Prayer in Christ
Jsjmimong the richest privileges growing out of that divine union on which riT’TI have been meditating is that of prayer in the name of Jesus. Indeed, it is at once the most precious fruit of the Believer’s life in Christ and the most powerful nourisher of that life — that by which it both holds and is held.
And yet it may be questioned whether to the mass of Christians the deepest thought of that thrice repeated promise of our Lord, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name. He will give it you,” is not a hidden thought — namely, that asking in the name of Christ is asking in union with the Person of Christ?
One common apprehension of the matter is certainly true, that the Christian is permitted
1 John xvi. 23. 2 Note J.
to use the credit of that “name which is above every name” in making his request to God. And this is indeed an inestimable privilege. For we know even in human relations how much of one’s personal qualities and attributes his name carries with it; how that he who is permitted to use his patron’s name is thereby to a certain extent invested with that patron’s character, so that whatever commercial or moral value belongs to it is for the time made over to him and becomes a personal possession. But another quite as common view of the matter is certainly not true, that any request, whatever its nature, needs only to have the words “for Christ’s sake” attached to it to ensure an answer. Nay! To pray in Christ’s name is not to use his name as a charm or talisman simply, as though the bare repetition of it were all that is required to open the treasures of infinite grace. Let us not degrade this dearest promise of our Lord into such a superstition as that. The Jewish cabalists believed that the pronunciation of certain magical words engraved on the seal of Solomon would perform miracles. That was incantation. And we in like manner make Christian incantation of this sublimest privilege of the Gospel if we put such an interpretation as this upon Christ’s words.
The name of Christ stands for Christ Himself. And to pray in the name of Christ is to pray in Christ, in the mind and spirit and will of Christ.” If ye abide in mey and my words abide in yon, ye shall ask what ye willy and it shall be done unto your
To repeat a holy name is an easy thing; but to attain that holy abiding in which there is such a perfect community of life with our true Vine, that it is as impossible for us to ask amiss as for the branch of the fig-tree to put forth the buds and flowers of the thorn, is, as we all confess, to reach the very highest ideal of discipleship. And yet on nothing short of this perfectness of union with our Lord has He predicated an unrestricted access to the treasuries of divine blessing. The same condition is affixed to each of the highest and most longed-for attainments of the Christian life — sinlessness,^ fruitfulness,^ and prevalence in prayer; namely,” If ye abide in mer Our desires, like the bud upon the tree, are the most concrete and perfect expression
1 John XV. 7. 2 I John iii. 6. * John xv. 5.
of ourselves. Just to the degree in which we are living in the flesh shall we be gendering “the desires of the flesh and of the mind,” bringing them to God in our prayers, and fulfilling them in our lives. Just to the degree in which we realize that blessed state, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth m me” will the desires of the Spirit be forming within us, — unfolding in prayers that are “unto God a sweet savor of Christ,” and maturing into the fruits of righteousness and true holiness. No mere selfish and earth-born desire can be endued with power, simply by being christened with that holy name. Nor can any longing towards God which has been truly begotten by the Spirit fail because the formula, ‘for Christ’s sakel’ may be wanting in its utterance. The secret of the Lord lies deeper than this — even in that full intimate fellowship with Jesus wherein our wills are perfectly accordant with his will as touching the thing we ask, and our desires an impulse of his holy mind.^ The circuit of grace is complete and unobstructed between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. If we wholly abide in Christ we get into its open and ever free
1 Note K.
currents, where all things are possible to us who believe, because all things are possible with God, with whom we are thus brought into full accord.
Has not a wide-spread skepticism grown up among Christians concerning the literalness of this great promise, “Whatsoever ye shall ask” — a limiting of God’s faithfulness in giving, through an ignoring of that constant limitation to our receiving, namely, our want of unbroken communion with Christ?
It is indeed a promise wonderful in its breadth: “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.” But because none may have ever fully measured it in human experience, shall it therefore be narrowed or conditioned as a divine possibility? “Prayer,” it has been said, “is so mighty an instrument that no one ever yet mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man’s wants and God’s goodness.” And yet to be the perfect servant of Christ’s will is to be the perfect master of prayer. To the touch of that will all its majestic octaves respond. “I know that Thou hearest me always.” And if we attune our wills perfectly to this divine
1 John xiv. 14. ‘^ John xi. 42.
will, how shall not the Father with Him freely give us all things! The answer to prayer then is not contingent on the greatness or the smallness of the requests it contains, but upon the impulse which prompts them. If that impulse proceed from our own will, the prayer is not in the name of Christ, though it relate to his kingdom. For even so great a request as the glory of God may be made from a selfish motive. But when the incitement to prayer is derived from an inward divine operation, it is truly in the name of the Lord, and must have its answer. For it is then the effectual inwrought prayer that availeth much.
