The
Lord’s Prayer
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“Which
Art in Heaven”
We are wont to think
of heaven as being above us, and
rightly so. To look up to heaven is
to look up to God’s dwelling
place. But when those who live on the
other side of the earth look up, they
look in the exact opposite direction
from what we do; and, lo, there is
God also. From
whatever point on earth we look to
heaven, there is God, surrounding and
enclosing us and the whole earth.
“If I ascend up to heaven, Thou
art there; if I make my bed i9n hell,
behold, Thou art there. If I take the
wings of the morning, and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea; even
there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy
right hand shall hold me.” Psalm
139:8-10. No place on earth is nearer
to heaven than is any other place.
God is everywhere, and wherever I go,
God is there to guide and uphold me.
In some respects, the
Father is the forgotten person of the
Godhead. In innumerable sermons,
Christ is exalted and His name
constantly mentioned, as it should
be. In word and song, the Spirit is
magnified, as is right and proper.
But seldom do we hear a sermon of
which the Father is the subject. We
are in danger of forgetting the
Father of all, or relegating Him to a
secondary place.
There is no jealously
in the heavenly Trio. The Father is
pleased to hear praise given to the
Son and the Holy Spirit. But we think
it well not to ignore the Father in
our devotions, sermons, and hymns of
praise. Christ devoted much time to
inform His disciples of the Father.
We will do well to study
Christ’s teaching on this
subject.
One of the reasons
Christ came to this earth was to
reveal the Father to men. The world
knew but little of God, and
practically all had a wrong
conception of Him. To set men right,
to give them a true view of the
character of God, Christ became man.
He was God manifest in the flesh. 1
Timothy 3:16. Men looked upon Him,
and as they did, they saw the Father.
John 14:9.
Not only did the world
not know God; His own people, the
Jews, did not know Him. They thought
of Him as creator, judge, and
lawgiver, but not as a kind and
understanding Father. This was
largely the fault of their leaders.
In the time of Christ, it was
especially the fault of the
Pharisees. They gave the impression
that God had not made the Sabbath for
man, but man for the Sabbath. No true
Jew would minister to the sick on the
Sabbath; that would be sacrilege. To
carry to a sick person a glass of
water would be carrying a burden on
the Sabbath and that was forbidden.
The commandment “Thou shalt not
kill” was interpreted to include
insects, and hence some holy persons
would carry with them a small broom
with which to sweep before them, lest
they step on a worm or insect and
thus be guilty of murder. Some would
hold a cloth before their eyes lest
they look on evil and be guilty, and
others would do equally irrational
things. From such conduct the people
a wrong idea of the Father. They saw
Him not as a loving and compassionate
Father, but as an unreasonable and
harsh God, an unjust judge, who
delighted in making rules impossible
to keep and who would punish those
who disobeyed.
Christ’s teaching
about God was directly opposed to
that of the Pharisees. In healing the
sick, comforting the mourners,
raising the dead, and forgiving sins
He was giving men a picture of what
God is like. Said He, “He that
hath seen Me hath seen the
Father.” John 14:9. “I and
My Father are one.” John 10:30.
Men were charmed by His gracious
words, as well as mightily moved by
them. As He went about spreading good
cheer, attending a wedding feast when
He thought best, accepting
invitations to eat with people,
always kind and considerate to all
men could not fail to see the vivid
contrast between His practice and the
teaching of the Pharisees. Christ was
revealing God to men.
A true doctrine of God
is of vital concern to all. If a
wrong doctrine can produce the
Inquisition, we must not think
lightly of studying carefully
“the doctrine of God our
Savior.” Titus 2:10. For
“he that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father
and the Son.” 2 John 9. John
considered this so important that he
declared, “
If there come any unto
you, and bring not this doctrine,
receive him not into your house,
neither bid him Godspeed.” Verse
10. When we pray, “Our
Father,” we invoke the help of
One who is truly our Father, who
loves and cares for us, and will do
anything to help us. He will guide
us, counsel us, correct us if need
be; but He will do it in love. May we
ever keep sacred His name, the name
of Father.
Hallowed
Be Thy Name”
“Hallowed be Thy
name” is the first of the seven
petitions in the Lord’s Prayer.
It concerns the reverence due His
holy name. As God Himself is holy, so
is His name. We pray that we may
hallow that holy name, hold it in
reverence.
In Old Testament
times, a name generally mirrored some
outstanding characteristic in the
person named. Thus, Jacob earned his
name because of the unreliability of
his character. Genesis 27:36. He had
difficulty telling the truth. After
his experience with the angel
(Genesis 32:28), God changed his name
from Jacob, a deceiver, to Israel, an
overcomer.
