READ IT AGAIN
By Professor E M Blaiklock MA DLITT
XXXIX.
"IN MY NAME"
Please read John chapter 15.
Does praying "in Christ's name" mean closing our prayers with a certain formula?
No.
The word rather means praying "in Christ's spirit."
The name of a person or thing had much more significance in ancient thought than in ours. The saying, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," would not make sense to a Hebrew. Names had significance. They were intended to reflect character. Consider Jacob's change of name. Consider the names of Christ-Jesus and Immanuel.
Consider the use of symbolic names in the prophets.
The Lord, then, was not suggesting that a phrase. had talismanic value in random prayer. He meant that the prayer prayed in His true spirit was sure of certain acceptance. And what was His spirit?
His life was all pure, all sacrificial. His only prayer for self was in the Garden, and to that He added the surrender of the noble words, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”
Prayer prayed in
His name will be pure, unselfish prayer. If, per-chance, as indeed we must, we bring before Him prayer for simple things of daily life, we must add the words of glad submission to His all-wise will, which the Lord used before the very Cross.