J. Oswald Sanders
The Pattern Prayer
Pray, then, in this way (Matt 6:8)
The Lord’s Prayer was the first specific lesson on prayer that Jesus taught His disciples. They had been listening in to their Master while He was praying, and the experience had kindled in their hearts a yearning to know the same intimacy with the Father that He enjoyed. He answered them by giving them a model, or pattern, for prayer which has become the most widely used of all religious formularies.
It has, however, suffered greatly at the hands of its friends. Some neglect it, some recite it thoughtlessly, some postpone its application to the distant future, and only a minority exhaust its full possibilities.
The Lord foresaw the possibility of its misuse, and in the verses immediately preceding the prayer (Matt 6:5, 7) He warned His disciples of two perils that would beset its use. (1) They were not to pray as the hypocrites did (v 5), who reserved their praying for public occasions. (2) They were not to pray as the heathen did (v 7), merely heaping up empty and meaningless phrases.
The failure to heed this counsel has done more to rob this matchless prayer of its deep significance and blessing than anything else. It is reserved by most only for public recitations, and even then it tends to degenerate into the repetition of familiar words with little thought of their meaning.
While not ruling out its validity as a form of prayer to recite in public services, it is open to question whether this was our Lord’s main objective in giving it. Indeed, the context is, “Go into your inner room, and … shut your door” (v 6). It would appear that it is meant primarily, though not necessarily solely, for private use. Do we use it in private prayer?
In this prayer Jesus laid down the principles governing man’s relationship to God, and these are relevant to believers in every age. It should be noted that He did not say, “Pray in these precise words,” but, “Pray, then, in this way” (v 9). He was giving a pattern, not an inflexible form. The exact words employed may vary greatly while the individual prayer itself conforms to the pattern given.
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS
Several things emerge as we study the prayer in detail (Matt 6:9-13).
- It defines the spirit in which we should pray. It is to be in (a) an unselfish spirit — not “my” but “our”; (b) a filial spirit — “Father”; (c) a reverent spirit — “hallowed be Thy name”; (d) a loyal spirit — “Thy kingdom come”; (e) a submissive spirit — “Thy will be done”; (f) a dependent spirit — “Give us this day our daily bread”; (g) a penitent spirit — “Forgive us our debts”; and (h) a humble spirit — “Do not lead us into temptation.” The spirit in which we pray is much more important than the words in which our prayers are clothed.
- It is brief yet profound. Only fifty-five words, yet what breadth of application and depth of meaning. It reaches the Greek rhetorical ideal of an ocean of truth in a drop of speech. There is no holy loquacity here, only six pointed petitions. Only God could compress so much meaning into so few words.
- It is wonderfully comprehensive. It contrives to embody in embryo every desire of the praying heart. It combines every divine promise and every human aspiration. It summarizes all we should pray for. Nothing promised to the Christian is outside its scope.
- It is of universal application. It covers all the needs common to humanity. It bears no mark of race or creed. People of every class and color have made it the expression of their hearts. It is the one religious formulary that is easily translated into all languages.
- It reveals the priorities to be observed in prayer. It is striking that the prayer is halfway through before the needs and desires of the petitioner are mentioned. This is the divine order, but not always the human practice. The heavenly is to have priority over the earthly.
- God is bound to answer every prayer that conforms to this pattern. Can our prayer be brought within the scope of this prayer? Then it is certain of answer, for the pattern is divinely given.
THE PRAYER ITSELF
Now let us consider the prayer in some detail.
The invocation. “Our Father who art in heaven.” In the place of prayer, selfishness is excluded. This is a prayer for the family of which God is the Father and we are members. God is the Father only of those who have entered His family by way of the new birth.
“Who art in heaven,” someone has quaintly said, is not God’s postal address. It indicates not so much His location as His elevation above man. His complete separation from man’s corruption. “Our Father” awakens love in our hearts; “Who art in heaven engenders awe. And these together constitute worship. The invocation is a blending of intimacy and majesty.
Then follow three petitions concerning God and His glory (vv 9-10).
A concern for His name. “Hallowed be Thy name.” God’s name is His nature, Himself, His personality as revealed in Christ. To hallow anything is to treat it as holy, to hold it in reverence. This petition asks that He Himself will be universally and perpetually held in reverence among men. He is to be given the unique place His name demands. “A Christlike character is the best way of hallowing the name of God.”
This petition has missionary overtones. How can His name be hallowed by people who have never heard it? A true hallowing of His name will result in a passion to make that name known.
A concern for His Kingdom. “Thy kingdom come.” In Jewish thought, the Kingdom means the reign, the sovereignty of God. Why do not all men hallow God’s name? Because they belong to a rival kingdom presided over by the prince of this world. They must first be brought into the Kingdom before they will reverence the King. This, too, has missionary implications.
The loyal disciple has a passion for the spread of His Lord’s sovereignty over the hearts of men here and now, but he also longs to see the rejected Christ enthroned and worshiped by all, and to this end he will pray.
Actually, the tense of the verb “come” points to a climactic, not gradual, coming of His Kingdom. So it is really a prayer for the second advent of Christ, this time as enthroned King.
O the joy to see Thee reigning,
Thee my own beloved Lord;
Every tongue Thy name confessing,
Worship, honor, glory, blessing,
Brought to Thee with one accord. FRANCES FIDLEY HAVERGAL
A concern for His will, and the fulfillment of His purposes on earth. This logically follows the preceding petition. The loyal believer will cherish a deep desire for the achieving of the purpose of God. He does not regard prayer merely as a means of getting his own will done, but as a means of ensuring that God’s will is done in his own life and in that of others.
“Thy will be done,” is not to be a cry of defeated resignation or an outlet for despair. The petition is not “Thy will be borne, or suffered,” but “Thy will be done.”
