fallen angels could say, as Milton reports him:
The son of God I am, or was;And if I was, I am.All men are sons of God.
But his declaration is only another of the lies which he has fathered, and it has brought him into no kinship with the Holy One.
2. The heavenly location! Our Father which art in Heaven. People often ask where Heaven is? and men have speculated upon the subject, but there is one certainty regarding the same, viz., where God is, there is Heaven. One who heard me give an exposition of the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, said, I am not much interested in the heaven to which I am going when I am through with this life, for I believe, rather, in bringing heaven into this life than waiting until it is finished before I find it. But according to the teachings of Gods Word, the one of these experiences is in no wise incompatible with the other; the man who brings God into his life has brought heaven into it.
In Luk 11:13, Jesus is reported as saying,
If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.
E. Barnes Lawrence insists that the literal translation of Heavenly Father there is your Father which is out of Heaven and if there is anything in the world that would bring God out of His Heaven it would be the petition of His child who had approached the chamber of the Fathers palace and reported to Him some need of help in this world-life!
Yet, I am glad that Gods in His Heaven; I am glad to remember that though I move in an atmosphere that is hostile and unholy, God creates about Himself an atmosphere that is friendly and pure; and there is HEAVEN. It matters little then whether we stand or kneel or lie flat on our faces when we pray, the inner vision is upward, and every blessing of life comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is every good and every perfect gift.
No wonder the Master adds the further phrase Hallowed be Thy Name.
3. The hallowed laudation! Sir Robert Grant had occasion to write:
O worship the King, all glorious above,And gratefully sing His wonderful love,Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of days,Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite It breathes in the air, it shines in the light.It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,And sweetly distills in the dew and the fain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail:Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!
But this Lords Prayer also involves
THE EXPECTATION OF GODS KINGDOM.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy mil be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Here also a brief phrase is full of suggestion.
It tells us that the Kingdom is yet to come. Perhaps on no biblical subject have so many people gone astray as on this. Great men; mighty ministers, and well-instructed ones, talk constantly of the Kingdom as in the present tense, and discuss every phase of church life and work in terms of the Kingdom, thereby ignoring the clear biblical distinction between the churchGods present agency for work in the worldand the KingdomGods goal for His Sons supremacy. The Church was founded when the Spirit of God was poured out at Pentecost; the Kingdom of God will be set up in the last days when He, who has gone to receive it, shall have returned and taken His throne.
Beyschlag declares that The Kingdom of God is wherever the will of God is done on earth as in Heaven; that is, where it is observed in an ideal manner. Accordingly the Kingdom is that ideal condition to which mankind and the worlds history shall arrive when God, according to His inmost being as eternal Spirit and sacred love, shall be the all-filling and the all-conditioning element in the world.
There are men who seem to be constitutionally opposed to biblical terms, and while we have no special objection to Beyschlags definition, we prefer the very words of the text itself, namely, until the Lord shall reign from sea to sea and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth; then will the Kingdom have come. And for that we pray!
Truly, as Dr. Jowett remarked, The men who pray the Lords Prayer need to be SEERS. Our souls must be possessed by the glorious vision of the Lord in the majestic, yet gracious, sanctity of God. The beautiful land must be ours in fact and dream. With Paul we must not look on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen; and with John, we must behold even now, the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. * * * The anticipation of triumph is one of the secrets of victory! When we pray for the coming of the Kingdom our souls must rest in the vision of the moral and spiritual glory in which that Kingdom exists.
Departing from the language of Jowett, in order to make the truth more clear, we must behold the King in His beauty; yea, we must see Him in the place of power with the scepter in His hand. That vision makes the disciples invincible; and in spite of all discouraging circumstances he is forever optimistic.
It is a Kingdom intended for the earth.
Thy will be done on earth.
A man once said to me I cannot agree with the premillennialist, for I cannot believe that Gods work in the world is destined to failure. That is exactly what every premillennialist does not believe! He knows, on the authority of the1 Word itself, that Gods work in the world is destined to succeed; and that even an apostate Church is to eventuate in Kingdom-splendor and unspeakable glory; for, as Horatio Bonar wrote:
Where a blasted world shall brighten Underneath a bluer sphere,And a softer, gentler sunshine Shed its healing splendor here:Where earths barren vales shall blossom,Putting on their robe of green,And a purer, fairer EdenBe where only wastes have been;Where a King in kingly glory,Such as earth has never known,Shall assume the righteous sceptre,Claim and wear the holy crown.
If there was ever a time in human history when men ought to learn to take God seriously, that time is now! If there was ever an hour when the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ought to be the desire of the Church of God, that season has come. What a blasted world it is! What battle! what carnage! what death! what approaching despair! How all of this ought to increase the cry,
Thy Kingdom come: Thy will he done on earth.
The phrase with which this part of the petition finishes reminds us of another fact, namely
It is a Kingdom Heavenly in character. As it is in Heaven. The pattern of the Heavenly Kingdom will not be framed in the Vatican, passed upon by the pope; the pattern of the Heavenly Kingdom will not result from peace conferences at the Hague; or the peace table in France; the pattern for the Heavenly Kingdom will not be found out and expressed by politicians and statesmen. That pattern has existed from the beginning, and when men see it they must lift up their eyes, for it will only be shown in the Holy Mount. It must come down from God out of Heaven.
And yet, while we are not to make it, we are to make ready for it; we are to labor against the day of His Coming, and of its coming; we are to be crusaders indeed in the name of our Christ, and in the interest of His Kingdom.
You can readily imagine that I have been interested in the newspaper discussion of what Minneapolis most needs, and those of you who worship in its temple can well-nigh anticipate my thought.
Yes, Minneapolis needs a new library! Yes, Minneapolis long needed a great civic hall! Yes Minneapolis did seem to need a new Y. M. C. A., but in all candor, I believe that Minneapolis needs yet more a great centrally located institution still wearing the biblical name of CHURCH, in which the old Gospel, the sinfulness of man and the converting grace of God shall be preached; an institution so conducted as to meet the social demands of the com-munity of which it is a part; an institution that shall be no respecter of persons, but shall assemble in its halls the rich and the poor, the ignorant and intelligent; an institution that shall be a fountain of evangelism with the breath of world-wide missions in its every part; and yet, an institution inspired by the hope of the Coming of the Lord; an institution from which there shall go forth to the uttermost parts of the world laymen and ministers alike to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to be set up un-der the mighty hand of the Son of God; and to be characterized by an obedience upon the part of the worlds inhabitants akin to that which every angel and saint of Heaven now so willingly yields.
I want to see Minneapolis have a new library! I want to see Minneapolis have a great civic hall! I want to see the Y. M. C. A prospered in all material and especially all spiritual power; but I am happy that the great block on which the First Baptist Church and the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School buildings now stand, are covered with buildings of such splendid proportions as to make possible to Minneapolis and to the Northwest, and to the uttermost parts of the world, a Gospel testimony and a work of grace that will help in the coming of the Kingdom for which we pray. To me the true Church is the surest precursor of the victorious Christ and the Kingdom of universal righteousness.
Finally, this prayer involves the
MANIFESTATION OF GODS GRACE.
Give us this day our daily bread.
All good gifts are from God by grace. The testimony of the Word is that they come down from above, from the Father of lights. Bread, which is commonly regarded as the staff of life is simply the symbol of lifes heavenly supply. David said: I have been young, and now am I old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread; God had never forsaken His own.
Perhaps no man of modern times has believed that more firmly than George Mueller, and in his case the words of the Lord were again illustrated,
According to your faith be it unto you.
We commonly think that this was true of Mueller, the man advanced in Christian experience, the man who in long years of dealing had learned to trust the Lordbut it seems to have been true from the very beginning of his regenerate life. When he came into a great consciousness of Gods saving power he wrote to his father and brother entreating them to seek the Lord, and telling them how happy he was. To his surprise an angry answer was re-turned. Later when he asked his father for permission to enter a German missionary institute, the father was greatly displeased and particularly reproached him, saying that he had spent so much money on his education that he had hoped he might comfortably spend his last days with him in a regular parish and as a regular preacher; and since it had all come to naught, he need no more consider himself his son. From that moment Mueller resolved that although he still had two years in the university, he would accept nothing more from his father, but turn to his Heavenly Father instead. The Ford in a remarkable way supplied the lads needs. Several American gentlemen came to Halle and as they were ignorant of the German language Dr. Tholuck recommended George Mueller to them as tutor. They paid well for his services and of that time he wrote: Thus did the Lord richly make up to me the little which I had relinquished for His sake. Oh fear the Lord, ye His saints, for there is no want to them that fear Him
Forgiveness of our sins depends also upon the grace of God.
The prayer reads:
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Here the exceeding grace of God appears in the gift of His Son, by whose Blood alone could the stain of sin be blotted out and the debts of the bankrupt soul be discharged. Robertson reminds us that coal tar is thick, black, ugly, ill-smelling stuff, and yet tells us that it is exactly from this waste product that the most brilliant dyes are made,celestial creations of colorwonderful transformation, by human chemistry. Not so remarkable is this feat of chemistry however as the chemistry of Divine grace by which our sins are blotted out through the Blood of Jesus, for is it not written that
the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin?
Forgiveness then, is only possible upon the ground of grace.
The restraint from sin rests with the grace of God.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever, Amen.
Some years ago one of the noblest members of my church came to me with troubled face and said; Pastor, what does it mean, Lead us not into temptation? Surely God is not our tempter? He seemed greatly relieved when I said, No, the more correct translation is Permit us not to be temptedor, hold us back from the same, and you may be sure that God will do His part; the failure is not on His side.
Campbell Morgan has rather a remarkable discussion of the words to the impotent man.
Take up thy bed and walk,
He says I think one of the most illuminative and beautiful things I have ever seen about that is from the pen of Marcus Dods, just in a sentence, and a flash. Dr. Dods asksWhy was the man to take up his bed? In order that there should be no provision for a relapse. Ah, that is the point. Did you hear that? I dont want you to miss that. No provision for a relapse. That is the principle upon which a man is to start his Christian life. The temptation to this man was to say, Well, I am up; I am up! Really I am. Yes, really I am up, and He has done it. But I think Id better leave that bed. I dont know how I will get on in the street. I dont know how I will get on to-morrow! Id better leave it in case I have to come back. As sure as he had done it, he would have come back. No! No! that wont do. Jesus says, Take up the thing that has been carrying you; master the thing that has mastered you. Take it up! Take it up! When you start to follow Christ, burn your bridges. Dont give yourself a chance to go back. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon that. Here is a man who had been a slave of drinkto revert to my previous illustrationhe says, Now I am going to quit this in the strength of Christ. He means it and gets up and starts. When he gets home, in a cupboard, in his house, is a half-bottle of whisky. What is he going to do with it? Oh, he says, I will drive the cork in hard and keep it in case of need. I tell you that man will want whisky within twenty-four hours. No! No! if that has been your besetment, when you get home, smash it; pour it out! I am not going to say soft, easy things; I am not going to tell you all you have to do is to believe. I want to tell you that you are to believe with the belief that manifests itself in works. Unless you have a belief like that, it is worth nothing. Burn your bridges; cut off your companionships; say farewell to the men who have lured you to ruin. Be a man; stand up and say to the man that tempted you, I have done. I am going the other way ! And I want to say that the chances are that the man will come with you. That is the remarkable thing about it, that the very man that is luring you to wrong will very likely come with you if you are man enough to burn your bridges.
I believe all that is involved in the petition Permit us not to come into temptation; but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
No man can pray that who does not propose to co-operate with God, when by grace, He starts to work it out. But the man who is ready to cooperate can pray it, and begin immediately after his first prayer. He can begin before he feels all the fullness of Divine power; begin before God manifests the last ounce of grace He proposes to give; begin, in other words, with what God grants in answer to that petition. Jesse Pullen, a reformed and converted drunkard, was trying to lead to Christ one of his old drinking companions, and when the latter expressed the fear that he would not hold out, Pullen said, You know that I run a little steamer in the summer. I dont wait until I get up steam enough to carry me across the sound before I start, the boiler wouldnt stand it. It would blow the boat all to pieces. But when I get about twenty pounds of steam I sing out, All right, Captain, go ahead. Down in the hold I have plenty of coal, and as fast as we use up the steam we make more, and so we go across the Sound, though we never have more than twenty or thirty pounds at one time. Now the Lord Jesus does not start us off with grace enough for a whole lifetime. Poor human nature couldnt stand it. But He wipes out our past sins with His mercy and gives us grace enough for one days duty. But, mind you, He provides plenty of fuel to make more grace, even the Bible, and prayer, and the Holy Spirit; and so all the way along the voyage of life we have grace to help in time of need, and every conquering step of the Christian forever pays fresh tribute to the Kingdom, the power and glory of God!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(9) After this manner.Literally, thus. The word sanctions at once the use of the words themselves, and of other prayersprescribed, or unpremeditatedafter the same pattern and in the same spirit. In Luk. 11:2 we have the more definite, When ye pray, say, . . . .
Our Father.It is clear that the very word Abba (father) uttered by our Lord here, as in Mar. 14:36, so impressed itself on the minds of men that, like Amen and Hallelujah and Hosanna, it was used in the prayers even of converts from heathenism and Hellenistic Judaism. From its special association with the work of the Spirit in Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:6, it would seem to have belonged to the class of utterances commonly described as the tongues, in which apparently words from two or more languages were mingled together according as each best expressed the devout enthusiasm of the worshipper.
The thought of the Fatherhood of God was not altogether new. He had claimed Israel as His son, even His firstborn (Exo. 4:22), had loved him as His child (Jer. 31:9; Hos. 11:1). The thought of an outraged Fatherhood underlies the reproaches of Isaiah (Isa. 1:2) and Malachi (Mal. 1:6). Thou, O Lord, art our Father (Isa. 64:8) was the refuge of Israel from despair. It had become common in Jewish liturgies and forms of private prayer. As the disciples heard it, it would not at first convey to their minds thoughts beyond those with which they were thus familiar. But it was a word pregnant with a future. Time and the teaching of the Spirit were to develop what was now in germ. That it had its ground in the union with the Eternal Son, which makes us also sons of God; that it was a name that might be used, not by Israelites only, but by every child of man; that of all the names of God that express His being and character, it was the fullest and the truestthis was to be learnt as men were guided into all the truth. Like all such names, it had its inner and its outer circles of application. It was true of all men, true of all members of the Church of Christ, true of those who were led by the Spirit, in different degrees; but all true theology rests on the assumption that the ever-widening circles have the same centre, and that that centre is the Love of the Father.
The words Our Father are not a form excluding the use of the more personal My Father in solitary prayer, but they are a perpetual witness that even then we should remember that our right to use that name is no peculiar privilege of ours, but is shared by every member of the great family of God.
Which art in heaven.The phrase, familiar as it is, has a history of special interest. (1.) In the earlier books of the Old Testament the words Jehovah is God in heaven above and in earth beneath (Deu. 4:39; Jos. 2:11), express His universal presence; and this was embodied also in the name of the Most High God, the Possessor of heaven and earth, of the earliest patriarchal faith (Gen. 14:22). Later on, men began to be more conscious of the infinite distance between themselves and God, and represented the contrast by the thought that He was in heaven and they on earth (Ecc. 5:2); and this thought became a liturgical formula in the great dedication prayer of Solomon, Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place (l Kings 8:42, 43, et cet.; 2Ch. 6:21, etc.). And so, emancipated from over-close identification with the visible firmament, the phrase became current as symbolising the world visible and invisible, which is alike the dwelling-place of God, uttering in the language of poetry that which we vainly attempt to express in the language of metaphysics by such terms as the Infinite, the Absolute, the Unconditioned. (2.) We ought not to forget that the words supply at once (as in the phrase, God of heaven, in Ezr. 1:2; Dan. 2:18-19) a link and a contrast between the heathen and the Jew, the Aryan and Semitic races. Each alike found in the visible heaven the symbol of the invisible forces of the universe of an unseen world; but the one first identified his heaven (the Varuna of the Vedic hymns, the Ouranos of the Greeks) with that world, and then personified each several force in it, the Pantheism of the thinker becoming the Polytheism of the worshipper; whilst to the other heaven was never more than the dwelling-place of God in His undivided unity.
Hallowed be thy name.The first expression of thought in the pattern prayer is not the utterance of our wants and wishes, but that the Name of Godthat which sums up all our thoughts of Godshould be hallowed, be to us and all men as a consecrated name, not lightly used in trivial speech, or rash assertion, or bitterness of debate, but the object of awe and love and adoration. The words Jehovah, hallowed be His name, were familiar enough to all Israelites, and are found in many of their prayers, but here the position of the petition gives a new meaning to it, and makes it the key to all that follows. Still more striking is the fact, that this supplies a link between the teaching of the first three Gospels and that of the fourth. Thus the Lord Jesus taught His disciples to praythus, in Joh. 12:28, He prayed Himself, Father, glorify Thy name.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. After this manner Our Lord now proceeds to give an outline model of prayer, in which is not one word of irrational babble or cant repetition; but in which human wants are condensed and expressed, and human devotions shaped in terms so direct, so simple, so pure, that sinner or saint, philosopher or child, may understand and use them.
There is no ground for saying that this formula, called our Lord’s Prayer, was selected by him from Jewish forms. No doubt it embodies petitions used in essence by the Old Testament saints of all ages. But it was cast fully and truly in the mould of his own divine mind. It has a heaven-born originality.
In Luk 11:2, Jesus says: “When ye pray, say, Our Father,” etc. Hence there can be no doubt that this was intended as a fixed form of prayer. As such it formed a model for our prayer in general. It is a recorded summary for the Church in all ages of the permanent objects of prayer. It is the condensation and nucleus of all Christian supplication. It has ever served to limit the range of Christian devotion. It is proper, therefore, to be usually repeated in our public service, though not to the exclusion of all other prayer. And it is delightful to feel that it has served to establish a harmony of prayer among true saints through all the world.
Hence, with propriety our Church does use a ritual of forms of prayers, inasmuch as the essential identity of prayers should be traditionally preserved from generation to generation; but not to the suppression of extemporaneous prayers, lest the free action of the soul in prayer should be hampered and gradually suppressed.
The structure of our Lord’s Prayer may be best presented by the following form:
Our Father which art in heaven,
I.
a. Hallowed be thy name.
b. Thy kingdom come.
c. Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.
II.
a. Give us this day our daily bread.
b. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
c. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.
On which we may remark,
1. It begins with an address, and ends with an ascription.
2 . Between these are included two sets of threes. The first set is three celestial, and the second three terrestrial petitions. The three celestial petitions pray for the sanctification of God’s name, the coming of his kingdom, and a universal submission to it.
The terrestrial petitions pray for livelihood, pardon of past sin, and deliverance from committing future sin.
3 . The ascription attributes to God three excellencies in kingdom, power, and glory. But we are bound to add that the genuineness of this ascription, as a part of the sacred text, is, in the judgment of critics, more than doubtful.
4 . It may also be said that the address implies three subjects: God, his abode, and us, his children.
The first three petitions embrace, or imply, all we need pray for apart from ourselves; the last three all that we need pray for ourselves individually and collectively.
The following comparison will show that all its doctrines are contained in the Old Testament.
Our Father which art in heaven: Isa 64:8: “O Lord, thou art our Father.” Ecc 5:2: “God is in heaven.”
Hallowed be thy name: Psa 48:10: “According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth.”
Thy kingdom come: Psa 22:28: “For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he is the governor among the nations.” Dan 2:44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.”
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven: Psa 40:8: “I delight to do thy will, O my God.” Psa 103:20: “Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.”
Give us this day our daily bread: Pro 30:8: “Feed me with food convenient for me.”
And forgive us our debts: Exo 34:9: “Pardon our iniquity and our sin.”
As we forgive our debtors: 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.”
And lead us not into temptation: Gen 22:1: “And it came to pass. after these things, that God did tempt Abraham.”
But deliver us from evil: Psa 50:15. “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen: 1Ch 29:11: “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.”
Our Father Against Atheism, which teaches that there is no God; against Pantheism, that teaches that God is not a person, but identical with nature; against Epicurism, which teaches that God cares nothing for his creation; against Polytheism, which teaches that there are many gods, our Saviour teaches that our one God is a tender and gracious parent, who knows our wants and listens to our prayers.
Which art in heaven And so infinitely superior to any father we have on earth. God, though omnipresent, is said to be in heaven. Whether there be a locality in the universe where God is specially and peculiarly resident, is more than we can say. Astronomers do conceive there to be a centre of the system of astronomic worlds: and that centre may be the capitol of the universe, “the third heaven, where God resides.” But at any rate, all human language, and human conception, contemplate God as above and man below. That is, we look from the earth for the Divine; to the earth for the human. Hallowed Held sacred. Thy very name, and so thy self be most profoundly revered.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Our Father who is in heaven.”
The disciples can now approach God as their Father because they have come to Him as His ‘sons’ (Mat 5:9). They have come under the Kingly Rule of Heaven, and their delight is now to do His will. He is their Father in Heaven (Mat 5:16; Mat 5:45; Mat 6:1). The stress on this throughout the Sermon is remarkable (Mat 6:14; Mat 6:26; Mat 6:32; Mat 7:11; Mat 7:21). It is something that they must not forget.
Note that it is a joint prayer. They are to pray ‘our’ Father. They are to come as one ‘body’ together, as the new congregation of Israel (Mat 16:18). There is to be no thought of their just being individual disciples, although that is not to say that they cannot pray this prayer individually. But when they do it will always be with the recognition that they are a part of God’s holy nation, God’s true people (Exo 19:6; 1Pe 2:9). They pray as one.
And they recognise that they cannot approach Him lightly. For while He is their ‘Father’, He is their Father ‘in Heaven’. This last addition may seem to make it to a point typically Jewish (to some extent in contrast with the prayer in Luke, although the idea is still intrinsically present there), but the emphasis is different from what would be intended by a Jew. For the idea is not in order to make God somewhat remote, but in order to emphasise His very nature and being. He is ‘heavenly’. And therefore as we pray we are to be concerned about heavenly things.
No non-Christian Jew ever actually spoke of God in a way remotely as personal as this until well after the time of Christ, and even then there were only indications of a part of the idea that lay behind it. It is true that a similar phrase (‘our Father’) is found as purported to be on the lips of late first century Rabbis, but it is only in later literature, and not as a direct address (compare also Deu 32:5 where the idea is exemplified). It did not have the same personal emphasis, but was more secondary.
The Jews did, however, see God as Father in a general way, and the prophets did sometimes border on approaching the idea found here. The words of Jer 31:20 are, for example, moving and explicit,
“Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child?
For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still.
Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him,
Says the Lord”.
Here there is a clear invitation for Israel to respond to a loving Father, for we have the picture of a Father yearning for the loving response of His son, even though His son has been recalcitrant. It presented Israel with a joint opportunity (it was not individual), but it was not one that they ever took. God might look on them in this way, but at their worst they ignored Him and at their best they would never dare to presume because of their unworthiness.
We can compare here Deu 32:5, ‘They are not His children. It is their blemish. They are a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish and unwise people. Is He not your Father Who has bought you, Who has made you and established you.’ Here the thought is very much that of Exo 4:23, ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn’, where as His son He had redeemed them. But then it records their refusal to accept the honour, because they were unwilling to fill the position that was there demanded. So all through their history God offered to be their Father, but all the time they refused.
The same offer to be their Father and Redeemer is spoken of in Isa 63:16-17 where the prophet declares to God, “You are our Father. Though Abraham does not know us, and Israel (Jacob) does not acknowledge us, You O Lord are our Father, our Redeemer from everlasting is Your Name.’ The thought there is, however, of a powerful and authoritative Father and Redeemer, not the personal Father that Jesus had in mind, and it goes on to say that because of their recalcitrance and refusal to respond to Him He actually causes them to go astray.
Indeed Hosea reminds us that He had ‘called His son out of Egypt’, but that when they had come they had brought Egypt with them in their hearts, and He had thus had to return them there again (Hos 11:1-6), because they had not come fully.
God’s offer to them continued while the prophets were still prophesying, for in Mal 1:6 God declares:
‘A son honours his father, and a servant his master.
If then I am a Father, where is my honour?
And if I am a Master, where is my fear?
Says the Lord of hosts.
Here the father is seen as a figure of authority, in parallel to a master and his servant. It is a reminder that the offer of Fatherhood brings with it a requirement to fulfil the responsibilities that went along with the idea, but the invitation to be His sons was still there, even though again there was little response.