Does this view suggest the question. What need then of prayer, since its limits are so circumscribed that to be genuine it must only be the expression of what God worketh in us to will and to desire y A question which may be answered by two others. First, Does the devout mind desire any larger range for its petitions than the circle of the perfectly wise and perfectly beneficent will of God? To know that our Lord had put into our hands a key which was entirely within the control of our blind, imperfect, erring wills, were to know our constant peril of opening for ourselves some door of certain destruction. Hence ought it not to be a ground of the deepest comfort and security to the suppliant praying in the spirit of adoption, that he has a Father who not only will not give him a stone when he asks for bread, but will not give him a stone when he asks for a stone f And, secondly, need it follow that the complete subjection of our will to Christ’s is also a surrender of our freedom of petition? “Asky and ye shall receive,” is no less a command than that other, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” Prayer is the working of a will that is free, within a will that is sovereign. That the less must be obedient to the greater in making its requests, no more argues a yielding up its freedom, than that the greater will be moved 1 y the less to answer those requests argues a yielding up of its sovereignty. Not only is there no infringement on the believer’s spiritual liberty in the requirement that he ask in holy subjection to the will of his Lord, but on the contrary there is, as one has said, no other such witness to that liberty” as is wrapped up in prayer, man’s permitted though submitted wish and zvill and choice’,’ respecting all that pertains to his destiny.
But let us not forget that the necessity of a submitted will in prayer rests on something deeper than itself, even on the great sacrifice which is the groundwork of all devotion. As in justifying faith the soul is brought into union with Christ crucified and risen, so in intercessory faith it abides in this union. And because our great High Priest can never forget his cross and his blood, we may not. We may come with the utmost boldness to the throne of grace as being in Him who “ever liveth to make intercession for us,” but we shall come also with entire self-surrender as being in Him “that liveth and was dead’’ And because we are” dead with Him “we shall be careful to bring that only required sacrifice of the Christian covenant, a crucified will. This is vital.” Good prayers never come weeping home,” says Bishop Hall, — which is certainly true of such prayers as have gone to heaven” by way of weeping
1 See the thoughtful essay on Prayer considered in its Relation to the Will of Man and in its Dependence on the Sacrifice of Chr’sfs Death, by Dora Greenwell, to whom I am indebted for I know not how many suggestions ol truth.
IN CHRIST, l
cross.” But are not many prayers put up in which there is no tender, tearful remembrance of that sacrificial woe which bought for us the right to pray in Christ, — and yet prayers pleaded in his name “who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death,” each time saying the same words, “Not my will, but thine, be done “?
Because we can nowhere else deal with God through the atonement without a submitted will, we cannot here. Saving faith is at once a surrender of self, and an appropriation of Jesus Christ. And interceding faith is like it, — a hearty, aye, vehement yielding up of the will to God while laying hold of his all perfect will. Here we touch the secret of assurance. “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to his willy He heareth us.” Outward diversions may break the reverential intimacy of our communion with Him; the chill of worldliness may cool the pulse of fervent desire: but if the will yet moves needle-like to the one blessed point, the holy will of Jesus, i Heb. V. 7.
and rests there, the deepest condition of prevailing prayer is realized.
If the conditions of prayer in Chriir. are thus profound and exacting, the biessin.j; and privilege are inexpressibly glorious. To have Christ dwelling in us, his will encircling our with its holy constraints, and his heart with’n us the fountain of all blessed desires, do we count this a rich prerogative of the /jospel? What shall we say then of that grace whereunto we are called, of being so in Cb ist that his influence with the Father passes over upon us; so that” wJien we offer our prayers through Jus mediation it is He that p niys, his love that intercedes, his blood that pleuis, it is He who obtains all from his Father’.”
There is something more for us ii«)w than the proxy of faith, — the standing afar off with no ray of divine approval falling upon us, and asking blessings for Jesus’ sake. Lest we should think of the matter thus, our Lord declares with exquisite grace and tenderness, “I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.” One with Jesus
* Bishop Wilson’s Sacra Private. ‘-^ John xvL 27.
