01.D 03. Praying in The Name of Christ
III PRAYING IN THE NAME OF CHRIST “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.” — John 14:13. A second condition of prayer Jesus sets forth in the Scripture quoted above.
Prayer, in order to prevail, must be made in the name of Christ. No less than six times in close succession (John 14:13; John 14:14; John 15:16; John 16:23; John 16:24; John 16:26) He mentions it “m my name/* as though the disciples were slow to understand and He longed to have them know, and we as well, the all-prevailing power His name contained to secure the favor of God. But what does it mean to pray in the name of Christ? To pray in the name of Christ means, no doubt, that we go to God in His name and not in our own. What is a name? It is a designation which calls to our mind the person bearing it; it sums up the knowledge we possess of a being and stands for what he is and has done. This is at least the meaning Scripture has given to the term.
Thus, when Jesus says, ’T have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world” (John 17:6), He meant that He had manifested to them all that God is in Himself and in His relations; the full divine character. Thus, to believe “in the name of the only begotten Son of God” means to meaning of believe in the person of Christ in all that He is and has done and lives to do. The name stands for all that goes to make up a personality.
Now, to do anything in the name of another is to do it as his representative and with the authority and power which belongs to him in virtue of who and what he is. This is precisely what Jesus meant when He said, ’T am come in my Father’s name and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him will ye receive” (John 5:43). This is what he meant when He said, “The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me” (John 10:25). When, therefore, we are privileged to pray in the Name of Christ, the most evident meaning is that we have been granted permission to use that Name as the ground upon which to urge our plea before God. And why is the Name of Christ of any value in securing for us the favor of God.^ Because the Name stands for the One whose it is, for His glorious person. His atoning work and His ever-continuing intercession, and God will have respect to our petition for the sake of such a One if we truly come in His Name. When I use another’s name I practically discard my own name as being of no value in securing what I want; and why? Because my name stands for me, and what is there in me to put the Almighty under obligation to send down His favors from on high? To go to God in my own name is to go as did the Pharisee. Five times in his few short sentences he used the pronoun “I” to tell God who he was and what he had done. After all, he was only out on parade. He really went up to the temple to brag and not to pray; he asked for nothing, and got what he asked for. But when the publican prayed he prayed as every sinner ought to pray; with a becoming sense of his own worthlessness he plead the atoning merits of his Christ. To pray in the Name of Christ is primarily to plead favor on the ground of Christ’s merits and none other.
Mr. Torrey has made this part of the subject plain by the use of a very simple illustration. He says, “If I go to a bank and hand in a check with my name signed to it I ask of that bank in my own name.
If I have money deposited in that bank the check will be cashed; if not, it will not be. If, however, I go to a bank with somebody’s else name signed to the check I am asking in his name, and it does not matter whether I have money in that bank or any other, if the person whose name is signed to the check has money there, the check will be cashed. So it is when I go to the bank of heaven, when I go to God in prayer. I have nothing deposited there, I have absolutely no credit there, and if I go in my own name I will get absolutely nothing; but Jesus Christ has unlimited credit in heaven, and He has granted me the privilege of going to the bank with His name on my checks, and when I thus go, my prayers will be honored to any extent.” Sweet privilege! Praying in the Name of Christ. It was *’by Christ Jesus,” Paul said, that “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory.” But there is something more to praying in the name of Christ than this. The free An use of another’s name certainly implies some intimate relationship between the one who gives his name and the one who is privileged to act in it. The only question which has divided opinion is whether such an idea actually resides in the phrase itself, “in my Name,” or whether it is an idea to be gathered from what genuine prayer in that Name involves. Critical scholarship seems to preponderate in favor of the first opinion, and hence would have us believe that to pray in the Name of Christ means at once to pray in His Spirit, with His mind and in His nature. (Tholuck, Lange, Olshausen, Alford, Stier, Jukes, Murray.) If this be true it appears at once to be not unlike the condition we previously discussed where we saw that to pray with power was the privilege only of him who was abiding in Christ and had Christ’s Spirit and Christ’s Mind abiding in him. That this view is not without argument in its favor is evident from what we saw to be expressed in a name. What a profound thing this makes praying in the Name of Christ to be! But in spite of all that one can say, it is not easy to depart from the old conception of praying on the basis of the Saviour’s merits, and since this conception so plainly inheres in the phrase and since pleading in prayer the Name of Christ as the meritorious cause of our acceptance necessarily implies all this other view maintains, which, vice versa, would not be true, it seems best to adhere to the old interpretation and to bring in this other idea as its natural consequence.
Thus we see that praying in the Name of Christ is not so easy an achievement as some may be inclined to think. As Henry Clay Trumbull has said, “It is not our saying, but our showing, that what we ask is in the Name of Jesus, that God notes and takes into account.” It is the place which the Name has in my life that determines the power it is to have in my prayer.