Sincerity demands that we be prepared for it to be done first in ourselves. The significance of this petition would be, “Enable us to obey Thy revealed will as fully and as joyously as it is done by the angels in heaven.”
We must not forget that in the ultimate, the will of God is a joyous thing. “I delight to do Thy will” (Psalm 40:8). “The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it? (John 18:11). These are expressions of exultation, not gloomy resignation. The will of God is something positively good to be embraced.
Heaven’s music chimes the glad days in,
Hope soars beyond death, pain and sin,
Faith shouts in triumph, Love must win,
Thy will be done. FREDERICK MANN
Then follow three petitions concerning man and his needs (vv 11-13). This section covers the essential needs of man, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. In the three spheres in which he moves. Bread will meet his physical needs in the present. Forgiveness for sins that are past will meet his mental need, for nothing so disturbs the mind as unpardoned sin. Deliverance from the tempter’s power anticipates his spiritual needs in the future.
Bread is provided by a loving Father. Forgiveness is dispensed by the Son. Deliverance and keeping from the evil one are the prerogative of the Holy Spirit. Thus the three Persons of the Trinity unite to meet all the physical, mental, and spiritual needs of the believer in the past, the present, and the future.
Dependence on God’s supply. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Although we have our own needs, we are to be concerned about our needy brothers, and should ask nothing for ourselves that we do not ask for others.
Bread is referred to as “the staff of life,” a staple necessity. In this context it may well stand for whatever is necessary for the maintenance of daily life — our temporal needs. “Daily” can here be rendered, “for the coming day.” If we offer the prayer in the morning, it covers the day already begun. If in the evening, it covers the following day. The meaning is clear. We are to ask for God’s provision for the immediate future. We are to live one day at a time, in dependence on His gracious supply. But man does not live by bread alone. In doing the will of His Father, Jesus found satisfying food to eat of which His disciples knew nothing (John 4:32, 34).
Dependence on God’s mercy. “Forgive us our debts.” The sense of unforgiven sin and guilt, the sense of debtorship, creates turmoil in the mind. There is a hunger of the soul as well as of the body, and it can be appeased only by forgiveness.
“Debts” here is a Jewish metaphor for sin and is elsewhere so used by Jesus. A debt is an obligation incurred — in this case God has placed upon us an obligation that we have failed to discharge. This obligation embraces sins of omission and of commission. We have robbed both God and man of their due. We need forgiveness, and for this we are entirely dependent on God.
It may be asked, But if my sins were all forgiven when I came to the cross of Christ, why is there need to ask for forgiveness again? The answer is that we live in a polluted and defiling world. Although our sins have been fully forgiven and pardoned in the judicial sense because we have exercised faith in Christ, we do sin after conversion, and for these sins we need forgiveness.
There are two aspects of forgiveness.
- Judicial forgiveness is granted by God as moral Governor of the universe because of the atonement of Christ. As a result of this forgiveness we “are justified from all things” (Acts 13:39, KJV. God’s law now has nothing against us.
- Paternal forgiveness is bestowed by our Father upon confessions of our sins: forgiveness within the family.
Christ’s words to Peter illustrate this aspect of forgiveness. When Jesus would wash Peter’s feet, he protested: “Lord, do You wash my feet? … Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.’ Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.’ Jesus said to him, ‘He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean’” (John 13:6-10).
Here Jesus makes a distinction between the bathing of the whole body and the washing of the feet; between regeneration and the daily cleansing and forgiveness for defilement contracted in this defiling world. Sin always breaks fellowship and requires forgiveness.
Not too that the petition is not, “Forgive us our debts because we forgive others,” but even as we have forgiven others. The channel of paternal forgiveness is blocked as long as we do not forgive our brothers.
Dependence on God’s power. “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil (or ‘the evil one’)” (v 13, marg.). This is a double-barreled request. Temptation in Scripture is used in two senses. It can mean either “trial, testing,” or “incitement to evil.” James assures us God never incites to evil (James 1:13), so in relation to God, the word carries the first meaning, “trial, or testing.” God subjects His children to testing to eliminate the dross from the gold in their characters and to strengthen and establish them in holiness. The devil tempts in order to induce them to fall into sin.
So this petition is primarily a prayer for protection in time of testing and danger, when we are open to attacks from the evil one; and secondarily it is a prayer for deliverance when enticed by him to sin.
“Do not lead us into temptation” voices the human shrinking from testings which hold the possibility of failure and falling into sin. “Deliver us from the evil one” is a cry for deliverance in the hour of temptation to evil.
Taken together, the double petition would mean, “Father, spare me this trial, but if in Your wisdom You see it to be necessary for Your glory and my spiritual development, give me the strength to come through it triumphantly and unscathed in the conflict with the evil one.” It is, however, a vain exercise to pray, “Do not lead us into temptation,” if we voluntarily and unnecessarily place ourselves in situations where we shall find it easy to sin.
The Doxology. “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”
Although this doxology does not appear in the main manuscripts from which the New Testament in translated, it was used by the Church from very early times. It appears in the Didache, an early Church document of the second century. Although apparently not a part of the prayer as the Lord gave it, it is entirely in keeping with its spirit, and affords a fitting climax of adoration to this, the incomparable prayer.
PRAYER
O Thou who art the only begotten Son, teach us to pray, “Our Father.” We thank Thee, Lord, for these living, blessed words which Thou hast given us. We thank Thee for the millions who in them have learnt to know and worship the Father, and for what they have been to us. We look to Thee to lead us deeper into their meaning: do it, we pray Thee, for Thy Name’s sake. ANDREW MURRAY
QUESTIONS
- How is it possible to retain freshness in a prayer with which we are so familiar?
- Occasionally check your own prayers to see if you are really following the pattern of prayer the Lord gave.
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