Topics · Prayer · Lesson 4 of 6
Through the Son, by the Spirit, to the Father: 'in My name' and 'according to His will'
Why do we come to the Father through Christ, and what does "according to his will" mean?
By the end of this lesson you should be able to
- Explain what it means to ask 'in My name' (John 14:13-14; 16:23-24) and how abiding (John 15:7) frames the promise.
- Describe the Spirit's intercession in Romans 8:26-27 and the Son's priesthood in Hebrews 4:14-16.
- Compare how Reformed, Wesleyan, Catholic and Orthodox, and Pentecostal and charismatic readers understand praying in the Spirit and 'according to His will'.
- Identify what Wesley, Bunyan, Torrey, the Korean meetings of 1907 and the Welsh revival add, and their limits.
Scripture at the center
; ; ; ; ;
Tap a reference to read it, then come back to the lesson.
Background
Two sets of texts seem to pull apart. Jesus promises, 'whatever you ask in My name' () and 'ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you' (). John says, 'If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us' (). The question is why prayer goes to the Father through Christ, and what limits the promises.
The first hearers were Jews who looked to the temple, where only the high priest entered the Most Holy Place, once a year, with blood (). Jesus spoke in the upper room on the night before the crucifixion, promising the Spirit (14:16-17). Hebrews addresses believers under strain; belongs to Paul's argument about present suffering and future glory (8:18).
Scholars disagree on four points.
- (1) 'In My name' is read as authorization, as representation of Christ's character and mission, or, wrongly, as a formula.
- (2) The 'groans' of are the Spirit's own, believers' groans prompted by the Spirit, or, in Ernst Käsemann's view, prayer in tongues.
- (3) 'In the Spirit' (; Jude 20) means all Spirit-enabled prayer or includes tongues.
- (4) 'According to His will' refers to God's revealed will, to his hidden purposes, or to both.
Outline
- Whatever you ask in My name
- Abiding: the words that shape the asking
- A new day: asking in His name after the resurrection
- The Spirit who prays in our weakness
- A great high priest and the throne of grace
- Praying in the Spirit at all times
How to read it
is a farewell discourse spoken first to the eleven, and its promises are bounded by their context: abiding in Christ, his words remaining, bearing fruit, and the Father's glory (; ). Read 'whatever' inside that circle. Then let Scripture's clearest cases interpret the sweeping ones. In Gethsemane Jesus prayed, 'Yet not as I will, but as You will' (), and Paul asked three times that the thorn be removed and was told, 'My grace is sufficient for you' ().
Genre matters. Hebrews is a sermon on the priesthood of Christ, a closely argued letter, and the last exhortation of the armor passage. describes what the Spirit does; and are commands.
Two cautions apply. 'In My name' is not a closing formula. And 'according to His will' does not show that every unanswered prayer was outside God's will; Scripture holds the revealed will, which belongs to God's people, together with trust in what remains hidden ().
What the Scriptures say
; ; Whatever you ask in My name
After 'No one comes to the Father except through Me' (), the promise follows: 'I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son' (14:13). The purpose clause matters. In Hebrew thought a 'name' stands for the person, character and authority. To ask in his name is to ask as one who belongs to him and speaks for his mission.
The vine passage supplies the condition. 'If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you' (15:7). The aim follows: 'This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit' (15:8).
In he says 'Until now you have not asked for anything in My name', pointing to a new day after the resurrection. Then he says he is not saying that he will ask the Father on their behalf, 'For the Father Himself loves you' (16:26-27). The ground of access is the Father's own love. Christ also intercedes (; ).
; The Spirit who prays, and the will of God
'The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words' (). Some translations read 'what we should pray for'. Interpreters differ on whether the groans are the Spirit's own, believers' groans the Spirit prompts, or tongues.
'He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God' (8:27). In the Greek the phrase is simply kata theon, 'according to God'. God, who searches hearts, knows what the Spirit means. The Spirit within the believer and Christ at God's right hand (8:34) are two intercessors.
So says the 'confidence that we have before Him' is that asking 'according to His will' is heard. The will is the one the Father makes known in Christ and Scripture, and the Spirit helps those who do not know what to ask.
A great high priest and the throne of grace
'Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess' (). The picture is the Day of Atonement (; ). He is not remote: 'we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin' (4:15).
From this the command follows: 'Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need' (4:16). 'Confidence' is parrēsia, free and open speech. Many scholars hear an echo of the mercy seat on the ark (a tentative link).
says Jesus 'always lives to intercede' for those who 'draw near to God through Him', and says believers have 'confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus'.
Praying in the Spirit at all times
'Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints' (). It ends the passage on the armor of God (6:10-17). Many commentators tie it to the command to stand: prayer is how the church stands. The words 'at all times', 'every kind', 'all perseverance' and 'all the saints' mark prayer that is continuous, varied and shared.
