In honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s ninety-second birthday, a concert featuring various notable performers was held at the Royal Albert Hall in May of this year. One of the performers, Shawn Mendes, went on to describe his brief meeting with the queen as terribly awkward: “I was just standing there—you’re not meant to talk to her first; you wait for her to talk to you—but she just stood there for ten minutes and didn’t say anything!”
If meeting the queen (or any notable celebrity one holds in high regard) is awkward, then it makes sense that Isaiah would fall on his face and cry “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” when confronted by the angel of the Lord (a theophanic appearance of the Holy Spirit). Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look upon God; Mary was greatly troubled when the angel of the Lord appeared to her and announced her pregnancy. The biblical accounts of mortals coming face-to-face with the Creator of the Universe don’t describe gushing expressions of adoration as much as they recount terrifying encounters with a being wholly unlike themselves in essence and in holiness.
How then should we—a people who are both commanded and invited into the presence of the Lord every Sunday—approach the Triune God? There is a familiarity with which he endears himself as well as a respect he requires. How do we revere him in his transcendence while adoring him in his imminence? Isaiah was certainly frightened, but he was comforted when the angel took the burning coal and touched his lips, signifying the forgiveness of his sins. The Lord himself instructed Moses on how he should approach him, and the angel told Mary not to be afraid. The fact that we worship a loving God who willingly accommodates our creaturely limitations and provides for our sinful proclivities is one of the greatest comforts of our Christian life. We see the greatest example of this in Jesus, who emptied himself of the glory of communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit and took the form of a servant—not only to teach us how to pray but to make it possible for us to enter into the divine presence. In him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we approach the Father—not as Moses or Isaiah or Mary did, in fear and trembling—but with boldness and confidence, comforted that Christ’s blood covers our sins, and sure in the knowledge that our prayers are not just countenanced but welcomed. A while back, the hosts of White Horse Inn got together to discuss all the varying aspects of the Lord’s Prayer: how we are able to approach God in his glory; what constitutes a specifically Christian prayer; what we pray for; and why we pray for it.
MH: First of all, in terms of its context, the Lord’s Prayer is quite interesting. Jesus told his disciples not to be like the Pharisees who make a public show of their piety but rather to be sincere when they go to God. They’re not doing this for themselves so that they may be seen in prayer. They’re doing this because they’re actually going to talk to God, because God has something to give them. What is so different and new in the whole history of prayer in the Bible by addressing God as Father?
KJ: The concept of intimacy. This is the sovereign Creator of the universe, this is the judge, this is the thrice-holy God. But yet, by virtue of our union with Christ, there is an intimacy we have with him as a beloved Father. So we’re not going to him as judge but as dependent children to our Father—and that single note of intimacy is a complete paradigm shift from what we were and are in our fallen state.
KR: How do we relate to a God who is utterly transcendent, who has condescended to reveal himself to us? We relate to him as a father.
MH: Isn’t that the paradox? “Our Father, who art in heaven.” We don’t waltz into his presence just because we’re nice people, or because he’s the great sugar daddy in the sky. He’s exalted on his throne in heaven, and yet we are invited to call him our father. This is not a relationship that people have naturally, born into the world.
KJ: That’s why you’re not just going as a creature; you’re not just going as a plaintiff; you’re not going as someone who’s looking to get something from this unknown or unknowable deity. You’re going before the Creator of the universe who happens to be your father by virtue of your relationship to Christ.
MH: Because you’re adopted. Doesn’t it also underscore that true prayer is Trinitarian? We pray to the Father in the Son by the Spirit. Now, of course, not all of that is packed into this prayer. It’s assumed, and it certainly is unpacked in the Epistles: lots of the prayers, the benedictions, the salutations, not to mention the baptism formula—are in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. What are some of the contemporary challenges to prayer? Let’s talk first about false immanence—that kind of greasy familiarity.
