QQ100-101. What doth the preface of the Lord’s Prayer teach us and what do we pray for in the first petition?

A (100). The preface of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, Our Father which art in heaven,” teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father, able and ready to help us; and that we should pray with and for others.

A (101). In the first petition, which is, Hallowed be thy name,” we pray, that God would enable us, and others, to glorify him in all that whereby he maketh himself known, and that he would dispose all things to his own glory.

Matthew 6:9 is divided between what is called the “preface” and then the first petition. 

“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’”

Since there is something of God taught in both the preface and the petition, and likewise with our approach, we will divide our outline in the order of what we see of God in the whole verse, and what we see of our approach. 

The God We Approach in Prayer

First, the word of address, “FATHER,” is used so as to encourage familial relations in us. Now this was unheard of among the world religions. It is often said that the Old Testament Jews also had no conception of this; but this is misinformed. He says to Israel, “You are the sons of the LORD your God” (Deut. 14:1); “Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?” (Deut. 32:6); “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me” (Isa. 1:2); and “If then I am a father, where is my honor?” (Mal. 1:6). Here was Jesus using the Aramaic Abba which means a sort of close kind of “Father,” and it would not be different from our English “Dad” or “Papa.”

This can be subject to abuse, as we will see, but it is the meaning of it. Think of where He says to Mary Magdalene, “‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (Jn. 20:17). One immediate check on the abuse is to remember, as Herman Witsius put it very concisely, in his classic on The Lord’s Prayer, “He is our Father in a different sense from that in which he is Christ’s; his by nature, and ours by grace.”1 Brakel comments,

“This is not to suggest that we may not use a different address, for the saints in the Old and New Testaments have generally used others. However, the name Father is the most intimate, congenial, soul-moving, and lovely name—which engenders the greatest reverence and confidence.”2

We saw that this is what Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:11 were doing: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (cf. Luke 11:13) You see that Jesus is arguing from the lesser to the greater, from the fatherliness of human fathers—which is a good thing even in evil people—to the Father of Pure Goodness.

Then it is added, WHO ART IN HEAVEN. God being “in heaven” is not about spatial locality but about God’s transcendent majesty. He says through Jeremiah, “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord” (23:23-24); or in the words of Solomon: “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you” (1 Kings 8:28). This truth is about divine sovereignty, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3). It ought not to be obvious to a mere creature, let alone one who has forfeited his rights in the kingdom of God through sin, that we should come to God at all. So the Preacher who examined life “under the sun” in Ecclesiastes, that is life apart from God, instructed us, 

“Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few” (Ecc. 5:2).

So this is an important pair of concepts to balance out. Many examples could be given of an imbalance to one side or the other.  

The first petition itself teaches more about God in that our first priority must match God’s first priority. But to get the sense of it, we must ask: What is meant by HALLOWED? This is in the spirit of an Old Testament prayer, “that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!” (Ps. 67:2-3)

And he puts nothing above “his name and this word” (Ps. 138:2), so that the song of Mary proclaimed, “holy is his name” (Lk. 1:49). We will say more about what that implies in the form of the petition in our second section. But to be hallowed is to be regarded as holy. God is holy whether the creature recognizes it or not. And notice it says His “Name,” rather than simply Himself. Why is this? Herman Bavinck gives us some help with one reason: 

“In Scripture God’s name is his self-revelation. Only God can name himself; his name is identical with the perfections he exhibits in and to the world. He makes himself known to his people by his proper names; to Israel as YHWH, to the Christian church as Father. God’s revealed names do not reveal his being as such but his accommodation to human language.”3 

Now that explains why God reveals so many names for himself. He is infinite, and so all that he is is infinite. Our puny brains could never handle all that is meant by even one of the divine attributes.  

Our Heart and Cause in Prayer

The imbalance we have seen about God issues forth into two extreme imbalances about the approach of man: one is the impersonal shrinking back of the slave, but the other is the irreverent barging forth of the intruder. But here it says we come AS CHILDREN TO A FATHER. Paul speaks of this in two places: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Gal. 4:6-7).

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:14-17).

But not only in the adoration of children, but also in their trust in the abilities of their earthly father, except now magnified by infinity. So He is most ABLE AND READY TO HELP US. There is that statement by James concerning asking God for wisdom. The principle is larger:

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (Jas. 1:6-8).

To wrap up this idea of how we should respond to the two truths of God being OUR FATHER but also IN HEAVEN, the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 120, asks: Why has Christ commanded us to address God thus: Our Father? Answer: 

“To awaken in us, at the very beginning of our prayer, that filial reverence and trust toward God, which are to be the ground of our prayer; namely, that God has become our Father through Christ, and will much less deny us what we ask of Him in faith, than our parents refuse us earthly things.”