'In the Spirit' is the Spirit's sphere of power. Jude 20 uses the same thought: 'praying in the Holy Spirit'. Paul then asks the readers to pray for him, 'that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will boldly make known the mystery of the gospel' (6:19).
Key terms
- name onoma (Greek)
- In the Bible a name stands for a person's character and authority. 'In My name' means as Christ's representatives.
- remain / abide menō (Greek)
- . The verb for staying in living union with Christ.
- intercede entynchanō (Greek)
- , ; . It means to plead on behalf of someone.
In the whole Bible
Prayer in the New Testament has a trinitarian shape: to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. 'Through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit' (). The Spirit enables the cry 'Abba, Father' (; ), and Paul says 'there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus' (). Hebrews treats the Old Testament pattern of name, temple and priest as shadow and Christ as the reality.
The phrase 'according to His will' is anchored in the wider canon. Jesus teaches 'Your will be done' in the Lord's Prayer () and prays it himself in Gethsemane. Scripture speaks of a revealed will, in commands and promises, and of purposes that stay hidden (). Prayer in Jesus's name draws on the first and trusts the second.
Revelation later pictures the prayers of the saints offered with incense before the throne (; ).
Where Christ is
Christ is the center of the question. He is the way to the Father (), the priest (), the intercessor () and the one in whose name the Father sends the Spirit: 'whom the Father will send in My name' (). He taught his disciples to address God as Father and used Abba himself ().
Jesus lived what he taught. He prayed for Simon: 'I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail' (), and records his prayer for the disciples. Hebrews recalls his 'loud cries and tears' (). In Gethsemane he is the clearest example of asking according to the Father's will: the request 'let this cup pass from Me' is made, then yielded ().
Hebrews ties his priesthood to and to Melchizedek (). The sympathy of this high priest rests on the incarnation: he shared human weakness and was tempted without sin.
How traditions read it
Reformed. John Calvin's Institutes 3.20 teaches that prayer rests on Christ as the only mediator (sections 17-19) and rejects the intercession of the saints (sections 20-27). The Westminster Confession, chapter 21, joins three conditions of acceptable prayer: the name of the Son, the Spirit's help, and God's will. 'According to His will' is read mainly as God's revealed will in Scripture, with submission to his hidden will. Reformed writers divide over tongues: Richard Gaffin (Perspectives on Pentecost, 1979) holds the miraculous gifts ceased; Sam Storms (Practicing the Power, 2017) holds they continue.
Wesleyan. John Wesley's Sermon 16, The Means of Grace, calls prayer 'a channel through which the grace of God is conveyed'. Sermon 26 says prayer partly prepares the one praying (see below).
Catholic and Orthodox. Catholic prayer is addressed to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit, and its liturgical prayers conclude 'through Christ our Lord'. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Four, teaches that Christian prayer reaches the Father in the name of Jesus. Catholic and Orthodox churches also ask the saints and Mary to pray with and for the church, as fellow members of Christ's body and within the worship of God alone. Calvin objects that this conflicts with a single mediator (). Orthodox practice includes the Jesus Prayer, which invokes the Name; Kallistos Ware describes it in The Power of the Name and The Orthodox Way.
Pentecostal and charismatic. Many Pentecostal and charismatic readers include prayer in tongues in 'praying in the Spirit' (; Jude 20; ). Gordon Fee, in God's Empowering Presence (1994), argued that Paul probably had tongues in view in . Other commentators, such as C. E. B. Cranfield and Douglas Moo, read the groans as the Spirit's inexpressible work in the believer without tongues.
This lesson follows the shared core: prayer to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. It reads 'in My name' as asking on Christ's person and mission, 'in the Spirit' as all Spirit-enabled prayer, and 'according to His will' as the revealed will in Christ and Scripture together with trust in his hidden purposes.
How praying people lived this
John Wesley 1703-1791 · Anglican; founder of Methodism
Wesley listed prayer among the 'ordinances of God' in the General Rules (1743) and taught it as a means of grace. At Fetter Lane on 1 January 1739 he wrote that 'the power of God came mightily upon us' as the group continued in prayer (wording via Richard Green's 1905 biography; check against the Journal). Wesley and Whitefield disagreed on predestination, and Wesley's teaching on perfection is disputed in Reformed circles.
The principle: Prayer is a means of grace that also prepares the one who prays.
“It is not so much to move God, who is always more ready to give than you to ask, as to move yourselves, that you may be willing and ready to receive the good things he has prepared for you.”