The same option was opened to them in Jer 3:19-20, where it is connected with the final time of restoration. There Jeremiah has in mind the time when Jerusalem will once more be ‘the throne of the Lord’ (Mat 5:24; compare also ‘the city of the Great King’ – Mat 5:25.), and all nations will gather to it (compare Act 2:5). And His offer is, ‘You will call Me “my Father” and will not turn away from following Me’. But he adds that their response at that time was to ‘deal treacherously with Him’ like an unfaithful wife. It may, however be seen as significant that here the final restoration was seen as being in terms of His people coming to Him and calling Him, ‘My Father’. And that this is what Jesus is offering them now.
For other references to God as Father in the Old Testament see Psa 103:13 (where it is indirect in the form of an illustration, thus God is seen to be ‘like a father’); and Mal 2:10 (where it is again as Creator).
The Jews did not totally ignore the idea of God as their Father in accordance with these Scriptures, but it was very much as One Who was kept at a distance, lest they be too presumptious. Indeed they would no doubt have seen this prayer, with its lack of qualifying phrases, as presumptious and blasphemous. (Jesus, on the other hand, while wanting them to respect their Father ‘in Heaven’, intended His disciples to know how dear they were to God). The references are few and sparse. In the Qumran literature we find a depiction of Joseph as addressing God as, ‘my Father and my God’. This lacks quite the personal note found here and is on the lips of a patriarch. In the Wisdom of Solomon Mat 14:3 the writer can say, ‘your providence, O Father, guides it (a seagoing vessel) along’. The thought is thus fairly austere as of One Who watches over the world as its Creator. And in 1Ch 29:10 in LXX David is portrayed as blessing the Lord before the congregation, and saying, “Blessed are You, O Lord God of Israel, our Father, from everlasting and to everlasting.” But the translators would have had an exalted view of David (probably considering that he could pray what others could not) and there is even then a suggestion of remoteness about an ‘everlasting Father’, and it is based on the fact that He is ‘the Lord God of Israel’. Certainly nothing in all this tempted Israel to address God as ‘our Father’ in the personal way intended here by Jesus. The address of ‘Father’ also occurs in the fourth and sixth of the eighteen benedictions regularly repeated in the synagogues (of uncertain date), but both times connected with the address ‘O Lord’. There is nothing in all this of the intimacy portrayed by Jesus, and the idea was almost always accompanied by exalted titles.
So Jesus is calling on His disciples to recognise that because the time of restoration is here (Jer 3:19-20), and they have responded to it, they can call on God as ‘our Father in Heaven’, and the personal nature of the reference comes out throughout the Sermon (‘Your Father’ occurs nine times in Mat 6:1-18 alone. See also Mat 5:26; Mat 5:45; Mat 5:48; Mat 6:26; Mat 6:32; Mat 7:11). But it is very much because they are living as His sons (Mat 5:9; Mat 5:45). Because of His working in their hearts He has a people fitted to be His sons.
Paul brings out the intimacy of the way in which Jesus calls on His disciples to address God as ‘our Father in Heaven’ when he tells us that because we have received the Spirit of sonship we can call Him ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom 8:15). And this is because the Spirit Himself testifies within us that we are children of God (Mat 6:16). But he too would have insisted that we should remember that He is our ‘holy Father’ (Joh 17:11).
We should perhaps again draw attention here to the fact that Jesus never speaks of God as ‘ our Father’ as if He was including Himself. This was a prayer for the disciples. Jesus always addresses God or speaks of God as ‘My Father’ or the equivalent, or, when speaking of the disciples, as ‘your Father’ (note Mat 6:14-15) and even speaks of ‘My Father and your Father’ (Joh 20:17), but He never speaks of ‘our Father’ as including Himself (notice especially Mat 7:21). This use is consistent throughout the Gospels demonstrating Jesus’ view of Himself as unique. But it does also serve to bring home the wonder of the privilege that is ours, that He is our Father too.
So this approach puts us in mind of the wonder of Who it is to Whom we are coming. He is in Heaven, He is our Creator, and yet He is also our personal Father, for He has called us into a personal relationship with Himself through His Son (Joh 1:12), and by the working of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:15). This is not the ‘fatherhood of God’ as a universal Father. It is the personal Fatherhood of those who have, by believing in Jesus, become His Messianic children.
We can compare with this opening to the prayer here how Jesus approached His Father in Joh 17:1-5. He calls Him ‘Father’ and makes the relationship between them quite clear before continuing His prayer, stressing the part He has played in Their plan of salvation, and seeking restoration as the One Who had been the possessor of His Father’s own glory (Joh 17:5). Thus He too opens His prayer by making clear His relationship with His Father, even though in His case it is an exalted one. He does not just race into His Father’s presence.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
“May Your Name be set apart as holy.”
This and the following petition closely parallel, but in a far more succint form, the words of an ancient synagogue prayer, “Exalted and hallowed be His great name in the world which He created according to his will. May He rule his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon. And to this, say, ‘Amen’.” This too is seeking to ‘hallow’ God’s Name, and is seeking for God to intervene in order to establish His Kingly Rule. But we must remember in making the comparison that Jesus saw things very differently from His contemporaries. Jesus possibly took over the pattern but not necessarily the ideas. They looked to a remote future. He saw God’s Kingly Rule as already breaking in upon men.
So in order that we might consider carefully the fact that although He is our Father we must not be presumptious, our attention is now drawn to His holiness, that is, to the fact that He is distinct from us and ‘set apart’ from all things by what He is, so that to approach Him is a great and exalted privilege which can only be ours when our hearts are right. He is ‘the high and exalted One Who inhabits eternity, Whose Name is holy, Who dwells in the high and holy place, with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart on the contrite one’ (Isa 57:15).
And our first concern and prayer is therefore to be that both in Heaven and earth His holiness be recognised. It is to long that all creation should know Who and What He is, and honour Him accordingly.
This idea of God’s Name being made holy is found in the Old Testament, from which no doubt Jesus was taking it. The purpose of God’s deliverance of His people was so that they might hallow His Name by obeying His commandments (Lev 22:32), and He ‘proclaimed His Name’ before Moses in order to hallow it (Exo 33:19; compare Deu 32:3). His holiness was further revealed by His judgment on Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:3); and the whole purpose of the Tabernacle ritual was in order to keep holy His Name (Lev 22:2; Lev 22:32). Indeed their failure to maintain the holiness of God was the cause of the downfall of Moses and Aaron (Num 20:12; Num 27:14; Deu 32:51).
In Isa 29:23 we are told that Israel will ‘sanctify His Name’ and will thus ‘stand in awe’ of Him when He brings about His deliverance of them, and the result will be that they will come to understanding and will listen to His Instruction. So the prayer ‘may your Name be made holy’ includes this desire that God’s Name might be held in awe, and honoured and worshipped because His people are in awe of Him as a result of what He has done for them. For as we have seen the Name of a person indicates what he essentially is. Thus to ‘set God’s Name apart as holy’ (hallow Him) means to honour what He is fully and without reserve.
It is, however, in Ezekiel that the ‘sanctifying’ (setting apart as holy) of God’s Name by His own action receives a major emphasis (Eze 20:41; Eze 28:22; Eze 28:25; Eze 36:23; Eze 39:27). In Ezekiel the idea is again that God will be ‘sanctified’ (totally justified in all eyes and seen to be unique in the goodness, mercy and power), by the deliverance of His people. But this is then especially connected with Him as acting to sanctify His Name. In Eze 36:23 God is seen as declaring, “And I will sanctify (make holy) My great Name which has been profaned among the nations, — and the nations will know that I am YHWH , says the Lord YHWH, when I will be sanctified (made holy) in you before their eyes — and I will take you from among the nations — and I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean — a new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Eze 36:23-27). So God is to be ‘made holy’ in the eyes of men by what He accomplishes in salvation and deliverance, in the bringing of righteousness to His people This confirms therefore that ‘hallowed be your Name’ is partly to be seen as a prayer for the pouring out of the Spirit (Eze 36:27; Isa 44:1-5; Joe 2:28-29) and the renewing of the new covenant (Eze 36:26; Jer 31:33) so that God’s unique holiness might be made known. It will be praying that the work that has taken place in the disciples will spread more widely and will take in many more people so that through it God’s Name, as He acts in gracious sovereignty, might be seen to be holy. It is praying that Mat 3:11 might be fulfilled for many.
And finally His name will be hallowed at the final judgment when all sin is done away and the perfect everlasting Kingdom is established. Then God will be fully known for what He is. Men may see God’s day of judgment as a time of terror and horror. But that is because of what they are. To Heaven it is the time when all will be set right, when wickedness and selfishness will be done away, and when God will become all in all. And that is why His people pray for it and look forward to it (2Pe 3:12; Rev 6:10). So by praying ‘may your Name be made holy’ we have these three things in mind, a desire that men may be in awe of Him and give Him the praise due to His Name, a cry that God will act to bring honour to His Name by pouring forth His Holy Spirit in the cleansing and transformation of a people for Himself, and a longing for that day when God will bring about His judgment and will set all to rights (compare Rev 6:10).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
How To Pray – The Lord’s Prayer (6:9-15).
The Lord’s Prayer ( Mat 6:9-15
We should note in using the description ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ that this is not to be seen as how the Lord Himself actually prayed, although He no doubt followed much of this pattern in as far as it applied to Him. This was a prayer give by Him to His disciples telling them how they should pray. For instance Jesus would always pray ‘My Father’, for His relationship with His Father was unique. The disciples were always to pray ‘our Father’ for they came as one body together.
This provision of a new prayer stresses that Jesus sees them as a new community. Israel had its united common prayers, repeated constantly in the synagogues, which were mainly based on the Scriptures. John the Baptist had also taught his disciples to pray (Luk 11:1). So Jesus could have pointed to either of those had He simply wished to guide their praying. But He chose not to do so. He instituted a new prayer. And necessarily so for it is a prayer that sees life from a totally new angle. It is based on the new factor that the Messiah was here among them. It was in recognition of the fact that the old prayers would not do for the current occasion. They needed a prayer to be prayed in the light of the fact that the Kingly Rule of Heaven was here. Thus as we look at the Lord’s prayer we should not ask ‘how is it the same as the prayer of others?’ We should ask, ‘in what way does it differ?’
As we consider the prayer we should note how much it is based on Old Testament ideas, including especially those of the Pentateuch. In many ways it could have been prayed by Israel as they were on the verge of deliverance. And some significance might be seen in the fact that Matthew has been implying that in Jesus the original purposes of the Exodus were now being fulfilled. As we saw in Mat 2:15 Jesus as representing the new Israel has come out of Egypt as God’s Son, just as Israel should have done of old. In chapter 3 the new Israel have passed through the waters of John’s baptism as Israel had passed through the waters of old (compare 1Co 10:1-2), preparatory to the coming Kingly Rule of Heaven (Mat 4:17). In chapter 4 Jesus has faced up to temptations in the wilderness and had succeeded where Israel of old had failed. We would therefore now expect an emphasis on the coming of the Kingly Rule of Heaven. For when Moses was originally sent to call Israel out of Egypt (which Jesus in symbolism was now also doing (Mat 2:15)) it was in order to lead them into the land promised to Abraham (Exo 3:7-10; Psa 105:8-11) so that God might there establish His Kingly Rule among them, the Kingly Rule which He had already made real in the wilderness (Exo 19:6; Exo 20:1-18; Num 23:21; Deu 33:5; 1Sa 8:7, and see Exo 4:22-23 where Israel as the Lord’s son are compared with Pharaoh’s son; compare also Psa 22:28; Psa 93:1; Psa 95:3; Psa 96:10; Psa 97:1; Psa 99:1-5; Psa 102:12). Note the threefold aspects of His Kingly Rule in relation to Moses,
Firstly YHWH depicted Himself as in contrast to Pharaoh, (who was also a father), with Israel as YHWH’s firstborn son in contrast with Pharaoh’s (Exo 4:22).
Secondly as Israel went through the wilderness, with YHWH as their Delieerer and Overlord (Exo 20:2). YHWH entered into an Overlordship covenant with them establishing them as His people, preparatory to taking over the land.
Thirdly His Kingly Rule was intended to be established in the land promised to their forefathers. This was intended to be a continuing Kingly Rule, until they surrendered His Kingly Rule in favour of an earthly king (1Sa 8:7). The result was that it became a future Kingly Rule regularly promised by the prophets, which latter was put in such terms that while the description was earthly (they would at the time have understood no other) in substance it was clearly heavenly. It was to be an everlasting Kingly Rule (Eze 37:25-28; Isa 9:7; Isa 11:1-9; Dan 7:14), connected with the destruction of death and with the resurrection of bodies (Isa 25:6-8; Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2-3).
It is worth at this point considering some of the parallels between the Lord’s Prayer and the Pentateuch:
‘Our Father Who is in Heaven.’ The Exodus hope initially began with YHWH declaring Himself to be the people’s Father. For this Fatherhood compare Exo 4:22-23 where His Fatherhood is compared to that of Pharaoh with respect to his own son, who was seen as divine; Deu 14:1 where Israel are stated to be His sons; Deu 32:5-6 where He is their Father Who created them, made them and established them. For ‘is in Heaven’ compare Gen 14:19; Gen 14:22; Gen 19:24; Gen 21:17; Gen 22:11; Gen 22:15; Gen 24:3; Gen 24:7; Exo 20:22; Deu 4:36; Deu 4:39; Deu 10:14; Deu 26:15; Isa 63:8; Isa 63:19
‘Made holy be Your name.’ See Lev 22:32 where they are to hallow His Name by keeping His commandments. See also Exo 33:19; Deu 32:3; Lev 10:3; Lev 22:2; Lev 22:32; Num 20:12; Num 27:14; Deu 32:51.
‘Your Kingly Rule come.’ Consider Exo 19:6; Exo 20:1-18; Num 23:21; Deu 33:5; 1Sa 8:7, and see Exo 4:22-23 where Israel as the Lord’s son are compared with Pharaoh’s son; compare also Psa 22:28; Psa 93:1; Psa 95:3; Psa 96:10; Psa 97:1; Psa 99:1-5; Psa 102:12).
‘Your will be done.’ See Exo 19:8; Exo 23:22; Exo 24:3; Exo 24:7; Lev 26:14-15; Deu 5:27; Deu 5:31; Deu 28:1; and for the Lord doing His will, see Deu 28:63; Deu 30:5.
‘Give us today tomorrow’s (or our daily) bread.’ See Exo 16:4; Exo 16:22-24; Exo 16:29; Neh 9:15; Psa 78:23-25, as the Most High; Psa 105:40; Jos 5:12.
‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ See Exo 34:7; Lev 4:20; Lev 4:26; Lev 4:31; Lev 4:35; Lev 5:10; Lev 5:13; Lev 5:16; Lev 5:18; Lev 6:7; Lev 19:22; Num 14:19; Num 15:25-28; Neh 9:17; 1Ki 8:30; 1Ki 8:34; 1Ki 8:36; 1Ki 8:39; Psa 32:1; Psa 85:2; Psa 86:5; Psa 103:3; Psa 130:4; Isa 33:24; Jer 31:34; Jer 36:3.
‘Do not bring us into testing.’ See Exo 15:25; Exo 17:3; Num 14:22; Num 20:13; Num 21:5-6; Deu 6:16; Deu 8:2; Deu 8:16; Deu 28:32; Psa 95:7-11; compare 1Co 10:9; Heb 3:7-11.
‘Deliver us from evil.’ See Exo 3:8; Exo 14:30; Deu 23:14; Psa 18:2; Psa 18:17; Psa 18:19; Psa 18:43; Psa 18:48; Psa 34:17; Psa 37:40; Psa 50:15; Psa 54:7 and often; Isa 49:24-25.
The aspects of God being ‘in Heaven’ and of forgiveness being available to men are also prominent in Solomon’s prayer in 1Ki 8:27; 1Ki 8:30; 1Ki 8:32; 1Ki 8:34; 1Ki 8:36; 1Ki 8:39; 1Ki 8:50. So Jesus is making clear that He has come so that through His disciples He might fulfil all the hopes of the Old Testament, that is, that He might ‘fulfil the Law and the Prophets’ (Mat 5:17).
And the prayer also indicates the way of salvation for each one of them. It is by recognising Who He is that they will come under the Kingly Rule of Heaven, and will then begin to do His will, recognising Him as the One in Heaven. This is summarised in Mat 7:22, ‘not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord” will enter under the Kingly Rule of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven’. Thus by praying this prayer they are praying for God’s salvation to reach out to the world.
The prayer given here is to some extent paralleled in Luk 11:1-4. But in Luke it was given in response to an off the cuff request to be taught how to pray. Jesus therefore there gave them a briefer answer covering a number of essentials. He gave them pointers. Here in Matthew the prayer has to some extent been smoothed out and slightly extended, even though its simplicity, brevity and overall pattern have all been retained. The obvious conclusion from this is that the difference in form here is due to the fact that Jesus had by this time had plenty of time to put it together in a more patterned and rounded form. Even practically speaking it is hardly likely that Jesus would have been satisfied with leaving them with an incomplete pattern.
Both forms betray their Aramaic background, but given the smallness of the scope there are sufficient differences between them to demonstrate that they are not simply different renderings of the same source, in spite of the attempts to demonstrate otherwise. Had both been citing the same source there is simply no reason why some of the changes in question should have been made. Such attempts are, of course, always highly speculative anyway, in spite sometimes of the credentials of those who suggest them, and they are rarely compelling (providing plenty of scope for scholars to exercise their talents and disagree with each other). However, one good thing about them is that they do help us to think more carefully about what we read. But they should on the whole never be taken too seriously. They are largely speculation.
(They are not quite as speculative, however, as those who invent out of nothing a whole community and thus unnecessarily deny to Jesus the credit for the completed prayer. For in fact this prayer is clearly Jesus’ work. Its simplicity and genius bear His hallmark. Once men got to work on it, it would have been expanded until it became unrecognisable. That was the tendency of the age. It remained simple precisely because they were acknowledged to be His unchangeable words).
The length of time over which Jesus’ ministry lasted is against the constant suggestions that the sources for Jesus words were as few as is often suggested, so that any coincidence between sayings is to be seen as indicating only one source. Those who had memorised much of what He said, or had even taken notes, would have a number of varieties of similar teaching given by Him at various times and in different contexts, as Jesus repeated the same truths in slightly different ways, in order to ram them home to the memory, while inducing those who heard them to think. Different Apostles, for example, would have remembered different things, and it must be seen as certain that some who came as disciples in order to learn, no doubt with instructions from others to keep a record of His words so as to take them back to others, would indeed keep some kind of record of them, as Luke seems to confirm. And Matthew and Luke probably spoke with many such people, and then confirmed their words with the others who would then call them back to memory. We are probably therefore to see Matthew and Luke as presenting two different forms of what Jesus established as a pattern for prayer, two forms given by Jesus on two different occasions. As with the beatitudes, Luke’s source is more craggy, Matthew’s is more rounded, the latter probably bringing out how Jesus’ ministry had to some extent mellowed and developed.
We must first attempt to see the prayer as a whole. There is a beautiful balance to the Lord’s prayer in Matthew which contrasts vividly with the cragginess of it in Luke. The one is the rough outline giving indicators, the other the polished final result, and in the latter each final phrase has its antecedent. Possibly we may make this clear by presenting it in this way:
Our Father the One Who is in Heaven, Be hallowed Your Name, Come Your Kingly Rule, Be done Your will as in Heaven so on earth. Our bread for tomorrow give to us today, And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, And do not lead us into testing but deliver us from evil (or the Evil One). Note how, having begun with the idea of God as Father over the new community, it continues with Him in Heaven where their Father reigns (Psa 29:10; Psa 103:19; Isa 6:1). Then by means of a trilogy it emphasises the coming of their Father in Heaven down to earth, as they call on God to bring about His plan of taking over in the world (Psa 2:8-9; Psa 22:27-31; Psa 110:1-6); He is called on to act to hallow His Name on earth (Eze 36:23-28), to bring about His Kingly Rule on earth (Psa 22:28; Psa 47:2-3; Psa 103:19; Isa 43:15; Isa 45:22-23; Zec 14:9; see also Jer 23:5-6; Jer 30:7-11; Eze 34:24; Eze 37:22-28; Hos 3:4-5), and to bring about the doing of His will on earth (Isa 48:17; Isa 54:13; Jer 30:11; Jer 31:33; Eze 37:23-24), in precisely the same way as is true in Heaven where He is Lord of all.
He is to come in the same way as a great Conqueror goes out to regain territory of his, that has been usurped (Isa 59:16-20), in order to restore the honour of his name, to establish his rule and to ensure that his will is put into effect. And all these three aims are then also seen as following the pattern of what is true in Heaven where He reigns as their Father. For in Heaven His Name is hallowed, He rules in complete unanimity, and His will is done. And that is what must also be the aim on earth in the establishing of His Kingly Rule.
Thus ‘the One in Heaven’ is not just to be seen as indicating a Jewish way of protecting the Name of the Father from presumption, it is very much a reminder of the contrast between Heaven and earth, and of the need for the new community to be involved in heavenly things, ‘as in Heaven, so on earth’. The words are there because their Father in Heaven wants them to introduce Heaven to earth.
Then follow the disciples’ prayers with this in mind. They are to pray for heavenly (Messianic) food to sustain them on the way, they are to pray for the forgiveness of the load of debt that they continually owe to God because of their daily sins, so that it will be constantly removed, and this against a background of themselves revealing to others the forgiveness that has come from Heaven (Mat 5:45; Mat 5:48), and they are to pray that they may not be involved in the judgments that are coming on the world, but may be delivered from all evil (and from the Evil One) as they go about their mission. All these are things are seen to be very necessary when God begins to act on earth. They need to be fed by Him with the Messianic food (Isa 25:6; Isa 40:11; Isa 49:10; Jer 3:15; Jer 23:4; Jer 50:19; Eze 34:13-15; Eze 34:23; Mic 5:4; Joh 6:27-63), they need to be forgiven by Him with the Messianic forgiveness (1Ki 8:30; 1Ki 8:34, etc.; Isa 43:25; Isa 44:22; Isa 55:7; Jer 31:34; Eze 37:23), and they need to be preserved by Him from the Messianic judgments (e.g. Isa 2:10-21; Isa 4:4; Isa 24:13; and often) so that they can be involved in His work of establishing His Kingly Rule. In each case what follows is then particularly pertinent. They not only need Tomorrow’s food, they need it ‘today’ (see below), they are in a position to receive forgiveness because they have shown themselves to be Messiah’s people by the demonstration that they have a new heart, something revealed by their being willing to forgive others. And in avoiding divine testing on a rebellious world, they especially need deliverance from all the evils coming on the world, including what will come on them from the Evil One, who will run rampant in Messiah’s day, and whose kingly rule Jesus, and they with Him, have decisively rejected (Mat 4:10).
The prayer may also be seen as naturally falling into two threefold divisions following an opening appeal to their Father in Heaven. The concentration of the first part is then on God being glorified by what happens on earth through the activity of His true people. Through them His Name will be held in awe (for His Name compare Mat 21:9; Mat 23:39; Mat 28:19 and see Mat 7:22; Mat 10:22; Mat 18:5; Mat 18:20. Mat 19:29; Mat 24:5; Mat 24:9), His royal power will be revealed, and a light will shine in the world (Mat 5:16). The concentration of the second part is on their being made fit to have their part in that work, revealing how His people will be established. Jesus’ assumption in the prayer is that what is prayed for here will be the thing that is of most concern to His disciples and His people. It indicates the mindset that should be theirs.
In view of this we do not have to choose between whether it is to be seen as considering on the one hand the contemporary situation, or on the other the eschatological. It is to be seen as both contemporary and eschatological, for that is how the disciples would undoubtedly have seen it. They would have seen it as referring both very much to day by day life, and at the same time to the eschatological future that was breaking in on them. For to them the two were combined. John had made that clear. The time of the Coming One and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and fire was here. The Kingly Rule of Heaven was upon them, and they were very much aware that they were now in the days of the Coming One, ‘the last days’, because the King had come and ‘the end of the ages’ had come upon them (1Co 10:11; Heb 9:26; 1Pe 4:7). As far as the disciples were concerned they were in ‘the last days’ (Act 2:17; compare Heb 1:2). To them therefore the prayer was both eschatological and contemporary. (Scripturally we too are in ‘the last days’ and the ‘last day’ prophecies are even now in process of fulfilment. It is simply that God’s time scale is a little different from ours, as Peter will later point out (2Pe 3:8-9)).
