The Higher Secrets of Prayer
We are reaching toward a climax. One remaining group of four lessons remains, which seems to belong further on in this course of study, as pertaining to the higher classes in the school of Christ, for these lessons appear to touch the inmost heart of the theme — the esoteric’ secrets of prevailing power in supplication and intercession, such as the filial spirit in our approach to’ God, the self-abasement which comes from a deep sense of sin and illdesert, the agreeement of sytnpathetic souls in joint supplication, and the identity of praying saints viXh. the Great Intercessor Himself.
All these lessons, with those three of the preceding group, are related so closely that it is neither easy to separate them, nor to determine their precise order. For instance, in the case of the two lessons on faith and on the filial spirit, one merges, almost melts, into the other; yet obviously a son’s faith in his Father is something in advance of a suppliant’s faith in a promising God, where the sense of sonship does not displace the sense of mere servantship and servile subjection. And, as to the exact order, it is not essential that we shall either discover or follow it: all we can do is to look for the inherent indications of orderly arrangement. Thus we have felt that the forgiving spirit belongs first as the primary condition of asking for that first of all gifts — pardon; and that simple faith in God as a reality and verity is the next condition of all approach to a personal Helper, and that this again prepares us for the persistent pleading in which if there be not faith* there must be fainting.’
We are confirmed in this conviction that the four lessons now grouped together, have a peculiarly close relation, as all belonging to the New Tesfamejtt revelations of Prayer as we shall see; whereas those just considered are Old Testament lessons, however enforced by the new and higher unveilings of truth. Abraham and Moses, David and Daniel, Elijah and Elisha, all knew the doctrine of forgiveness, of faith, and of persistence. Moses and Elijah, as prominently as any New Testament saints, exemplified them all. But the idea of the believer’s sonship, of a personal mercy-seat, of a symphony of prayer produced by the Holy Spirit, and of supplication founded upon identification with the Son of God — all these are revelations that waited for the Incarnation, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord.
VII. If, in the present group, any one lesson belongs at the front, it is the Lord’s teaching about the Filial spirit which in Luke immediately and inseparably follows that on importunity.
It is obvious that such confidence as is begotten of conscious sonship in God’s family, belongs much farther on in attainment and in the secrets of prevalence, than the general faith in God as God, which any suppliant may feel who has not yet learned that he may call God “Father” in a new and redemptive sense. And so, if we mistake not, a progress of doctrine runs through all this teaching and makes it progressive.
This lesson on Filial Confidence * is thus a higher lesson on faith — the faith which the child and son reposes in the Father. The God whom we meet in the Holiest of All is ‘’’ Our Father who art in Heaven.” To the Hebrews of old He was The Almighty, Jehovah, the God of Power, the Creator, Ruler, Judge; God of the Covenant; but how seldom do we meet in the Old Testament any reference to Him as Father. Those of the olden time could not yet apprehend this aspect of God: they had not conceived the coming Messiah as the ‘Last Adam,” First Born among many brethren,’ and hence holding with man fraternal relations. Hence they were not prepared to understand, as we are, the Paternal relation of God the Father to us who are sons and heirs of God in Christ Jesus. This is the reason why the Father- * Matthew vii. 7-1 1; Luke xi. 11-13. hood of God in Christ is the great truth of the New Testament, and how it is that one short phrase, in Christ is the keythat unlocks the whole New Covenant with all its mysteries. Every book in the New Testament is explained by it. In Romans, Justified in Christ; Galatians, Sanctified in Christ; Philippians, Satisfied in Christ; Ephesians, in Christ, one; in Colossians, in Christ, complete, etc.
Our Lord teaches us two things about the Fatherhood of God, which are to be our constant encouragement and inspiration in prayer: first. He “knoweth how to give good gifts to His children “; and, secondly, He wills to give even “His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” He has infinite wisdom and knowledge to guide His choice of gifts, and infinite goodness and love to prompt Him to the bestowal of them. Paul, in that climax on Prayer in Ephesians, presents the same double argument from Love and Power.f Power assures us He is able; Love assures us He is willing. Without Power He might
* Ev xpi-dTCf). f Ephes. iii. 17-21. be willing, but unable; without Love He would be able, but unwilling. The child of God who has the sense of sonship comes boldly to One who is both able and willing.
