Matthew 6:5-15
The subject of prayer is so important that I might would compare the practice of it as the life blood of the Christian life. I wish to discuss with you the subject of prayer in regards to our attitude toward it, its various essentials, the efficacious, its nature and use, how it must be offered in the practice of it.
This treatise is taken from our Lord’s discourse on the subject from Matthew, sixth chapter, verses five through fifteen, examined verse by verse. This will be broken up in sections so as to make it more readable.
It is my prayer that you will find this subject, as it is presented, to be serviceable to your spiritual need as you hunger and thirst after more of Him, our lovely Lord and precious Savior.
God bless you richly as you turn your thoughts and affections toward this matter.
Verse 6
Pharisaic worship is to be shunned by every true disciple of the Lord. He is to seek the favor of the Lord alone. No view to any merely external advantage is to be made the end of his devotions. He is to worship primarily from the internal man, and by internal worship give a spiritual and internal nature even to its outward expressions. Therefore the Lord says,But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. By the direction to enter into the closet is not meant that all worship is to be performed in solitude. The closet is here put to signify the interior recesses of the mind. We are to worship the Lord from the internal man, and thus from states of inward faith and love, and not from the external man and his natural desires.
Therefore we are also commanded to shut the door, which means to exclude all the influences that arise from the body and the world – to shut out completely every suggestion and desire that arises from below, and to seek the blessing of our Father, that is, of the Lord as pure Divine Love, who is only to be approached in such states of interior affection and spiritual desire, and who has his residence in secret, in the inmost recesses of the purified soul. The blessings of which we shall be made partakers will, while here, be stored up in the interiors of the mind; but when we depart hence, we shall enter into their manifest enjoyment and full fruition. Our Father, who seeth in secret, and who notes every desire and aspiration truly directed to him, will, we may be assured, reward us openly. But even in this world we shall not be entirely without our open reward. Heavenly graces will be drawn down from the Lord in the internal man into the external by every act of true worship, and we shall be made partakers more and more fully of our heavenly Father’s love.
Verses 7, 8:
Having entered into our closet, and shut the door, we must attend to the matter of the prayer we offer up to our Father in heaven. On this important point our Lord says, But when ye pray use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. As the word rendered “vain repetitions” occurs in no other passage in the New Testament, and, according to one commentary, only once in any classical author, its precise meaning is not easily determined. The context, however, sufficiently shows its meaning. It evidently includes the idea of “much speaking,” for which the heathen “think they shall be heard;” and it probably includes also the idea of asking many particular things; since one reason for our not being like the heathen in our prayers is, that your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. In both these particulars our Lord’s own prayer, which he delivered to his disciples as an example, is instructive.
Few things are asked in few words. Even in its simple literal sense it craves but one blessing for the body; all the others are for the soul. The Lord’s prayer is no doubt to be our pattern, though its use does not exclude that of other suitable forms. In itself it includes all – all that we can think or ask; but this in its spiritual sense. It certainly most emphatically teaches us that we should not approach the Divine Being with long, unmeaning, or worldly-minded prayers. But these exhortations have some deeper meaning than that which the letter expresses. It will be observed that the Lord first warns us against the practices of the hypocrites, and then against that of the heathen. The hypocrites are those who do not pray, but only pretend to pray; the heathen pray, but are mistaken in the nature and objects of prayer. The hypocrites represent those who are in truth without good; and the heathen represent those who are in good without truth. This good is what is called spurious good. It is not false and deceitful like that of the hypocrites, but it is natural, and therefore impure and misdirected. Truth is that which purifies good and makes it spiritual. And by the good we here speak of we are to understand the good of well-disposed persons, who yet have not the truth which is necessary to direct their good dispositions to their proper objects, by the use of proper means. Such persons are liable to think they shall be heard for much speaking, and who use vain repetition, and think more of the body in their prayers than of the soul. Be not ye therefore like unto them. Our prayers are not only to be sincere, but intelligent and spiritual asking always to be supplied according to the Divine will and wisdom, and not according to our own, except so far as our own are in harmony with those of our heavenly Father. The divine prayer which he himself taught us we now come to consider.
Verse 9:
After this manner therefore pray ye: OUR FATHER. What an inexpressible charm is included in this affecting and tender commencement, especially when it is borne in mind that it is the Lord himself who authorizes and prescribes the form of approaching him, and commands us to think of and address him as Our Father! What an evidence is there, and an example, in this instance alone, of the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ – of the nearer and perceptibly kinder relation which the Infinite and Most Holy Creator assumed towards his creatures when he himself assumed humanity for their redemption! In the Old Testament there are a few instances of the Lord being spoken of as the Father of his people; but it is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, in his Divine Humanity, that the Eternal Creator can be truly known as the Father of those who call upon him. The natural idea conveyed in the title of Father is, that he is the Author of our existence. This is the most general idea which is presented when we are instructed to call upon the Divine Being as Our Father. Yet every one of any feeling perceives that there is something involved in the epithet more than this, and associates with the title the notion of paternal tenderness and care. This arises from an obscure perception which all have of the spiritual sense of the term Father, – of the spiritual reality which answers by exact correspondence to the natural relationship of a Father. The Lord is called Our Father in reference to that primary constituent of his essence, the Divine Love. Divine Love is the universal parent. It was to satisfy the yearnings of divine love, and the intense desire inherent in it to impart itself to others, and to bless them from the infinite fountain of beatitude in itself, that all creation was produced. For all the natural creation is produced for the sake of man, or that man might have the means of existence. And man was produced that heaven might exist, to be peopled with human beings, exalted to all the perfection and blessedness of which a created nature is capable, and enjoying these blessings by conjunction with the Lord and the fruition of his love. That the Divine Love is what is specifically meant when he is called our Father is thus sufficiently obvious from rational considerations and it is affirmed, almost in express terms, in the Holy Word. The psalmist says, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him;” where the word rendered “pitieth” is one which denotes the deepest tenderness and mercy, which are the feelings of the softest love. We are thus to look at him, to our inexpressible comfort, as actuated by these emotions towards us, when we are encouraged to address him in prayer as our Father.
