Matthew 6:9 - Exposition

After this manner therefore . Therefore ; in contrast to the heathen practice, and in the full confidence which you have in your almighty Father's intuitive knowledge of your needs. After this manner ( οὕτως ) . Not "in these words;" but he will most closely imitate the manner who most often reminds himself of it by using the words. Pray ye . "Ye" emphatic—ye my disciples; ye the children of such a Father. Our Father . In English we just lack the power to keep, with a plural possessive pronoun (contrast "father mine"), the order of Christ's words ( πάτερ ἡμῶν ) which other languages possess ( Pater noster; Vater unser ) . Christ places in the very forefront the primary importance of the recognition of spiritual relationship to God. There is no direct thought here of God as the All-Father in the modern and often deistic sense. Yet it is affirmed elsewhere in Scripture ( Acts 17:28 ; cf. Luke 15:21 ), and spiritual relationship is perhaps only possible because of the natural relationship (cf. Matthew 5:16 , note). Our. Though the prayer is here given with special reference to praying alone ( Matthew 6:6 ), the believer is to be reminded at once that he is joined by spiritual relationship to many others who have the same needs, etc., as himself. Which art in heaven ( ὁἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ) . Added in this fuller form of the prayer ( vide supra ), on the one hand to definitely exclude the application of the words however mediately to any human teacher (cf. Matthew 23:1-39 . 9), and on the other to remind those who pray of the awful majesty of him whom they address. "They are a Sursum corda ; they remind us that now we have lifted up our hearts from earth and things earthly to another and a higher world" (Trench, 'Sermon on the Mount'). Hallowed be thy name . The first of the three prayers for the furtherance of God's cause. Their parallelism is seen much more clearly in the Greek than in the English order of the words. Thy name. We look on a name almost as an accidental appendage by which a person is designated, but in its true idea it is the designation of a person which exactly answers to his nature and qualities. Hence the full Name of God is properly that description of him which embraces all that he really is. As, however, the term "name" implies that it is expressed, it must, when it is used of God, be limited to that portion of his nature and qualities which can be expressed in human terms, because it has been already made known to us. The "name" of God, here and elsewhere in the Bible, therefore, does not mean God in his essence, but rather that manifestation of himself which he has been pleased to give, whether partial and preparatory as under the old covenant (cf. Genesis 4:26 [ Genesis 16:13 ]; Genesis 32:29 ; Exodus 6:3 ; Exodus 34:5 ), or final as under the new (cf. John 17:6 ); or again (to take another division found in Exell's 'Biblical Illustrator,' in loc. ) the manifestation of himself through nature, through inspired words, through the Incarnation. Compared with the Glory ( δόξα ) "the Name expresses the revelation as it is apprehended and used by man. Man is called by the Name, and employs it. The Glory expresses rather the manifestation of the Divine as Divine, as a partial disclosure of the Divine Majesty not directly intelligble by man (comp. Exodus 33:18 , ft.)" (Bishop Westcott,' Add. Note' on 3 John 1:7 ). Hallowed be. ἁγιασθήτω cannot here, as sometimes ( Revelation 22:11 ; cf. John 17:17 ; 1 Thessalonians 5:23 ), mean "be made holy," for this God's manifestation of himself already is; but "be counted holy," i.e. in human judgment. The prayer is that God's manifestation of himself may be acknowledged and revered as the one supreme standard of truth and the one means of knowing God and approaching him; of 1 Peter 3:15 , where " ἁγιάζω obviously means 'set apart, enshrined as the object of supreme, absolute reverence, as free from all defilement and possessed of all excellence'" (Johnstone, in lee. ); cf. also Isaiah 29:23 . The same thought appears to have been the basis of the early Western alternative petition for the gift of the Holy Spirit; i.e. the address to the Father was followed by a prayer for purification by the Holy Spirit preparatory to the prayer, "Thy kingdom come." A man must accept God's manifestation of himself before he can take part in the spread of the kingdom. Gregory of Nyssa says distinctly, "Let thy Holy Spirit come upon us and purify us;" but he substitutes this prayer for the words, "Thy kingdom come." (For the support afforded by this to the theory that the Lord's Prayer circulated in a varying form, cf. Chase, loc. cit .) Gregory's petition, as affecting only humanity, is less comprehensive than that found m o r Gospels.