Let us tarry to notice our Lord’s illustrations of the Divine Fatherhood. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” Here is a threefold contrast: between dread, the staff of life, and the stone which the Jew thought of as dead, and as used to kill and slay the blasphemer and disobedient, and which was, therefore, the symbol of death; between the fo/i, a form of animal food, and the serpent, the symbol of the Devil, who destroys instead of nourishing; and between the egg, which has the germ of reproduction, and the scorpion, whose sting is painful and often fatal. It is not necessary to suppose that our Lord here imagines a human father as malignantly mocking a child’s request by an intentional substitution of what is useless and even harmful for what is needful and helpful. He may mean no more than this, that even the most ignorant parent knows better what a son needs and means to ask for, than to substitute such gifts for those which are sought.
But, however we interpret details, the lesson is plain: we may trust God’s wisdom to make no mistake in the conferring of what we need, and His love not to make the worse mistake of withholding what is in His power to bestow. If we ask Him for the Bread of Life, we never get the stone of death; if, for the food that upbuilds strength, we never get the virus and venom that destroys health; if, for the nourishing egg we shall not get the stinging scorpion.
To some who are prone to symbolism, these words mean three classes of gifts, and represent the Trinity. The Bread of Life stands for the common mercies from the Father’s hands; the Son is represented by the Fish which was to the earl)’- disciples the great symbol of Jesus, Son of God, Saviour of men;* and the Spirit, the source of all spiritual life and regeneration, by the Egg.
We are content, however, to draw simply the broad general lesson of filial confidence — the assurance which the spirit of the son engenders, that our Father in Heaven both knows how to give good gifts to them that ask Him, and is more willing than are earthly parents, to bestow on His suppliant child all that he asks or needs; aye, and better than all, that He knows how to withhold, when to withhold is the wiser course and the better way of giving. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. We make the mistake of asking for the stone when we think it to be* bread; or for what would prove a venomous curse or a stinging disappointment, if we had it. And so filial confidence trusts Him to keep back what would be consumed on our selfish lusts, or prove to our damage, and to give us instead what feeds true spiritual life, instead of granting us our request and sending leanness to our soul.
VIII. The lesson of humility and self-abasement may seem at first sight to belong among the earliest to be taught and learned; yet as a matter of fact this lesson demands much previous Christian attainment, and cannot be understood without much spiritual maturity.
Our Lord teaches self-abasement in prayer by a most dramatic and striking contrast of a self-complacent pharisee and a penitent and contrite publican. These two men went up into the Temple Courts to pray. The pharisee stood and thus prayed with himself — a happy phrase to describe what was more a soliloquy lh2iW a supplication: “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are; extortioners, unjust, adulterers — or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess.” Thirty-four words in the English, and five times the capital “I” is found in these three short sentences! There is not a word of adoration, confession, or supplication here: it is all self-gratulation, under the pretence or pretext of thanksgiving. The Greek is still stronger than the English rendering, “God I thank thee that lam not as the rest of meti!’ * Perhaps it was all true that he was not: there is not a hint here that he was lying. He may have been all that he affirmed — neither ‘rapacious,’ nor ‘unrighteous,’ nor ‘adulterous ’ — a man of clean outward life, and much above the publican, the despised tax-man, on whom he loftily looked down. But is very plain that he was puffed up with pride. He reminds one of the ‘selfmade ’ men who strut about with the pride of the peacock, if not the vanity of the turkey-gobbler, and boast of what they have become and have achieved — all ’ by themselves ‘! The pharisee, at least in the presence of a holy God, might have taken a low place. In the light of the Shekinah hfs ‘comeliness’ should have lost its beauty in his eyes and have been ‘turned into corruption.’ But he was blinded and dazzled, not by the glory of God, but by his own superior excellence. The fact is that he did not get into the * (ocTvep OL “kotnoi rcov avdpuTrov.