KR: I think that’s the first thing we have to discuss. We hear lots of people say that the Greek word here for “father” (pater) is similar to the Aramaic Abba, so this is an intimate term like “Daddy.” This is indeed an intimate term, but as this is a term adults would use; we don’t want to say “Daddy.” “Father” is pretty appropriate. There is an intimacy in that I can call this God “Father,” and yet there’s also this sense that he has condescended to me. The only way I can call him “Father” is because of his gracious act toward me. Other than that, I have no right to call him this.
MH: That’s a big one, isn’t it, because there’s a false immanence—meaning there’s a nearness to the point even of God being one of us, apart from the incarnation. The other is a false transcendence, sort of like deism, where God is like the absentee father. Although he created the world, why would I pray to him about the cut on my leg? One seems to be instant gratification—that is, you can make that happen more easily than wait for or depend on God to bring something about. We see this all around us: on Sunday I pray, while on Monday I believe the invisible hand of the market has my destiny in its hands.
KJ: Even though the first petition, “Our Father,” indicates intimacy, he’s still heavenly. So there is this sense of reverence that still goes with that intimacy; and as you indicated, I think the danger or the error many have fallen into is overfamiliarity, where there’s a loss of the reverence for God—a flippancy.
MH: What about the fact that God so graciously condescends to work through means in our everyday life, which we’ll talk about when we get to “give us this day our daily bread”? On this point, Martin Luther said that God works through masks. The baker who makes our daily bread is a mask of God. It’s not that we get our daily bread from the baker; we get it from God through the baker.
KJ: Or through the farmer who plants the grain and harvests it.
MH: The irony of it all, however, is that God in his graciousness reaches down through all these layers of creaturely mediation in order to give us stuff, and we end up worshipping the layers of mediation (the things he gives us) instead of God. It’s all meant to raise us up in thanksgiving to him, but we easily worship the technology, whatever makes our lives easier, simpler. One of the factors that pushes prayer out of things in my life is the illusion of self-sufficiency that I have—when I look around and say it would be more practical for me to use this time to do something with this technology or with that over there, or call this person and fix that, than it does really to go to my Father.
KJ: I’m reminded of a preacher I once heard in Nigeria. He says that in Africa nothing works, so they have a tendency to worship those who can make things work. In the West, everything works, so we have a tendency to worship the things that work.
MH: Without reverence, we think that we can waltz into God’s holy presence without calling on the name of the God who has revealed himself in his word, and without the Mediator he has given us for safe passage into his presence.
KR: It’s a dangerous thing to be in God’s presence apart from a mediator; it’s called judgment.
MH: Which reminds us of Isaiah 6 and the vision of God and his holiness; Isaiah needs to be forgiven before he can withstand this vision.
KR: There has to be a bloody cross and an empty tomb in order for me to call God my father.
KJ: In Psalm 50, God says that it’s not the offerings he wants from us. We can go ahead and offer them, but that’s not where the problem lies. He does, however, command his people to offer the praise of thanksgiving. So the reason we can come into his presence is because a blood sacrifice has been offered in the person of Christ, and therefore we give to him thanks and adoration because of what he has given—not only in those things that we petition him for but primarily in what he has given us in Christ. That’s what gives us access.
MH: So when we pray, we cannot abide a prayer that is not Trinitarian. In other words, we cannot pray a prayer with non-Christians. We pray first of all as his adopted children, which happens only through faith in Christ. We do not pray to God. We pray to the Father in the Son through the Spirit; if there’s any other kind of prayer, then we’re not participating.
RR: I think it would be wonderful if those who believe the historic Christian faith would say thanks but no thanks.
MH: That itself would be a witness. We think it would be a witness for us to join in that public civil religion, but it’s actually an anti-witness, a false witness. It would be more of a witness to say that we can’t do it.
RR: You could be civil, be polite, thank them for the invitation, do all of that—and decline.
KR: Since we are pastors, we get invited to the city council meetings where we live. As a Christian, I can go and pray for the city, but I can’t participate with anybody else in that prayer. And if anybody tells me I can’t pray in the name of Christ, then I’m not coming.