Mary, the mother of
Jesus, before the birth of her son
was commanded, “Thou shalt call
His name Jesus: for He shall save His
people from their sins.” Matthew
1:21. Jesus, Savior, was to be His
name, for He should save His people.
If God’s name is
to signify all that He is, it must be
a special name. And it is. God
Himself chose it as the summation of
all His attributes, an expression of
His total being and eternal
existence, the Almighty, the One
“which is, and which was, and
which is to come.” Revelation
1:4.
Moses had been chosen
by God as leader of Israel. As such,
it would be his work to go to Egypt,
where Israel was in bondage, and
persuade the king to let them go. He
was also to gather Israel together
and persuade them to go. Both of
these missions were hard ones, and
Moses hesitated to accept this work.
He was unknown to the Israelites,
having left Egypt forty years before,
and he knew if would be a Herculean
task to persuade a whole nation to
leave all their property and start on
a journey that would bring them into
a barren desert. He felt that he must
have divine credentials, or he could
never succeed. So he said to God,
“When I come unto the children
of Israel, and shall say unto them,
The God of your fathers hath sent me
unto you; and they shall say to me,
What is His name? What shall I say
unto them? And God said unto Moses, I
SM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel,
I AM hath sent me unto you.”
Exodus 3:13,14. In the next verse,
God explains further. Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, The
Lord God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you:
this is My name forever, and this is
My memorial unto all
generations.” Verse 15.
This is indeed a
strange name; but it is the name God
Himself chose. It is His name
forever, and His memorial unto all
generations. It denotes the
Ever-living One, the Self-existing
One, the One who always has been and
always will be. The original Hebrew
word is JHVH, -- Hebrew was
originally written without vowel
sounds, -- and this name was probably
pronounced YAHWEH, from which we get
the word Jehovah. The word YAHWEH
occurs thousands of times in the Old
Testament, and in the American
Revised Version is always translated
Jehovah, while the King James Version
translates it Lord God, written in
small capitals. When the reader finds
Lord God in his Authorized Version,
he may know that the original is
Jehovah, God’s self-chosen name,
the I AM.
This name was counted
so sacred by the Jews that it was
never pronounced by them. Not only
did they not pronounce it, they were
even forbidden to think it. When they
came to it in their reading, publicly
or privately, they substituted in its
stead ADONAI.
The name Jehovah
becomes of interest to us as we learn
that commentators in general hold
that Jehovah in the King James
Version is the name of the Second
Person of the Godhead, Christ. The I
AM who told Moses that this was His
name forever, is the same who calmly
told the Jews that He was the I AM.
John 8:58. “It was Christ who
from the bush on Mount Horeb spoke to
Moses saying, ‘I AM THAT I
AM.” When Christ with solemn
dignity told the Jews, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was, I AM,” silence fell
upon the vast assembly. The name of
God given to Moses to express the
idea of the eternal presence had been
claimed as His own by this Galilean
Rabbi. He announced Himself to
be the Self-existent One. He who had
been promised to Israel, ‘whose
goings forth have been from of old,
from the days of eternity.’
“Then took they up stones to
cast at Him.” John 8:59.
This was not the only
time that Christ claimed to be the I
AM. One time when the disciples saw
Christ walking on the water, they
cried out in fear, thinking they saw
a spirit. Mark 6:47-50.Christ calmed
them by saying, “Be of good
cheer: is I; be not afraid.”
Verse 50. The Greek reads, “Be
of good cheer. I AM.” “And
the wind ceased.” Verse 51.
.
The name I AM stands
for the revealed character of God.
This is made clear in God’s
answer to Moses’ request that he
be shown His glory. Exodus 33:18.
Said God, “I will make all My
goodness pass before thee, and I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before
thee.” Verse 19.
Accordingly, “the
Lord descended in the cloud, and
stood with him there, and passed by
before him, and proclaimed, The Lord,
The Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long suffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, and that will
by no means clear the guilty;
visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children’s children,
unto the third and to the fourth
generation.” Exodus 34:5-7.
The Lord did not
proclaim to Moses a name as such. He
let His “goodness” pass
before him, and that was His name. He
told Moses what He was, naming His
attributes, His character, His inmost
self, His complete personality. That
is His name. In effect, God said,
“What I AM, that is My name. In
addition, this He summed up in the
Hebrew word YAHWEH, or Jehovah, I AM
THAT I AM, or as some translate, I AM
WHAT I AM. What God is, that is His
name
Christ is the great I
AM, that “ever liveth,”
“the Prince of life,”
“Spirit of life.” Hebrews
7:25; Acts 3”15; Romans 8:2.
