John 16:23-30.
Verily, verily, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you by proverb. But the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you by proverb, but will proclaim to you freely from my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. And I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you; for he himself, the Father, loves you, because you love me and believe that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said to him, "Behold, now you speak freely and do not say a proverb. Now we know that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee. Therefore we believe that you came from God.
1 This Gospel is read on this Sunday because it teaches about prayer and this week is called the Week of the Cross, in which one is to pray and walk with the crosses. And those who first decreed it may have meant it well, but it turned out badly. For many unchristian things have happened in the processions up to now, and nothing or little has been prayed for, so that they should be stopped and left undone. I have often admonished that we should stop praying, because there is great need; but because the outward chattering and murmuring has ceased, we pray nothing else either; from which one can well feel how, among so many prayers, we have prayed nothing up to now.
(2) Here the Lord indicates five things that are necessary for right prayer. The first is, God's promise; which is the main piece, the reason for the prayer.
and power of all prayers. For here he promises that if we ask, it will be given to us; and he swears to this, saying, "Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you"; that we should be sure in prayer that we will be heard, yes, he scolds them for being lazy and not having prayed until now. As if he wanted to say: God is ready to give much sooner and more than you ask; yes, he offers his goods, if we only take them. Truly, it is a great shame and a severe punishment for us Christians that he should still reproach us for our laziness in praying, and that we do not allow such a rich and excellent promise to tempt us to pray, that we leave such a precious treasure lying there, and that we do not try or practice to receive the power of such a promise.
3 So God Himself bases our prayer on His promise and thereby entices us to prayer, for if the promise were not there,
who may pray? Until now, we have used many ways to send ourselves to prayer, as the books are full of them; but if you want to be well prepared, take the promise before you and grasp God by it, and you will soon gain the courage and desire to pray, which you will otherwise never gain. For those who pray without God's promise think to themselves that God is angry, and they want to appease him with their prayer. As a result, there is neither the courage nor the desire to pray, but only an uncertain delusion and a heavy mind; then there is no hearing, and both prayer and work are lost.
4 Hereby is punished the unbelief of those who, out of foolish devotion, consider themselves unworthy to pray, and measure the unworthiness of their prayer according to themselves and their own ability, and not according to the promise of God. But thou shalt be sure of thy worthiness in all things, not of thine own doing, but of the promise of God: so that, though thou be alone, and there be none praying in the world, yet thou prayest according to that promise. For you will not show me any saint who has prayed on his worthiness and not on God's promise, be it Peter, Paul, Mary, Elijah, or whoever else; they have all been unworthy. I would not give a farthing for all the prayers of a saint, if he had prayed on his worthiness.
5. the other part, which belongs to the promise, namely, faith, that one believes that the promise is true and does not doubt that God will give what He promises; for the words of the promise require faith. Faith, however, is a firm, undoubted confidence in God's promise that it is true, as Jacobus says Cap. 1, p. 6. 7: "If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives simply, and if no one rebels, it will be given to him; but let him ask in faith, and do not doubt. For he that doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and wafted by the wind; such a man only thinketh not that he shall receive anything of the Lord." Even he who doubts in his heart
and yet prays, he tempts God, because he doubts God's will and grace: therefore his prayer is nothing, and gropes after God as a blind man gropes after the wall. Of what certainty of faith also John speaks in his epistle, 1 John 5:14, 15: "This is the joy that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he heareth us what we ask; we know that we have the request which we asked of him." With these words St. John describes how a true believing heart is skillful in prayer, namely, that it cannot think otherwise than that it is heard and has already obtained the request; this is also true. But such faith and certainty must be given by the Holy Spirit; therefore, of course, no prayer is done without the Holy Spirit.
(6) Now try and pray, and you will feel the sweetness of God's promise, what a courage and comforting heart it gives to ask anything, however great or great the request. For Elijah was a man, frail as we are: yet when he prayed, it rained not for three years and six months; and when he prayed again, it rained, 1 Kings 17:1, 18:45. Behold, thou seest a certain man praying, and ruling with the same prayer over the clouds, and over the heavens, and over the earth; that God might make us see what power and authority a right prayer hath, that nothing is impossible unto him.