MH: So what do you do at the dinner table if you have non-Christians gathered for the holidays or for a meal? Do you pray as you normally do with your family?
RR: I’m with Kim. If I’m asked to do that, it’s going to be through the name of the one who mediated.
KR: I have non-Christian family members, and I will pray and give thanks and thank God for them and for their participation, in the name of Christ. It’s not a witness. In that case, I’m giving my thanks for them and for that day.
MH: Remember, this is a prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray. They came to him and asked him for a form for proper prayer. Jesus does that, as was traditional in those days, but not by giving them a lecture on prayer and what it means (“and here are four principles”): he gave them a prayer. He says, this is a prayer and this is how you should pray. It’s marvelous how there’s nothing left out of this prayer. If you think of what prayer includes, in this very short prayer, we could pray all sorts of words that aren’t in the Lord’s Prayer. But there is nothing that is the basic structure of any prayer that is left out of this prayer. It’s really amazing. When he says, “Our Father,” not everybody, even Christians, would be comfortable with that. In Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Eerdmans, 1976), D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones really strikes at the heart of this:
“Our Father.” Yes; but because of our debased conception of fatherhood, He hastens to say, “Our Father which art in Heaven,” the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the kind of Father we have.
But there are many people who are in this world, alas, to whom the idea of fatherhood is not one of love. Imagine a little boy who is the son of a father who’s a drunkard and a wife beater, and who is nothing but a cruel beast. That little boy knows nothing in life but constant and underserved thrashings and kickings. He sees his father spend all his money on himself and his lust, while he himself has to starve. That is his idea of fatherhood. If you tell him that God is his father and leave it to that, it is not very helpful, and it is not very kind. The poor boy of necessity has a wrong idea of fatherhood. That is his notion of a father, a man who behaves like that. So our human, sinful notions of fatherhood need constant correction.
Let’s not take it for granted, therefore, that everybody can pray “Our Father” and have intimacy.
RR: Luther says, “What does this mean? With these words, God tenderly invites us to believe that he is our true father and we are his true children; so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask him as dear children ask their dear father.”
KJ: Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, not as they have been loved by their earthly parents, but as they have been loved by him. Paul speaks of the love of the Father, the heavenly Father, who has been poured abroad in our hearts.
MH: It is significant that Jesus says, “When you pray, pray like this: Our Father in Heaven.” Not to peer into the glory and majesty of God but to specifically pray to a concrete person, the Father who is known only in the Son.
KR: This is a huge point; this is a reality: a God who condescended to us and who is personal. Not a force, not a power—a particular person, the Father of Jesus Christ.
RR: Unless I’m mistaken, you can search pretty diligently to find a parallel for this in the other religions of the world, but you’ll find that it’s unique to Christianity.
MH: For those who want a religion that is about spirituality, a kind of vague trust in something beyond themselves, a higher power or whatever, they will find that Christianity at every turn is going to bug them because it’s a very particular religion. It has lots of rough edges. It’s a particular God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s a particular way: through a mediator, Jesus Christ. It’s a particular revelation: in Judah is God known. God speaks to a particular people in a particular nation in a particular place in a particular time.
KJ: In a particular relationship.
MH: And God becomes flesh as a particular man, a Jewish rabbi in first-century Palestine, and he delivers himself to us today through the proclamation of a particular gospel, a particular set of great announcements, and a particular means—baptism with water—and a particular sacrament of the Lord’s Supper with bread and wine (you can’t use anything else). This is all very particular.
RR: Yes, those who are looking for a general spiritual religion need to go someplace else. They’re going to be constantly up against it in Christianity: a particular Jew, born in a particular time, who died a particular death, with blood with a DNA factor to it, an Rh factor. When I get into some of these discussions with unbelievers, they’re civil; but they’ll say something along the lines of what Dawkins would say: nobody’s ever seen God, and nobody knows what color he is, or whatever. While I can’t tell you how tall Jesus was or what kind of hair he had (or what kind he didn’t have), I hold to Nicene Christology. This is something the church has failed to really deliver.