With Him there “is no
variableness, neither shadow of
turning.” James 1:17. He is
“the same yesterday, and today,
and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 That
is why His name is I AM. When we
think of the past, of the days of
Abraham, there is the I AM; or if we
thing of the future, the
“forever,” there is the I
AM also. He ever liveth
For another reason
than that mentioned above, the name
of God becomes of special interest to
the church of God today; for as John
looked, “lo, on Mount Zion stood
the Lamb, and with Him a hundred and
forty-four thousand who had His name
and His Father’s name written on
their foreheads.” Revelation
14:1, R.S.V. this means that they had
the character of God impressed upon
them.
This name is that
which was revealed to Moses when God
came down on Mount Sinai and let His
goodness pass before him and
proclaimed the name of the Lord.
Exodus 34:4-7. In view of this, it
may be profitable to look a little
more closely at the attributes
listed, for, as far as these
attributes are applicable to mankind,
the 144,000 will possess them. This
is a high honor and a high
responsibility.
In this first petition
of the Lord’s Prayer, we express
our desire to keep holy and sacred
the name of God. Strange that this
name should be the one which the
world most misuses and take in vain!
God’s name is dragged in the
filth and slime of obscene curses and
oaths and is coupled with
Satan’s name in blasphemy. We
cannot at all times shut ourselves of
hearing this, but we can be warned
not to get so accustomed to hearing
foul language that it ceases to shock
us.
As we are commanded to
keep holy the Sabbath day, so we are
admonished to hallow God’s name,
for “holy and reverend is His
name.” Psalm 111:9. When we
become Christians, we are adopted as
members of the family of God and take
His name upon us. This name we are
not to take in vain; we are not to
profane it or bring it in ill repute.
Most families are jealous of their
reputation and their good name, and
guard it carefully from becoming
identified with anything that is
questionable. God also is jealous of
His name and His family.
We must not lower the
standard which God has set for His
people and which He has made possible
of attainment by the abundant
provision He has made for man to live
above sin. But we wish to encourage
those who find themselves coming
short of their intentions, or who
have been taught that the goal is
unattainable. Let such be of good
cheer. “A just man falleth seven
times, and riseth up again.”
Proverbs 24:16. The steps of a good
man are ordered by he Lord: and he
delighteth in His way. Though he
fall, he shall not be utterly cast
down: for the Lord upholdeth him with
His hand.” Psalm 37:23,24.
.
“Rejoice not
against me, O mine enemy: when I
fall, I shall arise; when I sit in
darkness, the Lord shall be a light
unto me.” Micah 7:8. God recons
as perfect those who may yet be far
from the end of the race, but whose
heart is perfect toward Him, who are
on the right road and facing in the
right direction. They are struggling
on, but appear to make little
progress. God looks in pity upon
them, and though they fall seven
times, He will lift them up and cheer
them on. It is not necessarily, how
far a man has come that counts. It is
the direction in which he is going
that matters. Hear these heartening
words: “When it is in the heart
to obey God, when efforts are put
forth to this end, Jesus accepts this
disposition and effort as man’s
best service, and He makes up for the
deficiency with his own divine
merits.”
God admonishes His
people to be holy. Leviticus 19:2. He
told Abraham to be perfect. Genesis
17:1. He calls Noah perfect. Genesis
6:9. It is evident that the
perfection or holiness, which these
men had or strove for, was not the
final perfection of God or of the
saints in glory.
It is possible for a
thing or a person to be perfect and
yet not perfected. “The bud is
perfect,” says Isaiah. Isaiah
18:5. So are the seed, the newborn
lamb, and the acorn. These things are
perfect in every state of
development, but full perfection
awaits the time of ripening. An apple
from the time of the first bloom may
be perfect though it is yet green and
unfit for food. When at last it is
ripe, it is perfected.
Paul informed us that
he had not “already attained,
either were already perfect.”
Philippians 3:12. He had not reached
the goal he had set for himself. But
“I press toward the mark,”
he said. Verse 14. Then, having in
mind those who with him were pressing
forward, he said, “Let us
therefore, as many as be perfect, be
thus minded.” Verse 15. In verse
15, by the use of the word
“us,” he included himself
in those who claim perfection.
In these verses, Paul
exemplified the Biblical use of the
word perfect. God counts those
perfect who press on and are
“thus minded.” “If
there be first a willing mind, it is
accepted according to that a man
hath, and not according to that he
hath not.” 2 Corinthians 8:12.
According to this principle, we are
admonished to go on “perfecting
holiness in the fear of God. 2
Corinthians 7:1. The man who is on
the right road will at last be
counted as having attained, even
though he was yet far from
perfection.
The prayer
“Hallowed be Thy name” is a
prayer of consecration, a prayer for
purity and holiness. It is the first
petition in the Lord’s Prayer
and thus gives holiness its rightful
place. It calls upon men to dedicate
themselves to God, to be jealous of
His holy name, as they become members
of the family of God.
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