Holy of Holies at all, nor come near to the mercy-seat. He was in the outermost court, and knew nothing of drawing nigh unto God, for none can approach truly into that inmost Presence without a new insight into his own innate, inward corruption, as in the glare of the midday sun nothing seems clean.
The publican may have been all that the pharisee thanked God he was not. Taxcollecting was in Jewish eyes the brand of ignominy and villainy. To lend oneself to a foreign and oppressive power as a tool of tyranny, to wrest from a poor and conquered province a tribute which represented no equivalent of good received or blessing enjoyed, was to the Jew of that day the supreme sign of a mean and dastardly nature. The ’ publican ’ and * the harlot ’ were linked in the very speech of that day, because both made a sale of virtue to the highest bidder and lent themselves body and soul to vice.
Publicans, having forfeited all claim to respect, usually came to deserve none.
Their opportunity for extortion was ample, and they generally improved it. The collecting of taxes was “farmed out.” A chief among the publicans, like Zaccheus, would have a large district under control and let out the job to subordinates, who mercilessly took what they chose, paid the government what it demanded and levied, and kept the rest; and, as the Roman authorities cared little for the complaints of an oppressed province, there was no remedy. The people were ground as between millstones, but had to submit.
Zaccheus, when salvation came to his house, that day of grace, said, ‘’ If I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” The ‘false accusation,’ referred to, was the levying of a tax greater than the government authorized, a false impost, and for personal gain; the chance for extortion was immense, and how unjust such extortion often was may be gathered from the * fourfold * restoration which was proposed in order to cover it. Moreover, as publicans and harlots were ranked togethei;^and alike despised, it was but natural that they should often consort together. Neither of them had any ‘character’ to maintain or any ‘reputation’ to lose in the public eyes; and as the publican had plenty of money which came easily, and the outcast woman had ’ virtue ’ for sale and the price was cheap, it was inevitable that the two classes should deserve the association which they had in common parlance.
But, whatever the guilt of the publican, the redeeming feature is that he knew and felt it. Nominally he stood * afar off ‘; really he was much the nearer of the two, to the Divine Presence. Remembering the words of the Psalm,
“Mine iniquities have taken hold upon
me. So that I am not able to look up; They are more than the hairs of mine head, Therefore my heart faileth me “; *
he could not so much as lift up his eyes * Psalm xl. 12. toward Heaven, and, as though all the possibilities of sin were hidden within him, he smote upon his own breast and could find courage but for one sentence: God meet, at the mercy -seat, me, the Sitinerl“”^ It is remarkable that, even in this one sentence of six words in the Greek, there is conveyed adoration, confession, and supplication; and that the expression, “me the sinner,” implies a sense of pre-eminence in sin, while the tytft word translated ‘b«^ merciful’ is the verb exactly corresponding to the noun, * mercy-seat.’ f
When the High Priest went into the Holiest of All with blood of atonement, it was in garments of humiliation. We cannot think of him as entering that secret chamber of God’s Presence with any proud confidence in his own righteousness. On the contrary, everything combined to produce overwhelming conviction and consciousness of sin. He went within the veil in the capacity of a representative Sin-Bearer. The only day in
* Comp. page 92. f cTiaadrjri iTiaofiog. which he dared to go in at all was the great Day of Atonement; the only way in which he dared to go, even then, was with the blood of a vicarious victim. That day was the day of confession, both of his own sins and the sins and errors of the whole people. The slain goat and the goat ‘Azazel’ told of guilt that must both be expiated by a forfeited life, and removed from before the face of Him who is of ‘purer eyes than to behold evil,* and cannot ’ look upon iniquity.’ Thus everything about the Day of Atonement spoke of sin — of damning, separating guilt — confessed, forsaken, forgiven, renounced, removed; and there was but one attitude of soul which would not have been a mockery: namely, a bowing down in contrition and penitence.
Who can think of the High Priest as passing within the veil, and there, facing the searching glory of the Infinite One, uttering the pharisee’s self-complacent soliloquy! Was not the whole scene, enacted on the great Day of Atonement, one long-drawn-out publican’s prayer?