However, while the prayer must clearly be seen as a part of the call to action contained in the Sermon, and as encouraging the programme that they are to follow, it does not, of course, forbid wider praying. We have, for one thing, also to pray for those who persecute us (Mat 5:44). It is assuredly, however, an indication that the concerns expressed in the prayer are what should be the central thoughts in our praying. And we should certainly not be spending too much time in praying for what will in the end simply pass away. Our concentration should rather be on preparation for the end of the age, and expanding the work of God. And Jesus could well have added, ‘For we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen. Because the things which are seen are temporary and temporal, the things which are unseen are eternal’ (2Co 4:18). But instead He emphasised the new world which He was introducing, a world where men forgave each other when they repented (Mat 6:14-15).
Analysis of Mat 6:9-15 .
(The capital letters in the Analysis continue on the series from Mat 6:7 b onwards).
a F Our Father who is in heaven,
b F May Your Name be set apart as holy,
c F May Your Kingly Rule come,
d F May Your will be done,
e F As in heaven, so on earth,
d F Give us this day our tomorrow’s bread,
c F And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,
b F And bring us not into testing, but deliver us from the Evil One.
a G For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
a G But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Note that in ‘a’ the prayer is to their Father in Heaven, and in the parallel is on what their Father in Heaven will or will not do for them. In ‘b’ they pray that their Father’s Name might be ‘set apart’ as holy (by what happens in and through them) and in the parallel that they might be set apart by Him from evil and the Evil One. In ‘c’ the prayer is for the coming of the Kingly Rule of God on earth, and in the parallel this includes the forgiveness of their failure in the past to observe His Kingly Rule and give Him what was His due, and the revealing of that Kingly Rule in their hearts by their being forgiving. In ‘d’ they pray for His will to be done, and in the parallel His will is done in the provision of their deepest physical (daily bread) or spiritual needs (Tomorrow’s bread). And centrally in ‘e’ all this is to be achieved on earth as well as in Heaven.
Before we look at the prayer in more depth we should perhaps consider it as a whole, and as we do so we learn how to pray. It commences with a simple but profound description of God. This is not just to be seen as an introductory formula with little more meaning than ‘dear sir’. It is a reminder that as we approach Him we must consider the very nature of the One Whom we are approaching. For before we do anything else at prayer we need to get this sorted out. It is only as we do so that our prayers will follow the right course.
Our Father Who is in Heaven’. A pattern Jewish Father was both authoritative and loving. His children would be aware that he would welcome them but also that they must not treat him lightly. So as their Father God too must be respected as such. Honouring father and mother was basic to God’s covenant. And this would especially be so with the ‘Father in Heaven’. ‘He is in Heaven and we are on the earth’. Thus Jesus point is that they must approach Him in ‘awed love’, in godly fear. It must be done remembering Who He is, and yet aware that, if our hearts are right, we are welcome in His presence as His sons.
Our next concern is to be the glory of God, ‘May your Name be made holy’. To the Jew the name represented what a person was, and to them therefore God’s Name indicated His essence. That He is God and there is no other like Him. And to ‘make holy’ meant to set apart to a sacred purpose. So here our intention is to be to express the desire that all in Heaven and earth (Mat 6:10) should be made aware of the remarkable nature and being of God, and should remember Who He is and honour Him accordingly. The point is that they should set Him apart as sacred in their hearts.
It is a reminder to us again that although He is our heavenly Father, the prototype of all fatherhood (Eph 3:15), He is not to be treated lightly, and that therefore we should be constantly concerned for the honour of His Name. As we pray this we are still rightly adjusting ourselves to the idea of Who it is Whom we are approaching. We may remember again the words of Ecc 5:2, ‘God is in Heaven and we are on the earth, and therefore let our words be few’. For this is something that as we enter His ‘experienced presence’ we must never forget. Yet we have now moved from contemplation to beginning to pray, for we are praying for His holiness to be revealed by His activity on earth. That is one essential way in which His Name will be hallowed (Eze 36:23).
Then following that our prayer should be that He might be established in His authority over men, ‘may your Kingly Rule come’. We are still meditating on God as King over all, but we are also praying. And yet our prayer is still concentrated on our desire for God to be all in all. We are demonstrating our longing that He should have His rightful place, and be acknowledged as Lord of all.
So in a few short words Jesus has summed up the honour due to His Father, without diminishing it a jot. And we should note that it is only now, having reminded ourselves of all these things, that we turn our thoughts to the world, and what it should be doing, and even then it is not in order to obtain what we want for ourselves, it is out of concern that men might do His will, as it is done in Heaven. So for the first half of our prayer, God and His glory is still to be the centre of our thinking. And in the prayer we will now pray that what we have learned, and will learn, from the Sermon on the Mount, might be the basis on which men live in order that His honour might be upheld. ‘May your will be done.’ For the aim of that Sermon is that His will might be done on earth as it is in Heaven (Mat 7:13-29).
And then having appreciated our Father’s presence, and having ensured that our hopes and aims are allied with His, we can go on to pray that we might be aligned with His purposes, and might ourselves be what He wants us to be, by recognising that our sustenance must come from Him, by admitting our own failure and seeking forgiveness for it, on the basis that as His disciples we are forgiving of others, and by being delivered from all evil, including the Evil One himself. We can sum it up as continual dependence, continuing cleansing, and continuing confidence in His saving power. Our prayer is thus that we might be wholly His, and as such, aligned with His will, and fashioned by Him.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A model prayer to show that an infinite variety of wants and requests can be compressed into a few humble petitions:
v. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. It does not detract from the value of the prayer that many of its words and thoughts are found in the Old Testament and in the formulas in use among the Jews at that time. The marvel of its beauty lies rather in this, that the Lord arranged the petitions with reference to the importance of human wants and imbued them with His spirit, thus making the brief formula the most perfect prayer in the world. Note how He brings out this point. Thus, after this manner, not after that of the heathen, shall be your habitual prayer, for you are people who stand in a different relation to the Deity, you know the one, true God, to whom all prayers should be addressed. Father, He calls Him, to bring out the sonship of the believers. Their confidence and trust in Him is that of children sure of the father’s love. He is our Father, in the fullest sense, by His work of creation as well as by that of redemption. He is the almighty God and Lord, who reigns in heaven over all the universe and thus possesses the willing power to hear our prayer, Eph 3:14-15; Eph 4:6; Isa 66:1; Act 7:55-56. His name, the entire manifestation of His essence, the revelation of His being, which distinguishes Him and gives an idea of His greatness, Psa 48:11; Mal 1:11, shall be hallowed, praised, glorified. This is done not only by holding Him in all esteem and relevance, by yielding to Him the position which is His by eternal right, by making Him the one object of worship the world over, but by leading such lives that every desire, thought, word, and deed will redound to His glory, Mat 5:16.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mat 6:9. After this manner, therefore, pray ye The Lord Jesus Christ gives his disciples a form of prayer, as was usually done by the Jewish masters; John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray, Luk 11:1. It is to be observed, that this prayer is almost wholly taken out of the Jewish liturgies, and from them so well adapted by our Lord, as to contain all things which can be requested of God, with an acknowledgment of his divine Majesty, and of our dependence. The word ye here is emphatical; thus pray YE, in opposition to the heathen, who used vain repetitions in their prayers. He who best knew what we ought to pray for, and how we ought to pray, what matter of desire, what manner of address would most please himself, and would best become us, has here dictated to us a most perfect and universal form of prayer, comprehending all our real wants, expressing all our lawful desires; a complete directory, and full exercise of all our devotions. Yet it does not follow, that we are to use only the words of this prayer in our address to God; for in the Acts and Epistles, we find the Apostles praying in terms different from this form. But the meaning of these words, thus, or after this manner pray ye, is, that we are to frame our prayers according to this model, both with respect to matter, manner, and style; short, close, full. This prayer consists of three parts; the preface, the petition, and the conclusion. 1. The preface,Our Father, which art in heaven,lays a general foundation for prayer; comprising what we must first know of God, before we can pray in confidence of being heard. It likewise points out to us that faith and humility, and love of God and man, with which we are to approach God in prayer. 1. If they be called fathers, who beget children, and bring them up, the Almighty God has the best right to that title from every creature, and particularly from men, being the Father of their spirits (Heb 12:9.), the maker of their bodies, and the continual preserver of both. Nor is this all; he is our Father in a yet higher sense, as he regenerates and restores his image upon our minds; so that, partaking of his nature, we become his children, and can with holy boldness name him by the title of that relation. In the former sense, God is the father of all his creatures; but in the latter, he is the father only of such as are regenerated by his grace. Of all the magnificent titles invented by philosophers or poets in honour of their gods, there is none which conveys so grand and lovely an idea, as this simple name of father. Being used by mankind in general, it marks directly the essential character of the true God; namely, that he is the first cause of all things, or the Author of their being; and at the same time conveys a strong idea of the tender love which he bears tohis creatures, whom he nourishes with an affection, and protects with a watchfulness, infinitely superior to that of any earthly parent whatsoever. But the name father, besides teaching us that we owe our being to God, and pointing out his goodness and mercy in upholding us, expresses also his power to give us the things that we ask, none of which can be more difficult than creation. Farther, we are taught to give the great God the title of father, that our sense of the tender relation in which he stands to us through Jesus Christ may be confirmed; our faith in his power and goodness strengthened; our hope of obtaining what we ask in prayer cherished; and our desire of obeying and imitating him quickened; for even natural reason teaches, that it is disgraceful for children to degenerate from their parents, and that they cannot commit a greater crime, than to disobey the just commands of an indulgent father. 2. Again, we are directed to call him our Father, in the plural number, and that even in secret prayer; to put us in mind, that we are all brethren, the children of one common parent, and that we ought to love one another with pure hearts fervently; praying not for ourselves only, but for others; that God may give them likewise daily bread, the forgiveness of sins, and deliverance from temptation. 3. The words, which art in heaven, do not confine God’s presence to heaven, for he exists everywhere; but they contain a comprehensive, though short, description of the divine greatness. They express God’s majesty, dominion, and power; and distinguish him from those whom we call our fathers on earth, and from false gods, who are not in heaven, the region of bliss and happiness; where God, who is essentially present through all the universe, gives more especial manifestations of his presence to such of his creatures as he has exalted to share with him in his eternal felicity.
II. 1. Hallowed be thy name This is commonly esteemed the first of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer. Wetstein, however, and several others, are of opinion that these words, as well as those in the next verse, are not to be considered as petitions so much as acts of adoration, and acknowledgments of the power and majesty of God; and accordingly they begin the petitions at the 11th verse. But I apprehend, says Dr. Heylin, in nearly these words, (and with him the greater part agree,) that this passage directly tends to our sanctification, and that we are as much personally concerned in this, as in the following petitions; for, in order to our sanctification, our notions and opinions in respect to all essential doctrines and experimental truths must first be rectified by the divine light, because our notions are in a great measure the rule of our actions; we are solicitous or indifferent about things, not according to their intrinsic merit, but according to the notions or opinions which we have conceived of them, as desirable, or of no moment; so that a change of heart and manners must ever begin in change of opinions,in a knowledge of our fallen state, of our great Remedy, and the manner of applying it through faith. Again, before a man is truly penitent, his notions of worldly goods are lively and animated, as of things highly desirable; but his notion of God is a faint and insipid idea, as of somewhat remote, and which he cares not to be concerned with. The thoughts of wealth and glory and pleasure move his heart strongly; but the thoughtof God lies dormant in him, as a barren or disagreeable speculation. What we want, therefore, is a due and worthy notion of God; I mean a high and lively and affecting sense of him; such as may have its proper ascendant in our minds; such as may rule in our hearts, and make us behave towards him in a manner suitable to his dignity: and this I take to be the drift of these words, hallowed be thy name; for the name of God signifies, that idea or notion whereby we conceive him in our minds (see Psa 76:1. Pro 18:10.); and to hallow or sanctify a thing, signifies to give it that distinction and preference which religion confirms: for, as things excelling upon a worldly account are honourable, so things excelling upon a religious account are called holy; and therefore, in these words hallowed be thy name, we pray, that the conception or thought of God should be so exalted in us, that all our thoughts may fall down before it, and be brought in subjection to it; that the names of grandeur, and riches, and voluptuous joy, may sink beneath the name of the Lord our God; may fade, and lessen, and vanish in his presence. This is hallowing the name of God, and treating it with the reverence that it deserves: this is the end ofall religion, and therefore first proposed in this divine prayer: the following petitions relate to the means of attaining it. Such is Dr. Heylin’s interpretation. It may be proper, however, for the satisfaction of the reader, to give that which is more generally received. Now the name of God is generally understood as a Hebraism for God himself, his attributes and works; and to sanctify a thing, is to entertain the highest notion of it, as true and great and good; and by our words and actions to testify that belief. See 1Pe 3:15. Isa 8:13. In this view, the meaning of the petition is, “May thy existence be universally believed; thy perfections loved and imitated; thy works admired, thy providence reverenced and confided in: may we and all men so think of the Divine Majesty, and of his attributes and works, and may we and they so express our veneration of God, that his glory may be manifested everywhere, to the utter destructionoftheworship of idols and devils!” See Erasmus, Barrow, Macknight, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 6:9 . “Having now rebuked and condemned such false and meaningless prayer, Christ goes on to prescribe a short, neat form of His own to show us how we are to pray, and what we are to pray for,” Luther.
The emphasis is, in the first place, on , and then on , the latter in contrast to the heathen, the former to the ; while is equivalent to saying, “inasmuch as ye ought not to be like the heathen when they pray.” Therefore, judging from the context, Christ intends to point to the prayer which follows as an example of one that is free from vain repetitions , as an example of what a prayer ought to be in respect of its form and contents if the fault in question is to be entirely avoided , not as a direct prescribed pattern (comp. Tholuck), excluding other ways of expressing ourselves in prayer. The interpretation, “ in hunc sensum ” (Grotius), is at variance with the context; but that of Fritzsche (in some brief way such as this) is not “very meaningless” (de Wette), but correct , meaning as he does, not brevity in itself, but in its relation to the contents (for comprehensive brevity is the opposite of the vain repetitions).
On the Lord’s Prayer, which now follows, see Kamphausen, d. Gebet d. Herrn , 1866; J. Hanne, in d. Jahrb. f. D. Th . 1866, p. 507 ff.; and in Schenkel’s Bibellex . II. p. 346 ff. According to Luk 11:1 , the same prayer, though in a somewhat shorter form, was given on a different occasion. In regard to this difference of position, it may be noted: (1) That the prayer cannot have been given on both occasions, and so given twice (as I formerly believed); for if Jesus has taught His disciples the use of it as early as the time of the Sermon on the Mount, it follows that their request in Luk 11:1 is unhistorical; but if, on the contrary, the latter is historical, then it is impossible that the Lord’s Prayer can have been known in the circle of the disciples from the date of the Sermon on the Mount. (2) That the characteristic brevity of Luke’s version, as compared with the fulness of that of Matthew, tells in favour of Luke’s originality; but, besides this, there is the fact that the historical basis on which Luke’s version is founded leaves no room whatever to suspect that legendary influences have been at work in its formation, while it is perfectly conceivable that the author of our version of Matthew, when he came to that part of the Sermon on the Mount where warnings are directed against meaningless repetitions in prayer, took occasion also to put this existing model prayer into our Lord’s mouth. Schleiermacher, Baumgarten-Crusius, Sieffert, Olshausen, Neander, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Holtzmann, Weiss, Weizscker, Schenkel, Hanne, Kamphausen, also rightly declare themselves against the position of the prayer in Matthew as unhistorical. The material superiority of Matthew’s version (see especially Keim) remains unaffected by this verdict. On the Marcionitic form, especially in the first petition, and on the priority of the same as maintained by Hilgenfeld, Zeller, Volkmar, see the critical notes on Luk 11:2-4 .
] This form of address, which rarely occurs in the O. T. (Isa 63:16 ; Deu 32:6 : in the Apocrypha, in Wis 2:16 ; Wis 14:3 ; Sir 23:1 ; Sir 51:10 ; Tob 13:4 ; 3Ma 6:3 ), but which is constantly employed in the N. T. in accordance with the example of Jesus, who exalted it even into the name for God (Mar 14:36 ; Weisse, Evangelienfr . p. 200 ff.), brings the petitioner at once into an attitude of perfect confidence in the divine love; “God seeks to entice us with it,” and so on, Luther. [419] But the consciousness of our standing as children in the full and specially Christian sense (comp. on Mat 5:9 ), it was not possible perfectly to express in this address till a later time , seeing that the relation in question was only to be re-established by the atoning death.
] distinguishes Him who is adored in the character of Father as the true God, but the symbolical explanations that have been given are of an arbitrary character (Kuinoel, “Deus optime maxime, benignissime et potentissime;” de Wette, “the elevation of God above the world;” Baumgarten-Crusius, “God who exists for all men;” Hanne, “Father of all”). Surely such a line of interpretation ought to have been precluded by ver.10, as well as by the doctrine which teaches that Christ has come from heaven from the Father, that He has returned to heaven to the right hand of the Father, and that He will return again in majesty from heaven. The only true God, though everywhere present (2Ch 2:6 ), nevertheless has his special abode in heaven; heaven is specially the place where He dwells in majesty, and where the throne of His glory is set (Isa 66:1 ; Psa 2:4 ; Psa 102:19 ; Psa 115:3 ; Job 22:12 ff.; Act 7:55-56 ; 1Ti 6:16 ), from which, too, the Spirit of God (Mat 3:16 ; Act 2 ), the voice of God (Mat 3:17 ; Joh 12:28 ), and the angels of God (Joh 1:51 ) come down. Upon the idea of God’s dwelling-place is based that very common Jewish invocation (Lightfoot, p. 229), just as it may be affirmed in a general way that (comp. the of Homer) “ ,” Aristot. de Coelo, i. 3. Comp. generally, Ch. F. Fritzsche, nov. Opusc . p. 218 ff. Augustine, Ep . 187. 16, correctly thinks there may be an allusion to the heavenly temple, “ubi est populus angelorum, quibus aggregandi et coaequandi sumus, cum finita peregrinatione quod promissum est sumserimus.” On heaven as a plural (in answer to Kamphausen), comp. note on 2Co 12:2 ; Eph 4:10 .
] Chrysost., Euth. Zigabenus, ; more precisely, let it be kept sacred (Exo 20:8 ; Isa 29:23 ). God’s name is, no doubt, “holy in itself” (Luther), objectively and absolutely so; but this holiness must be asserted and displayed in the whole being and character of believers (“ut non existiment aliquid sanctum, quod magis offendere timeant,” Augustine), inwardly and outwardly, so that disposition, word, and deed are regulated by the acknowledged perfection of God, and brought into harmony with it. Exactly as in the case of , Lev 10:3 ; Lev 22:2 ; Lev 22:32 ; Eze 28:22 ; Eze 38:23 ; Num 20:13 ; Sir 33:4 ; 1Pe 3:15 .
] Everything which, in its distinctive conception, Thy name embraces and expresses, numen tuum , Thy entire perfection, as the object revealed to the believer for his apprehension, confession, and worship. So , Psa 5:12 ; Psa 9:11 ; Isa 29:23 ; Eze 36:23 ; and frequently also in the Apocrypha. Everything impure, repugnant to the nature of God, is a profanation, a (Lev 18:21 ).
Observe once more that the three imperatives in Mat 6:9-10 are not meant to express the idea of a resolution and a vow (Hanne, comp. Weizscker), which is opposed to , but they are (Phi 4:6 ), supplications and desires , as in Mat 26:39 ; Mat 26:42 .
[419] In his translation, Luther renders it here and in Luk 11:2 by unser Vater; in the Catechism and manuals of prayer and baptism, Vater unser , after the Latin Pater noster . See Rienecker in d. Stud. u. Krit . 1837, p. 328 f. Kamphausen, p. 30 f.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1313
HALLOWING GODS NAME
Mat 6:9. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
IT is of the utmost importance to every human being, to know how he shall approach his God with acceptance. Hence some even of the heathen philosophers endeavoured to instruct their disciples how to pray [Note: Plato, in his Dialogue on Prayer, represents Socrates as teaching Alcibiades how to pray.]. We do not find indeed any form of prayer provided for the Jews, with the exception of some short passages which may be regarded in that light [Note: Num 6:22-26; Num 10:35-36 and Hos 14:2-3.]. But in the New Testament we are informed that John the Baptist gave special instructions to his disciples respecting prayer; and our blessed Lord composed a prayer which should be used by his followers, and should serve also as a pattern for prayer to his Church in all ages [Note: Compare the text with Luk 11:2.]. If it be thought that it was intended only for his disciples in their infantine state, previous to the out-pouring of the Spirit upon them, let it be remembered, that it was recorded by the Evangelists a great many years after the full establishment of Christianity, without any hint of its use having been superseded: and consequently, we have the same reason to use it as the form and pattern of our supplications, as the Apostles themselves had: the only difference is, that as our Lord more clearly taught them afterwards to offer their petitions in his name, we must avail ourselves of that further information, to render our prayers more acceptable to God.
It being our intention to enter at large into the consideration of this prayer, we shall confine ourselves at present to that portion of it which we have read; in which are two things to be noticed:
I.
The invocation
It is to God alone, and not to creatures, whether angels or men, that we are to address our prayers: God is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another. But to him we are invited to draw nigh; and are taught to regard him,
1.
As a loving Father
[Under this title God was known to his people of old. Indeed it was the appellation, which, in their eyes, was the surest pledge of his love [Note: Isa 63:16.]: the appellation too in which he himself appeared peculiarly to delight [Note: Jer 3:4; Jer 3:19.]. And well may it be a comfort to us to be permitted to address him by this endearing name: for, if he be a Father, he will pity our weakness [Note: Psa 103:13.], and pardon our sins [Note: Luk 15:20.], and supply our every want [Note: Luk 11:11-13.]. True, if we have no nearer connexion with him than the ungodly world, and are his children only by creation, we can derive comparatively but little comfort from it, because we are in rebellion against him: but if we be his children by adoption and grace, what may we not expect at his hands? When we come to him as members of that great family, pleading for ourselves individually, and for the whole collectively, and addressing him in the name of all, as our Father, methinks he cannot turn away his ear from us: We may ask what we will, and it shall be done unto us. Only let us come with a spirit of adoption, crying, Abba, Father! and, however wide we may open our mouths, he will fill them.]
2.
As an almighty Friend
[When we are taught to address God as our Father which is in heaven, we are not to understand it as distinguishing him from our earthly parents, but as intended to impress our minds with a sense of his majesty: to remind us, that he sees every thing which passes upon earth, and that he has all power to relieve us, to the utmost extent of our necessities. The consideration that he is our Father, encourages us to come with boldness and with confidence; but the thought that he is that high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, and dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto; the thought that he knows even the most secret motions of our hearts, and is alike able to save or to destroy; these considerations, I say, are calculated to beget a holy fear in our minds, and to temper our boldness with reverential awe.
Such are the feelings which should be blended in our hearts, whenever we draw nigh to a throne of grace. We should go to God as our Father; but, remembering that he is in heaven and we upon earth, we should address him in words select and few [Note: Ecc 5:2.].]
Let us now turn our attention to,
II.
The address
In this prayer there are six different petitions; three for the advancement of Gods honour, and three for the promotion of our happiness. The former having the precedence, may fitly teach us, that a regard for Gods honour ought to be first in our intention and desire. Yet it may well be doubted whether the address which is presented to God in our text, is a petition, or a thankful acknowledgment. Perhaps, in so concise a form as this, both may be properly included. Agreeably to this idea we shall consider the address,
1.
As eucharistic
[Though not generally regarded in this light, it seems naturally enough to bear this construction, inasmuch as it accords exactly with the feelings of a devout soul, when impressed and animated with a sense of Gods paternal love. Suppose a person to have been meditating on the perfections of his God, the stupendous display of his love and mercy in Christ Jesus, his covenant engagements to his believing people, and the innumerable benefits conferred upon them; suppose him also to be warmed with the thought that this God is his God, his Father, and his eternal great reward; what would be the first effusions of his soul? Would he not burst forth into praises and adorations, and even labour for words whereby to express his love and gratitude towards him? Thus it was with David on many occasions [Note: Psa 9:1-2; Psa 103:1-5.]; and thus it will be with all who truly delight themselves in God. Sometimes, no doubt, the believers mind will be led to dwell rather on other subjects, whether of confession or petition, as circumstances may require: but where nothing extraordinary has occurred to distract his attention, sure I am that the language of adoration is most expressive of his feelings, and most suited to his state.]
2.
As supplicatory
[The Christian will not be satisfied with his own personal endeavours to honour God. But will wish and pray that the whole universe may render him the honour due unto his name. Hence he will beg of God to banish from the world all ignorance and error; and so to reveal himself to mankind, that all may be constrained to shew forth his praise This, I say, is nigh unto the heart of the believer: he will long to promote it to the utmost of his power [Note: Psa 57:7-11.]: he will pant after it, as an object of his most anxious desires [Note: Psa 67:2-5.]: and he would be glad if every creature, rational and irrational, animate and inanimate, could unite in this as their one blest employ [Note: Psa 148:1-11.].]