the Mediator, and endeared to the Father’s heart by all that makes Him dear, we come no longer to the throne as beggars asking alms, but as sons seeking an inheritance. We cannot be ashamed now, that wait upon the Lord, for the glorified Son has said, “The glory which Thou gavest me I have given them!’ We cannot be afiraid before Him now, for the ever Beloved One has said, “Thou hast loved them as Thoic hast loved me!’ We cannot doubt that we have the petitions that we ask now, for being” in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us righteousness!’ how can we fail to receive the promise, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much “? Perhaps in the presence of such a revelation as this, our greatest need of prayer may be to ask that we may not “stagger at the promise of God through unbelief.” One who has looked deeply into this theme writes: “A poor sinner permitted to approach the Father in all his troubles as though he were Christ. If one were internally awake he would not know how to bear himself for joy and amazement at the grant of such a privilege.” 2
1 James v. 16. * Krummacher.
And yet, in the unfoldings of Redemption from Christ crucified to Christ glorified, this blessing and mystery only deepens more and more. The “no more conscience of sins“j which we get while standing before the cross,. is followed by the entering into the Holyi Place with Christ after the veil of his flesh; has been parted. His Priesthood consum-i mates what his blood has purchased. Intoj the Holiest,^ whither the High Priest coul(i j go only once a year, and then with the deep- i est awe, the humblest believer may now enter ‘” boldly “by his oneness with his Lord. And where Aaron never sat down, there he is” made to sit in heavenly places in Christ j Jesus.” If a sense of his deep unworthiness: before God often leads him to take up the; cry, “Hide not thy face from thy servant,”! the Spirit, by convincing of the righteous-; ness of Christ, immediately reassures him. ‘If there is no veil between the Father and ] the Son in glory, how can there be any be- I tween the Father and those who are in the 1 Son. As He is, so are they. His righteous- I ness is their priestly vesture. He is the I “Holiness unto the Lord “inscribed upon! 1 Heb. X. 19. 2 Eph. ii. 6. their frontlet. His promises are the golden bells that vibrate about their garments as they enter in unto God. Blessed are they who know their privilege in Him. Thrice blessed they who faithfully use it; daily ‘’ putting on the royal apparel and standing in the inner coicrt of the Kings house” assured of the outstretched sceptre and the gracious promise, “What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee; and what is thy request 1 it shall be performed.”
Thus is prayer in its deepest significance a communion with the Father through communion with the Son.2 Abiding in Christ we get the spirit of supplication — the blessing of “a mind clothed with inward prayer!’ His words abiding in us both fix the direction of our petitions and bring, how often! that answer which God has promised to suppliants “while they are yet speaking.” Abiding in Him we have his mind as our guide in intercession, so that if our desires be left unconstrained it will bend them to seek our highest blessing, as the diviner’s rod, held in the unresisting hand, is bent to the cool sweet water-courses that flow invisibly beneath
the earth. In Him, we are clothed with the risrhteousness which constitutes in the economy of grace not only our right of petition but our claim to be heard, so that as we appear in it before the mercy-seat we may urge in triumphant humility God’s oath and faithfulness, —” Have respect tuito the Covenanty
If now our privileges are the measure of our duties, can we set any bounds to our obligation of Christian prayer? Where God’s will is clearly revealed to us, as, e. g.^ concerning our personal holiness, “This is the will of God even your sanctification,” the duty can be nothing less surely than to “pray without ceasing.” And the assurance of an answer can be nothing less than to know, without questioning, that what we ask we shall receive.
In other matters, among the obscure and unrevealed decrees of Providence, if our assurance must be less specific, our supplication must not be less intense in searching for God’s will, that when we have found it we may take it up and urge it with all the energy of a renewed and privileged soul. It is in constant asking that we learn how and what to ask. The soul, looking steadfastly into the Father’s face, comes at last to read his thoughts after Him; to catch, as by a divine intuition, the indications of his will.” / will guide thee with mine eye!’ With his word in our hands and his spirit in our hearts and the light of the knowledge of his gloryshining upon us in the face of Jesus Christ, surely we ought not to need the bit and bridle of violent providences to restrain us from willful and headstrong prayers, much less the scourge of terrible chastisement to drive us to pray at all.
So let us enter into the fullness of our blessing in Christ. Knowing that praying in the name of Christ is “praying in the Holy Ghost,” the sole and blessed medium of a common life between the saint and his Saviour, and that praying in the Holy Ghost is having the Spirit to “help our infirmities,” since “we know not what to pray for as we ought; “and to make intercession for us” according to the will of God,’’ how intently shall we seek to learn the highest use of that divine name by entering into the deepest communion with that divine Person. And with what earnestness and strength of desire may
* Ps. xxxil 8, 9. Rom. viii. 26, 27.
we constantly plead that prayer of Vinet: “O God, unite more and more closely, not our spirit to a name but our soul to a soul; to the soul of Jesus Christ thy Son and the Son of man, our God, our Brother. In this intimate and living union may this soul gradually become our soul, and may we learn of Him by virtue of living with Him, to love as He loved, to bless as He blessed, and to pray as He prayed.” Amen.