We cannot but feel, however, that this overwhelming sense of sin, which leads to such self-abasement and abandonment of all self-trust, belongs among the higher secrets of power in prayer. Conviction of sin, deep, abiding and prostrating, is not only very rare, but it indicates and indexes a peculiar ripeness of Christian character. The holiest saints have always been the most profoundly convicted sinners. The nearer we get to God by grace the more we feel our distance by nature.
It requires a trained eye to see minute defects and detect slight blemishes. A painting that a common, undisciplined observer thinks a superb work of art, the educated artist condemns perhaps as a worthless daub, not because he is hypercritical, but because he has a higher and truer conception of accuracy in drawing, propriety in grouping, skill in coloring. Michel Angelo had so studied Anatomy that he could detect the least error in the proportions of the human form when delineated on canvas, and had so studied Nature’s moods and combinations that he instinctively knew when a painting violated her canons of truth and taste. And so it does not follow, because I seem to myself far more a sinner than I did when first I found Jesus, that I am worse; it may be I am far more like God, only I have learned to detect sin where once I saw none: the painting has become the daub, not because there is any change in the painting but because there is a change in the eye that scans it. The pharisee looked at himself and saw nothing to condemn, but much to applaud: the publican, looking at himself, saw nothing to approve, but everything to condemn and abhor. However great the difference in the two characters, the greater difference was in the eyes that looked upon them: in one case blinded by self-righteous pride; in the other opened to behold the hatefulness and sinfulness of sin.
Be not surprised, therefore, child of God, if, as you seek to draw nigh to God and to be like God, your sense of sin becomes more intolerable. Thank God if you see clearly; only do not stop with a sight of self: ‘look away to Jesus the author and perfecter of your faith’; and knowing yourself, ask that you may know Himself, and lose even the sense and sight of your sin in the sense and sight of your Saviour. Then alone does conviction and contrition reach its perfect work — in fixing your gaze upon the Great Sin-Bearer!
Before we leave this dramatic contrast of the pharisee and publican, let us learn how different are God’s judgments of character from those of men. The pharisee justified himself but God condemned him; the publican condemned himself but God justified him. Society is an inclined plane — at the top stands the pharisee, outwardly correct and moral, and even punctilious about prayers, fastings, tithings; at the bottom stands the publican, guilty of sins of extortion, injustice, impurity; but, in God’s eyes, the proud pharisee is going down and the penitent publican is going up, and they will pass each other on the way, and exchange places in the coming kingdom; for,
“He that exalteth himself shall be abased, And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
IX. We come now to a lesson on Agreement in Frayer the first and only one which appears to be directed toward y.^?//?/ supplication. It is perhaps not so much a new lesson, as a new application of principles already conveyed to us in this teaching of the secrets of prevailing supplication.
The key-word of this lesson is Agreement but the original word is a stronger one than can be represented by the word “agree.” It means to symphonize.’^ The term is itself a whole revelation. Symphony is a musical term, and refers not to an accidental or arbitrary agreement of notes in the musical scale, but to an eternal and unchangeable law — the law
* cvjiuvrjauaLV. of the chord. Harmony is determined by the interval between notes. No symphony of sounds is possible where notes are not in accord with the instrument generally, tuned up to the proper pitch, and where they are not correspondent with each other in the musical scale. A careless touch upon an instrument often evokes not harmony but the worst of discords. It takes the intelligent, discriminating touch of the musician to evoke a symphony, for he instinctively strikes keys which are accordant.
The symphony of prayer, in which believing suppliants unite, is not the result of any mere formal agreement or covenant with each other, proper as this may often be, as in the case of Daniel and his companions.* Such agreement is only effective when it is the result of the Holy Spirit’s own working, He bringing disciples into accord first with Himself and then with each other, like a master musician who first tunes all the keys according to a concert pitch, and then strikes * Daniel ii. 17-19. such notes as are prepared to blend harmoniously in one chord.