(7) Now ask every man his heart how often he hath prayed all his life: for to sing psalms, and to read the Lord's Prayer, is not to pray; which is instituted for the sake of children and rude persons, that they may be exercised and made proficient in the Scriptures. But your prayer no one sees and feels but you alone in your heart, and will actually feel when it has fallen.
(8) The third thing is to name something that you present to God and ask for it; as when you ask for strong faith, for love, for peace, for the comfort of your neighbor. For one must indicate the need; just as the Lord's Prayer presents seven kinds of need. This is what Christ means by the little word, "If you ask anything." "Something" is what you need. Item, he himself interprets the same
"something" and says, "that your joy may be full," that is, pray for all kinds of needs until you obtain everything and have full joy; which prayer will be fulfilled at the last day of all things.
(9) The fourth thing is to desire the same, or to wish that it may be done, which is nothing else than to ask, as Christ says: "Ask. Others have called this ascensum mentis in Deum, when the heart rises up and sways to God and desires something from him, and for this reason sighs and says, "Oh, that I had this or that! This sighing is highly praised by St. Paul to the Romans Cap. 8, 26. and says: It is an inexpressible sighing of the spirit, that is, the mouth may not and cannot speak more heartily and powerfully than the heart desires, the longing surpasses all words and thoughts. Hence it is that man himself does not feel how deep his groaning or desire is. When Zacchaeus desired to see the Lord, he himself did not feel how his heart desired that Christ should speak to him and come into his house. But when it happened, he was very glad when he succeeded after all his desires and requests, more than he could have asked or desired verbally, Luc. 19:2 ff. So Moses cried out that God said to him, "What are you crying out to me for?" Ex 14:15, when his mouth was silent; but the heart in distress sighs deeply, which is called a cry to God. St. Paul also speaks to the Ephesians Cap. 3:20: "God is able to do more and more than we ask or understand." For this sighing now serve the temptations, fear and distress; they teach us to sigh properly.
(10) The fifth, to ask in Christ's name, is nothing else than to come before God in the faith of Christ, and to comfort ourselves with good confidence that he is our mediator, through whom all things are given to us, without whom we deserve nothing, wrath and disgrace; as Paul says to the Romans Cap. 5:2: "Through whom we may enter into this grace wherein we stand, and boast of the hope of the glory to come, which God shall give." That is to ask rightly in Christ's name, when
So we rely on Him to accept and hear us for His sake, not for ours. But those who ask in their own name, as those who presume that God should hear them or look upon them, that they say so many, so great, so devout, so holy prayers, will earn and receive disgrace and wrath; for they themselves want God to look upon them without means, that Christ is neither valid nor useful.
(11) Here we see that all the five things in prayer may well be done without all oral chatter, in the heart; although the oral is not to be despised, but is necessary to kindle and stimulate the inner prayer in the heart. But the additions, of which I have written enough elsewhere, should and must be omitted, namely, that one does not agree with God about time, duration, person, place and measure; but rather leaves everything to his will and depends solely on prayer, and does not doubt that the prayer is heard, and that what we ask is already arranged to be given, as if it were certain, as if one already had it. This pleases God well, and he will do it, as he promises here: "Ask and you shall receive. But those who set time, place and measure, tempting God, do not believe that they have been heard or that they have received what they ask; therefore nothing comes to them. Continue in the Gospel:
So far you have not asked anything on my behalf.
(12) That is, they did not yet know of such a prayer and name, nor did they feel any need that urged them to pray; they thought that because Christ was with them, they could do nothing and had all things enough. But now that he is to depart and leave them, the need arises, which will give them cause enough to pray.
These things have I spoken unto you by proverb.
013 When he saith, These things, he meaneth that which he spake before, Over a little one ye shall not see me; but over a little one ye shall see me, because I go unto the Father: item, of the anguish of a woman in childbirth: for these things were vain.
Proverbs, that is, dark, sinister speeches that they did not hear. For John calls such dark, hidden speech "proverbs," although the German language does not call it that, but Räthsel or concealed speech. As one is accustomed to say of one who says a hidden speech: This is a hidden meal, since something is behind it that is different from what it says; or it is spoken nimbly and quickly, which not everyone understands. Such were all the speeches of Christ, which he spoke in the evening of his departure and going to the Father; for they could understand nothing of it. They thought it would not be dying and going to another being, but a bodily going and coming again, as one goes to another country and comes again. Therefore, even though he says it clearly and plainly, it is still a hidden meal for them with the going and going again. That is why he continues:
But the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you by proverbs, but will freely proclaim to you about my Father.
