Talks With Pastor

Matthew 6:13

The next petition of the Lord’s prayer, Lead us not into temptation, is not free from difficulty. Many have found in it what appears to contradict their apprehensions of the Divine nature and the economy of the Lord’s dispensations in regard to men, while leading them through the wilderness of this world to their home in heaven. In the first place, the words seem to imply that when man falls into temptation the Lord is the author of it; when yet genuine doctrine informs us that God tempts no man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Another apparent difficulty is, that, as no man that is saved can avoid undergoing temptation, and as even the Savior himself, when engaged in the work of glorifying his humanity, was “in all points tempted as we are,” it seems extraordinary that this prayer would seem to deprecate the idea of being exposed to temptations in any shape. A general and satisfactory answer will probably be given to both these difficulties when the remarkable peculiarity we have already noticed is kept in view – namely, that its various petitions have a specific reference to the various constituent principles of the human mind. Now, it is only through the medium of the lower principles of the natural man that we can be assailed with temptations strictly and properly so called. They originate from evil spirits, who delight in falsities grounded in evil lusts, and they are carried on, on their part, by the injection of false suggestions into the thoughts. But the part of the human mind which is liable to be thus influenced is that which, if separated from the higher principles, and made the chief seat of man’s affections and thoughts, gives him a quality of the same gross and evil nature, and sinks him after death to the state of those who thus delight to destroy the soul. It is, in fact, the part of man that thinks according to the apprehension of the external senses which is the inlet by which temptations approach him; and the apprehensions of this, which may be properly called the sensual part of the mind, in regard to divine and spiritual subjects, are of themselves naturally imperfect and obscure. Hence, those whose minds are not elevated above the sphere of the senses, when they acknowledge and worship God, have but gross and defective notions respecting him. They regard him, indeed, as a Being of infinite power; but not having so clear an idea of his unmixed goodness, they suppose him to be the author of everything they experience – of evil and misery, as well as of good and happiness. And this idea, though not agreeable to the genuine truth, is yet useful to such persons, as leading them to think of the necessity of rendering such an all-powerful Being propitious, by attending to his commandments. Accordingly, the idea of God as thus the Author of all things, though not the true idea, yet being one of the natural apprehensions of the human mind, and, when entertained in simplicity, adapted to produce beneficial effects, is what may be called an apparent truth, though not a genuine truth. According to such apparent truths, or according to the natural apprehensions of mankind, when their minds are not elevated above the sphere of the ideas suggested by the senses, many things are expressed in the literal sense of the word. Thus, in regard to this very subject of evil apparently coming from the Lord as well as good, we find the Lord himself saying, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things,” (Isaiah 45:7)  Here the Lord speaks in the letter according to the apprehensions of the simple, the genuine truth being, not that darkness and evil come from the Lord, but that they cannot take place without his permission, which is conceded, not for the promotion of evil, but for its abatement and removal, and thus for the promotion of good. In severe trials it is scarcely possible to abstain from thinking according to the appearance: and the afflicted person is oppressed with the apprehension that the Lord takes part against him, and thus that the temptation is actually induced by him. Still, this is not the real truth; and this, in states of any degree of illustration, the mind perceives. Accordingly, in all ages, from the earliest times of Christianity as is evinced by the writings of those called the fathers of the church, the true sense of this clause has been explained to be, “Suffer us not to be overcome by temptation.”

It has sometimes appeared to us, from the mode of expression in the original, that the force of the words which we translate, “lead us not into,” is nearly equivalent to that of “rescue us from.” For in the original, the term denoting not is in juxtaposition with that signifying lead, and precedes it, though the genius of our language does not permit us to put the words in the same order, and to say “Not lead us into temptation.” Now it is remarked by critics, that in the idiom both of the Old and New Testaments the particle not often coalesces with the word that follows, so as to form one idea, and as it were one word, being the contrary of that which the other word would convey by itself: only this happens more frequently with nouns than with verbs. Thus the translators in the common version have very properly given the words of the Lord to Martha in this form: “He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” In the original it is, “He shall not die for ever,” being equivalent in sense to “never.” If, then, we consider, in this part of the Lord’s prayer, not as coalescing with lead, the sense of not lead into must be, rescue from. But this is offered with diffidence as a, suggestion it never, so far as we are aware, having occurred to any one else. All agree that the true sense of the passage is to this effect, though they have not deduced it, in the same manner, from the very words. And if this be the true sense of the passage, whether literally expressed or not – if the idea intended by it, when viewed in the light of genuine truth, and above the veil of appearances, is, “Rescue us from temptation,” the other objection also disappears, which is, that since temptations are both unavoidable and necessary to salvation, it seems strange that we should be directed to pray not to be, exposed to them. Here again, several of the literal commentators have seen that the words cannot, in their real design, be intended to deprecate all approach of temptation, but only to entreat that we may not be immersed in it, or swallowed up by it. And this, they say, is involved in the term “into”  – that according to the peculiar force of this expression, as here used, to enter into temptation is to be overcome and carried away by it. Thus to pray, as an early church Patriarch once said, “Suffer us not to be led into temptation,” is quite different from what it would be if we were to say, “Suffer us not to be assailed by temptation;” yet it is through supposing these two phrases to be exactly synonymous that all the difficulty has arisen. The Lord does not direct us to pray not to be exposed to the assaults of temptation, because this would be the same thing as to pray not to be made regenerate, since without temptation regeneration cannot be accomplished; but we are most earnestly to pray not to be suffered to be led into temptation, because if we do come into it, in the Scripture sense of the phrase, we become a one with the tempting agency, by adopting the false and evil suggestion thence presented, and so confirming them that they cannot be removed. Such, assuredly, is the genuine idea intended to be produced by this mode of expression, thought, doubtless, when suffering temptation, the mind is sufficiently ready to desire to have it removed, or to be spared the trial altogether. The only proper sense in which the prayer is authorized by the dictates of genuine truth is, “Suffer us not to be overcome in temptation,” or, “Rescue us from it by giving us the victory.”