The word, symphonize, is a trope — and suggests the entire body of true suppliants as the key-board of a vast musical instrument, which is in tune with the mind and purpose of God. The Holy Spirit, the divine musician, lays his hand, like a true artist, on two or more keys, which He has first brought into harmonious relations with God’s will and each other, and which are thus prepared to sound in the divine ear a perfect chord; and so there come into the ear of God both melody and harmony, — the melody of acceptable individual prayer; the harmony of acceptable joint supplication.
The implied inference is that you and I cannot arbitrarily “agree” as touching anything that we shall ask, and then plead this promise. Except so far as we first agree with the Holy Spirit, so that our prayer becomes the expression of the divine will, there can be no such agreement with each other as this promise implies. In other words, sympathy with God must be the basis of symphony among disciples. When the Holy Spirit is thus able to move upon hearts of disciples, however far separated by distance but still united by spiritual proximity and sympathy, He often touches suppliants who are strangers to each other and brings them into unconscious accord and concord in prayer for the same objects. Thus, when the secret thoughts of many hearts are revealed, we shall undoubtedly find that praying disciples, far apart, in distant lands, often unknown to each other, have been led of the Spirit into simultaneous and sympathetic prayer for the same blessings, praying at the same time for the same things, with a degree of holy accord, explainable only by the fact that the same divine Spirit has been moving in their hearts and interceding in and through them.
What boundless paths and fields of suggestion this lesson on symphony in prayer opens up! yes, and what possible power too. What an illuminating light is thrown on our Lord’s words about joint prayer for the harvest-field, and that divine thrusting forth of laborers* into its wide, vast vacancies, which is the one sovereign remedy for the world’s need, and the efficacy of which is so illustrated in the thrusting forth of Barnabas and Saul from the praying assembly at Antioch! t
Abundant examples might be supplied of the power of prayer that is offered in accordance with such teachings.
Early in the last century, about 1729, a great movement began at Oxford under the Wesley brothers, George Whitefield, and that other little group of four or five, who covenanted together to join each other in the pursuit of personal holiness, and sought to learn the secrets of spiritual power in service. It was not the first time God has chosen a few to teach the many, and in a brief period to leave on record a lesson for all ages. At the end of six years these ‘Methodists’ numbered but sixteen. But on this little band came the Spirit of God in
* Matt. ix. 37, 38. f Comp. Acts xiii. 1-5. such power that, through their preaching, prayers, and testimony, the whole Church of Christ was lifted to a higher level. It may be doubted whether, since Christ ascended, any equal number of believers have in such a way wrought more powerfully upon the history and destiny of men. The condition of society, both within and without the pale of the visible Church, was so deplorable that Evangelical faith had scarcely a name to live. Deism was preached in Christian pulpits, and libertinism was practiced in social life with unblushing audacity. Infidelity and irreligion seemed to be sweeping before them the last remnants of a pure Christian doctrine and practice. Missions had almost ceased to be even the admitted duty of the Church, and formalism of the most stereotyped and petrified type seemed to be encasing the Church in its heartless shell of rites and ceremonies.
The results of those little conferences and prayer-meetings, held in Oxford, can never be known until the Books are Opened. We trace them immediately in the brilliant career of Whitefield, and a score of other Evangelists, and in the open-air services, which, for vastness of congregations, magnitude of results, and permanent revolution of society, can be compared to nothing since apostolic days; in the rapid creation of the most aggressive denomination of Christians, now numbering millions; and in the amazing multiplication of praying circles in all parts of the world, the revival of Evangelical doctrine and piety, and the birth of the new era of missions. Ten years later, in 1739, t Methodist Society was formed. Twenty years later, 1749, Jonathan Edwards was stirring all New England by his preaching, and sending forth his trumpet-call to universal prayer for the effusion of the Spirit. Sixty years later, 1789, William Carey was poring over the question of a world’s evangelization, and organizing a world-wide campaign. It seems incredible, but the present state of Evangelical faith and Evangelistic activity may be traced directly back to those meetings which began in 1729, in the hearts of less than a dozen men who yearned to know God and serve Him completely, and were by the Spirit brought so into accord with God and each other that their prayers symphonized.