Hence we may learn,
1.
How glorious is the liberty of Gods praying people
[They are rescued from the dominion of slavish fears and selfish desires. Happy art thou, O Israel, O people saved by the Lord! Inexpressibly happy are all whose hearts accord with the language of our text! Methinks they resemble, as nearly as such imperfect creatures can, the inhabitants of the realms of light. The cherubim around the throne veil their faces and their feet, in token of that reverential awe which they feel in the presence of the Deity: and the glorified saints cast down their crowns before the footstool of their Lord, to express their sense of their unworthiness of the mercies vouchsafed unto them; whilst the whole united choir vie with each other in hallelujahs to God and to the Lamb. Thus it is with the saints on earth, both in their secret chambers and in the house of God: they are filled with adoring thoughts of God their Saviour, and rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and glorified. Doubtless they experience changes in their frames, and seem at times almost to have forgotten their high privileges: but in their better seasons they shew forth the power of divine grace, and enjoy an antepast of heaven. O that all of us might know their blessedness, by sweet experience!]
2.
What losers are they who neglect prayer
[The generality of people account prayer a drudgery: but they are bitter enemies to their own souls. What loss do they suffer in having God for an enemy, when they might have him for their Friend and Father! As for God, he suffers no loss: if they refuse to glorify him willingly, he will glorify himself upon them against their will. Reflect then, brethren, what sufferers you are, whilst you are turning your back on God! You have no Father to go to in the time of trouble; no sweet assurance that Almighty wisdom and power are exercised for your support; no anticipations of the blessedness of heaven. On the contrary, all your enjoyments are empty, all your prospects dark. In this world you have little happiness above the beasts; and in the world to come, an eternity of unavailing sorrows. O that you would now begin to pray! O that God might say of you this day, as he did of Saul immediately after his conversion, Behold, he prayeth! Then, however desperate your case may now appear, you should soon be received into the family of your God, and be partakers of his inheritance for evermore.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
We have here the pattern of prayer; which the LORD JESUS himself hath given. It were to hold up a small taper to the sun, to attempt an explanation of it, so plain, so evident, and so suited to every capacity. I only desire for myself, and everyone whom God the HOLY GHOST directs in the use of it, that the sweet spiritual sense of it, by his most gracious power, was incorporated in our very heart, for then we should enter into the spiritual enjoyment of it, whenever we thus approach the throne. JEHOVAH in his threefold character of persons, is indeed our FATHER, as JESUS taught, for he said in the moment of his departure, when redemption-work was finished, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my GOD and your GOD. Joh 20:17 . And as we adore him on his throne in heaven, so we pray that his name may be hallowed on earth, and his kingdom of grace be established here among all his redeemed, as his kingdom of glory is, and will be, established above to all eternity. And the bread we pray for in the daily supply, is not simply the bread of the body which perisheth with using, but the bread of the soul, and which endureth to everlasting life, even JESUS himself, the living bread, of which whosoever eateth shall live forever. As Christ is the gift of God, so the cry of the hungry Soul is, Lord! evermore give us this bread! The pardon of sins the renewed soul needs daily, hourly, as he needs the bread of life. And therefore the petition comes in very sweet for forgiveness to our sins, as we delight to forgive the trespasses of others. And as the LORD alone can keep his people in the hour, and from the power of temptation, So JESUS hath graciously taught us to pray that the LORD would keep us from the evil one who goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And most blessed is the concluding part, in ascribing all glory to the LORD. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory forever. Rom 11:36 . JESUS puts his name to the whole. Amen. And unless Jesus doth so, our Amen is nothing. It were to be devoutly wished, that every individual, in every congregation, would consider this when the Amen is pronounced. It should be done with the greatest reverence and solemnity, and with an eye to Christ. For it is not simply saying, as some have interpreted the word Amen, so be it, or be it so; thereby giving our confirmation to what hath been spoken. But it is calling upon the Lord JESUS by one of his names, even the Amen, to confirm it. We should feel the striking nature of the expression, if at the end of sermons, or prayers, or in any other part of our ordinances, we were solemnly to close all with saying JESUS. But yet in fact we do this when we say Amen. For this is as truly the name of the Lord JESUS as any other. May the Lord give both to Writer and Reader a right understanding in all things!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Ver. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye ] Forms of wholesome words are profitable. A set form of prayer is held fittest for the public, and for such weak Christians as are not yet able to express their own desires in their own words. The utterance of wisdom is given to some Christians only, 1Co 12:8 , yet all are to strive unto it, that the testimony of Christ may be confirmed in them, 1Co 1:5-6 . God will take that at first which afterwards will not be accepted. If words be wanting, pray that God who commands thee to take words and come before him, to vouchsafe thee those words, wherewith thou mayest come before him, Hos 14:2 . Speak, as the poor man doth, supplications, Pro 18:23 : so did the prodigal: forecast also (with him) what thou wilt say; premeditate on the matter, disposing it in due order (as one would do that is to speak to a prince; “God is a great King,” Mal 1:14 ). Some think we must never pray but upon the sudden and extraordinary instinct and motion of the spirit. This is a fancy, and those that practise it cannot but fall into idle repetitions, and be confused; going forward and backward, like hounds at a loss, saith a good divine (Parr’s Abba, Father), and having unadvisedly begun to speak, they know not how wisely to make an end. This to prevent, premeditate and propound to thyself fit heads of prayer: gather catalogues of thy sins and duties by the decalogue; observe the daily straits of mortal condition, consider God’s mercies, your own infirmities, troubles from Satan, pressures from the world, crosses on all hands, &c. And because you cannot lack matter, so neither words of prayer. The Spirit will assist, and God will accept, if there be but an honest heart and lawful petitions. And albeit we cannot vary them as some can: our Saviour in his agony used the self-same words thrice together in prayer, and so may we when there is the same matter and occasion. He also had a set form of giving thanks at meat; which the two disciples at Emmaus hearing, knew him by it, Luk 24:30-31 . A form then may be used, we see, when it is gathered out of the Holy Scriptures, and agreeable thereunto. Neither is the spirit limited hereby; for the largeness of the heart stands not so much in the multitude and variety of expressions as in the extent of the affection. Besides, if forms were unlawful, then neither might we sing psalms nor join in prayer with others, nor use the forms prescribed by God.
Our Father which art in heaven ] Tertullian calls this prayer a breviary of the gospel, and compend of saving doctrine ( breviarium totius Evangelii, et salutaris doctrinoe compendium ). It is framed in form of the decalogue; the three former petitions respecting God, the three latter ourselves and others. Every word therein hath its weight. “Our,” there is our charity; “Father,” there is our faith; “in heaven,” there is our hope. “Father” is taken sometimes personally, as in that of our Saviour, “My Father is greater than I;” sometimes essentially for the whole Deity, so here. Now that God is in heaven, is a notion that heathens also have by nature; and do therefore in distress lift up eyes and hands thitherward. And lest man should not look upward, God hath given to his eyes peculiar nerves, to pull them up towards his habitation, that he might “direct his prayer unto him, and look up,” Psa 5:3 , that he might feelingly say with David, “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” “Unto thee I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters,” &c., Psa 123:1-2 . It is reported of Farellus, that he preached so powerfully, that be seemed to thunder, and prayed so earnestly, that he seemed to carry his hearers with him up into heaven ( ut audientes in coelum usque subveheret. Melch. Adam, in Vita. ) But how often, alas, do graceless men approach God with their leaden lips; and indeed reproach him in their formal prayers with that appellation, “Our Father which art in heaven?” Those brain sick disciples of Martin Steinbach of Selestad in Germany, who would needs mend magnificat (as they say), correct the Lord’s prayer as not well composed, are not worth mentioning.
Hallowed be thy name ] i.e. “Honoured by thy Majesty.” “According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise,” Psa 48:10 . Now God’s name is “holy and reverend,” Psa 111:9 ; “great and terrible,” Psa 99:3 ; “wonderful and worthy,” Psa 8:1 ; Jas 2:7 ; “high and honourable,” Isa 12:4 ; “dreadful among the heathen,” Mal 1:14 ; and “exalted above all praise,” Neh 9:5 . His glory is as himself, eternally infinite, and so abideth, not capable of our addition or detraction. The sun would shine though all the world were blind, or did wilfully shut their eyes. Howbeit to try how we prize his glory, and how industrious we will be to promote it, God lets us know that he accounts himself, as it were, to receive a new being by those inward conceptions of his glory, and by those outward honours we do him; when we lift up his name as a standard, saying, “Jehovah Nissi, The Lord is my banner,” Exo 17:15 ; when we bear ( ) it up aloft (as the word used in the third commandment, whereunto this petition answers, signifieth), as servants do their masters’ badges upon their shoulders: a “Being confident” (with St Paul) “of this very thing, that in nothing we shall be ashamed” (while we hallow this holy God, Isa 5:16 ), “but that with all boldness or freedom of speech, as always, so now, Christ shall be magnified in our bodies, whether it be by life or death,” Phi 1:20 .
a Elevavit, evexit: confer Isa 5:26 . Elevabit vexillum ad gentes. Iudaeorum massam adhuc ira inficit fermentum Pharisaeorum, ut Messiam, quem tantis hodie exposcunt ululatibus, non ut redemptorem expectant a peccato, sed ex gentium temporali iugo. D. Prid., Lect.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
9 13. ] THE LORD’S PRAYER.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
9. ] There is very slender proof of what is often asserted, that our Lord took nearly the whole of this prayer from existing Jewish formul. Not that such a view of the matter would contain in it any thing irreverent or objectionable; for if pious Jews had framed such petitions, our Lord, who came every thing that was good under the Old Covenant, might in a higher sense and spiritual meaning, have recommended the same forms to His disciples. But such does not appear to have been the fact. Lightfoot produces only the most general common-place parallels for the petitions, from the Rabbinical books.
With regard to the prayer itself we may remark, 1. The whole passage, Mat 6:7-15 , is digressive from the subject of the first part of this chapter, which is the discouragement of the performance of religious duties to be seen of men, and is resumed at Mat 6:16 . Neander (Leben Jesu, p. 349, note) therefore supposes that this passage has found its way in here as a sort of accompaniment to the preceding verses, but is in reality the answer of our Lord to the request in Luk 11:1 , more fully detailed than by that Evangelist. But to this I cannot assent, believing our Lord’s discourses as given by this Evangelist to be no collections of scattered sayings, but veritable reports of continuous utterances. That the request related in Luke should afterwards have been made, and similarly answered, is by no means improbable. (That he should have thus related it with this Gospel before him , is more than improbable.) 2. It has been questioned whether the prayer was regarded in the very earliest times as a set form delivered for liturgical use by our Lord. The variations in Luke have been regarded as fatal to the supposition of its being used liturgically at the time when these Gospels were written. But see notes on Luk 11:1 . It must be confessed, that we find very few traces of such use in early times. Thol. remarks, “It does not occur in the Acts, nor in any writers before the third century. In Justin Mart. we find, that the prays ‘according to his power’ (Apol. i. 67, p. 83, . . ). Cyprian and Tert [60] make the first mention of the prayer as an ‘oratio legitima et ordinaria.’ ” An allusion to it has been supposed to exist in 2Ti 4:18 , where see note. 3. The view of some that our Lord gave this, selecting it out of forms known and in use, as a prayer ad interim, till the effusion of the Spirit of prayer , is inadmissible, as we have no traces of any such temporary purpose in our Saviour’s discourses, and to suppose any such would amount to nothing less than to set them entirely aside. On the contrary, one work of the Holy Spirit on the disciples was, to bring to their mind all things whatsoever He had said unto them , the depth of such sayings only then first being revealed to them by Him who took of the things of Christ and shewed them to them . Joh 14:26 .
[60] Tertullian , 200
] , , . Euthym [61] Considering that other manners of praying have been spoken of above, the and the , the , especially in its present position of primary emphasis, cannot well be otherwise understood than thus, i.e. ‘ in these words ,’ as a specimen of the Christian’s prayer (the holds the second place in emphasis), no less than its pattern . This, which would be the inference from the context here, is decided for us by Luk 11:2 , , .
[61] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
] This was a form of address almost unknown to the Old Covenant: now and then hinted at, as reminding the children of their rebellion (Isa 1:2 ; Mal 1:6 ), or mentioned as a last resource of the orphan and desolate creature ( Isa 63:16 ); but never brought out in its fulness, as indeed it could not be, till He was come by whom we have received the adoption of sons.
‘Oratio fraterna est: non dicit, Pater meus, tanquam pro se tantum orans, sed Pater noster, omnes videlicet una oratione complectens, qui se in Christo fratres esse cognoscunt.’ Aug [62] Serm. lxiv. 4 App. vol. v. pt. ii. , , , , , , . Chrysost. Hom. xix. 4, p. 250.
[62] Augustine, Bp. of Hippo , 395 430
] These opening words of the Lord’s Prayer set clearly before us the status of the Christian, as believing in, depending upon, praying to, a real objective personal GOD, lifted above himself; to approach whom he must lift up his heart, as the eye is lifted up from earth to heaven. This strikes at the root of all pantheistic error, which regards the spirit of man as identical with the Spirit of God, and at the root of all Deism; testifying as it does our relation to and covenant dependence on our Heavenly Father.
The local heavens are no further to be thought of here, than as Scripture, by a parallelism of things natural and spiritual deeply implanted in our race (compare Aristotle, . i. 3, , , ), universally speaks of heaven and heavenly , as applying to the habitation and perfections of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth Eternity.
] De Wette observes: ‘God’s Name is not merely His appellation, which we speak with the mouth, but also and principally the idea which we attach to it, His Being, as far as it is confessed, revealed, or known.’ The ‘Name of God’ in Scripture is used to signify that revelation of Himself which He has made to men, which is all that we know of Him ( . Orig [63] (Thol.)): into the depths of His Being, as it is, no human soul can penetrate. See Joh 17:6 ; Rom 9:17 . here is in the sense of keep holy, sanctify in our hearts, as in ref. 1 Pet. , . Chrys. Hom. xix. 4, p. 250.
[63] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 6:9-13 . The Lord’s Prayer . Again, in Luk 11:1-4 vide notes there. Here I remark only that Luke’s form, true reading, is shorter than Matthew’s. On this ground Kamphausen ( Das Gebet des Herrn ) argues for its originality. But surely Matthew’s form is short and elementary enough to satisfy all reasonable requirements! The question as to the original form cannot be settled on such grounds. The prayer, as here given, is, indeed, a model of simplicity. Besides the question as to the original form, there is another as to the originality of the matter. Wetstein says, “tota baec oratio ex formulis Hebraeorum concinnata est”. De Wette, after quoting these words, asserts that, after all the Rabbinical scholars have done their utmost to adduce parallels from Jewish sources, the Lord’s Prayer is by no means shown to be a Cento , and that it contains echoes only of well-known O. T. and Messianic ideas and expressions, and this only in the first two petitions. This may be the actual fact, but there is no need for any zeal in defence of the position. I should be very sorry to think that the model prayer was absolutely original. It would be a melancholy account of the chosen people if, after thousands of years of special training, they did not yet know what to pray for Jesus made a new departure by inaugurating (1) freedom in prayer; (2) trustfulness of spirit; (3) simplicity in manner. The mere making of a new prayer, if only by apt conjunction of a few choice phrases gathered from Scripture or from Jewish forms, was an assertion of liberty. And, of course, the liberty obtains in reference to the new form as well as to the old. We may use the Paternoster, but we are not bound to use it. It is not in turn to become a fetish. Reformers do not arise to break old fetters only in order to forge new ones.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mat 6:9 . , thus, not after the ethnic manner. : present, pray so habitually. : as opposed to the Pagans, as men ( i.e. ) who believe in an intelligent, willing God, your Father. The prayer which follows consists of six petitions which have often been elaborately explained, with learned discussions on disputed points, leaving the reader with the feeling that the new form is anything but simple, and wondering how it ever came into universal use. Gospel has been turned into law, spirit into letter, poetry into prose. We had better let this prayer alone if we cannot catch its lyric tone. . In Luke’s form this name stands impressively alone, but the words associated with it in Matthew’s version of the address are every way suitable. Name and epithet together Father, in heaven express reverential trust. . . : first petition sanctified, hallowed be Thy name. Fritzsche holds that in this and the next two petitions is emphatic, not enclitic. The suggestion gives a good direction for the expositor = may God the Father-God of Jesus become the one object of worship all the world over. A very natural turn of thought in view of the previous reference to the Pagans. Pagan prayer corresponded to the nature of Pagan deities indifferent, capricious, unrighteous, unloving; much speaking, iteration, dunning was needed to gain their ear. How blessed if the whole pantheon could be swept away or fall into contempt, and the one worshipful Divinity be, in fact, worshipped, ; for this clause appended to the third petition may be conceived as common to all the first three. The One Name in heaven the One Name on earth, and reverenced on earth as in heaven. Universalism is latent in this opening petition. We cannot imagine Jesus as meaning merely that the national God of Israel may be duly honoured within the bounds of His own people.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
After, &c. Compare “When”. Luk 11:2-4.
Our Father. See Exo 4:22. Deu 32:6, &c. The idolater could say to his idol “Thou art my father”, so Israel was bound to do So (Isa 63:16; Isa 64:8). The Talmud so teaches.
Which = Who.
heaven = heavens. See note on Mat 6:10.
Hallowed = Sanctified.
Thy. Note that the first three petitions are with respect to God, while the next four concern those who pray. God is to be put first in all prayer.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
9-13.] THE LORDS PRAYER.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 6:9. , thus) i.e. in these words, with this meaning; sc. with a short invocation of the Father, and a short enumeration of the things which we require. To have truly prayed thus, is sufficient, especially in meaning, one portion being employed at one time, another at another, to express our desires; and thus also in words. For this formula is given in opposition to much speaking, has words best suited to the things which they express, a most perfect arrangement, and a fulness combined with brevity, which is most admirable; so that the whole discourse may be said to be contained in it. The matter of this prayer is the basis of the whole of the first epistle of St Peter; see Gnomon on 1Pe 1:3.-, Father. An appellation by which God is never addressed in the Old Testament: for the examples which Lightfoot has adduced, are either dissimilar or modern, and prove no more than that the Jews spoke of God as their Father in Heaven, a formula to which Christ now gives life. The glory of the faithful in the New Testament is thus to pray. In this place is laid the foundation of praying in the name of Christ: see Joh 16:23. He who is permitted to address God as his Father, may ask all things from Him in prayer.-, our) The children of God individually pray for all His children collectively: but even their prayers are, by this little word our, declared to be more acceptable when offered in common: see ch. Mat 18:19.- , which art in the Heavens) i.e. Maxime et optime[255] (Almighty, and All-good); see ch. Mat 7:11. Shortly afterwards we find in Mat 6:10.- , in Heaven; nor is it without cause that the number[256] (which is elsewhere frequently used promiscuously, as in ch. Mat 22:30, and Mat 24:36), varies in so short a passage as the present: (in the singular number), signifies here that place, in which the will of the Father is performed by all, who wait upon Him; (in the plural) signifies the whole Heavens which surround and contain that one as it were lower and smaller Heaven: cf. note on Luk 2:14.-, hallowed be) The petitions are seven in number and may be separated into two divisions, the former containing three petitions which relate to the Father, THY Name, THY Kingdom, THY Will, the latter containing four which concern ourselves. In the former we declare our filial affection subscribing to the right, the dignity, and the good pleasure of God, after the manner of the angelic chorus in Luk 2:14 : but in the latter we both sow and reap. In both divisions is expressed the struggle of the sons of God from Earth to Heaven, by which they as it were draw down Heaven to Earth. The object of the first petition is the sanctification of our Divine Father s Name. God is holy: i.e. He is God. He is sanctified therefore, when He is acknowledged and worshipped and celebrated as He really is. The mood[257] in (hallowed be), has the same force as in , come and (be done): it is, therefore, a prayer and not an express doxology.
[255] The mode in which the ancients addressed the Supreme God.-(I. B.)
[256] i.e. Heaven in the singular- heavens in the plural.-(I. B.)
[257] i.e. all the three verbs are in the same mood, the Imperative, and have the same precatory force. It is scarcely necessary to remind the general reader that the Imperative Mood intreats as well as commands.-(I. B.)
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
How to Pray and How to Fast
Mat 6:9-18
This might more fitly be termed the disciples prayer. As we tread its stately aisles, we cannot but think of the myriads who have stood on the same pavement, and have found, in every age, that these seven brief petitions express sufficiently their deepest and holiest longings. Old men and little children, Roman Catholics and Protestants, the servant and his master, east and west, stand together in this noble temple not made with hands.
Prayer should be direct, simple and earnest. It must be reverent, hallowing the Name; and unselfish, employing, we, us, and our,-not I, me, mine. It must breathe the filial spirit which cries, Abba, Father. It must be conceived in love and breathe forgiveness and trust for the supply of all the hunger of our nature. When God forgives, He forth-gives; that is, He casts out of His hand and mind and memory every trace of our sin. We may claim that God should repair as well as forgive; but we must be willing to deal with all others as God has dealt with us.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter 14
Lord, Teach Us to Pray
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
(Mat 6:9-15)
Volumes have been written about prayer. In fact, many volumes have been written about these few, brief words of instruction, which our Savior gave about prayer. I suppose that there are more of those silly how to books on prayer than on any other subject. But I fear they do more harm than good. Yet, I know that there is need for clear, biblical instruction about prayer. Every believer feels like our Lords disciples at times, when they cried, Lord, teach us to pray. In this passage our blessed Savior does just that. He teaches us how to pray.
Still, when I take it upon myself to say or write anything on the subject of prayer, I do so with great reluctance because I fully and shamefully acknowledge that I know so little about the subject. My own prayers are so sinful that they are matters of constant repentance before my God. What hypocrisy there is in my petitions, when there should be utter honesty! What arrogant seeking of my own will, when there should be complete submission to my Gods will! What vain repetitions I make, when there should be nothing but the cries of a broken heart! How little I feel the sins I confess! How little I sense my deep need for the mercies I seek!
I often say my prayers, but do I ever pray?
Or do the wishes of my flesh dictate the words I say?
I might as well kneel down and worship gods of stone,
As offer to the living God a prayer of words alone!
How I long for the Spirit of grace and supplication to teach me how to pray as I ought!
After this manner therefore, pray ye.
First, it must be stated clearly that this is not, as it is commonly called, The Lords Prayer. Our Lord Jesus did not, should not have, and could not have prayed for divine forgiveness! John 17 might properly be called The Lords Prayer, though really that is a mistake. John 17 records just one of the many prayers uttered by our blessed Savior while he walked on this earth.
And this is not a prayer to be memorized and recited. Never do we find the disciples reciting this prayer. In fact, the only other reference made to it is in Luke 11. And Luke studiously avoids giving us an exact replica of it. There is nothing spiritual or worshipful in the mere repetition of words. Rather, this is a word of instruction about how we are to pray and for what we are to pray. Here our Lord Jesus, knowing that we do not know what to pray for as we ought, helps our infirmities by showing us what we are to pray for and how to do it.
In these few, short statements our Lord teaches us all the vital aspects of prayer. Our prayers should be simple, sincere, sagacious, spiritual, and short, avoiding everything like pretense, formality, and show. When our Master says, After this manner therefore, pray ye, he is telling us to pray like this, and proceeds to teach us to pray without the use of vain repetitions, but in brief, simple expressions, according to the pattern given in the few words that follow. He does not tell us to use the words he here uses, but the pattern he here gives.
In prayer believers simply spread before God, our heavenly Father, the great desires and needs of their hearts, trusting him to fulfil those desires and meet those needs by his grace for the glory of his name. What are the great desires of the believers heart? What are the great needs we have, which cause us to wait in utter helplessness before God. Lets look at this model prayer, by which our Lord teaches us how to pray, line by line.
Our Father, which art in heaven.
We are not to pray to saints or angels, but to God our Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of glory, who is in heaven. Our God and Father is the God and Father of all men as their Creator (Act 17:28). Because he is the God and Father of all men by creation, it is proper for all men to praise him and pray to him. We must never forbid anyone to pray, or in any way discourage anyone. Rather, we ought to encourage all men to pray.
Many quote Joh 9:31, where it is written, We know that God heareth not the prayer of sinners, pointing to it as a reason why we ought not teach our children and others to pray. In doing so I fear they reveal their true character. The men who made that statement in Joh 9:31 were self-righteous Pharisees (Joh 9:16). The fact is, God never hears the prayers of anyone except sinners.