MH: That’s because it’s presupposed that we pray to God the Father because he sent the Son. We’re not rising up to heaven. This Father in heaven has sent his Son to earth so that we could have a relationship with him and call him Father in the first place.
KJ: In a lot of evangelical circles, prayer is depicted as a power. Prayer is communication with a particular, personal God. There are benefits, obviously, from praying, but when we say that prayer is itself a power, then it almost doesn’t matter who we’re praying to.
MH: A lot of Christians tout the psychological studies that show how people who pray are healthier and that it’s good for the psyche. This does not help the cause, because it basically turns prayer into something not about God but a practice, such as going to the gym, which will get you what you want. People say, “There’s power in prayer.” No, there is no power in prayer at all. There is power in God to whom we pray.
KJ: I think it was Eisenhower who said, as he urged people to pray, that “it doesn’t matter who you pray to, just pray.” This sounds like the people on the boat with Jonah. The captain tells Jonah to talk to his God. It didn’t matter who that was—just talk.
MH: James Boice used to give a great illustration, which I believe he got from Donald Barnhouse. A mountain climber tripped and fell off a cliff. He managed to reach out his arm, break his fall, and save his life. But he realized before long that he couldn’t pull himself back up onto the ledge. So he did as a lot of people do in those situations and got religious all of a sudden—a foxhole prayer. He cried out, “Is there anybody up there who can help me?” Much to his surprise, a voice boomed back: “Yes, I am up here, and I can help you—but first you have to let go of the branch.” The climber thought a moment, then he looked back up and cried out, “Is there anybody else up there?” We have to let go of the branch. We’re not using prayer to pull ourselves back up onto the ledge. We’re throwing ourselves onto the mercy of God, who is good.
KJ: This is a privilege he’s granted to those to whom he has reconciled himself through his Son.
RR: Christians know no other kind of prayer. Christians don’t allow themselves into general prayers that have nothing to do with this particular God.
KR: It’s idolatry to do that.
MH: When I think of the Lord’s Prayer, as far as the way I often pray, I realize that I’m not praying properly when I pray, “I’ve got this need; help me with this.” It’s easy in that setting for us not to take the time at the front end to do what Jesus is saying here. Basically, Jesus is telling us to forget our petitions for now—we’ll talk about that later. When we go into God’s presence, we should first of all pause, just be silent. It’s sort of like the response of Jeremiah, or Job after all of his talking. Chatter, chatter, chatter, and all of his friends chatter, and God is just sitting there. Finally God speaks: “Where were you when I created the world?” We read that Job put his hand over his mouth. There’s likewise a moment for us in prayer to put our hands over our mouths, close our eyes, and say, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Adore him.
KJ: I like Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God,” or elsewhere it says, “The Lord is in his holy place; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
RR: When it’s the right God, man, does that fit.
KR: That fits so much with what Christ said earlier about the context here—that the scribes love to pray in public so people can hear their many words. Then Jesus gives them this prayer, which is so short and so concise and so wonderful.
RR: Who would have thought? God in heaven becomes flesh in Jesus Christ, and the disciples ask, “Lord, teach us how to pray.”
MH: It’s one thing when Jesus prays to the Father with such intimacy and talks about the Father—as if he had been with him from all eternity and just came down three decades ago. But before that, he was with the Father from all eternity. Oh, and he created the world too. That’s one thing. But then for Jesus to say, “And I’m going to give my life for you, so that you can pray, ‘Our Father.’” We can address him as our father. Is there significance in praying our Father? Much of our prayer is individualistic today; but when we read Acts 2, we see that the disciples gathered for the prayers—communal prayers.
KR: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a believer praying “my Father” in an intimate setting, but I also think it’s important to realize that “our Father” means something. I’m not the only redeemed person who has been given this privilege, and there is a corporate dimension to this prayer when Jesus instructs the disciples (plural) to pray like this.