X. The last lesson lifts us to the grand climax: We are bidden to ask in the Name of Christ.
This lesson, which is obviously last in order, is the only one which is declared to be absolutely new: ‘’’’Hitherto have ye asked nothtjtg in my name.” Old Testament saints had never known this high privilege, nor had even New Testament disciples, however favored with more advanced knowledge and clearer revelation of divine things, ever yet prayed in Jesus’ name.
And for an obvious reason: not until our Lord became God manifest in the flesh, and by his own perfect humanity became identified with our human nature, could the believer have known this glorious truth — that, being by his divinity one with God, and by his humanity one with us, we in Him become one also with God. The keynote of this lesson is, therefore, the 7nutual identity of Christ and his disciples. All the precious representations of the unity existing between the believer and his Lord were reserved for the period of his Incar?iation: the sevenfold exhibition of that unity found in the seven magnificent figures or symbols employed, is entirely and exclusively found in the New Testament, namely: The Sheep and Shepherd, the Vine and Branches, the Building and Living Stones, the Body and Members, the Family and Head, or larger family of the Commonwealth and Citizens, the Bridegroom and Bride, and that highest conception of all, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit “* — all these without exception had to wait for the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, and the coming of the Holy Ghost, to make them plain or apprehen sible. Even the Old Testament foreshatlowings of this unity,” He shall feed his
i Cor. vi. 17. flock like a shepherd,” “As a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy God rejoice over thee,” f “I will sing a song, .... touching my vineyard,” J are but foreshadowings — enigmatic parables awaiting an interpreter, hieroglyphs awaiting a Champollion. And, even when thus ‘adumbrated’ in the older gospel of the Law and Prophets, they are not used there to exhibit the relation of Christ to the believer, as they” are in the New Testament. Here, then, was a lesson absolutely new, never taught, certainly never learned, before. How fitting, then, for that closing lesson, to which nothing remains to be added!
First of all, in the closer examination of these words we must not lose sight of the sevenfold repetition of the statement within the compass of this one discourse of our Lord.§
John xiv. 13. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,
* Isaiah xl. II. f Isaiah lxii. 5.
X Isaiah v. i. § John xiv., xv., xvi.
that the Father may be
glorified in the Son.
John xiv. 14. If ye shall ask anything in
my name, I will do it.
XV. 16. That, whatsoever ye shall
ask of the Father in my
name, He may give it you.
xvi. 23. Verily, verily, I say unto
you, whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in my
name, He will give it you.
24. Hitherto have ye asked
nothing in my name.
Ask (i.e., in my name) and
ye shall receive, that your
joy may be full.
26. At that day ye shall ask in
my name.
Surely there must be an object in such repetition. Our Lord must have meant especial emphasis to be laid on this new and most advanced lesson.
In this same discourse He explains the ground of this new privilege and right:
John xiv. 20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and ye in me and I in you. XV. 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in yoti, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. xvi. 26, 27. And 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. Compare also our Lord’s Intercessory
Prayer,* where this identity of Christ and
believers is further set forth.
This sevenfold lesson teaches us that the union existing between the believer and the Lord Jesus is so complete that there is a mutual indwelling and abiding; so that it is not even needful that the Lord Jesus shall pray for us, since the Father himself recognizes this union between us
* John xvii. 9-1 1, 14, 20-26. and His Son, identifies us with him, and loves us for his sake. We are thus in God’s sight one with Jesus, whom He heareth always and in whom He is ever well pleased.
How inadequately do all previous teachings and types forecast such fact and privilege! Ahasuerus, handing over the imperial signet-ring to Mordecai and Esther, said: “Write as it liketh you in the King’s name, and seal it with the King’s ring; for the writing which is written in the King’s name and sealed with the King’s ring may no man reverse.”* The proclamation that thus went out was in every respect the King’s 07vn decree. What they did in his name, he did through them. And our Lord actually conveys to us the signet-ring of God — bids us ask what we will, and seal our prayer with God’s own signet. Prayer thus becomes authoritative, like a divine decree.