We come now to the last petition of this divinely dictated prayer, But deliver us from evil. As the divine form of words delivered by the Lord, as a guide for the devotion of Christians, begins with the contemplation, attended with the veneration, of the supreme good, so does it, after passing through the whole series of intermediate sentiments in the most orderly progression, terminate with the contemplation, attended with the shuddering aversion, of the, principle of evil.

As in its contemplation of the supreme good it elevates the mind to the Lord, even the Lord Jesus Christ, as being that supreme good, and excites our love for him by presenting him as the tender Father of our race, and the beneficent Author of all good to man; so, in adverting to the principle of evil, it regards it as one with the devil and with hell, and presents it as the more an object of dread and horror by identifying it with an existing being, or rather an innumerable assemblage of beings, the very principle of whose life consists in the love of destroying and doing hurt. As this prayer, in the commencement, desires that the Lord’s name may be hallowed, which is the sentiment, in its most direct form, of the pure love of the Lord, so does it close with desiring to be delivered from the opposite of this principle – from evil in its deepest ground, which is the mere love of self. For it is only as self-love is removed, or ceases to exercise its baneful influence on the heart, that the love of the Lord, which is the love of pure goodness, can come into exercise and into actual existence.

Such, in a few words, is the purport of this concluding petition of the Lord’s prayer, as placed in contrast or in parallelism with its first. We say, in contrast or parallelism; for the things prayed against in the latter clauses of the prayer are the exact opposites, respectively, of those prayed for in the clauses which precede; but the sentiments which breathe in these latter petitions themselves, and which deprecate the evil things adverted to, are the exact counterparts or parallels of those which rise towards the Lord, in direct aspirations for good in the former. Thus, as we have just seen, the evil prayed against in the last petition is the exact opposite of the good which is desired in the first aspiration; and thus the request, “Deliver us from evil,” is the proper counterpart of the aspiration, “Hallowed be thy name.” So the petition, “Lead us not into temptation,” which expresses the desire to be rescued from the influence of false principles grounded in evil, is the exact counterpart of the aspiration “Thy kingdom come,” which denotes the desire for the establishment of the empire of truth grounded in goodness; just as falsity grounded in evil and truth grounded in goodness are the perfect opposites of each other. So, again, the petition, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” is the proper counterpart of the aspiration, “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so upon the earth;” since debts and defalcations in regard to the performance of the Lord’s will, or trespasses against it, are the exact opposites to the doing of it; and the sentiment which desires the forgiveness or remission of these debts is the exact counterpart of that which desires that the Lord’s will be done, or that good from him may prevail, in the external man as well as in the internal. The intermediate petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” has not another answering to it, because it is truly intermediate, partaking of the nature of both the other classes; since bread denotes everything whatever which is necessary for the support and preservation of spiritual life, and power to resist the evil by which it would be destroyed. Thus we see, further, what has been shown in explaining the several petitions, how this prayer applies to the wants and sentiments of every faculty and principle of the human mind, internal and external, from the highest to the lowest, including everything that can possibly be required for the establishing of the soul in good, and its withdrawal from evil, and thus for the highest exaltation of human nature; and is suitable for every state which man can experience in the whole process of his regeneration.

