What does it mean that God will reward you openly when you fast in secret (Matthew 6:18)?

The real source of strength in faith lies in the hidden relationship with our God and Father. Someone once said: "We cannot confess the Lord publicly if we have not been in secret communion with Him on our knees." This is why the Lord judges so sharply our tendency to give our brethren and fellow-men an impression which does not at all agree with our heart and soul's true condition.

At one time God had to say to Samuel: "for it is not as man seeth; for man looketh upon the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh upon the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7, J.N.D. Trans.). This is why the Lord Jesus says: "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." The Lord Jesus does not mention when and how the Father will reward, but we know that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

In fact, in Israel, with the Pharisaic externalism which characterized the nation; fasting was abused to its very opposite. It was made to accredit self, instead of discrediting it. It brought it into prominence, instead of setting it aside. And it has always been a feature, not merely in asceticism (which the Lord is plainly not rebuking here), but in formalism also. He extinguishes this by making it a thing to be before the Father and not before men: before the eyes of Him who sees in secret. As to the practice of it, He does not really decide anything; and as to its place in Christianity, we must inquire about that elsewhere. That the true life is one that is to be lived before God is the main point upon which He is here insisting.

(3) We now come to the subject of fasting. I believe there is a real value in fasting that few of us know much about. If, on particular occasions which call for special individual prayer, one were to unite fasting with it, I have no doubt the blessing of it would be felt. There is humbling of spirit expressed in it. There are prayers which are most suitably accompanied by standing, others by kneeling. Fasting is one of those things in which the body shows its sympathy with what the spirit is passing through; it is a means of expressing our desire to be low before God, and in the attitude of humiliation. But lest the flesh should take advantage of even what is for the mortifying of the body, the Lord enjoins that means be taken rather not to appear unto men to fast than to permit any display. For although a true Christian would shrink from putting on false appearances, the devil would cheat him into doing it unless he is very jealous in self-watchfulness before God. "Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly" (vers. 17, 18).

In the instructions as to fasting (verses 16-18) the Lord again exposes the desire for display, as He had done in connection with almsgiving and prayer, and shows that that only is of value that is done in secret, i.e., before God. All true prayer supposes not only the refusal of what is evil but the avoidance at times of what may in itself be right. Man is not only a spirit being but has a physical body, and he may be drawn into sin by the very needs of that body. Men may fall both by eating and drinking, as Adam and Noah. On the other hand, people may be deluded into the denial to the body its dues for the sake of appearance (Col. 2:23). There is, however, a deep moral connection between true prayer and fasting, as all spiritual minds have felt, and its blessedness lies in the fact that a Christian may be so engaged with God and His things as to forget for the time the needs of the body, and even when these make their appeal he may be so filled with God as to be able to deny the natural in the power of that which is spiritual. Such a state, it is needless to say, is far removed from the eye of one's fellow-men.

In a threefold way could they practice this — viz., in alms-giving (2-4), in prayer (5-15), and in fasting (16-18); but in whichever of these ways they practised righteousness, remembering from whom was their reward, they were to do it to Him who seeth in secret. This the Lord impressed on them. Their Father's eye was on them. Their Father was well acquainted with that which they were doing; He would not forget it. "Thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee" (4, 6, 18). What encouragement! and at the same time, what a wholesome reminder! There is something, too, very gracious in the Lord's teaching here. "Thy Father," He said, not "your Father," referring thereby to the birth-tie formed between each true disciple and God. Each can say, "He is my Father;" and, if finding himself alone on earth from whatever cause, with none to turn to here, there is always that eye looking down on him, the eye of his Father who seeth in secret. The eye of his Father. One sees in Ps. 139 what an uneasy feeling the saint experiences under the sense of God's eye being on him, till he gets hold of God's thoughts (14-18). The eye of my Father being on me should produce no such uneasiness; rather the contrary, assured that neither locality nor darkness can hinder that eye resting on me. On Peter at midnight, sleeping between two soldiers in prison, and on Paul at night in the storm, when for many days neither sun nor stars had appeared, that eye looked down. The lights in heaven could be obscured by clouds or thickness; but nothing comes between our Father's eye and the object it would rest on, for He seeth in secret: a word of comfort, yet a word of warning also; for is there not a danger of forgetting before whom we are, and who beholds us?