It is a mighty privilege — to pray in the Name of Christ. It behooves us, therefore, to think for a while what is implied in the use of that phrase and who has a right to use it. We recall how certain unworthy characters “took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth,” and the evil spirit thus adjured answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” and the occasion resulted disastrously for those who unworthily and fraudulently sought to make use of that great and blessed Name.
We have already remarked that the use of one person’s name by another implies some intimate relationship between them. It, in fact, supposes a community of interests. Would you be willing to grant me the unqualified use of your name to use it when and for whatever purpose I chose, un less you felt that your honor and your interests were as safe with me as with yourself? And think you the Lord of heaven could trust His all-powerful Name with any one out of harmony with His Spirit or in whose hands the interests of His kingdom would not be secure? The use of another’s name supposes the surrender of my individual interests to his interests or to such interests as are common to us both by virtue of the union existing between us. When an officer collects money in the name of the government it is not to fill his own purse, but for the government’s sake; when he makes an arrest in the name of the state it is not for personal spite, but in the interest of the commonwealth.
Andrew Murray, in his splendid volume, “The School of Prayer,” shows the right to use another’s name in virtue of a threshold union. It will be helpful just here.
1. A legal union. When a merchant, before going on an extended vacation, gives to his partner or even to his clerk the power of attorney to use his name in the transaction of business, involving the right to draw upon it for thousands of dollars when necessary, it is understood that that name be used only in the interests of the business, and it is because he can trust this second party to be faithful to the interests involved that he puts his name and his property at his command.
2. A life union. A son bears his father’s name because he has his life, and his father’s friends will honor and help him when he comes to them in his name, if he be found with his father’s character and not seeking anything destructive to his father’s interests.
3. A union of love. The bride gives up her name to wear that of the bridegroom. So he, having chosen her for himself, gives to her his name and counts on her to use it only for his interests, for being now one his interests are hers as well.
All this is true of us in using me name of Christ.
1. Having gone back to heaven Christ has committed to us the interests of His kingdom, with full power of attorney, so to speak, to use His Name in drawing supplies for the advancement of His business and in so far as our lives are yielded to the interests of the kingdom (and these interests are always ours if we only knew it), so far may we plead His Name trustingly and confidingly, for it will set open for us the very treasure house of heaven.
2. Christ and the believer are one; having His life we bear His Name and in proportion as we have His character and are in harmony with His Spirit we may expect to prevail with God in the use of His Name.
3. Being united in a love-union with the Heavenly Bridegroom, His interests have become mine, and in so far as I give myself to living in my new Name does that Name become the all-prevailing plea in which I may ask and receive whatsoever I will.
Thus we see, after all, what depths of meaning there is to praying in the Name of Christ. It is no mere saying, “For Jesus’ sake,” as though that were some magic formula but it is to pray in union with the life and mind of Christ. If He has bid me pray in His Name it must be a prayer which He can endorse.
Such a prayer I cannot make save as the Holy Spirit teach me the art. He must keep my heart fixed on Jesus whose atoning merit is the only open way to God.
He must reveal to me the full meaning of the name of Jesus and help me to make it supreme in my life, for if my life has anything to do with my prayer how can my prayer fulfill the condition of power save as my life is open to the influence of Him who alone can make it what it ought to be. Oh, Christian, take it to heart: You cannot pray aright without the Holy Spirit. “Hitherto,” said Jesus, *’ye have asked nothing in my name. In that day ye shall ask in my Name.” In what day? In the day when He Himself came back in the Holy Spirit to dwell in the believer’s heart, and “in that day,” which is this day, when the Holy Spirit, who came to “teach us all things,” is given the supreme control in our lives we will be able to go to the Father in the name of Him whom we represent and say, “Father, this is His wish for me,” and when the Father discovers in the tones of our voice and the throbbings of our hearts our love and likeness to His Son, for the sake of that dear Son whatsoever we ask He will do it. Oh, let us lay hold of this precious truth.
It is said that when Queen Elizabeth was in power in England that she gave to her friend and lover, the Earl of Essex, a ring set with a most precious stone, and told him that in case he ever came into any place of need or personal trouble, if he would send to her the ring he should have her help and her deliverance, no matter what the circumstance might be that brought him into unpleasant straights. Some years after it so came to pass that the Earl fell into the displeasure of the authorities. He had likewise become estranged from the queen, and the outcome of it was that he was condemned to the block. He sent up Praying in the Name of Christ the all-powerful ring to the queen, but no help came from the throne and the man was beheaded. But all the while the queen had waited patiently for the ring, and it was discovered after the execution that through the intervention of an enemy it was hidden from her. Such a ring God has given us, set with a Name that is sweeter and more costly than any diamond or precious stone. Let us send it up for, blessed be God, He will not disown it nor can any power in heaven or earth or hell keep it from Him.