The petition now under consideration is not, like that which immediately precedes it, attended with any sort of difficulty, or liable to misapprehension yet the particulars it involves may be set in a clearer light by explanation. First, if viewed in connection with the petition which precedes, and with which its connection is very close, “Lead us not into temptation,” it tends powerfully to remove the obscurity with which this is attended, and to establish the view of its meaning which we have taken. For it is well known that it is customary in many parts of the Holy Word, particularly in those which consist of prayers or praises, to connect two clauses together in such a manner as to appear in the letter to be perfectly synonymous with each other, only expressing the same thing in other words; although such passages are in reality not synonymous, but one of them always expresses something that has relation to the principle of good, and the other to something relating to the principle of truth. To take one of a multitude – the Psalmist, addressing the Lord, says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119:105). Though this sort of parallelism is not so observable in the Lord’s prayer, the clauses of which do not run in pairs, yet it exists most perfectly in the, clauses, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Lead us not into, in the one clause, being exactly equivalent to deliver us from, in the other whence we may conclude that the former phrase is more positive in its sense than the words as they stand in English might induce us to imagine, and that they amount in signification to Rescue us from temptation. So temptation in the one clause answers to evil in the other; whence, again, we may conclude that it is not temptation, considered as a mere trial, that is the thing represented as so dreadful, but the consequence of falling in it, or being overcome by it. The temptation which we are to pray against coming into must be something equivalent to the evil which we pray to be delivered from; which would not be the case if entering into temptation, in Scripture phrase, meant no more than being assaulted by it. We must be assaulted by it, otherwise we can never overcome evil and falsity; and without overcoming them we can never be delivered from them. Without having our evils excited by temptation we should be ignorant that we had any in our nature, and that which is not known cannot be removed.

But that which we specifically pray against in the petition, “Lead us not into temptation,” is the power, dominion, and influence of falsity grounded in evil; but when we add, but deliver us from evil, we pray against the power, dominion, and influence of evil itself. This is going to the root of the tree. Evil is properly the delight and concupiscence of thinking and acting contrary to Divine order, the laws of which are summarily expressed in the precepts of the Decalogue. The seeds of all evils are inherent with every one in his natural or external man, so that the delight of them is natural to him; and if not withheld from acquiring the habit of yielding to them, he is in danger of confirming them, and becoming enslaved to their power. How ardently, then, should we pray, “Deliver its from evil!”

But, as already remarked, there is reason to believe that the idea of evil is here meant to be united with that of an evil being, or rather an assemblage of evil beings, whose very life is the love of destroying and doing hurt. The word here rendered evil is in a form which may equally mean the evil one. In the parable of the sower it is said of one class of recipients, “Then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart;” where the word rendered wicked one is the same as in the last petition of the Lord’s prayer is simply rendered evil. The same occurs in the parable of the tares. In this petition, therefore, we pray also, “Deliver us front the evil one.” In the spiritual idea evil and the devil, or what is the same thing, evil and hell, are a one; or, evil and the whole mass of evil spirits are a one, and they act as one for the destruction of the human soul. Such being the case, nothing but the divine power of the Lord can effect our deliverance. Yet we are not to suppose it is unnecessary or useless for us to attempt to use any resistance. The law of divine order is, that we resist evil or the devil, altogether as if we were able to do so of ourselves, yet heartily acknowledging that all the power of resistance is given us from the Lord, and is the Lord in us. He who does this will not pray to be delivered from evil, or the evil one, in vain.

But, finally, evil in its deepest ground consists in self-love, which is the proper principle of man’s selfhood, from which all other forms of evil have their rise and manifestation. Self-love consists essentially in the desire to rule over others, i.e., to make others subservient to ourselves; and it burns with revenge and hatred against all who do not submit. This is, in fact, the principle which reigns in the lowest hell, into which all descend who make it the ruling principle of their life here, and yield to it without check. Specifically this is the root of all evil which we pray against when we say, “Deliver us from evil.” And he who completely overcomes it, and becomes regenerate even to this part of his external man, in which it has its seat, becomes after death a celestial angel, whose ruling love is the love of the Lord, and the predominant sentiment of whose heart, rising towards him, is expressed in the aspiration, “Hallowed be thy name.” Such is the state of perfection and bliss which is consequent on the complete accomplishment of the prayer which entreats, “Deliver us from evil.” Complete deliverance from evil, and the rejection of evil in its deepest ground, make one with exaltation into the highest angelic good and felicity.

As a close to the whole prayer are added, in the common Bible, the words, For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever Amen. But it is now the general opinion of those who have examined the subject, that this formed no part of the prayer as delivered by the Lord himself; but that it was added as a suitable expression of devotion in the liturgies of the early Christians, and was from thence taken into the text by some of the transcribers. Certain it is that the chief of the most ancient manuscripts and versions are without it; whence it was never generally received till after the Reformation. It is not contained in the Bibles used by the Roman Catholics to this day. But although the words are not, we may conclude, properly a part of the sacred formulary, the sentiment intended to be expressed by them ought to be that of every heart. All ought to acknowledge both that everything true, and everything good, and every blessing that we enjoy, come from the Lord above, and to ascribe them to him in devout veneration and heartfelt gratitude.

This concludes the When Thou Prayest parts I, II, II and IV on COTH Learning Center Private Group.

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