KJ: Paul picks this up in his various letters when he reminds the Ephesians, for instance, to pray for all of the saints and then to pray for him in particular. There is a covenant community element included in our prayers, which reminds us—yes, this is an individual privilege (although it’s actually a community privilege that can be exercised by every individual within the community)—we are never to lose sight of that covenantal community element that’s incorporated in that phrase “Our Father.”
RR: This includes all believers of all ages.
MH: This does undermine the individualistic, pietistic view of a lot of people today who think that what’s really important is that they have their daily quiet time—not that they have their weekly gathering to pray the prayers with the people of God, to confess the faith with the people of God, and to receive the blessings of God with the people of God.
RR: Finally, these people are saying that they’re the church more than that’s the church.
KJ: This includes those we pray for. Although our prayers are not just about our own households or personal struggles—even though we make all of that known to the Lord—in the midst of our personal engagements and struggles, we lift up our brothers and sisters, and we pray for the saints.
RR: Luther used to say that there was something to that text in the Gospels. Setting a small child before his disciples, Jesus said that unless the disciples became like one of these little toddlers, they would not enter the kingdom of heaven. Luther used to say that the child who sees prayer as just asking for things was closer than we think to what the adults ought to watch and pick up. Simply asking—petitions. Luther says that this child is more trusting than the adults. It’s reliance.
MH: Even that expresses faith.
KR: Calvin takes a bit different tack in calling prayer the chief exercise of thankfulness. When we consider all that God has done for us and our hearts pour out thanksgiving and praise, there is no focus from Calvin—as we see in the modern age—on “gimme gimme.” While Luther is not saying that, they kind of fit together.
MH: How different this is from the constant haranguing that people ought to pray more, read their Bible more, do more—which actually turns them into the Pharisees who are making a show, so that they can tick that off their list or be the pious people they’re told they need to be. I think of the line from John Wesley where he says, “I don’t trust the Christian character of any man who doesn’t pray for at least four hours a day.” How different that is from God telling us to come into his presence.
KJ: Because you’re in the presence of your Father, you don’t even bother to look at your watch.
MH: I’m not ticking a box off here. I’m not saying, “I had my quiet time today; I’m okay.”
KR: Even if I do look at my watch, God is not going to kick me out.
MH: God enjoys us just being in his presence. He has invited us and welcomed us into his presence. The more you mention about checking your watch, the more I am filled with wonder that I want to hang around, that I want to pray more.
KR: He even won’t cast you out when you’re angry with him.
MH: That’s something we’ll see as we go along here. The prayers that are modeled for us in the Psalms, for example, are not all “Hi, Father! It’s so wonderful to be in your presence. I’ve come boldly in Christ.” Some of our prayers come after we slam the door behind us and cry to him, “What have you done? Are your hands in your pockets? Do something!”
KR: The Father imagery ties us to family. There are things that families can say to one another that no one else outside the family dare say.
KJ: Sometimes we say, like the prodigal son, “Father, I’ve sinned again, and I don’t deserve to be here; I don’t deserve to be your son.”
RR: The centurion said, “I’m not even worthy to be under the roof where you are, but I know you, and if you say the word, my dying daughter will live.” He used a centurion and not an Israelite. And that brings tears to me.
MH: “Our Father who art in heaven” is the gospel. There’s so much to unpack there in Christ. God is our Father, not our judge. That is the key to all prayer. Stop a minute. Let us bask, just enjoy being in the presence of such a merciful Father, and let the gospel soak in. He is our Father. We get to address him as our father, as no one but those who are united to Jesus Christ can. From there, it’s a wonderful privilege we have to pray for ourselves and our needs, to pray for those who are in need, and to pray for his kingdom.
Michael Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation and the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.
Ken Jones is pastor of Glendale Missionary Baptist Church in Miami, Florida, and cohost of the radio program/podcast Saints and Sinners Unplugged.
Rod Rosenbladt, now retired, served as professor of theology at Concordia University in Irvine, California, and as an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
Kim Riddlebarger is pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California. He is visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California and a frequent contributor to Modern Reformation.
