What does it mean to pray in Jesus' name?

The change indeed was so momentous and complete, that our Lord Himself prepares the disciples for it solemnly in John 16, when, after having fully brought out the mission and presence of the Comforter in and with them, He says, "In that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." … "At that day ye shall ask in my name," etc. What did our Lord mean when He said, "In that day ye shall ask me nothing?" This was what they had been doing while He was upon earth; they always went to Him as the blessed and gracious Messiah, and were quite right in doing so. Yet He adds, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, etc. … Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name." What! asked nothing in His name? Had they not been using the Lord's prayer for some years? Certainly they had; and yet they had asked nothing in Christ's name.* Now, He says to them, you are going to be put upon a new ground; no longer to be merely coming to Me and asking Me, but asking the Father, and asking in Christ's name. What is meant by asking in Christ's name? Is it merely saying "for Christ's sake" at the end of a prayer? No. The meaning is no less than this: that, by virtue of redemption when accomplished, and by the Holy Ghost uniting them to the Lord Jesus in heaven, they would be put in the same position as Himself. Therefore it is said in 1 John 4: "As he is, so are we in this world." And so St. Paul, in 1 Cor. 6, "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." This may illustrate the meaning of asking in the name of Christ, or rather of the ground on which it rests. It is to ask the Father in the consciousness of all their sins being put away, and of their being in Him brought nigh to God, and in the full enjoyment of His favour, without a question or cloud between God and their souls: going to God and making supplication to Him as standing in the possession of the full blessing to which Christ above, and the Holy Ghost below, should entitle them in that day: this is asking the Father in Christ's name.

True Christian prayer is in the name of the Son (John 16:23-24) and obviously the Lord's prayer is not that. Prayer in the name of the Son is not the mere tacking His name to the end of our petitions; it is prayer in the consciousness that Christ by His death and resurrection has brought us into His own standing before God, accepted in His acceptance, blessed as He is blessed, and loved as He is loved. Praying in this happy consciousness, we expect the Father to respond to our requests according to His delight in His Son: with whom we are now eternally identified. Several years after the Lord's prayer was given, the Lord said to His disciples: "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:24). The whole context in John 16 shows that He was now leading them into a deeper privilege in connection with prayer than they had ever known before.

This also turned (as was intended) to their increasing sense of the value of Christ's own name. "In that day ye shall ask (αἰτ.) in My name." Asking in His name is not merely for Christ's sake as a motive, but in the value of Himself and His acceptance. His worth goes in its fulness to the account of those who thus plead; and how precious and all-prevailing it is in the Father's eyes! How glorifying to both the Father and the Son! How humbling and no less strengthening to the saints themselves! It is the title of every Christian now; none ever enjoyed it before. Never was there a soul blessed on earth apart from Him and His work foreseen; but this is known nearness and acceptance applied even to our petitions in virtue of Himself fully revealed when His work was done and accepted in infinite efficacy.

"When the Holy Spirit was given, and the child was able to draw near to the Father in the name of Christ, you have something different. The Lord's prayer so-called does not clothe the believer with the name of Christ. What is meant by asking the Father in that name? Can it be merely saying "in His name" at the end of a prayer? When Christ died and rose again, He gave the believer His own standing before God, and then to ask the Father in the name of Christ is to ask in the consciousness that my Father loves me as He loves Christ; that my Father has given me the acceptance of Christ Himself before Him, having completely blotted out all my evil, so as to be made the righteousness of God in Him. To pray in the value of this is asking in His name. Is there a soul using the Lord's prayer as a form that has a real understanding of what it is to ask the Father in the name of Christ? I believe they have never entered into that great truth." -- Notes on Matthew by W. Kelly.

Our Lord has also laid down an indispensable condition of prayer — a condition which, when fulfilled, always ensures the answer to our cries. He says, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14.) It becomes therefore a matter of the utmost importance to ascertain the meaning of the words "in my name." It could not mean the utterance simply of the words, or closing our petitions with, "through our Lord Jesus Christ." That would attach the answer of prayer to a mere formula. This is impossible, and we shall see that much more is involved. Even in human transactions the name of another cannot be used without his consent and authority. If we ask anything of a third person in another's name, in the name of one that would give us influence in our request, it can only be with his express permission, and a permission which must be proved if the demand is made. In like manner we cannot use the name of Christ in our prayers without His warrant — a warrant that must be found in His own Word. When we have this, and we have it for every petition which is evoked from us by the Holy Ghost, for every prayer which is the expression of His own mind, we appear before God with all the authority of Christ Himself, in all His value and preciousness to God, and hence the prayers so offered ascend with the same power as if presented by Himself This is seen from the promise He annexes to the condition, "I will do it." And He will do it, moreover, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. How blessed then when we thus pray! And what an encouragement thus to pray! And what a foundation, we may also add, for faith to build its hopes and expectations upon!

