THE TRINITY IN PRAYER 1. The Holy Spirit is our intercessor. Jesus described Him as what the Greek terms alos parakletos (One Just Like Me). When we have done as much as we can to make our prayers presentable to a King, they will still be awkward and uncouth. We need help to speak the language of the court of heaven. For this reason God gives us a helper in the person of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26-7). He takes our fumbling attempts at prayer and reworks them so that both in form and content they will be suitable for utterance in the Fathers presence. He edits out anything that might give offense, and sharpens our requests so that they seek real benefits. 2. The Father is the One who answers. In the model prayer that Jesus provided, He directed us to begin, Our Father (Matt. 6:9). It is the Father who hears and weighs our requests and then designs an answer according to His will (Matt. 6:8). Moreover, if the answer requires heavenly intervention in human affairs, He is the One who issues the executive order. Is it therefore wrong to pray to other members of the Trinity? Certainly not. The last prayer of the Bible addresses Jesus (Rev. 22:20). But this prayer is essentially an expression of love—we love Him so much that we cannot wait to see Him. To direct love and praise to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit is never wrong. It is not even wrong to raise petitions to Jesus or the Holy Spirit. A child may ask Jesus to come into his heart. In our hymns we ask the Holy Spirit to fill and control us. But we should understand that such petitions ultimately go to the Father for His disposal. Both the Son and the Holy Spirit are wholly subservient to the will of the Father. The Bible teaches that the Father grants salvation (2 Tim. 2:25) and gives the Spirit (Luke 11:13). 3. The Son is our advocate (1 John 2:1). If we know Jesus, our sins have been blotted out. We are, as it were, clothed with Jesus, so that when the Father looks at us, He sees the Son in His perfection rather than us in our sinfulness (Gal. 3:27). Except for our identification with Jesus, the Father would not hear our prayers. We would have no standing before Him. For this reason, in obedience to what Jesus Himself taught us, we pray in Jesus name (John 16:23, 24, 26). When we do, Jesus pleads on our behalf, saying, Do this for my sake. What does it mean to pray in Jesus name? Many Christians feel that when praying we must explicitly acknowledge that Jesus is our sole avenue to the Father, and so they conclude every prayer with the phrase, In Jesus name, Amen. Many others feel that the requirement to pray in Jesus name merely means that we must first establish a relationship with Christ before we try to pray. Yet Jesus says nothing to suggest that we should not take Him literally when He commands us to pray in His name. Thus, it seems to me that to use the traditional closing phrase is a wise course, if only to remind us that except for Jesus, we would have no access to the throne. Those who only say In thy name seem to be confusing persons of the Trinity—a common mistake in prayer. The pronoun Thy refers to the Father if the Father is the person addressed at the beginning. Failure to distinguish the persons of the Trinity when praying often leads to creative theology. How often have I heard someone deep in prayer saying, Thank you, Father, for dying on the cross for my sins! Such a sincere prayer but so profoundly wrong!
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:02:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015