THE LORD'S PRAYER
THE LORD’S PRAYER
We cannot but conclude that the Lord in complying with His disciples’ request - “Teach us to pray” (Luke 11: 1) - did so with full consideration of their state of intelligence at the time, and therefore the prayer was in accordance with that state; so that we may understand their state from the prayer which the Lord taught them. If suitable for their state at that time, before the death of Christ, and before the gift of the Holy Spirit, it must be evident that it could not be suitable after they had known the blessings of redemption and their union with the risen Christ. In this prayer there is a knowledge of the Father, because Christ was declaring Him on earth, but His will had not been yet done. Christ came to do His will, and now He has done it; so that we could not now pray for it to be done though it was right for the disciples to pray that it might be done. Besides, there is no knowledge of forgiveness of sins; it is looking for forgiveness on the ground of work rather than rejoicing in it. It is a prayer regarding man in the flesh rather than in the Spirit. Christ and the Spirit are in no way referred to in this prayer, and this is consistent, for Christ had not yet finished His work, and therefore does not lead their souls into it, and as the Holy Spirit had not come He finds no place in it. The prayer suited the disciples, and shows us where they were. If a soul now goes back to their state, then the prayer will suit it; but the soul using [p. 134] it intelligently must feel that he has neither forgiveness of sins nor the life of Christ, in which through the Spirit he is free from the law of sin and death. Instead of growing up into Christ and reaching unto ‘perfection’, this prayer is to get daily bread, to escape from temptation, and for deliverance from evil - all necessary in their place, but not occupying the soul with the higher subjects of christianity. And if these, in a word, if christianity, had a place in their prayer, it would manifestly have been unsuited to the disciples; and inasmuch as christianity is left out, it cannot be a prayer suitable for christians. True prayer is the desire of my heart corresponding to God’s desires for me; those desires finding expression in my soul, and I looking unto God to accomplish them.
I might use the prayer of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4: 10), but I could not say that it was a model prayer for christians.