But then Question 121 comes right back for the balance to ask: Why is it added: Who art in heaven? Answer: “That we may have no earthly thought of the heavenly majesty of God; and may expect from His almighty power all things necessary for body and soul.” Even the transcendence and majesty of God is for our greatest good.

So our answer adds, finally: AND THAT WE SHOULD PRAY WITH AND FOR OTHERS. “So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (Acts 12:5). Paul was always asking the church at large to pray for his ministry, for his boldness in speech, and, essentially, for the gospel to sound forth and produce spiritual results. 

Now back to that first petition, the answer to Question 101 tells us what it means: THAT GOD WOULD ENABLE US, AND OTHERS, TO GLORIFY HIM … and it continues. But let us pause there first, and let us start with ourselves. Can we make a concrete list here? 

1. That I would guard my own thoughts and speech from irreverence toward God.

2. That any acquaintances or close associates have the same mind, or (if not) to be restrained and even convicted for irreverence and especially blasphemy. 

3. That God would thwart the plans of the wicked and establish the church.

4. That the Holy Spirit would make the means of grace effective, saving the lost and sanctifying the believer.

5. That I would grow in the grace of pursuing holiness, and so be a greater help to stir others up to this same work. 

It should be clear that each of these can then be divided further into more specific, personal application. 

The next words give the scope of this hallowing: IN ALL WHEREBY HE MAKETH HIMSELF KNOWN, AND THAT HE WOULD DISPOSE ALL THINGS TO HIS GLORY. Now in 1 Timothy 2:1-2 we have a passage that takes up two elements of what we have looked at. We have both the praying with and for others, and we have the great end of such prayers—namely, that the gospel would go forth in this world, unhindered, which then (though this verse itself does not say this) is subordinate to a more chief end, that is the glory of God or the hallowing of His name. 

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

Brakel makes the point to say that end goals are always present in the first cause of things: “In this prayer,” he says, “the Lord Jesus teaches what the ultimate goal must be which we are to hold before us, what our primary desire must be, and the end we must desire and present in the other petitions.”4 But this is a paradox, as Brakel goes on to point out, “We do not begin with the highest step and then descend to the lowest step; instead, we begin with the lowest and ascend to the highest.”5 In other words, we do not upbraid each other for not having so great an end in beginning with lesser, yet still God-glorifying ends. 

In a similar way to the Greatest Commandment that we will look at in the sermon today being the greatest; so here, there is a sense in which this first petition is the greatest. Watson comments says of this first petition, 

“When some of the other petitions shall be useless and out of date, as we shall not need to pray in heaven, ‘Give us our daily bread,’ because there shall be no hunger; nor ‘Forgive us our trespass,’ because there shall be no sin; nor, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ because the old serpent is not there to tempt: yet the hallowing of God’s name will be of great use and request in heaven.”6

PRACTICAL USE OF THIS DOCTRINE

Use 1. To promote awareness of the unbeliever’s “outsider” status. By that “awareness” I mean in us as much as in any unbeliever who senses that they do not know God in this way. But apart from Jesus, God cannot be your Father. Speaking of that liberal perversion of Christianity, in the nineteenth century, it was Adolf von Harnack who said that, “The essence of Christianity is the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.” FALSE. Of those outside of Christ, the Bible has other identifications, like the seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15) or children of the devil (Jn. 8:44) or simply “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). We must understand the real familial identity not only in what Jesus said but in light of what he did. Only in the work of Christ can we see why we have any right to think of ourselves as children of God.

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12-13).

This means that God is not fooled—nor is he honored—by any who would dare to call him “Father” who are not in fact his children. That’s why the Bible speaks of God not hearing the prayers of the wicked, and that is why John uses this word “right” or “authority” (exousia) in John 1:12.

Use 2. To cultivate a sense of zealous adoration, that we personally represent such a God in this world. Adoration for the majesty of God begets zealous loyalty for the reign of his majesty: the extent of his rule, the conformity of all things in his realm: whether we have any “power” down here or not. Your Father is the King of all things, and he has left you on a mission in these foreign lands. So Peter says, 

“And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” (1 Pet. 1:17). 

Peter is not talking about the fear of man. Remember Jesus’ words: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat. 10:28). With that it mind, we understand Peter to be talking about the God-fearing conduct of His ambassador, admonishing everyone to be reconciled to the King (cf. Col. 1:28; 2 Cor. 5:20). This first petition orders everything else in our lives. 

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1. Herman Witsius, Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1994), 155.

2. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:486.

3. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:95.

4. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:494.

5. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:496.

6. Watson, The Lord’s Prayer (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982), 38.