14. This is what I now speak to you in the flesh, and you do not understand my sayings, but I will transfigure them to you through the Holy Spirit and speak freely of my Father, so that you will hear what the Father is and what my walk to the Father is; That is, you will finely see how I ascend through suffering into the Father's being and kingdom, that I sit at His right hand and represent you and am your mediator, so that all these things may be done for your sake by me, so that you may also come to the Father. For the "preaching of his Father" is not to be understood that he tells us much of the divine nature, as the sophists poetize of it; for that is vain and incomprehensible: but how he goes to the Father, that is, how he accepts the Father's kingdom and regiment; as when a king's son goes to his father to accept the kingdom. He goes on to say:
On that day you will ask in my name.
015 For then shall ye not only have cause to ask in many troubles, but also to know and to know what my name is.
and what you should hold me for: there the asking will teach itself, which you do not understand at all now and have never asked until now. Therefore he says further:
And I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you; for He Himself, the Father, loves you, because you loved me, and believed that I came forth from God.
How then? will he not be a mediator? shall we not ask in his name? shall we approach the Father through ourselves? How sweetly and sweetly the Lord can speak, and draw us to himself and through himself to the Father! For here he himself explains how it must be, if one wants to ask in his name: "You", he says, "love me and believe that I came forth from God", that is, you know me and love me; thus you have me and my name and are in me as I am in you. For Christ dwells in us, not as we can much think, speak, sing, or write of Him; but as we love Him, and believe in Him, as He came from God, and is going again to God; that is, as He manifested Himself in His suffering of all divine glory, and again went to the Father into the kingdom for our sakes. This faith brings us to the Father, and so it all goes in His name.
(17) Here then we are sure that Christ must not ask for us, for he has already asked for us. And now we ourselves, through Christ, may also come and ask. For we have no need of another Christ to ask for us; but this one Christ is enough, who has asked and brought us near. Therefore he says, "The Father loves you." It is not your merit, but his love: he loves you, but for my sake that ye believe on me, and love, that is, he regards my name in you. For this reason I have fulfilled my ministry, and you have now been brought here by me; now you yourselves, like me, may come before him and ask, and there is no need for me to ask anything else or more for you. These are excellent, great words, that through Christ we may become like him and become his brothers, and boast of being children of his Father, who loves us for Christ's sake; as he says above in John 1:16,
"Grace for grace," that is, God is gracious to us because He is gracious to Christ, who is in us and we in Him.
(18) And here we also see that "to believe in Christ" does not mean that Christ is a person who is both God and man, for that would not help anyone: but that the same person is Christ, that is, that for our sake he came forth from God and entered the world, and again leaves the world and goes to the Father. This is what is said: This is Christ, that he became man for us, and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; from which office he is called Jesus Christ; and to believe these things of him to be true, is to be and to abide in his name. Continue in the Gospel:
And his disciples said unto him, Behold, now speakest thou freely, and sayest no proverb.
Nineteen Thou seest that to speak freely, or to speak plainly, is as much as to speak without proverbs, or without dark and obscure words. And the good disciples think that they understand very well what it is that Christ comes from the Father and goes to the Father; but they do this, like good, pious children of Christ, as they were well able to do, and so they tell him for love; as good, simple ones do.
People sometimes talk among themselves, yes or no, and one falls to the other and says that it is so and understands it, if he is still far from it, and yet goes without hypocrisy in right simplicity. For the evangelist herewith indicates what a fine, simple, friendly, sweet life Christ led with his disciples, since they were so well able. Therefore they say further:
Now we know that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: therefore we believe that thou didst proceed from God.
20 That is, you come first and transfigure yourself, and no longer speak a proverb to be asked, for you already know where we lack understanding. And all this is because they wanted to ask him what the little one was, and he noticed that and said that he had to go to the Father; which they did not understand either, but it was clearer, because he said, "About a little one you will not see me. Now when he saw their thoughts, that they wanted to ask him, they knew that he had come from God, and knew everything, that one should not ask him, but see for himself where it is lacking.