It is very evident on the surface that when the Lord says of the "hypocrites" that "they have their reward," He means that they attain the object they have in view in their religious display before the eyes of men, that they, in a word, succeed in acquiring the praise of others. The following note will explain this very exactly: "'Have' is compounded with a preposition, which gives it the force of having all they have to expect, they have the whole of it already. … It is expressed in English by laying the stress on 'have.' Perhaps one might say 'have got' in the same sense." This is very solemn, because it teaches that if we are tempted to seek the admiration, the honour, or the praise of men, we may be allowed to gain it; but in that case we have nothing more to expect, inasmuch as we cannot then have God's favour and blessing. What the Lord is indeed here enforcing is that, whether in giving alms, in praying, or in fasting, it must all be done in secret before the eye of God, for, if not, none of these things will be of any avail before Him. And to encourage His disciples to this He says, "And thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee."* We need to remind ourselves of this instruction, for what is more frequently seen than the publication of the names of the donors of alms, or even private prayers presented before the eyes of others? How beautiful the words which the Lord uses of prayer! "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door" (shut out all else, even the nearest and the dearest), "pray to thy Father who is in secret" (for it is in secret that He is to be found and that His presence is to be realized); "and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee." Yea, if His eye alone, His favour alone, be sought, the end desired will be most assuredly realized. It will be readily perceived that all this applies to individual and private prayer; and yet even where two or three are gathered together in the Lord's name to pray, it is necessary to remember that we must address alone the ear of God, that we must pray to Him, and not to those who are present.

In Matthew 6:1-18 further instruction comes out on the side of righteousness, as indeed may be read in verse 1 instead of alms, which would then take in prayer (5-15) and fasting (16-18) as well as alms-giving (1-4.) The same principle governs all three things — not merely the avoidance of display, and desire to gain a religious reputation in the desperate subtlety of these hearts of ours, by them, but setting us before the Father for appraisal and as object in them — God not man — verses 1, 4, 6 (note — "when thou hast shut thy door"); 17-18 (note — to obliterate the traces of fasting that men may not know it). Hence it is not a question of open reward, in 1, 18 (omit "openly") — "Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee" is enough. "I know thy works." What a deliverance from the thought of the necessity of much speaking — that "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him." What grace so to put it to us. "After this manner," etc.; it is manifestly of God that the "when ye pray say" of Luke should give, according to the critical editors, a much briefer form, so that the evil might be avoided that the Church has fallen into, of using the prayer as a form, and apart from any question of need, as a kind of charm. It is deplorable to see the great mass of Christians under the power of what is simply superstition. When we take it as the Lord gave it to the disciples here, the perfection of it comes out more and more. "Our Father which art in heaven" would be very new to them as compared with anything known in Judaism, (though not putting them into the full Christian position of relationship, which was impossible before redemption and the Holy Spirit was given). We drop "in heaven" then and "heavenly Father" because in Christ we belong to heaven ourselves, His Father is our Father; but this wonderful change of man and place could not be yet — not the Spirit of adoption by which we, cry Abba Father. We have seen it much characterize the Lord's instructions here, and it would form them in grace and confidence — finding its place in the beginning of the revelation of the Father in the blessed Lord's path, though for this revelation fully to come out, it needed that the veil should be taken off the deeper glory of His Person, as in Matthew 11 and Gospel of John. "Hallowed be thy name" (cf. Mal. 1:11), only the desire goes further, that the Father's name should not only be universally great, but that it should be set apart and held according to the nature of Him whose Name it is and who is revealed in it in those to whom it is known — "our Father." The heart is then led out to embrace the Kingdom, to look for its coming, especially the heavenly side of it (cf. Matt. 13:43) — their Father's kingdom; though the latter clause of the petition looks for the effect of it to be found on earth — the Father's will, the rule of it on earth as in heaven (only translate as in Luke, where editors omit the clause "as in heaven so in earth": i.e. it is not a question of measure but of fact). "Give us this day our needed bread" teaches dependence in that, which by the petition being given them is assured to them, i.e. the supply of the day's need. (See latter part of J. N. D.'s Note N.Tr. for what I cannot doubt — even after Lightfoot's "revision" and rejection of it — is the true solution of the apax legomena.) "Forgive us our debts as we," etc.: "our Father" according to the address of the prayer enables us to see at once that this is the Father's forgiveness that is looked for under the gracious government of His people. He "judgeth according to every man's work" (1 Peter 1), and hence, according to the enlargement of the principle in verses 14-15, if we forgive not men their trespasses, instead of forgiveness we come under His judgment in chastening. But, on the other hand, the spirit of grace is met in grace by the Father. The principle is as true for us as for them, and in no way touches the forgiveness of redemption of non-imputation, and no more conscience of sins in which we stand before God, now that redemption is accomplished and that forgiveness is preached. "Lead [or rather "bring"] us not into temptation." (Cf. Luke 22:40, Pray that ye enter not into temptation"; cf. for force of word John 6:6.)