John Bunyan 1628-1688 · English Puritan Nonconformist, Baptist-leaning
Bunyan was jailed for preaching without authority. His I Will Pray with the Spirit (composed about 1662, published 1663; sources differ) defends praying from the heart, with the Spirit's help, against compulsory use of the Prayer Book. Summaries say it rests on ; the text was not opened in this research.
The principle: Prayer of the heart, helped by the Spirit, is not tied to a set form.
R. A. Torrey 1856-1928 · American Congregational/Presbyterian evangelist
In How to Pray (1900), Torrey explained praying in Christ's name with the image of a bank cheque: believers have no credit of their own, and Christ has credit with the Father. The book is a short, popular manual, not a scholarly treatment.
The principle: Asking in Christ's name is asking on his merit and character, not adding a phrase.
“Praying in the name of Christ is not merely adding the phrase 'I ask these things in Jesus' name' to my prayer.”
The Korean meetings of 1907 1907 · Presbyterian, with Methodists
William N. Blair's The Korea Pentecost (1910) records missionaries praying nightly and at noon before the Pyongyang Bible class. On the night of the 'Korean Pentecost', after a short sermon, Graham Lee called for prayer; so many began that he said all should pray, and the whole audience prayed aloud together, with confession through the night. Blair's is a missionary report. Dawn prayer is often credited to the pastor Gil Seon-ju (1869-1935), but that rests on secondary sources.
The principle: Prayer was joint, audible and joined to confession and reconciliation.
“The prayer sounded to me like the falling of many waters, an ocean of prayer beating against God's throne.”
The Welsh revival and Evan Roberts 1904-1905 · Calvinistic Methodist, with Congregational, Baptist and Anglican participation
Evan Roberts (1878-1951) said he had prayed thirteen years for revival in Wales. At Blaenannerch in late September 1904 Seth Joshua prayed 'Lord, bend us', and Roberts answered, 'Bend me!'. A modern summary of his teaching lists confession of sin, prompt obedience to the Spirit and public confession of Christ. Convert estimates range from 80,000 to 162,000. In 1905 Roberts claimed a 'direct message from God' in Liverpool, was examined and found sound but overworked, and withdrew; he later co-wrote War on the Saints, which many consider doctrinally dangerous.
The principle: Obedience to the Spirit's promptings and honest confession were the revival's prayer.
“Let us listen for the Spirit, confess Christ, be absolutely at His disposal”
Review questions
- What does say is the purpose of Christ answering prayer made in his name, and how does shape it?
- How does relate the Father's love to the Son's intercession, and which other passages describe Christ interceding?
- What are the main readings of the 'groans' in , and what does the Greek phrase kata theon in 8:27 add?
- Which Old Testament pattern does draw on, and what does and 10:19-22 add?
- How do Reformed, Wesleyan, Catholic and Orthodox, and Pentecostal and charismatic readers each describe 'praying in the Spirit'?
Read further
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, chapter 20 · John Calvin, 1559 free to read
The fullest Reformation treatment of prayer. It teaches that prayer is the exercise of faith, rests on Christ as sole mediator, and rejects the intercession of saints.
Read it ↗Sermon 26 (on the Sermon on the Mount); Sermon 16, The Means of Grace · John Wesley, 1740s-1780s free to read
Wesley's expositions of the Lord's Prayer and of prayer as an ordinary channel of grace. He argues prayer prepares the one praying to receive what God is ready to give.
Read it ↗How to Pray · R. A. Torrey, 1900 free to read
A short, popular guide. Chapters 4 and 5 teach that prayer is made in the name of Christ and in the Spirit.
Read it in AideWith Christ in the School of Prayer · Andrew Murray, 1885 free to read
Thirty-one lessons on Jesus's teaching on prayer. Lesson 24 treats 'In My Name' and Lesson 28 treats Gethsemane.
Read it in AideThe Korea Pentecost · William N. Blair, 1910 free to read
A missionary's first-hand account of the 1907 Pyongyang meetings. It is a report by a participant, written to inspire support.
Read it ↗The Story of the Welsh Revival as Told by Eyewitnesses · various, 1905 free to read
Contemporary accounts and reflections, including G. Campbell Morgan's lessons. Sympathetic, written during the revival.
Read it ↗God's Empowering Presence · Gordon D. Fee, 1994 link only
A Pentecostal New Testament scholar's study of the Spirit in Paul's letters. It treats praying in the Spirit and and argues for a link with tongues.
The Power of the Name · Kallistos Ware, SLG Press (year varies by edition) link only
An Orthodox bishop's introduction to the Jesus Prayer. It presents the practice as invoking Christ by name and as part of the Orthodox spiritual tradition.
Prepared with AI assistance from public-domain sources and other books' published teaching. A scholar's review is still to come; if you spot anything to correct, please tell us.
Your notes
Only you can see your notes.