The God of Glory is the Father of all men as their Creator; but he is the God and Father of his elect in a very distinct and very special sense, by grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ made peace through the blood of his cross and reconciled all things unto himself; whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight (Col 1:20-22). We are the children of God by adoption, by election, by redemption, by reconciliation, by regeneration, and by faith. We call God our Father by the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Rom 8:15).
Do you trust the Lord Jesus Christ? If you do, it is right for you to call God almighty your Father, and to come to him as such in prayer. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16). We pray to God in heaven as our Father. What a great privilege! And there is something especially sweet about that little word our. When we pray collectively in our public worship services or anytime two believers pray together, we pray as the children of God. Nothing unites hearts like mutual prayer. How can two be divided who together call the God of all grace, Our Father?
We are to call upon God as our Father in heaven, both expressing our reverence for him and our complete liberty to speak to him, as sons would speak to their father on earth. We ought to always approach our great and glorious God, our Father in heaven, with complete confidence and freedom. Oh, that he might, by his blessed Spirit, teach us to do so!
The fact that he is here described as our Father which art in heaven, may well be intended to teach us that we are to set our hearts on things above, not on things on the earth. This earth is not our homeland. Heaven is. Let us set our hearts upon it.
Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel (Heb 12:22-24).
Hallowed be thy name.
The name of God represents all his attributes by which he reveals himself to us. His name represents his Being, all that he is! When we say, Hallowed be thy name, we are simply praying, like the Lord Jesus did, Father, glorify thy name (Joh 12:28). The word hallowed simply means sanctified. God created the world for his glory (Rev 4:11; Pro 16:4). All providence tends toward his glory (Rom 11:36). Gods object in saving sinners is his glory (Psa 106:8). The object of Christ in his death was, above all else, the glory of God (Joh 12:28). And it is the heart desire of every believer, above all else, that Gods name be honored, magnified, and glorified (Psa 35:27; Psa 40:16; Psa 70:4; 1Pe 4:11). Therefore, this is set before us as the first thing we are to seek in prayer.
We pray as children to a Father, and we pray as brothers and sisters in Christ to Our Father. Our Father is a family term. The words, which art in heaven, suggest our Fathers majesty and the reverence with which we are to approach him. The God of Glory is our Father, though he is in heaven. And though he is in heaven, he is our Father. His name is ever to be treated with reverence. Indeed, all that concerns him is to be treated with reverence. His Word, his gospel, his church, and his ordinances should always be regarded with the utmost awe! Let us walk humbly before him, seeking his honor in all things and above all things, praying, Hallowed be thy name, as we hallow it ourselves. Our hearts highest wish is for Gods honor, dominion, and glory.
Thy kingdom come.
Our first concern is and must be the glory of God himself. Our second concern is for the kingdom of God. We seek in all our prayers that the Lord God will be pleased to establish and enlarge his church and kingdom in this world (Psa 122:6-7). To pray thy kingdom come is simply to pray, Lord, save your people, establish your kingdom in this world. Our concern is for the kingdom of God, his sheep, his people, his elect, and his church. We pray for the kingdom of grace to be filled (Rom 11:26). We pray for the kingdom of glory to be established (2Pe 3:13).
Our hearts ought not be consumed with care for the kingdoms of this world, but with concern for the kingdom of God. Our Lord Jesus here teaches us to ever seek the mighty operations of his grace in the hearts of sinners, causing them to be willing servants to him in the day of his power (Psa 110:3), subduing the hearts of chosen, redeemed sinners before him in willing, loyal obedience. We long for the coming of Christ our King. Until he comes we pray to our Father, Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Prayer is not us trying to get God to do our will. Rather it is a voluntary leaving of our will to his will. Our truest happiness. Wrote J.C. Ryle, is perfect submission to Gods will. We want to obey Gods revealed will. We want all men everywhere to surrender to and obey Gods revealed will. But here, our Lord is teaching us to sincerely and heartily surrender everything to and earnestly desire that Gods will be done in this world exactly as it is in heaven, knowing that it is (Eph 1:11).
Our Lord teaches us always to pray, Thy will be done. No matter what our circumstances are, no matter what we think needs to be done, no matter how much we think we want something, wisdom and faith bows to the throne of God and says, Thy will be done. We are so sinful and ignorant that we simply do not know, we never know, what is best. Our Father does. Let us, therefore, gladly bow our will to his will. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom 8:26).
Who knoweth what is good for man in this life? (Ecc 6:12) We know not what we should pray for as we ought. Do we really believe that? Generally, going by what they say, people think they know exactly what to pray for. Yet, the Book says, We know not what we should pray for as we ought. What a flesh-humbling declaration! We know not what we should pray for as we ought. If we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us (1Jn 5:14). But to ask something which is not according to Gods will is not praying, but presuming. We have reason, then, to cry with the disciples, Lord, teach us to pray (Luk 11:1). And this is how he teaches us to pray, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
In all that we have seen thus far, the concern of true prayer is altogether spiritual. Our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray for the glory of God, the people of God, and the will of God. He teaches us to submit all things to those things!
Give us this day our daily bread.
What an instructive word this is! J. C. Ryle wrote, We are here taught to acknowledge our entire dependence on God, for the supply of our daily necessities. As Israel required daily manna, so we require daily bread. We confess that we are poor, weak, needy creatures, and beseech him who is our Maker to take care of us. We ask for bread, as the simplest of our needs, and in that word we include all that our bodies require.
We are to seek Gods providential supplies for ourselves and our brethren Give us. We seek our daily food as a gift from God knowing, that if we have bread to eat, we are fed by the hand of God. Here we are taught to seek no more than is needful for us. Bread, not gold, just bread. And we are taught to seek no more than our daily provision of bread, Give us this day, or as Luke phrases it, day by day our bread. It is no less spiritual to look to our Father in heaven for the daily provision of our daily needs than it is to pray, Hallowed be thy name. Faith looks to the hand of God for all things, and seeks only that which it is the will of God, for the glory of God, and needed by us.
Yet, as we saw in the previous chapter, just as we look to God to provide the needs of our bodies, we must also look to him to give us daily bread for our souls. That bread is Christ. He is truly the Bread we need, the Bread upon which we must feed day by day. Yet, we are such sinful wretches that we cannot feed upon this Bread from heave, except the Father give us our Bread. Only he can cause our souls to hunger for Christ; and only he can satisfy our hungry souls. Lord, evermore give us this bread (Joh 6:34).
Forgive us our debts.
We must especially remember this. Our Lord here teaches us to constantly acknowledge our sinfulness, and to constantly seek forgiveness through his blood. We are to confess our sins continually, not in the ear of an earthly priest, or in the ear of a counsellor, or in the ear of a preacher, but in the ear of our Father in heaven, seeking forgiveness by the merit of our great High Priest, who is in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1Jn 1:9).
Our sins are here described as debts, which we have incurred. They have made us debtors to God, who demands of us both righteousness and satisfaction. The Lord Jesus Christ fully paid our debt. He brought in righteousness for us by his obedience in life. And he satisfied divine justice for us by his obedience in death, putting away or debts forever by the sacrifice of himself.
Our great God, holy and just, freely forgives our debts through the merits of Christ. He has forgiven them; and he forgives them. He forgave our debts before they were ever incurred, in eternity, accepting us in Christ our Surety (Rom 8:28-30; Eph 1:3-6). He forgave our debts when Christ, by his blood, washed them away at Calvary (Heb 9:12). And he is faithful and just to forgive us our debts, our sins, day by day and moment by moment, as we confess them before his throne of grace.
We constantly need forgiveness because we constantly sin; and we constantly have it through the infinite, perpetual merit of Christs blood. No, our confession of sin does not, in any way, cause God to forgive our sin. Yet, as we confess sin, he speaks forgiveness in our souls through Jesus Christ the righteous One, our blessed Substitute, who is the propitiation for our sins.
We must never forget the next part of this sentence. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. This is the only part of this prayer that our Lord expands and explains. He does so because this is the part we are most apt to overlook. The explanation is given in Mat 6:14-15. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Our Lord here teaches us that if we are unforgiving, we are yet unforgiven. If we are not gracious, it is because we have not yet experienced grace. C. H. Spurgeon wrote
This yoke is easy. This burden is light. It may be a blessing to be wronged, since it affords us an opportunity of judging whether we are indeed the recipients of the pardon that comes from the throne of God. Very sweet it is to pass by other mens offences against ourselves; for thus we learn how sweet it is to the Lord to pardon us.
Eph 4:32 to Eph 5:2 contains one of the sweetest and most important admonitions given to the children of God in this world. May God the Holy Spirit, whose words these are, give us grace to heed them.
Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Without forgiveness, forbearance, and brotherly love our prayers are nothing but noise, the hollow echoes of empty hearts! If we cannot forgive, we have not been forgiven.
Lead us not into temptation.
As long as we are in this world, we are liable to temptation. As long as we are in this body of flesh, we may be drawn away of our own lust, enticed by our own nature, tempted and overcome by the snare of Satan. Here our Savior says, You need to be constantly aware of your weakness and Satans strength. You need to be constantly aware of your helplessness, so that you will constantly look to me for help. Prayer, in its essence, is the conscious spreading out of my helplessness before God!
Wise people seek to avoid danger. And we ask God who rules all things to keep us from the danger of temptation. May he who orders our steps order them away from temptation.
Deliver us from evil.
Let us ever pray that our God will graciously deliver us from all the evil present in the world. The evil that is in the world. Satan, the evil one, who seeks to destroy our souls. All the evil that is the result of sin. And the greatest evil there is in the world, the evil that is in our hearts!
Blessed be his name, our God will deliver us from evil (Jud 1:24-25). He will deliver us from every evil temptation we face in this world (1Co 10:13), giving us grace sufficient in the time of trial. He will deliver us from sin and all the evil of this world in the moment we drop our robe of flesh (Joh 14:1-3; 2Co 5:1-9). And he will deliver us from all the evil consequences of sin in resurrection glory at the last day (Eph 5:25-27). And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away (Rev 21:4).
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
Here our Savior teaches us that all prayer is to be an ascription of praise to God For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. All the kingdoms of the world belong to God. All power belongs to God. And all glory belongs to God alone. These are the words David used to ascribe praise to our Father in heaven, by which he Hallowed his holy name. Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all (1Ch 29:11).
What an encouragement this is for us to walk before our God in confident faith, trusting him in all things and for all things! What an encouragement to prayer! He who is our Father in heaven, the God of all grace, omnipotent and omniscient, ever wise and ever-good, will hallow his own great name, save all his elect, perform all his will, give us our daily bread, forgive all our sins, preserve us from all harm by our temptations, support us in them, deliver us from them, and deliver us from all evil. Should he fail to do all that is implied in these words of instruction about prayer, how could his name be hallowed, sanctified, and glorified?
Amen
Amen is a word of assent, expressing confident faith. It means, so be it, or so it shall be. John Gill wrote, This word being retained, and kept the same in all languages, signifies the unity of the spirit, and faith in prayer, in all the saints, in all ages. And, as we have seen before, Amen is one of our Saviors names.
When our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray, after this manner, he is teaching us to pray in his name. To use the word Amen when we pray, if we pray as we ought, in the spirit and with understanding, is to pray in Christs name. When we gather to worship with Gods saints, we are to gather in Christs name. If we do so, we are assured of his presence (Mat 18:20). And if we pray in his name, we are assured that we have what we desire of God. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it (Joh 14:13-14). Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you (Joh 16:23). And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him (1Jn 5:14-15).
But what is it to worship and pray in Christs name? It is not simply tacking the word Amen, or the words in Jesus name onto the end of our prayers, as if they were magical words like abracadabra. It is coming to God, as needy sinners, trusting the merits of Christs blood, righteousness, and mediation alone for acceptance with him. To pray in Christs name is to come to God in faith, trusting Christ, bowing before his throne, bowing to his will, and seeking his glory.
If, when we pray, we truly bow to and seek the will of God, we have what we desire of him. God will do his will! Contrary to popular opinion, prayer is not a mighty instrument for getting God to do our will, but a mighty instrument by which God performs his will in this world. As A. W. Pink put it, To ask in the name of Christ is to set aside our own will and bow to the perfect will of God. To pray in Christs name and according to the will of God is to want what God wills for his glory. Prayer is not, as so many vainly imagine, a blank check made out to us, waiting for us to fill in the amount. Prayer is the cry of broken spirits to our Father in heaven, saying, Thy will be done. Lord, teach us to pray.
I bend my knees and bow my head,
And shut my eyes to all without;
But still my heart, so cold and dead,
Is full of sin and fear and doubt.
I say the words I ought to say,
Confess my sin, and long for Thee;
But still, I fear, I seldom pray:
Teach me to pray, O Lord, teach me.
Cause me to know Your grace and power,
Spirit of God, awake my heart,
Within my soul create a prayer:
Give me, O Lord, a fervent heart.
Here at Your throne of grace I lie,
Trusting the merits of Your Son;
Father, Abba, Father, I cry,
And hope that I am heaven born.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,
These things, with earnest heart, I say:
My only hope is in Your Son:
But still, I ask, Teach me to pray.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
The Lords Prayer
After this manner therefore pray ye.Mat 6:9.
1. The Lords Prayer has been the type of prayer among Christians in all ages. Throughout the Christian centuries men have poured forth their hearts to God in these few words, which have probably had a greater influence on the world than all the writings of theologians put together. They are the simplest form of communion with Christ: when we utter them we are one with Him; His thoughts become our thoughts, and we draw near to God through Him. They are also the simplest form of communion with our fellow-men, in which we acknowledge that He is our common Father and that we are His children. And the least particulars of our lives admit of being ranged under one or other of the petitions which we offer up to Him.
2. It has not only become the one universal prayer of Christendom; it has appealed to and has been adopted by the most enlightened exponents of other faiths. This result is all the more astounding if, as some scholars have declared, no single petition of the prayer was in the strict sense original, the startling originality being in the structure of the prayer. Within the narrow framework of an utterance containing only petitions, Jesus has gathered all the deepest necessities of the collective and of the individual life of mankind, and has so knit together and built up these petitions in orderly sequence that the prayer as a whole appeals to men everywhere, and remains to any man who will thoughtfully use it a liberal education in sympathy with mankind and in understanding the character of God.
In his Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude, Thomas Gray endeavoured to impress on an age of indifference the priceless value of the daily earthly blessings which we receive, too often without a thought of their beauty, and healthfulness, and joy, without a word of gratitude to Him who gives and sustains, without one real expression of prayer that we may consecrate them more entirely to His service. He describes the feelings of one who, after a long and painful illness, finds himself at last able to leave his room, and move once more amid familiar sights and sounds which, in a normal state of health, scarcely excite attention:
See the Wretch, that long has tost
On the stormy bed of Pain,
At length repair his vigour lost
And breathe and walk again;
The meanest flowret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common Sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.
In the spiritual world there are blessings like the common sun, the air, the skies, the priceless value of which in regard to communion with God in Christ, the conscious sense of the Divine presence, the formation of character, and control of conduct, we for the most part hardly estimate until we find ourselves deprived of them, or unable to make use of them. Among such blessings, inestimable, yet taken as a matter of course, is the gift of the Lords Prayer.1 [Note: A. J. Worlledge, Prayer, 160.]
(1) To begin with, a man is bidden postpone the outpouring of his private needs till he has related himself aright to the needs of the world: the first three petitions of the Lords Prayer are missionary intercessions, which, when a man begins to use, at once narrowness and possible selfishness of outlook are checked, and the sympathies spread out to take in the wants that lie deepest in the life of universal man. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy namehallowed, that is, the whole world over. What a sweep of intercessory affection, what enlightening recollection of what the world most truly needs, what readjustment to fraternal fellowship of desire lies behind the intelligent use of this petition alone! It means that one sees, instructed by Christ, that the profoundest necessity for the broken and sundered lives of our race is reunion in spiritual religion, in one universal reverence to one worthy thought of God; and to go on intelligently to pray, Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, is to desire (and surely also to be moved to work for) the reorganizing of mans broken life on the basis of a universal subordination to God, orderly and loyal, because willing, enlightened, and free. Think of the power that lies in a series of intercessions like that to educate the intercessor in the true meaning and inwardness of the history behind him and being made around him! Think of its stores of impulse to a cosmopolitan outlook, its potent force as a solvent of the parochial spirit! And then think of the range and depth of the insight of the Galilan peasant who thus perceived and read the universal needs of man! How came He to have those eyes which, like the eyes of God, are over all the earth?
In each petition we ask to be blessed with God Himself. In each petition we therefore see the Trinity, while one Person of the Trinity is more prominently brought forward. The name is the Son revealing the Father; the kingdom is the Father beheld and loved in the Son; the will renewed is the Holy Ghost fulfilling in us what the Father ordains and Christ mediates. In these three petitions there is no sequencethey are co-equal, co-ordinatehence there is no conjunction.1 [Note: Adolph Saphir, The Lords Prayer, 58.]
(2) The remaining four petitions of the prayer are no less marvellous as a transcript of the cry of the world-wide heart of man. Give us this day our daily breadgive us, for we can neither manufacture nor for very long so much as store the raw material of lifes nourishment. Forgive us our debtsforgive, for we can neither pay for, expiate, nor endure unexpiated, the irreparable past. Lead us not into temptationfor life is beset with risk as well as opportunity. Deliver us from evilfor that is the deep-set root of all woes. Is it not the unanimous voice of mankind that sights through these petitions? Has there ever been so perfect, so adequate an articulation of the murmur of the hungering world-soul? Is prayer for more than this prayer includes essential? Would prayer for less be less than vicious? Men vary in their power of calling up from the subconscious region the thoughts and sympathies that wander to the farthest frontiers of personality and seem to travel even beyond; but this is more than telepathy in excelsis: it is a knowledge of universal man gathering itself in such a way within the compass of a single mind that the inference is irresistible that this Mans consciousness was more than individual, and that these things He had learned in some residence in God antedating His residence on earth. The vast sweep of the Lords Prayer, and its astounding grasp of what is deepest in the necessities of the world in every age, go far to make credible even the saying attributed to Christ in the Fourth Gospel, Before Abraham was, I am.
Of symbolical numbers in Scripture, there are none whose meaning is so certain and obvious as the numbers three, four, and seven. Three is the number of God, as in the threefold blessing which the high priest pronounced, the threefold holy in the song of the seraphim, and in various passages. The mystery, most clearly expressed in the institution of baptism and throughout the Epistles, is contained in germ in all the manifestations of God unto His people. The number four is evidently the number of the world, of the manifold mundane relationship of creation in its fulness and variety. This symbolism finds its expression in naturethe four directions in space, the four corners of the earth, the four winds, from which all the elect shall be gathered. It is to be noticed in the Tabernacle, the measures, curtains, colours, and ingredients, where it denotes regularity and completeness. With this correspond the facts that we have a fourfold account of the life of Christ, and that the creaturely life and perfection is represented by the four living Beings. Seven is the number symbolizing God manifesting Himself in the world. From the very first chapter of Genesis to the closing Book of the inspired record, this number is invested with a special dignity and solemnity. The seventh day is not merely the day of rest, but the day on which are completed and perfected the works of God. Seven is the number of clean animals which Noah was commanded to bring into the Ark. Seven branches had the golden candlestick in the holy place of the Tabernacle; seven days lasted the great festivals in Israel; on seven pillars was built the House of Wisdom; walking amid seven golden candlesticks Jesus is represented in the Apocalypse; seven spirits are before the throne; seven words the Saviour uttered from the cross; seven petitions He gives to His people.1 [Note: Adolph Saphir, The Lords Prayer, 59.]
The Father
Our Father which art in heaven.
After this manner therefore pray ye. This then is the right way of praying. Our Lord here in the Sermon on the Mount is telling men how to do the three eminent dutiesWhen thou doest alms, When ye fast, When ye pray. About each of the three He has the same thing to sayDo not advertise it; but when He speaks of prayer He goes further, for it is by far the most difficult of the three; He goes on to tell us the right method. After this manner therefore pray ye. The Lords Prayer is given, not to tie us down to that particular form of words (though, indeed, there are none so good), but to show us how to pray. After this manner. This is the right way.
1. Too often man trips in and out of Gods presence, saying words that he does not feel towards a Person of whom he has no intelligent conception. But we must not do so. Our love and our awe must be first evoked. Father, we approach Him as a child in the tenderest relationship; He is One who loves us with more than human love, loves us more than we can love Him, One who is more ready to hear than we are to pray.
Father! It is the greatest word on mortal tongue, and the truth of the universal Fatherhood of God is the greatest which ever dawned on the intelligence of man. But did it ever dawn upon the intelligence of man in such a way as the other truths have done? When Peter made his great confession, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord answered him in joy and thankfulness, Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. May we not say that flesh and blood never revealed this truth of Gods eternal Fatherhood? It is Gods own direct supreme revelation of Himself in Christ His eternal Song of Solomon 1 [Note: C. F. Aked, The Lords Prayer, 14.]
No exercise of will can procure for me, and no amount of demerit can forfeit for me, the fact, the existence, of a sonship and a Fatherhood. Even in the far country, where the prodigal son is feeding swine, not memory alone, but consciousness, recognizes a relationship between himself and a far-off person, whom he confidently calls his father. And when he forms the resolution to escape from his misery and his destitution, and to seek again the land and the home which for years have been to him but a dream and an illusion, he frames into words, without a doubt or a peradventure, the confession with which he will present himself at the door of that house and that heart, and it begins with the assertion of an inalienable relationshipI will say to him, Father!1 [Note: C. J. Vaughan, The Lords Prayer, 15.]
2. The Lords Prayer bids us lay aside all selfishness at the outset. Its first wordOuris the most difficult of all; for to lay aside selfishness is the hardest thing in the world. We must begin by casting off self, by realizing that we are only one minute unit in the great millions of humanity. Think of it, what this word our meansall those who are separated from us by impassable barriers, those who are so far above us that we cannot reach them, those who are so far beneath us that we reckon the slightest act of human recognition is a gracious condescension, all those who belong to the opposite faction in politics, those who belong to hostile nations, those whose religion or whose irreligion wars with our deepest convictions; all those who are outcasts too, and criminals, the enemies of society, and thoseit is often hardest to rememberwith whom we have had disagreements, quarrels, those whom we feel we cannot like. He is our Father only in connexion with these others also. We cannot speak for ourselves unless we speak also for them; we cannot carry our petitions to the throne of His grace unless we carry theirs; we cannot ask for any good unless it is for them as much as for us. For He is their Father as much as ours, and we cannot say, Our Father which art in heaven, unless we have first learnt to say, Our brothers who are on the earth.
The Lords Prayer is the simplest of all prayers, and also the deepest. We are children addressing a Father who is also the Lord of heaven and earth. In Him all the families of the earth become one family. The past as well as the present, the dead as well as the living, are embraced by His love. When we draw near to Him we draw nearer also to our fellow-men. From the smaller family to which we are bound by ties of relationship we extend our thoughts to that larger family which lives in His presence. When we say, Our Father, we do not mean that God is the Father of us in particular, but of the whole human race, the great family in heaven and earth. The Heavenly Father is not like the earthly; yet through this image we attain a nearer notion of God than through any other. We mean that He loves us, that He educates us and all mankind, that He provides laws for us, that He receives us like the prodigal in the parable when we go astray. We mean that His is the nature which we most revere, with a mixed feeling of awe and of love; that He knows what is for our good far better than we know ourselves, and is able to do for us above all that we can ask or think. We mean that in His hands we are children, whose wish and pleasure is to do His will, whose duty is to trust in Him in all the accidents of their lives.1 [Note: Benjamin Jowett, Sermons on Faith and Doctrine, 252.]
It is in every line a prayer of fellowship and co-operation. It is a perfect illustration of the social nature of prayer. The co-operation and fellowship are not here confined, and they never are except in the lower stages, to the inward communion of an individual and his God. There is no I or me or mine in the whole prayer. The person who prays spiritually is enmeshed in a living group, and the reality of his vital union with persons like himself clarifies his vision of that deeper Reality to whom he prays. Divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood are born together. To say Father to God involves saying brother to ones fellows, and the ground swell of either relationship naturally carries the other with it, for no one can largely realize the significance of brotherly love without going to Him in whom love is completed.2 [Note: R. M. Jones, The Double Search, 65.]
3. Yet again, it is to the Father in heaven that we are to pray. Mankind before Christ sought two ways of knowing God. The philosopher thought of Him as far removed from earth in His perfection. The polytheist thought of Him as embodied in many gods, half-human, and for that reason very near to him. The one protested against the error of the other, and both were half-true. God is infinitely above us, as the philosopher thought; but He is also very human, very near. So Jesus Christ came to show us that God is not some vast abstraction, but is a present Father, closer to us than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet.