But we are instructed to address the Object of our worship not only as our Father, but as our Father who art in the heavens. As with respect to the Lord, the inmost Divine Essence, which is the same as the Divine Love, is called the Father – the Divine Existence or manifestation which is the same as the Divine Truth, is what is called the Son; so the whole Divinity, only as existing in and manifested by the Divine Humanity of Jesus Christ, is “our Father,” and only by communications of spiritual graces thence can we be sons of God; as it is written, “To as many as received him, to them gave HE power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed in his name.” This is expressly indicated when He whom we are to address is defined to be “our Father who art in the heavens.” For the Father in the heavens is specifically the Divine Truth, the sphere of which fills all the heavens, and is the source of all the perfection and blessedness that the heavenly inhabitants enjoy. And it is only the Divine Humanity of the Lord which is thus in the heavens which there is known, experienced, and worshiped, and which fills the inhabitants with their angelic endowments, for the Essential Divine Principle, which Jesus Christ calls his Father, is utterly incomprehensible to angelic as well as to human minds.
But who is it that we are to address as our Father? What is the NAME by which he has been manifested to us, and in what person has he revealed himself to us, and evinced that he is actuated by a Father’s tenderness? It is only when clothed with humanity that we can truly know him in this character; it was when he actually assumed humanity that he first instructed us to address him as our Father. When he is spoken of or addressed by this title in the Old Testament, it is done prophetically, and in the anticipation of his drawing near to man, by taking on him human nature and becoming a redeemer. It is true, indeed, that he was the Father of his creatures from eternity, and it is because he was so that they were called into existence. Yet he could not be fully known in all the nearness and tenderness of this relationship till he had put on the humanity for the purpose. “No man (says the Lord) knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” So when Philip desired to see the Father, Jesus referred him to himself, and said, “Have I been so long time with thee, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou, then, Show us the Father!” Although, then, the divine principle specifically called the Son is not the same as that called the Father, yet when the union between the divinity and humanity was fully effected, that Union was so complete that they formed but one person, and the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt in the person of Jesus Christ. It is therefore a great error to suppose that he whom we are commanded to address in the Lord’s prayer as our Father is any other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He, after his glorification, is the Father as well as the Son. Hence he speaks of himself (when he speaks without a parable) as the Father. So, when the prophet announces his expected birth, saying, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given,” he not only affirms that “the government shall be upon his shoulder,” and gives him the titles, “Wonderful, Counselor, and the Mighty God,” but he declares him also to be, “the everlasting Father.” So when the same prophet addresses him as the Father it is when the Lord Jesus Christ is meant, because he is addressed at the same time as the Redeemer: “Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.” The NAME of the Father, which the Lord teaches his people to pray may be hallowed, is the humanity in which Jehovah appeared in the world, and in which he now dwells. The humanity is called the Divine name, because it was in it that God was manifested, or came forth to view, that in the supreme sense Jesus is meant by the NAME of Jehovah, is evident from his own words. “Jesus said, Father, glorify thy name: there came a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” In this form our Lord prayed for the glorification of his humanity, because this is truly the name of God, meaning by a name that by which God is known to angels and men. The Lord prayed that the Father’s name might be glorified, and he requires us to pray that it may be hallowed. God glorified his name when he glorified his humanity; and we hallow his name when we acknowledge the sanctity and divinity of his humanity. And this acknowledgment is to be made for the sake of worship. It is the glory of the Christian religion that it enables us to worship a visible God. The Essential Divinity itself – that divine principle which Jesus Christ calls his Father – is utterly unapproachable by angelic as well as human minds. The humanity is the name by which the otherwise incomprehensible Divinity is known and worshiped. The end of divine worship is, that we may be like the Object of our worship. For no other purpose does God require us to worship him. Our homage can add nothing to his glory it is only useful as it sheds his glory upon us. How reasonable, on this ground, is the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ! Not only is he a visible and comprehensible Object, but he is the Pattern, as he is the Fountain, of all perfection – a perfection that has been manifested in a life such as that by which we are to serve him, and by which we are to worship him; for we worship him when we live to his glory, as truly as when we bow in the profoundest humiliation before him. As all the good and blessing with which the human soul can be recreated solely proceeds from the Divine Humanity of the Lord, and can only be given to those who are in the sincere acknowledgement of its divinity, therefore the devout veneration of the Lord’s humanity must be the center of all true and acceptable worship. It is the peculiar sentiment of the angels of the highest heavens, and to the inmost faculties of the regenerate human mind. Of every prayer that we can offer, this sentiment must form the soul, and, whether expressed in words or not, must have existence and life within, to give acceptableness and efficacy to all our petitions. Therefore the Lord’s prayer opens its petitions with the expression of this sentiment, in the words Hallowed be thy name. And who can think of the mercy of the Lord in assuming human nature even to the uttermost, or as to the lowest principles in which it exists in man in the world, for the sake of accomplishing in it a work or redemption, and of making it the medium of communicating to us the qualities of the heart and mind, as to truth and goodness, in which is salvation, which is truly the giving to its the power to become the sons of God; – who can think of such blessings, of which the Lord Jesus Christ in his Divine Humanity is the Author, without most sincerely venerating and hallowing his blessed name!
Continued…..
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