We have only to turn to the visions of the Apocalypse to see this same truth gloriously robed in apocalyptic meta-
* Esther viii. 8. Rev. viii. 1-8. phor. “There was a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour” — as though to prepare for some new and wonderful disclosure. Then our great High Priest appears, offering up the prayers of saints in his own golden censer, perfumed with his own infinite merit; and then, mingling them with that * fire of the altar ’ which is the symbol of the power of God, he hurls them back to the earth like thunderbolts, to produce convulsions in the world, and consternation among the enemies of the faith. Prayers that rise up to God in the name of Jesus come back in answers of divine power, comforting saints and bringing dismay to sinners.
This last lesson of Identity with Christ is thus the richest lesson on prayer ever taught, even by our Lord himself. Yet even this may, like the previous lessons, find illustration, if not explanation, in the approach of the High Priest to the mercy-seat.
God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity.” What then can give boldness in approaching the thick darkness where God dwells? The right of the High Priest to come unto God at all was found in the blood which he bore, and which served to identify him with the sacrifice for sin: the blood was the life, and, in presenting the blood, he presented the innocent life, the atoning merit and vicarious efficacy of the Lamb of God which it represented.
Our Lord’s exact words must be studied: “whatsoever ye shall ask in my NAME.” The Name stands for the Person whom it separates, individualizes, distinguishes from all others; consequently to ask in the name of Christ is to ask by virtue of niy identity with Christ himself.
It is plain that, when I do or ask anything in another’s name, the real actor the real asker is ?iot myself, but the other party, who is recognized behind me as my authority in the action or the request. When, in Christ’s name — because by faith I am one with him — I come to God and ask, God recognizes Him, not myself, as the actual suppliant. Hence He is represented as our Intercessor at God’s right hand, and as offering or presenting the prayers of His saints on the golden altar and in the golden censer, before the throne; and even as praying to the Father for us or in our behalf.
Thus we reach a fitting climax to this most wonderful series of lessons on prayer. We reach here the highest level of prayer — prayer in Jesus’ name. And we come back, at last, to the same essential lesson as at the beginning. The secret of prevailing prayer is the knowledge of God which brings us into sympathy and identity with Him. We can only pray aright as we are in union with all the persons of the trinity: with God the Father, as His obedient children; with God the Holy Spirit, as attuned to His divine mind and will and fitted to be responsive to His inward touch; with God the Son, as identified by faith with his own person and so able to ask in his name.
And now what remains but to learn that consummate practical lesson that touches life at every point: that, like some mighty motive power that lies neglected, waiting to be attached to the vast machinery of manufacture, Prayer in Jesus’ Name is the unused force for the individual and church life, the motor equal to all the demands of our spiritual machinery. To many a disciple such prayer is yet in all but name an unknown, untried force, unconnected with the real activities of life. Consequently much work is done in the energy of the flesh that might be done in the energy of the Spirit; much is not done at all that might be attempted and accomplished; and much that is done, and apparently successfully, is only a deceptive superficial achievement which shows no power but man’s and yields no glory to God.
We have felt driven onward in writing this book, as by a mighty tidal wave of conviction, that the one all-sufficient and all-comprehensive solution of individual and social problems is a new resort to believing prayer. Every crisis of the kingdom has so far turned on devout supplication. We try our own methods; we rely on numbers, on wealth, on logic and rhetoric, on organization and enterprise, on enthusiasm and intelligence, on social influence and political prestige, on scholarship and secularism; on everything but the Word of God, the Spirit of God and the prevailing hold of suppliant souls on the horns of God’s altar of supplication. Consequently our very strength is our weakness and our success is our failure; when we are most confident and boastful, we have most occasion for humility and self-abasement. Our risk is greatest when we feel most secure. Laodiceanism, with its vain self-satisfaction and blindness to its own destitution, is the state of every Christian or every Church that neglects prayer or does not know its self - revealing and divinely -energizing power.
Lord, teach us to Pray.