For God is never so far off
As even to be near.
He is within. Our spirit is
The home He holds most dear.
To think of Him as by our side
Is almost as untrue
As to remove His shrine beyond
Those skies of starry blue.
So all the while I thought myself
Homeless, forlorn, and weary,
Missing my joy, I walked the earth,
Myself Gods sanctuary.
4. In heaven does not mean at a distance. What does it mean? It means perfection. Our Father in heaven suggests perfection in love, in helpfulness, in homeliness.
(1) Perfection in love.We can learn heavenly things only from earthly types. Looking at such types, what is our idea of what a Father should be? At least we understand that the word represents lovelove that thinks, love that works; the love of one who is wise, who is strong, and who takes trouble. It means this in man, it means this in God, and to perfection.
(2) Perfection in helpfulness.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? That word if seems meant not only to imply an argument, but to suggest a question. If ye know how! Do fathers and mothers always know? Look at Hagar, when the bread was gone, the water spent, and Ishmael ready to die of wantdid she know? She cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her down over against him, a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept. Look at certain times into certain houses not far from your own, and you might hear a child ask for bread, and then hear the father say, There is none. He would help, but he does not know how. God, as our helper, because He is our Father in heaven, might say to us, As the heavens are higher than the earth, soin helping youare my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(3) Perfection in homeliness.The words, Our Father which art in heaven, suggest to us the perfection of our home. Although the word heaven is here used mainly to remind us of our Fathers perfection, it is meant also to remind us of the family home. Some Christians seem not to care for this doctrine, and in giving us their own views they are almost as refined as Confucius, who said, Heaven is Principle. Our notion, although it includes this idea, does not stop at it. It includes not only character but condition, not only principle but place. We look upon heaven as the perfect home of perfect human nature.
What must that place be in which even God is at home! We cannot tell, and it is astonishing that any mortal has ever tried to tell. It is written in an old story that an artist, led by Indians, once went to paint Niagara, but that when he saw it, he dashed his disappointing pencil down the precipice, for he felt that he could as soon paint the roar, as the fall, the foam, the great sheets of light, the arch of coloured rays, with all the other wonders that went to make up the surprising cataract; and shall we who have only seen earth, try to picture heaven! No! poems of glory, pictures of magnificence, all fail, imagination in its utmost stretch, in wonder dies away; in our present state, our future state is a mystery, though a mystery of delight. It is our home, but the celestial homeliness is beyond us now.1 [Note: C. Stanford, The Lords Prayer, 81.]
I
The Name
Hallowed be thy name.
This is no doxology. It is a prayer. It is the first of three prayers concerning God Himself.
1. What is a name? What is it for us? A name is the brief summary of a person. The use of a name, the object of each man having a name, is to supersede the necessity of interminable descriptions, and to set before us, by a sort of telegraphic dispatch, the whole personface, form, and propertiesof him whom we know and of whom we would make mention. The name is the catchword which renders amplification needless by bringing up to us the personfigure and qualities and characteristics in one. The name is the man. The absent, distant, inaccessible man is made present to us in the naming of the name.
Even thus is it with the name of God. When Moses prayed, I beseech thee, shew me thy gloryand when he was told that to see the Face of God was impossible, but that he might be privileged to behold some sort of back look and (as it were) retrospect of His Personwe read next that the Lord descended, passed by before him, and, in answer to that prayer for a sight of His glory, proclaimed the name of the Lord. Now what was that name? Was it the Jehovah, the I Am, of the original revelation? Read it as it lies there at length in the 34th chapter of the Book of Exodus, and you will see that the name of God is, in other words, the sum of Gods attributes, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. God, such as He is, in mercy and righteousness, in boundless compassion and just judgmentthat, that is His name.
2. Learning what God is, we ask that His name may be hallowed or held sacred, regarded by all as a true and holy thing that is at any cost to be maintained in esteem, and under all temptation still believed in. May the idea of God which He would have us to possess be held as the choice possession of our spirits, the treasure on which our hearts rest, and to which they ever return; may it be held separate from all contamination of our own thoughts about God; and may it never be obscured by any cloud of adversity tempting us to think that God has changed, never lost sight of by any careless devotion of our thoughts to other objects and names; never presumed upon nor polluted as countenancing folly or sin, but cherished still and guarded as the holy and reverend name of the Lord.
It is to be noted that this petition stands first of all the petitions in the Lords Prayer. It is the very first thing that a disciple thinks of as he begins to pray, indicating what must be our first business on the first day of every weekto hallow Gods name. Nothing else is to take precedence of that. Other things may follow. Before the day is over it will be right to offer a prayer for daily bread, but that can wait till later. Even the prayer for forgiveness of our sins comes later, and the prayer for deliverance from temptation comes later. In Christs order earliest of all stands this petition that the name of God our Father may be hallowed.1 [Note: W. R. Richards, A Study of the Lords Prayer, 45.]
II
The Kingdom
Thy kingdom come.
What is a kingdom? It is a society of men living in an orderly manner a common life under one head or ruler. The Kingdom of God is this, but more. For human rule is over men only, speaking generally; the rule of God is over all created things. Thus the Kingdom of God is an orderly constitution of all things visible and invisible, inanimate, animate and spiritual, each in its own place fulfilling the Divine will.
1. Now this idea of the Kingdom is taken for granted when we pray Thy kingdom come. The necessity for this prayer arises only because the rule of God in the world has beennot indeed banished, butobscured. So that from the point of view of sinful, alienated man, the Kingdom of God, His manifested rule, must be treated as an absent thing to be desired and invoked.
2. This is by no means to be limited to the desire that Gods sovereignty should be established over our hearts. The prayer is put into the mouth of disciples, who have already surrendered their hearts and wills to God. Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom; and the Kingdom of God is only Christs name for the blessings of the gospel. Therefore this petition means: Let thy gospel have world-wide supremacy, and the conceptions of God and of life which it teaches govern everywhere. It means that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, through the acceptance and application of Christian teachings; and that the name of God which is to be hallowed is that revealed by Jesus Christ.
I am prepared to adopt the following declaration: The coming of the kingdom would mean the death of flunkeyism and toadyism in the personal life, the death of mammon in the social life, and the death of jingoism in the national life. I venture to think that it would banish from our social life all strife, all envy, all slander. It forbids Christian people to follow unchristian fashions. It makes the pride and stand-offishness of some Christians towards their fellow-members positively ridiculous. It bids us be courteous, kindly affectioned, pitiful, given to hospitality, charitable. The same consecrating hand laid upon our commercial life will prevent the fierce competition which chokes the life out of the weak and exalts the strong; a heartless rejection of a good servant because a few shillings a week can be saved by giving the post to a boy: a recognition of a moral code differing fundamentally from Jesus Christs moral code. Business men will give a helping hand to fallen brothers who are trying to recover themselves; they will scorn to ask their young clerks to make untrue statements about goods. Workmen will lose their passion for strikes. Christian peoplecertainly Christian ministerswill be ashamed to take shares in a brewery because it pays, or to demand a larger dividend from any company without enquiring what the effect may be on the employees. In civic and political life we shall refuse to allow large vested interests to occupy the seat of authority and to shape legislation for their own advantage. When the Kingdom comes, no Parliament would allow the childrens chartera Bill for preventing the sale of intoxicants to young children, a Bill the necessity for which was recognized by everybodyto be flung to the brewers and publicans for them to tear and trample upon. Indeed, we might go a step farther back, and say that when the Kingdom comes there will be no liquor traffic on lines that bear any comparison with that which shocks and mocks and murders us to-day. And in our national life when this prayer is prayed earnestly, we shall distinguish between the shoddy patriotism which is only a masked pagan vice, which desires to exalt British interests by any means warlike or not at the expense of other people, and that truer patriotism which is a Christian virtue, which longs to make ones own nation good, that it may be blessed of God and become a means of blessing to the world. You may easily quarrel with my provisional programme of Christian life, but you cannot be a true follower of Christ if you do not pray and labour for the coming of the Kingdom of our Father, through the spread of the Christian religion and the supremacy of the teaching of Jesus.1 [Note: J. E. Roberts, Studies in the Lords Prayer, 29.]
Father, let Thy kingdom come,
Let it come with living power;
Speak at length the final word,
Usher in the triumph hour.
As it came in days of old,
In the deepest hearts of men,
When Thy martyrs died for Thee,
Let it come, O God, again.
Tyrant thrones and idol shrines,
Let them from their place be hurled:
Enter on Thy better reign,
Wear the crown of this poor world.
O what long, sad years have gone,
Since Thy Church was taught this prayer!
O what eyes have watched and wept
For the dawning everywhere.
Break, triumphant day of God!
Break at last, our hearts to cheer;
Eager souls and holy songs
Wait to hail Thy dawning here.
Empires, temples, sceptres, thrones,
May they all for God be won;
And, in every human heart,
Father, let Thy kingdom come.1 [Note: John Page Hopps.]
III
The Will
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
In the second petition of this prayer, we have prayed for Gods spiritual Kingdom, that it may be set up and established in our hearts; for His visible Kingdom, or Church, that it may increase and spread, until it fill the whole earth; and for His heavenly Kingdom, that it may soon drive away and put an end to every kind of sin and sorrow, and leave nothing to be seen in the new heavens and the new earth but a glorious God, filling all things with His presence, and ruling with a Fathers love over His dutiful and holy children. Already, therefore, we have desired that those things be fulfilled which are contained in this third petition. We cannot desire that He be King over the earth, without desiring that His will be done on earth. We do not sincerely own Him as King, unless we set His will above our own and every other. For a kingdom where there is not one guiding will is a distracted kingdom, doomed to fall: a king whose will is not done is a mocked and virtually dethroned king. However, to add this petition is not to repeat, though it be to develop and follow out, the preceding. The three petitions are to one another as root, stem, and fruit; as beginning, middle, and end.
It is not enough that the Kingdom be established, that its boundaries be enlarged, and its glory delighted in; there is an end for which all this is brought about, and that end is that the will of the Ruler may be done. We desire that God may assert His dominion over us and all men, and may give us to know that He is a living and near God by the force of His will upon us. From the name we pass to the work as displayed in His Kingdom, and from the work to the will. From the outskirts of His personality we pass to its heart.
1. The petition, Thy will be done, is not only the summit or the climax of those petitions in which we seek Gods honour and glory; it is the foundation of all prayer. For what is prayer? It is not, as is sometimes foolishly thought, a mere means of trying to extort something from God; nor an attempt to change the will of God regarding us, as if, by our continual asking, we might obtain certain things which God had hitherto denied us. It is, first of all and chief of all, an acknowledgment on our part that God knows what is best for us, and a desire that He would enable us to submit our wills to His will. We cannot rightly ask for anything, unless we ask for it in humble dependence upon the will of God; unless, in asking, we are conscious that we do not desire it, unless God desires it for us.
2. Thy will be done,that, then, is the spirit of every true prayer. But it is more, it ought to be the spirit of every true life. Apart from such acknowledgment as is here implied, how aimless our lives are apt to be, swayed hither and thither by every idle impulse, at the mercy of every gust of passion, or at the best centred in some selfish or worldly pursuit. But, on the other hand, once a man has realized that he has come forth from God, that God has need of him, and has a purpose for him to fulfil, what new strength and dignity of character he gains! He learns that he does not stand alone, and gradually there is borne in upon him the triumphant consciousness of a life lived, not according to any self-willed object or desire, but step by step unfolding itself according to the complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God. With the Hebrew Psalmist he can exclaim, O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust. My times are in thy hand.
3. Gods will is to be done herehere on earthand now. We are not to wait for another life, as if then alone we could truly serve God. But our service here is to prepare us for our service hereafter. We are told of the angels of God that they do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word, and that they are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. And the ministry of the angels is, as this petition teaches us, to be the model of our ministry.
When Hooker was lying on his deathbed, a friend visiting him found him in deep contemplation, and asking what his thoughts were, received the reply that he was meditating the nature and number of angels, and their blessed obedience and order, without which peace could not be in heaven; and, Oh! that it might be so on earth.1 [Note: G. Milligan, The Lords Prayer, 83.]
When Gladstone was asked for his favourite quotation he gave the six words of Dante, La sua volontade e nostra paceHis Will is our peace.2 [Note: P. Dearmer, in Churchmanship and Labour, 249.]
IV
The Daily Bread
Give us this day our daily bread.
In the Lords Prayer there are three petitions for Gods glory, three for mans spiritual necessity, and in the midst is set one petition for mans bodily needsonly one, and that most full of significance, Give us this day our daily bread.
Let us be reverent enough to take this sentence in its plain meaning. To give it some mystical or symbolic interpretation which our Lord did not mean it to have is to set up another prayer which is not the Lords Prayer. Daily bread does not refer to the Eucharist. The word translated daily is very obscure, it occurs nowhere else in the Greek language; but all are agreed that the meaning is bread for our daily subsistence, and the attempt made by Abelard in the twelfth century to translate it supersubstantial is undoubtedly wrong. The petition simply deals with the most fundamental of social questionsthe need of sustenance.
There is no better commentary on this petition than that of old Bishop Barrow: A noble heart will disdain to subsist like a drone on the honey gained by others labour; or like vermin to filch its food from the public granary; or like a shark to prey on the lesser fry: but will one way or other earn his subsistence, for he that does not earn can hardly be said to own his daily bread.1 [Note: P. Dearmer, in Churchmanship and Labour, 252.]
1. The first point to notice in this clause of the Lords Prayer is its moderation. In the prayer which is prompted by our natural instinct we ask for everything we happen to want; we put ourselves first; we are immoderate in our desires; we seek to bend the Divine will to our own wishes. In all these respects, as has been already noticed, the Lords Prayer puts human instinct under the strongest check. This prayer for the supply of our own needs is not allowed to be uttered till it has been preceded by prayer for the honouring of the Divine name, the coming of the Divine Kingdom, and the doing of the Divine will; and till, in all these respects, the law of heaven has been taken for the law of human conduct.
2. Next let us ask what daily bread can be understood to include? Surely it is all that is necessary for us to make the best of our faculties. It is nourishment; and everything may fairly be called nourishment which can be said to fertilize and liberate the energies of human nature, instead of cloying and clogging them. Once grant this, and it is obvious that very different things are meant by bread to different people. There is hardly any luxury which has not its use to stimulate this or that nature, or to meet this or that exceptional need. The question whether this or that article of diet or comfort can be used under the head of daily bread, can be answered only by answering the questionDo I work the better for it? And in answering this question there are two facts, closely allied, which have to be kept in mind.
(1) The first is, that comforts very soon reach the point where they begin to clog human energies instead of liberating them. A venerable statesman has been often heard to remark that the things people say they cant do without are like the pieces of thread with which the Lilliputians bound Gulliver. Each of them could be snapt by itself, but taken together they bound him more tightly than strong cords. Nobody, therefore, can find out what he really needs for his work without constantly testing himself in giving up things. No one can consider a number of well-to-do Englishmen without perceiving that they are materialized; that is, that the supply of food and drink and comfort generally dulls their intellectual and still more their spiritual powers. In other words, the spirit in them is the slave of the flesh.
(2) Here comes in view the second fact. Fasting has been historically a principle of Christianity, and was so in Apostolic Christianity. Rightly stated, the principle of fasting is but the recognition that the flesh has in ordinary human life got the upper hand of the spirit, and that it is time for the spirit to take revenges upon the flesh, and to assert its mastery. Fasting, like every other principle, must have its methods and its rules and its order, or it will fail to take effect; but we are concerned now only with the principle, and it is thisthe Christian will, from time to time, deliberately deny himself in lawful comforts, and nourishment of the body, in order to assert spiritual vitality, in order to find out what he can do without, in order to maintain the principle that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
3. The next point in this petition lies in the word this day. St. Matthew has this day; St. Luke has day by day. It is conjectured that the one was the morning version and the other the evening version of the Early Church. The lesson is simple. We must be content to wait from day to day upon the hand of God; we must ask only for present needs; we must not be anxious about the morrow.
But, it may be said, how can this be reconciled with the forethought and far-sightedness that are necessary to civilized life? The answer lies in our own experience. Have we found that anxiety about possible consequences increased the clearness of our judgment? Have we found that it made us wiser and braver in meeting the present, or more far-sighted in arming ourselves for the future? We know very well that it is the opposite spirit that has made civilization possiblethe spirit of men who are content to do their work from day to day, to plough the field and wait for the harvest, the spirit of men who take their meat from God in simple and hearty reliance upon the Power whom the earth and the winds and seas obey. Clearness of vision, providence, discovery, are the rewards of the calm and patient spirit, that is content day by day to have the daily bread. Out of the anxiety for the morrow that cannot pray, Give us to-day our bread, spring all the evils of the money-lustthe fever of speculation, the hasting to be rich, the endless scheming, the continual reactions of fantastic hope and deep depression in individuals, of mad prosperity and intense sufferings in nations. Wars, oppressions, misery, crimethese are because men do not pray, Give us this day.
V
Forgiveness
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
After bread, forgiveness. After the wants of the body comes this prime necessity of the soul. Give us our bread, forgive us our debts. It is put here as a daily spiritual needsomething that we require as constantly as food.
1. Debts.The Bible has many words for sin, but debt is the only word for it in the Lords Prayer. In explaining this petition, our Saviour calls sins trespasses, but in the Prayer itself we have only debts. A debt is what is due but has not been done or paid. Debts, dues, and duty come from the same root. Sins are like debts in many ways, though not in everything, for the debts of the soul are more awful than any money debts can be. Sins represent duties that have not been met, and they make us guilty or liable to punishment.
2. Our debts.Our debts are ours exclusivelywithout any subtraction, division, or partnership. They are ours as our eyes, our bones, and our soul are ours: they are ours alone; they cannot be ascribed to us and to some other person. It is in vain to blame others for them, as Adam blamed Eve, and Eve the serpent. Our temptations are not our sins, and our tempters cannot sin for us. Each is a solitary agent, and must bear his own burden of blame. And our debts are ours inseparably. Many tickets have the words, Not transferable; we are not allowed to hand them to some one else. Some people think that they may transfer their sins to pious relatives, to monks or nuns who pray and fast much, to priests, or to the Church. That cannot be; for there is only One who can say, Put that on mine account.
3. The forgiveness of our debts.A gospel is in the words. Here, in the Masters Prayer, given for the perpetual use of all men, is mention made of sins as belonging to all, and of forgiveness as ready for all; and the little particle and couples this petition, as though it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world, to the request for daily bread. Could all this be so, if Christ our Lord were not teaching us that which God alone could know, that of which the reality could have been seen only in heaven, concerning that most impossible thing to flesh and bloodthe absolution and remission of our sins?
Forgiveness is the miracle of miracles of the Gospel Dispensation. You count it a great thingit is sowhen you see the Holy Ghost breathing into dead matter newness of life; when you see the lifeless affection rekindled, and the sinner, buried in his lusts and passions, quickened out of that grave into newness of life. But surely even this miracle, were infinites comparable, might shrink into insignificance in contrast with that other. In this you see the effect, if not the instrumentality. You hear the wind, if you cannot track it. In the other, all is faith, all is supernatural, all is Divine, God, by the fiat of His own Let there be light, bids the past, which is a real existence, shrivel up, and be no more. God bids the wicked act which you did last night, in your wantonness or in your refusal to reflect, to die with itself and bear no fruit. Did you think, when you lightly or summarily said last nights prayer, Forgive us our sins, all, all that was involved in it? You might notbut Christ did. Christ, who presided over CreationChrist, who became Incarnate that He might become sinChrist took the measure of it. Christ taught that Prayer which you utteredonly I cannot tell whether the lips which said it meant it, felt it, or babbled in the uttering.1 [Note: C. J. Vaughan, The Lords Prayer, 131.]
VI
Temptation
Lead us not into temptation.
The original and true meaning of the word temptation is simply a trial, or a test. Anything which tries a mans mettle, puts him to the proof, reveals the real character of his heart, is a temptation in the true sense of the word. This is its meaning in Holy Scripture, and this was also its only meaning in English at the time of the translation of our Authorized Version. Viewed in this light, every experience of life is a temptation. Our joys and sorrows, our health or sickness, our work or play, our adversity and prosperity can and do put us to the test quite as effectively as Eves temptation in the Garden of Eden.
1. The Christian, while in the world, has to face the temptations and dangers of the world; and, so long as there is any evil within him, he will be prone to yield to these. Only after a race, a race run in much weakness, it may be with many falls and bruises, does he obtain the prize. Only after a fight, a fight with the evil within him, around him, a fight which he is at times tempted to abandon in despair, is the victory his. Therefore it is that our Lord, to the petition for forgiveness, adds the further petition, Lead us not into temptation. As that points to the past, this points to the future. When we pray, Forgive us our debts, we think of contracted guilt which we ask God to cancel, liabilities we have failed to meet which we ask Him to pardon. When we pray and lead us (or bring us) not into temptation, we think of the temptations and difficulties which are lying before us, and ask for the needful grace and strength to meet them. It is as if with the Psalmist we cried, Thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
2. But it may be asked: Why should we thus pray to God? Do we not know that, as He cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man (Jam 1:13)? Yes; but God may permit temptation. He does not, like the tempter, stand on the side of temptation, and desire to see evil result from it; but He may at times place a man in such a situation that it is very easy for him to do wrong, very hard for him to do right. Thus we read of our Lord Himself that He was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (Mat 4:1). He was as much under the guidance and direction of God then as when He went down into the water to be baptized; and because His will was in perfect harmony with the will of God, He successfully overcame the temptation. And so, when we look forward to the temptations which must meet us in the world, what petition can be more natural for us than that God should not bring us into such as may prove too strong for us? It is our prayer of conscious weakness, the weakness which shrinks from the danger by which it may be overcome; or, in the words of the Shorter Catechism, it is the prayer that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.
3. If we are following Christ fully, we will not hesitate to go with Him into any experience, however perilous it may be. He that saveth his life shall lose it. Yet so much is involved in temptation, such possibilities of defeat and failure are dependent on the issue, that we dare not desire to enter into it. It is presumptuous to clamour to be led into the conflict. More than once Jesus warned His disciples to watch, that they might not enter into temptation. He knew how inadequate their courage and strength would prove in battle with the Evil One, how their faith would fail in the moment of assault. We read of soldiers sick of camp, and chafing to be led against the enemy, but the Christian who is impatient to be tempted is very foolish. Temptation is too terrible an experience to be rushed into, unled by God.
VII
The Evil One
Deliver us from the evil one (R.V.).
St. Paul says, We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. In other words, the temptations that come from visible and tangible sources draw their strength from a source which is unseen. Behind visible foes there is an invisible; behind the visible opposition of evil men there is an invisible prince of darkness and an unseen host of fallen spirits intruding themselves into the highest things, into the heavenly places.
I am quite sure that our Lord speaks so confidently and so frequently of the existence of evil spirits that a sober Christian cannot doubt their reality, and I feel sure also that their existence interprets a good deal which would otherwise be unintelligible in our spiritual experience. When thoughts of poisonous evil, distinct and vivid, are shot into our mind, like suggestions from a bad companion; when a tempest of pride and rebellion against God surges over our soul; when voices of discouragement and despair tell us that it is no use trying, and that human nature is hopelessly bad; when a sinful course of action presents itself to us in a wholly false aspect until we have committed ourselves to it, and then strips off its disguises and shows itself in its true colours, in its ugliness, in its treachery, in its infamyin all such experiences we do well to remember that besides the weakness or pollution of our own flesh, and besides the solicitations of the world, there is the adversary, the devil, that is, the slanderer of God and of our human nature and the father of lies, actually at work to seduce our wills and sophisticate our intelligences.1 [Note: Charles Gore, Prayer and the Lords Prayer, 75.]
1. What the particular form of deliverance is which we require must be left for each one to discover in the silence of his or her own heart. The devil does not assail us all alike; he comes to us in many ways. To some he comes in great spiritual dulness or deadness, rendering them unable to lift up their thoughts or hearts to God, whispering that God has forgotten them, and no longer cares for them, His children. To others he comes in all the might of some terrible besetting sin,anger, pride, impurity, intemperance,binding them with cords which seem too strong to be broken; while manyalleven if they are not conscious of any one outstanding temptation, and can point to no special hindrance in their Christian path, yet know that their lives are not what they ought to be, and that, consciously or unconsciously, openly or secretly, they are continually led to do those things which they ought not to have done, and to leave undone those things which they ought to have done.
It is told of a Roman youth who, notwithstanding a mothers unwearied prayers, had lived a life of self-seeking and sinful indulgence, that one day, as he sat in the garden, in the cloudless beauty of an autumn day, a great struggle took place in his mind. Throwing himself on his knees he prayed earnestly to God, O Lord, how longhow longhow long wilt thou be angry with me? Must it be for ever to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow? Why should it not be to-day? Suddenly in his agony he seemed to hear the voice as of a little child repeating, Take up and read; Take up and read. And taking up the Epistles of St. Paul which he had happened to be reading, and opening the book at random, his eye caught these words: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof (Rom 13:13-14). The words came to him as a direct message from God, and in one instant strong resolve, he determined for ever to break with his old life and in the might of Christ to enter on the new. Augustine put on Christ.2 [Note: G. Milligan, The Lords Prayer, 153.]
2. There are temptations to the energetic and there are temptations to the indolent.
(1) To the energetic.Let us mention just a few temptations. Irritability with others who perhaps do not work quite on our lines, or in our way; self-satisfaction, with that blunting of sympathy for others which so often accompanies it; trust in self, rather than reliance on God; perhaps a disposition to sacrifice means to ends, to be so anxious to attain some good object that we, as Shakespeare says, to do a great right do a little wrong. We may name also uncharitable judgments; want of consideration for other peoples points of view; perhaps thinking we are doing so much for God in some respects that He will not be very particular about our shortcomings in others; e.g., letting our practical duties swallow up all our time for prayer, or being very kind to those we love, but not quite upright and sincere in our dealings with our neighbour, or being very devout, and good to the poor, yet living on in some sinful habit. Let us add, impatience for results, and fretfulness under disappointment.
(2) To the indolent.Are there no temptations to the timid, the slothful, and the indifferent? Does not Satan come to us in the guise of a false humility?false humility, as Milton represents him doing to our Lord when he appeared an aged man in rural weeds
Following, as seemd, the quest of some stray ewe,
Or witherd sticks to gather; which might serve
Against a winters day when winds blow keen,
To warm him wet returnd from field at eve,
or when he departs, baffled at the close
bowing low
His gray dissimulation.
Does not Satan often come wearing an air of lowliness, or inviting us to assume one, whispering in our ear that we are not the people to put ourselves forward or to exert ourselves, that we are only commonplace, that third-class carriages are the proper ones for us to ride in, that we need not feel any self-reproach when we hear of great acts, great efforts, great self-denials?
We read of a man like Henry Martyn, the evangelist of India, and think we have settled everything by saying, People like that are born saints; they belong to quite a different category from ourselves. We seem to think there is a kind of virtue in shirking anything that calls us to rise above an everyday level, and that we deserve credit for our very neglect of duty. I do wish sometimes some of us were a little more ambitious, a little more eager, about the best things. We do not seem to realize that Satan can tempt and does tempt people quite as much to be slothful and stupid in religion as he does to be proud and self-righteous. There is no more instructive passage in the Pilgrims Progress than the picture of the enchanted ground. It has no grim figure of Apollyon with his darts, nor of Giant Despair with his bolts and bars, nor of the worldly seductions and bitter persecutions of Vanity Fair: the enemy is not seen; he is shapeless and impalpable, but his power is on the heavy eyelids, the stupefied brain, the laggard limbs of every pilgrim who goes through the region and feels its dulling, deadening influence.1 [Note: Elizabeth Wordsworth, Thoughts on the Lords Prayer, 212.]
The Lords Prayer
Literature
Aked (C. F.), The Lords Prayer.
Cohu (J. R.), Our Father.
Dearmer (P.), in Churchmanship and Labour, 226.
Dods (M.), The Prayer that Teaches to Pray.
Eyton (R.), The Lords Prayer.
Farrar (F. W.), The Lords Prayer.
Gibbon (J. M.), The Disciples Prayer.
Gore (C.), Prayer and the Lords Prayer, 30.
Goulburn (E. M.), The Lords Prayer.
Hall (N.), The Lords Prayer: A Practical Meditation.
Hare (A. W.), Sermons on the Lords Prayer.
Jones (J. D.), The Model Prayer.
Jones (R. M.), The Double Search, 94.
Jowett (B.), Sermons on Faith and Doctrine, 250.
Lowrie (W.), Abba, Father.
McFadyen (J. E.), The Prayers of the Bible, 132.
Maurice (F. D.), The Prayer-Book and the Lords Prayer.
Miller (J. R.), The Golden Gate of Prayer.
Milligan (G.), The Lords Prayer.
Richards (W. R.), A Study of the Lords Prayer.
Roberts (J. E.), Studies in the Lords Prayer.
Ross (C. B.), Our Fathers Kingdom.
Ross (G. A. J.), The Universality of Jesus, 129.
Ruskin (J.), The Lords Prayer and the Church.
Saphir (A.), The Lords Prayer.
Schenck (F. S.), The Ten Commandments and the Lords Prayer.
Stanford (C.), The Lords Prayer.
Stubbs (C. W.), The Social Teaching of the Lords Prayer.
Vaughan (C. J.), The Lords Prayer.
Waddy (J. T.), The Lords Prayer.
Watt (L. M.), Gods Altar Stairs.
Wells (J.), The Childrens Prayer.
Wilberforce (B.), Sanctification by the Truth, 189.
Wordsworth (E.), Thoughts on the Lords Prayer.
Worlledge (A. J.), Prayer, 160.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
this: Luk 11:1, Luk 11:2
Our: Mat 6:1, Mat 6:6, Mat 6:14, Mat 5:16, Mat 5:48, Mat 7:11, Mat 10:29, Mat 26:29, Mat 26:42, Isa 63:16, Isa 64:8, Luk 15:18, Luk 15:21, Joh 20:17, Rom 1:7, Rom 8:15, Gal 1:1, Gal 4:6, 1Pe 1:17
which: Mat 23:9, 2Ch 20:6, Psa 115:3, Isa 57:15, Isa 66:1
Hallowed: Lev 10:3, 2Sa 7:26, 1Ki 8:43, 1Ch 17:24, Neh 9:5, Psa 72:18, Psa 111:9, Isa 6:3, Isa 37:20, Eze 36:23, Eze 38:23, Hab 2:14, Zec 14:9, Mal 1:11, Luk 2:14, Luk 11:2, 1Ti 6:16, Rev 4:11, Rev 5:12
Reciprocal: Exo 29:1 – hallow them Lev 22:32 – I will Deu 26:15 – Look down 1Ki 8:30 – and hear 1Ki 9:3 – I have hallowed 1Ch 29:10 – our father 2Ch 2:1 – for the name 2Ch 6:21 – thy dwelling place Psa 20:6 – he will Psa 57:5 – Be thou Psa 67:5 – General Psa 97:6 – all the Psa 103:13 – Like Psa 108:5 – thy glory Psa 123:1 – O thou Psa 135:13 – Thy name Ecc 5:2 – for Isa 29:23 – sanctify Isa 62:7 – till he make Jer 3:19 – Thou shalt Jer 31:9 – for I Eze 38:16 – that the Dan 2:28 – a God Hos 14:2 – General Mal 1:6 – if then Mat 18:14 – your Mar 14:36 – Abba Joh 7:18 – seeketh his glory Joh 16:24 – in Joh 17:11 – thine Gal 1:4 – our Eph 4:6 – God Phi 4:20 – unto 1Th 3:11 – God 1Ti 2:1 – supplications
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD
Our Father which art in heaven.
Mat 6:9
In this chapter, while Christ seems to be occupied with warning us against the affectations and vanities, the hollowness and formality, the shallow externalism of established observances, He adds injunctions which carry us to the central idea of all spiritual life. These injunctions may be expressed by two words, first, secret communion of the soul with God; and, second, the sense the ever-restful consciousness that this God is our Father.
I. The life of the human soul.Secret communion with God in the consciousness of His Fatherhood and of our sonship, is, in brief, the life of the human soul. It is in solitude so spent that the life grows and gathers its force; it is there that the strong soul feeds its human nature out of the Divine nature. If there be any of whom it can be said that your life has no such secret and separate inner chamber, consecrated to the Divine presence, then you may depend upon it, it is a poor, superficial, and fading life. It may be ready enough to receive impressions, and clothe itself in all the ordinary religious duties of its time or society; but without that secret communion with the Father in secret, it will lack the vitality and the growth that comes only from the depths of the inner and unseen spiritual life. The gift of Gods grace which transforms the life is always an inward gift, and it is to be specially sought in this secret and separate inward communion. When the soul is thus withdrawn from the external surroundings of life, and is face to face with the all-seeing Father, external relationships are forgotten, external influences and distinctions drop away, and it grows then in real spiritual strength and capacity. We may turn to the Saviours own practice for our example of this secret and separate communion with the Father.
II. Detachment from the world.The special danger to our spiritual life is not so much in any public neglect, as in the neglect of this inner and secret and separate communion with the Father. There can be no true spiritual life without independence of the world, we all agree about that; and there can be no independence without detachment. But independence of spirit, and detachment, may only mean isolation unless these come to be upheld and inspired by some force above us, which is better and stronger than the common life. If a man simply stands aside, why then the world goes on, and disregards him; but, if his retirement is for that communion to which Christ here invites men, and for which He went before us, that they may come forth again fresh from the communion of their spirit with their Father in Heaven, such a man becomes a spiritual power and influence in the society in which he moves. So we may note the impression which Christ Himself made on those around Him.
Bishop Percival.
Illustration
The Lords Prayer is a prayer for allfor all times and climes, all nations and languages, all sorts and conditions of men, high and low, rich and poor. It is for all periods of life; the child lisps it at its mothers knee, and the old man prays it as he worships, like Jacob, leaning on the top of his staff. For all placesfor city or country, factory or field, down the dark mines or out in the glittering seas. For all our moods of mirth or melancholy, hope or fearit expresses, instructs, it directs them all. For all degrees of understandingit is given for little ones and suitable for them, yet so full and comprehensive, that almost all the ancient fathers of the Church and the most learned divines of all ages have written at length on the treasures of wisdom which are laid up therein.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE FATHERS LOVE
There is no greater secret, of all truth and holiness and joy, than to have correct and grand views of the fatherly relationship and character of God. Therefore, by all strange ways, the enemy of our peace tries to misrepresent it. God has made the father His metaphor, and one great reason why God has established the relationship of a father for this earth is to lead up to Him.
I. Love antecedent.A fathers love must, of necessity, precede the love of the child: long before the child can really know or love him, he has known and loved the child. The childs love is the response and echo, after long intervals. You cannot conceive the time when God began to love you. But you can very easily date almost the hour when you began to love Him. God had done thousands of things for you before you ever did one thing for Him.
II. Love anticipatory.Being antecedent, it is always anticipatory. It is a love that always stands in the front. A son little knows and thinks of all that a father has been thinking for him when he was helpless, and unconscious, and asleep. And you are not conscious of a millionth part of what has been going on within the veil of the great Fathers address to you. When you came into the world, there was everything ready for you; and your life commenced, has gone on all through, a planned one. It has all been a copy of a chart which lay for ever and ever in the breast of Godhead. Therefore it is the Divine love so exceeds the human.
III. Love prospective.A fathers love to his child has alwaysthough the child may not see ita reference to the childs future. A fathers love always has in itself something of the nature of educationtherefore it disciplines you. It is just so with God. His love, and every act of it, always has a future in it. And just as a father, being a man, trains his child for manhood, so God, being eternal, trains his creatures for eternity. You can only read a fathers love in that light. It is always prospective love, mysteriousjust because God sees: a future which His child does not see.
IV. Loves qualities.(a) A father never magnifies a childs faults. He always sees excellences more than he sees the bad points. Is that the way in which you think of Gods looking on you? Do not you generally think of God exactly the opposite?quick to see what is wrongwatching for sinsand, when He sees them, slow to forgive them.
(b) A fathers love is always equal to all his children. Can God be partial? And yet you often think of God as very partial, and fancy that He does not love you as much as He loves some other.
(c) A fathers love is a very wide thing. It takes in with a large embrace all the little things and all the great things in his childs lifeall and everything.
(d) A father s love never dies. Whatever the child may dowhatever the father may be constrained to do, upon whatever his child does, it does not alter a fathers love. He may punishhe may be angryhe may hide himself; but his love is unchanging. And why is this in the father? Because his relation approaches and assimilates to Gods relation to His creatures. He is a representative on earth of God. He is a father. God is a Father!
It will take you out of a great many distresses and difficulties if you will only remember the Fatherhood of God.
The Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
The Christian Prayer, like the Christian Faith and the Christian Duty, begins in heaven. Just as the first article of our creed lifts us far away from earth, bringing us to think of God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; just as also the First Commandment lifts us to the same height, and speaks to us of our duty to the same infinite Being; so the Lords Prayer opens with an invocation to the Maker and Father of us all. Thus Faith, and Duty, and Prayer are three sides of one great truth. And yet while this first breath of prayer speaks of heaven, it speaks also of home. The Being to whom we speak is our Father, although He is a Father in heaven. While reminded that He is far above out of our sight, we are yet instructed to call Him by the dearest of all earthly names. We have thus a continual chain to bind together earthly associations and heavenly hopes; to raise the one by speaking of heaven, to fix and sustain the other by a connection with our common homely life. And thus, while its daily breath is this ever-widening and deepening prayer of Jesus Christ, the Christian soul may see the glories of eternity cast on its daily life, and also the best associations of its daily life stereotyped, as it were, in eternity.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
6:9
After this manner denotes that Jesus only intended this to be an example of the kind of prayers he wished his disciples to offer. It therefore is not “the prayer he taught his disciples to pray.” There are no set forms of service in the kingdom of heaven as to the wording of them. Hallowed is from HAGIAZO and is defined, “to render or acknowledge to be venerable, to hallow.” It is equivalent to saying that the name of our Father is holy.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
[After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father, etc.] some things, which seem more difficult about this divine form of prayer, will perhaps pass into a softer sense, if certain things, very usual in the Jewish church and nation, be observed, to which the apostles could not but have regard when they clearly acknowledged here the highest conformity with them. For that it was customary with our Saviour, for the most part, to conform himself to the church and nation, both in religious and civil matters, so they were lawful, most evidently appears also in this form of prayer. Let these things, therefore, be observed:
I. That the stated prayers of the Jews, daily to be said at that time when Christ prescribed this form to his disciples, were eighteen in number, or in a quantity equalling it. Of this number of their prayers, the Gemarists of both Talmuds treat at large. Whom consult.
Whether they were reduced to the precise number of eighteen, in the order that they afterward appeared in while Christ was upon earth, some scruple ariseth from some things which are said by the Babylonian Talmudists in the place alleged: but it might be plainly proved, if there were need, that little, or indeed nothing at all, wanted of the quantity and bulk of such a number. “The Rabbins have a tradition (say they), that Simeon Pekoli reduced into order the eighteen prayers according to their course, before Rabban Gamaliel in Jafne. Rabban Gamaliel said to the wise men, ‘Is there any that knows to compose a prayer against the Sadducees?’ Samuel the Little stood forth and constituted one,” etc. That Rabban Gamaliel, which is here spoke of, was Paul’s master. For, although Rabban Gamaliel (who was commonly styled ‘Jafnensis,’ of Jafne) was the nephew of Paul’s master. Gamaliel, and this thing is mentioned to be done in Jafne; yet Paul’s master also lived in Jafne: and that this was he of whom is the story before us, sufficiently appears hence, because his business is with Samuel the Little, who certainly died before the destruction of the city.
Under Gamaliel the elder, therefore, were those daily prayers reduced first into that order wherein they were received by the following ages. Which, however it was done after the death of our Saviour, in regard of their reducing into order, yet so many there were in daily use at that time when he conversed on earth. Now he condemned not those prayers altogether, nor esteemed them of no account; yea, on the contrary, he joined himself to the public liturgy in the synagogues, and in the Temple: and when he delivereth this form to his disciples, he extinguisheth not other forms.
II. When all could not readily repeat by heart those numerous prayers, they were reduced into a brief summary, in which the marrow of them all was comprised; and that provision was made for the memory, that they should have a short epitome of those prayers, whom the weakness of their memory, or sometime the unavoidable necessity of business, permitted not to repeat a longer prayer, or to be at leisure to do it. This summary they called a fountain. “Rabban Gamaliel saith, ‘Let every one pray the eighteen prayers every day.’ R. Joshua saith, Let him pray the summary of those eighteen. But R. Akibah saith, If prayer be free in his mouth, let him pray the eighteen; but if not, let him pray the summary of those eighteen.” That our Saviour comprised the sum of all prayers in this form, is known to all Christians; and it is confessed that such is the perfection of this form, that it is the epitome of all things to be prayed for, as the Decalogue is the epitome of all things to be practised.
III. It was very usual with the doctors of the Jews,
1. To compose forms of short prayers, and to deliver them to their scholars (which is asserted also of John, Luk 11:1); whereof you will find some examples, and they not a few, in the Babylonian Gemara, in the tract Beracoth, and elsewhere. Not that by those forms they banished or destroyed the set and accustomed prayers of the nation; but they superadded their own to them, and suited them to proper and special occasions.
2. To the stated prayers, and others framed by themselves, it was very usual to add some short prayer over and above, which one may not amiss call ‘the concluding prayer.’ Take these examples of these prayers: “R. Eliezer, when he had finished his prayers, was wont to say thus; ‘Let it be thy good pleasure, O Lord, that love and brotherhood dwell in our portion,’ etc. R. Jochanan, when he had finished his prayers, was wont to say thus, ‘Let it be thy good pleasure, O Lord, to take notice of our reproach, and to look upon our miseries,’ ” etc. In like manner,
1. Our Saviour, while he delivers this form to his disciples, does not weaken the set forms of the church; nor does he forbid his disciples not to use private prayers: but he delivers this most exact summary of all prayers, to be added, over and above, to our prayers; his most perfect to our most imperfect.
2. The apostles, sufficiently accustomed to the manners of the nation, could not judge otherwise of this form. In interpreting very many phrases and histories of the New Testament, it is not so much worth, what we think of them from notions of our own, feigned upon I know not what grounds, as in what sense these things were understood by the hearers and lookers on, according to the usual custom and vulgar dialect of the nation. Some inquire by what authority we do subjoin or superadd the Lord’s Prayer to ours; and feign arguments to the contrary out of their own brain. But I ask, whether it was possible that the apostles and disciples, who from their very cradles had known and seen such forms instituted for common use, and added moreover to the set prayers and others, should judge otherwise of this form given by our Lord; which bore so great conformity with those, and with the most received rite and custom of the nation?
IV. That church held it for a just canon, and that indeed no discommendable one neither, He that prays ought always, when he prays, to join with the church. Which is not strictly to be understood only of his presence in the synagogue (that is elsewhere and otherwise commanded many times over), but wheresoever in the world he be placed, yea, when he is most alone, that he say his prayers in the plural number: for thus the Gloss explains it, Let none pray the short prayer (that is, one different from the set prayers) in the singular number, but in the plural. In which number our Saviour teacheth us also to pray in this form; and that upon very good reason, when, in whatsoever solitude or distance we are, yet we ought to acknowledge ourselves joined with the church, and to pray for her happiness as well as for our own.
[Our Father which art in heaven.] I. This epithet of God was very well known among the Jews, and very usual with them:
“Our Father which art in heaven; deal so with us as thou hast promised by the prophets.” And in another place this is thrice recited; “Whom have we whereon to rely, besides our Father which is in heaven?” “Blessed are ye, O Israelites; who cleanseth you? Your Father, who is in heaven.” “Ye gave not to your Father, who is in heaven; but to me the priest.”
II. But in what sense did the Jews call God their Father in heaven; when they were altogether ignorant of the doctrine and mystery of adoption, besides that adoption whereby God had adopted them for a peculiar people? I answer, For that very cause they were taught by God himself so to call him, Exo 4:22; Deu 32:6; etc. Nor was there any among them who not only might not do this, but also who ought not to do it. While the heathen said to his idol, ‘Thou art my father,’ Jer 2:27; the Israelite was bound to say, Our Father which art in heaven; Isa 63:16; Isa 64:8.
III. When Christ useth this manner of speech so very well known to the nation, does he not use it in a sense that was known to the nation also? Let them answer who would have the Lord’s Prayer to be prayed and said by none but by those who are indeed believers, and who have partook of true adoption. In what sense was our Saviour, when he spake these words, understood of the hearers? They were thoroughly instructed, from their cradles, to call God the Father in heaven; they neither hear Christ changing the phrase, nor curtailing any thing from the latitude of the known and used sense. Therefore let them tell me, Did not Peter, John, and the rest of the apostles, think that it was as lawful for all Christians to say to God, Our Father which art in heaven; as it was lawful for all Jews? They called God Father; because he had called them into the profession of him, because he took care of them, and instructed them, etc. And what, I beseech you, hinders, but all Christians, obtaining the same privileges, may honour God with the same compellation? There is nothing in the words of Christ that hinders, and there is somewhat in the very phrase that permits it.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
[Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.] This obtained for an axiom in the Jewish schools; That prayer, wherein there is not mention of the kingdom of God, is not a prayer. Where these words are also added: “Abai saith, Like to this is that of Rabh to be reckoned, that it is a tradition I have not transgressed thy precepts, nor have I forgotten them” (they are the words of him that offereth the first-fruits, Deu 26:13). “‘I have not transgressed,’ that is, by not giving thanks: ‘And I have not forgotten them’; that is, I have not forgot to commemorate thy name; and thy kingdom.”
[Thy will be done, as in heaven, etc.] “What is the short prayer? R. Eliezer saith, Do thy will in heaven; and give quietness of spirit to them that fear thee beneath,” or in earth.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 6:9-13. THE LORDS PRAYER.
Mat 6:9. After this manner therefore. Because vain repetitions are forbidden, a pattern or specimen of the true form of Christian prayer is given. Hence other prayers are not only allowed but required. Two forms of this prayer exist; see Luk 11:2-4. Hence it is very unlikely that it was in liturgical use when the Gospels were written. It must be supplemented for the same reason that the whole Sermon on the Mount requires supplementary teaching. Yet opposition to the use of it in public prayer may be as really a species of formalism as too frequent liturgical repetition of it. It is a form, to be devoutly used on proper occasions, and a perfect pattern which could only proceed from the lips of the Son of God. There is little to prove that it was taken from forms of prayer already in use among the Jews. Lightfoot produces only the most general commonplace parallels from the Rabbinical books. But the beauty of the Lords Prayer is in its unity, symmetry, completeness, and pervading spirit.
As regards its contents in general, it embodies all essential desires of a praying heart. Yet in the simplest form, resembling in this respect a pearl on which the light of heaven plays. It expresses and combines in the best order, every Divine promise, every human sorrow and want, and every Christian aspiration for the good of others. It is generally arranged into three parts: the preface (address), the petitions (seven, according to Augustine, Luther, and others; six, according to Chrysostom, and the Reformed catechisms; deliver us from evil being regarded as a distinct petition in the former enumeration), and the conclusion (doxology). The address puts us into the proper attitude of prayerthe filial relation to God as our Father (a word of faith), the fraternal relation to our fellow men (our, a word of love), and our destination for heaven (a word of hope). Every true prayer, an ascension of the soul to heaven, where God dwells in glory with all saints and where is our final home.The petitions are naturally divided into two parts: the first, respecting the glory of God; the second, the wants of men. Hence thy in the first, our in the second. The first part presents a descending scale from Gods name to the doing of His will; the second, an ascending scale from daily bread to final deliverance in glory.Meyer thus analyzes it: Having risen to what forms the highest and holiest object of believers, the soul is engrossed with its character (first petition), its grand purpose (second petition), and its moral condition (third petition); in the fourth petition the children of God humble themselves under the consciousness of their dependence upon Divine mercy even in temporal matters, but much more in spiritual things, since that which according to the first portion of this prayer, constituted the burden of desire, can only be realized by forgiveness (fifth petition), by gracious guidance (sixth petition), and deliverance from the power of the devil (seventh petition). Tholuck remarks: The attentive reader, who has otherwise learned the doctrine of the Trinity, will find a distinct reference to it in the arrangement of this prayer. The first petition, in each of the first and second portions of the prayer, refers to God as the Creator and Preserver; the second, to God the Redeemer, and the third to God the Holy Spirit. To which Lange adds: Devotion to God, and acceptance of His gifts are contrasted in the Lords Prayer. 1. Devotion to His name, to His kingdom, and to His will. 2. Acceptance of His gifts in reference to the present, the past, and the future. See Lange, Matthew, pp. 123-129
Our Father who art in heaven, lit., Our Father, the (one) in the heavens. A form of address almost unknown and to a certain extent unwarranted before Christ came. He had repeatedly called God by this name in this discourse, now He teaches this disciples to call Him thus. A recognition of the new filial relation concerning which the Apostles have so much to say, and which is formed through and on Christ, who teaches this form of address. The added phrase, in the heavens, shows the infinite difference between this and every other human relationship of a, imilar kind: He is no weak, helpless earthly parent The word our implies at once our fellowship with Christ and with one another. The very preface to the Lords Prayer is a denial of Atheism, Pantheism, and Deism, since it recognizes a God, a Personal God, who is our Father through Christ
Hallowed be thy name (first petition). Hallowed means made holy; in this case it can only mean recognized, treated as sacred, and thus glorified. Thy name is referred by many to the actual name of God, Jehovah, as including His self-existent and eternal being together with his covenant relation. By others to all by which He makes Himself known. In either view, the hallowing can be accomplished only through Christ. Gods glory comes first in this model of prayer; the proper order. We in our weakness and need often put our desires first.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
As if Christ had said, For preventing these and all other faults in prayer, I will myself give you a complete form of prayer, and an exact pattern and platform for your imitation when you pray.
Note, That the Lord’s Prayer is both a perfect form of prayer which ought to be used by us, and also a pattern and platform, according to which all our prayers ought be framed. St. Matthew says, After this manner pray ye: St. Luke says, When ye pray, say,
-“Our father which art in heaven; Hallowed be thy name: 10 Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven: 11 Give us this day our daily bread: 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
The sense and signification of this best of prayers, is this: “O thou our Father in Jesus Christ! who remainest on thy throne in heaven, and art there perpetually praised, and perfectly obeyed by glorious angels and glorified saints; grant that thy name may be glorified, thy throne acknowledge, and thy holy will obeyed, here on earth below, by us thy sons and servants, proportion to what is done in heaven.
And because, by reason of the frailty of our natures, we cannot subsist without the comforts and supports of life, we crave, that such a proportion of the good things of this life may be given unto us, as may be sufficient for us; and that we may be content with our allowance.
And knowing that thy holiness and justice oblige thee to punish sin and sinners, we plead with thee, for the sake of thy Son’s satisfaction, to pardon to us our daily trespasses, which we are guilty of in this state of imperfection; as we so freely and heartily forgive others that have offended and wronged us.
And seeing that by reason of the frailty of our natures we are prone to rush upon and run into temptation; we crave that, by the power of thy omnipotent grace, we may be kept from Satan’s temptations, from the world’s allurements, from our own evil inclinations, and be preserved unblamable to thine everlasting kingdom; which is exalted over all persons, over all places, over all things, in all times, past, present, and to come: and accordingly, in testimony of our desires, and in assurance to be heard and answered, we say Amen; so be it; so let it be, even so, O Lord, let it be for ever.”
More particularly, in this comprehensive and compendious prayer, the following severals are remarkable.
Namely, 1. That the learned observe, that this prayer is taken our of the Jewish liturgies, in which it is entirely found, excepting these words, As we forgive them that trespass against us.
From whence Grotius notes, how far Christ the Lord of his Chursh was from affecting novelties, or despising anything because it was a form; a piece of piteous weakness amongst some at this day.
Observe, 2. The person to whom Christ directs us to make our prayers; namely, to God, under the notion of a Father; teaching us, that in all our religious addresses to God, we are to conceive of him, and pray unto him, under the notion and pray unto him, under the notion and relation of a Father. Our Father, &c.
So is he by creation, by a right of providence and preservation, by redemption, by outward and visible profession, by regeneration and adoption; and this relation which God stands in to us, may encourage us to pray unto him; for being our Father, we are sure that he is of easy access unto, and graciously ready to grant what we pray for.
And whereas it is added, which art in heaven; this is not to be so understood as if his essence were included, or his presence circumscribed or confined there, for he fills heaven and earth with the immensity of it: but he is said to be so in heaven, because there is the special manifestation of his presence, of his purity, of his power and glory, and teaches us with what holy fear, with what humble reverence, and not without a trembling veneration, polluted dust ought to make their solemn approaches to the God of heaven.
Observe, 3. That the three first petitions relate more immediately to God.
1. That his name may be hallowed. By the name of God, understand God himself, as made known to us in his attributes, words, and works. This name is hallowed or sanctified by us three wars; by our lips, when we acknowledge his divine perfections, and tell of all his wondrous works; in our hearts, by entertaining suitable conceptions of God; and in our lives, when the consideration of these divine perfections engages us to suitable obedience.
2. That his kingdom may come: by which we are not to understand his general and providential kingdom, by which he ruleth over all the world, that being always come, and capable of no farther amplification; but principally the kingdom of grace, promoted in the hearts of his people by the preaching of the gospel: we pray that God would dethrone sin and Satan in our own and others’ souls, and increase grace and sanctification both in us and them, and that the kingfom of glory may be hastened, and we may be preserved blameless to the coming of Christ in his kingdom.
3. That his will may be done; by which the preceptive rather than the providential will of God us to be understood: we are to obey the former universally, and to submit to the latter very cheerfully. It intimates, that it ought to be the prayer and care, the study and endeavour, of every Christian, that the commanding will of God may be so done by men upon earth, as it is by the glorified saints and glorious angels done in heaven; namely, with that alacrity and cheerfulness, with that speed and readiness, with that constancy and diligence, that the imperfection of human nature will admit of; imitating the blessed angels, who execute the divine commands without reluctancy or regret.
Observe, 4. The three last petitions respect ourselves, as the three former did Almighty God.
The first of which is a prayer for temporal blessings: give us this day our daily bread.
Where note, The mercy prayed for, bread, which comprehends all the comforts and conveniences of life, and whatever is necessary for the supporting human nature.
Also the qualification; it must be our own bread, not another’s, what we have a civil right to as men, and a covenant right to as Christians.
Note farther, The kind of bread we ask and desire; it is daily bread. Hereby we are put in mind of our continual dependence upon God for our lives, and for all the supports of life which we enjoy, and also kept in mind of our mortality. And mark the way and manner of conveying all good things to us, it is in a way of free-gift.
Give us our daily bread, we cannot give it ourselves; and when we have it of God, we receive it not as a debt, but as a free gift.
The next petition is for spiritual blessings, Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Where note, 1. Some things supposed, namely, That we are all sinners, and, as such, stand in need of pardon and forgiveness.
2. That our sins are debts, willful debts, repeated debts, innumerable debts, inexcusable debts, debts diffcultly discharged, undoing debts.
3. That we are obliged to pray every day for daily pardon, as we do for daily bread, for our sins are many and daily.
4. It is here supposed, that since we are to pray for forgiveness of sin, it is impossible ever to satisfy the justice of God for sin.
Lastly note, The condition or qualification required, forgive as we forgive:
This requires, 1. That our minds be full of charity, free from rancour and ill-will, and all desires of revenge, and a secret grudge against another.
2. That we stand ready to help them, and to do any office of love and service for them that have offended us.
3. That we admit our offending brother into friendship and familiarity, which is called forgiving him from the heart: our heart must be towards him as formerly it was.
The sixth and last petition follows, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Here note, A double mercy prayed for; namely, preventing mercy, and delivering mercy.
1. Preventing mercy, lead us not into temptation.
Hereby it is supposed, 1. That we are unable to keep our selves from temptation, partly through our natural depravity, partly through carnal security.
2. That it is God that must keep us from Satan’s assaults, his traps and snares, which every where he lays in ambush for us.
3. That it is our own daily duty to be earnest and instant with God in prayer, not to suffer us, by the subtraction of his grace, or in a way of punishment for sin, to run into the circumstances which may prove snares to us, but daily to afford us such a measure of his grace as may keep us from falling by temptation, and not leave us falling under the temptation, but recover us speedily by his power, and enable us to stand more firmly for the future.
2. We here pray for delivering mercy, Deliver us from evil: by which may be understood Satan the evil one, but especially the evil of sin. We pray here that God would graciously preserve us from those vicious inclinations of our minds, and evil dispositions of our hearts, which render us so prone to yield to the temptations of Satan.
Here we see the ugly and deformed face of sin: it is evil: evil in its author and original, it is of the devil, the evil one; evil in its effects and fruits, it doth debase and degrade us, pollute and defile us, befool and deceive us, and, without repentance, damns and destroys us.
Observe lastly, The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, which contains a complication of arguments to urge Almighty God with, for obtaining the mercy prayed for.
1. For thine is the kingdom; thou art the only absolute and rightful Sovereign, and all men are concerned to honour thee, and obey thy laws; thou art the supreme Governor of the world, and King of thy church, therefore let thy kingdom come, and thy will be done.
2. Thine is the power, therefore give us daily bread, and forgive our daily sins; for thou hast power to supply the one, and authority to pardon the other. The power of God is a mighty encouragement to prayer, and faith is the power of God has amighty prevalency in prayer with God.
3. Thine is the glory, that is, thine will be the glory; as if we should say, “Lord! by enabling us to hallow thy name by owning thy kingdom, by doing thy will, and by thy providing for us, and pardoning of us, thou wilt have much glory by us and from us.”
It teaches us, that as our prayers in general ought to be argumentative; so an argument in prayer drawn from the glory of God is a mighty encouragement to hope for audience and acceptance.
4. For ever and ever, that is, thy kingdom is eternal, thy power eternal, thy glory eternal; the God whom we pray to is an eternal God, and this attribute of God is improvable in prayer, as an encouragement to expect the same blessings from God which others have done before us; for he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
Amen; a word used in all languages, denoting an hearty assent to our own prayers, and an hearty desire to receive the mercies prayed for, and an humble assurance that we shall be heard and answered.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Mat 6:9. After this manner pray ye He who best knew what we ought to pray for, and how we ought to pray; what matter of desire, what manner of address would most please himself, would best become us, has here dictated to us a most perfect and universal form of prayer, comprehending all our real wants, expressing all our lawful desires; a complete directory, and full exercise of our devotions. By the expression , thus, or after this manner, our Lord could not mean that his disciples were to use the words of this prayer in all their addresses to God, for in the Acts and Epistles we find the apostles praying in terms different from this form; but his meaning is, that we must frame our prayers according to this model, and that in respect both of matter and manner; that we must pray for the things here mentioned, and often in these very words.
This prayer, it must be observed, consists of three parts; the preface, the petitions, and the conclusion. The preface, Our Father, who art in heaven, lays a general foundation for prayer, comprising what we must first know of God, before we can pray in confidence of being heard. It likewise points out to us that faith, humility, and love of God and man, with which we are to approach God in prayer.
Our Father which art in heaven Almighty God has a peculiar right to the title of Father, as from every creature, so particularly from mankind, being the father of their spirits, Heb 12:9, the maker of their bodies, and the continual preserver of both: and he is in a yet higher sense the father of his believing and obedient people, whom he adopts into his family, regenerates by his grace, and restores to his image: so that, partaking of his nature, they become his genuine children, and can with holy boldness call him their father. Being, in this sense, made his children, we are here directed to call him our father, in the plural number, and that even in secret prayer, to put us in mind that we are all brethren, and that we ought to love one another with pure hearts fervently, praying not for ourselves only, but for others, and especially for our brethren in Christ, that God may give them likewise the blessings requested in this divine prayer. The words, which art in heaven, do not confine Gods presence to heaven, for he exists everywhere; but they contain a comprehensive, though short description of his divine glory, of his majesty, dominion, and power; and distinguish him from those whom we call fathers on earth, and from false gods, who are not in heaven, the region of bliss and happiness; where God, who is essentially present through all the universe, gives more especial manifestations of his presence to such of his creatures as he has exalted to share with him in his eternal felicity. Hallowed be thy name The name of God is a Hebraism for God himself, his attributes, and his works. To sanctify a thing is to entertain the highest veneration for it, as true, and great, and good, and to manifest that veneration by our dispositions, words, and actions. Thus it is used 1Pe 3:15; Isa 8:13. The meaning of this first petition, therefore, is, May thy existence be universally believed; thy perfections revered, loved, and imitated; thy works admired; thy supremacy over all things acknowledged; thy providence reverenced and confided in. May we, and all men, so think of thy divine majesty, of thy attributes, words, and works, and may we and they so express our veneration of thee, and subjection to thee, that thy glory may be manifested everywhere, to the utter destruction of all idolatry, sin, and misery. The phraseology of this and other prayers recorded by the inspired writers, wherein the worshippers addressed God in the singular number, saying, thou, and thy, is retained by all Christians among us, with the highest propriety, as it intimates their firm belief that there is but one God, and that there is nothing in the universe equal or second to him, and that no being whatever can share in the worship which they pay him. Macknight.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 9
Hallowed be thy name; may it be revered,–adored.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
6:9 {3} After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
(3) A true sum and form of all christian prayers.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus gave His disciples a model prayer known commonly as "The Lord’s Prayer." Obviously it was not His prayer in the sense that He prayed it, but it was His prayer in the sense that He taught it. He introduced the model as such. Here is a way to pray that is neither too long, ostentatious, nor unnecessarily repetitious.
One of Jesus’ unique emphases, as I have already mentioned, was that His disciples should think of God as their heavenly Father. It was not characteristic of believers to address God as their Father until Jesus taught them to do so. [Note: J. Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, p. 11.]
"Only fifteen times was God referred to as the Father in the Old Testament. Where it does occur, it is used of the nation Israel or to the king of Israel. Never was God called the Father of an individual or of human beings in general (though isolated instances occur in second temple Judaism, Sir 51:10). In the New Testament numerous references to God as Father can be found." [Note: Mark L. Bailey, "A Biblical Theology of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles," in A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, p. 342. Cf. H. F. D. Sparks, "The Doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood of God in the Gospels," in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot, pp. 241-62; and James Barr, "Abba Isn’t Daddy," Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988):28-47.]
"The overwhelming tendency in Jewish circles was to multiply titles ascribing sovereignty, lordship, glory, grace, and the like to God . . ." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 169.]
"Our" Father indicates that Jesus expected His disciples to pray this prayer aware of their group context, as part of His disciples. Private use of this prayer is all right, but the context in which Jesus taught it was corporate, so He gave a corporate address. The "our" does not include Himself since it is part of Jesus’ teaching concerning how to pray.
The way we think of God as we pray to Him is very important. In prayer we should remember that He is a loving Father who will respond as such to His children. Some modern individuals advocate thinking of God as our Mother. However this runs contrary to what Jesus taught and to the thousands of references to God that God has given us in the masculine gender in both Testaments. God is not a sexual being. Nevertheless He is more like a father to us than a mother. Thinking of Him primarily as a mother will result in some distortion in our concept of God. It will also result in some confusion in our thinking about how God relates to us and how we should relate to Him. [Note: See Aída Besançon Spencer, "Father-Ruler: The Meaning of the Metaphor ’Father’ for God in the Bible," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39:3 (September 1996):433-42.] Thinking of God as our Father will also remind us of our privileged access into His presence and of our need to treat Him respectfully.
"In heaven" reminds us of His transcendence and sovereignty. Our address to God in prayer does more to prepare us for proper praying than it does to secure the desired response from Him. [Note: Stott, p. 146.]
The first three petitions deal with God and the last three with us. This pattern indicates that disciples should have more concern for God than we do for ourselves. We should put His interests first in our praying as in all our living. All the petitions have some connection with the kingdom. The first three deal with the coming of the kingdom, and the last three are appeals in view of the coming kingdom. [Note: Toussaint, Behold the . . ., p. 107.]
The first petition (Mat 6:9 c) is that everyone would hold God’s name (His reputation, everything about Him) in reverence. He is already holy. We do not need to pray that He will become more holy. What is necessary is that His creatures everywhere recognize and acknowledge His holiness. This petition focuses on God’s reputation. People need to hallow it, to treat it as special. By praying these words we affirm God’s holiness.
God’s reputation and the kingdom had close connections in the Old Testament (Isa 29:23; Eze 36:23).
"In one respect His name is profaned when His people are ill-treated. The sin of the nation which brought about the captivity had caused a profanation of the Name, Is. 43:25; 49:11; Eze 36:20-23. By their restoration His name was to be sanctified. But this sanctification was only a foreshadowing of a still future consummation. Only when the ’kingdom’ came would God’s name be wholly sanctified in the final redemption of His people from reproach." [Note: Allen, p. 58.]
The second petition (Mat 6:10 a) is that the messianic kingdom will indeed come quickly (cf. Mar 15:43; 1Co 16:22; Rev 11:17). It was appropriate for Jesus’ first disciples to pray this petition since the establishment of the kingdom was imminent. It is also appropriate for modern disciples to pray it since the inauguration of that kingdom will begin the righteous rule of Messiah on the earth, which every believer should anticipate eagerly. This kingdom has not yet begun. If it had, Jesus’ disciples would not need to pray for it to come. Christ will rule over His kingdom, the Davidic kingdom, from the earth, and He is now in heaven. This petition focuses on God’s kingdom. People need to prepare for it.
"Those who maintain that for Jesus himself the kingdom of God had already come in his own person and ministry inevitably treat this second petition of the Lord’s prayer in a rather cavalier fashion. It must be interpreted, they say, in line with other sayings of Jesus. Why? And what other sayings? When all the evidence in the sayings of Jesus for ’realized eschatology’ is thoroughly tested, it boils down to the ephthasen eph humas [’has come upon you’] of Mat 12:28 and Luk 11:20. Why should that determine the interpretation of Mat 6:10 and Luk 11:2? Why should a difficult, obscure saying establish the meaning of one that is clear and unambiguous? Why not interpret the ephthasen [’has come,’ Mat 12:28] by the elthato [’come,’ Mat 6:10]; or rather, since neither can be eliminated on valid critical grounds, why not seek an interpretation that does equal justice to both?" [Note: Millar Burrows, "Thy Kingdom Come," Journal of Biblical Literature 74 (January 1955):4-5.]
"Jesus’ conception of God’s kingdom is not simply that of the universal sovereignty of God, which may or may not be accepted by men but is always there. That is the basis of his conception, but he combines with it the eschatological idea of the kingdom which is still to come. In other words, what Jesus means by the kingdom of God includes what the rabbinic literature calls the coming age." [Note: Ibid., p. 8.]
These are accurate and interesting conclusions coming from a non-dispensationalist.
The third petition (Mat 6:10 b-c) is a request that what God wants to happen on earth will indeed transpire on earth as it now does in heaven. That condition will take place most fully when Christ sets up His kingdom on the earth. However this should be the desire of every disciple in the inter-advent age while Jesus is still in heaven. Nothing better can happen than whatever God’s will involves (Rom 12:1). God’s "will" (Gr. thelema) includes His righteous demands (Mat 7:21; Mat 12:50; cf. Psa 40:8) as well as His determination to cause and permit certain events in history (Mat 18:14; Mat 26:42; cf. Act 21:14). This petition focuses on God’s will. People need to do it.
"This difference [between God’s heavenly universal rule and His earthly millennial rule] arises out of the fact that rebellion and sin exist upon the earth, sin which is to be dealt with in a way not known in any other spot in the universe, not even among the angels which sinned. It is here that the great purpose of what I have named the Mediatorial Kingdom appears: On the basis of mediatorial redemption it must ’come’ to put down at last all rebellion with its evil results, thus finally bringing the Kingdom and will of God on earth as it is in heaven." [Note: McClain, p. 35.]
The remaining petitions (Mat 6:11-13) focus on the disciples’ needs. Notice the "Thy," "Thy," "Thy," in Mat 6:9-10 and the "us," "us," "us," in Mat 6:11-13. Some believers have concluded that prayer should not include anything selfish, so they do not make personal petitions. However, Jesus commanded His disciples to bring their personal needs to God in prayer. The first three petitions stand alone, but the last three have connecting "ands" that bind them together. We need all three of these things equally; we cannot get along without any of them.
The bread in view (Mat 6:11) probably refers to all our food and even all our physical needs. [Note: Walvoord, Matthew: . . ., p. 53.] Bread has this larger significance in the Bible (cf. Pro 30:8; Mar 3:20; Act 6:1; 2Th 3:12; Jas 2:15). Even today we speak of bread as "the staff of life." Daily bread refers to the necessities of life, not its luxuries. This is a prayer for our needs, not our greeds. The request is for God to supply our needs day by day (cf. Exo 16:4-5; Psa 104:14-15; Psa 104:27-28; Pro 30:8). The expression "this day [or today] our daily bread" reflects first century life in which workers received their pay daily. It also reminds disciples that we only live one day at a time, and each day we are dependent on God to sustain us. Asking God to provide our needs does not free us from the responsibility of working, however (cf. Mat 6:25-34; 2Th 3:10). God satisfies our needs partially by giving us the ability and the opportunity to earn a living. Ultimately everything comes from Him. Having to live from hand to mouth one day at a time can be a blessing if it reminds us of our total dependence on God. This is especially true since we live in a world that glorifies self-sufficiency.
The fifth petition requests forgiveness from debts (Mat 6:12). "Debts" (Gr. opheilemata) probably translates the Aramaic word hoba that was a common synonym for sins. [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 172.] Viewing sins as debts was thoroughly Jewish (cf. Psa 51:4). [Note: M’Neile, p. 80.] The second clause in the sentence does not mean that we must earn God’s forgiveness with our own. Our forgiveness of others demonstrates our felt need of forgiveness. The person who does not forgive a brother’s offenses does not appreciate how much he himself needs forgiveness.
"Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. If, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offenses of others, it proves that we have minimized our own." [Note: Stott, pp. 149-50. Cf. Mat 18:21-35.]
Some Christians have wondered why we should ask for God’s forgiveness since the New Testament clearly reveals that God forgives all sins-past, present, and future-when He justifies us (Act 10:43; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14). That is judicial or forensic forgiveness. However as forgiven believers we need to ask for forgiveness to restore fellowship with God (cf. 1Jn 1:9). Forensic forgiveness brings us into God’s family. Family forgiveness keeps our fellowship with God intimate within God’s family.
"Personal fellowship with God is in view in these verses (not salvation from sin). One cannot walk in fellowship with God if he refuses to forgive others." [Note: Barbieri, p. 32.]
Some interpreters view Mat 6:13 as containing one petition while others believe Jesus intended two. Probably one is correct in view of the close connection of the ideas. They are really two sides of one coin.
"Temptation" is the Greek peirasmos and means "testing." It refers not so much to solicitation to evil as to trials that test the character. God does not test (peirasmos) anyone (Jas 1:13-14). Why then do we need to pray that He will not lead us into testing? Even though God is not the instrumental cause of our testing He does permit us to experience temptation from the world, the flesh, and the devil (cf. Mat 4:1; Gen 22:1; Deu 8:2). Therefore this petition is a request that He minimize the occasions of our testing that may result in our sinning. It articulates the repentant disciple’s felt weakness to stand up under severe trials in view of our sinfulness (cf. Pro 30:7-9). [Note: Rick W. Byargeon, "Echoes of Wisdom in the Lord’s Prayer (Mat 6:9-13)," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41:3 (September 1998):353-65.]
"But" introduces the alternative. "Deliver us" could mean "spare us from" or "deliver us out of." The meaning depends on what "evil" means. Is this a reference to evil generally or to the evil one, Satan? When the Greek preposition apo ("from") follows "deliver," it usually refers to deliverance from people. When ek ("from") follows it, it always refers to deliverance from things. [Note: J. B. Bauer, "Libera nos a malo," Verbum Domini 34 (1965):12-15.] Here apo occurs. Also, the adjective "evil" has an article modifying it in the Greek text, which indicates that it is to be taken as a substantive: "the evil one." God does not always deliver us from evil, but He does deliver us from the evil one. [Note: See Page, pp. 458-59.]
However the Old Testament predicted that a time of great evil would precede the establishment of the kingdom (Jeremiah 30). Some commentators, including non-premillenarians, have understood the evil in this petition as a reference to Satanic opposition that will come to its full force before the kingdom begins. [Note: E.g., Theodore H. Robinson, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 52; M’Neile, p. 81; and T. Herbert Bindley, "Eschatology in the Lord’s Prayer," The Expositor 17 (October 1919):319-20.] God later revealed through Paul that Christians will not go through this Tribulation (1Th 1:10; 1Th 4:13-18; et al.). Consequently we do not need to pray for deliverance from it but from other occasions of testing.
Some have seen a veiled reference to the Trinity in these last three petitions. The Father provides our bread through His creation and providence, the Son’s atonement secures our forgiveness, and the Spirit’s enablement assures our spiritual victory.
The final doxology appears in many ancient manuscripts, but there is so much variation in it that it was probably not originally a part of Matthew’s Gospel. Evidently pious scribes added it later to make the prayer complete liturgically. They apparently adapted the wording of David’s prayer in 1Ch 29:11. [Note: See also Thomas L. Constable, "The Lord’s Prayer," in Giving Ourselves to Prayer, compiled by Dan R. Crawford (Terre Haute, Ind.: PrayerShop Publishing, 2005), pp. 70-75.]