In John 15 the Lord has given us another condition — "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (v. 7.) This is sometimes spoken of as a lower kind of prayer, but the slightest examination of the terms our Lord employs will dispel the misconception. True it is asking what we will, but this is preceded by a double condition. The first is, "If ye abide in me." Now abiding in Christ is the constant maintenance in our souls of our dependence upon Him for life, strength, and everything; a dependence as complete as that of the branch on the vine for its power to bear fruit. "Apart from me," He says, "ye can do nothing," anymore than the branch could bear fruit after it was severed from the vine. Whatever of life towards God, service in testimony, fruit-bearing of every kind, that flows out from His people, has its source in Him, and can only flow out through them, as the connection is maintained by abiding in Him, realizing that they are dependent on Him, that in this sense they live, move, and have their being in Him. Then He adds, "And my words abide in you." The two things must go together — abiding in Him and His words abiding in us. The first gives the secret of the power and the second the knowledge of His mind; for when His words abide — dwell in us — they become the source of His thoughts to us; yea, they form His mind, and as a consequence what we will is according to His will. This reveals to us that our prayers — the prayers that have power with God — flow from God's own mind as revealed in the Scriptures. An example of this may be found in the life of David. When the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David that not he, but his son, should build Jehovah's house, and gave him promises concerning his own house, his throne, and kingdom, he went in and sat before the Lord with his heart overflowing with gratitude, and praise, and prayer; and, among others, he used these remarkable words, "Thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee." (2 Samuel 7:27.) That is, David's prayer concerning his house was founded upon and formed by the gracious communications which Jehovah had been pleased to make. So likewise our truest prayers are those which spring from the word of God, the words of Christ, as in John, dwelling in our hearts, because we then pray in communion with, as well as according to, the divine mind, and hence necessarily also in the Holy Ghost.

A little confusion has often prevailed in the use of the phrases "for Christ's sake," and "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." We are not aware that the former is ever connected with prayer in the Scriptures. A case or two may, however, be adduced to explain its import. John says, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake." (1 John 2:12.) Exactly rendered it might be said, "because" or "on account of His name." That is, they had been freely forgiven "by reason of" the value of the name of Christ to God because He had fully glorified Him in all that He is, in His death upon the cross. The instance in Ephesians 4:32 is a mistranslation: it should read, "Even as God in Christ hath forgiven you." It is another phrase altogether where Peter says, "I will lay down my life for Thy sake": here it means "on Thy behalf," or even "in Thy stead." Coming now to what is found in John 16, as to prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or in the name of the Son (as in chapter 14), it should be first observed that our access to our God and Father is always and only through Christ. As Paul writes, "For through Him we both [Jew and Gentile] have access by one Spirit unto the Father." We cannot come in any other way. But coming thus "through Him" before God the question is at once met, What is praying in His name? It could not be using His name as a plea, or entreating to be heard for His sake, because the Lord says, without any limitation whatever, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you." By praying in His name, then, we understand appearing before the Father on His behalf, and as warranted to be there by Him, so that we are there with all the Son's claim upon the Father's heart, and taken up in the power of the Holy Ghost to utter and pray for, in communion with His own heart, all that He Himself desires to be accomplished for the Father's glory and His own joy. Praying, then, in His name is to intercede for His own interests, His own desires, objects, and ends. If this be so, this character of prayer has no reference to our own personal needs or circumstances; indeed, it could not. And let it not be forgotten that there is a circle in which we have no needs, because we are lost, absorbed in the Father's counsels for the glory of His beloved Son. At the same time we have full liberty to come at all times, through our blessed Lord, into the presence of God, and to tell out everything that burdens our hearts (Phil. 4:6-7); only this is not praying "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Once again, turn to John 16:23. "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you." Here is a fifth condition. If prayer is in Christ's name it will be answered. What is it to pray in His name? It certainly does not mean to pray about any and every thing that we please, and then wind up by saying, "All this we ask in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ." It means that what we ask for must be something to which the name of Christ can truly be attached, something which He would ask for were He in our circumstances. This calls for spiritual discernment, which can only be acquired in nearness to the Lord. So asking for any thing in His name implies that we are in close communion with Him.

The Apostles of course had not asked in the name of the Son up to the time of Christ's death: but to ask in His name is not the tacking on of certain phrases at the end of the prayer. It is right enough to say, "For the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ," "but to ask in the Son's name is much more than this. It implies a state of soul, and is not a matter of words. When you pray in His name, it is not yourself at all, it is Himself who asks. You are lost, you are gone. That prayer must be answered in full. There is no other condition necessary to such prayer as this. When you pray in the name of the Son, it is the Son asking through you. How can it but be answered. If, however, you say to me, Would you like all your prayers answered thus? I say, God forbid! I could not imagine a greater curse. Look at 1 John 5:14, "If we ask any thing according to His will He heareth us." That is another matter, that is not asking in His name, but that when we ask according to His will He hears. This is very blessed, but it does not rise to the asking in His name. So also Phil. 4:6-7. This, too, is very blessed, but does it mean we get all we ask? Certainly not, that would be the worst result. We get a much better thing. We get the peace of God which passes all understanding. No one can ask in the Son's name but as identified with the Son. The speaker is gone, and there is nothing but the Son, who is speaking and acting in him. Thus it is that it is not the words, which are said, which constitute asking in the Son's name, but a state of soul in which you are lifted outside yourself by the knowledge that you are here as the Son was, and loved with the same love wherewith He was loved.

But asking in the name of Christ is more than having a title through His name; it is, indeed, to appear before God with all the value and authority of that name. If, for example, I go to a bank and present a check, I ask for the value of the check in the name of him by whom it is drawn. So when I appear before God in the name of Christ, I present my supplications in all the value of that name to God. Hence it is that our Lord says, "If ye shall ask any thing in My name, I will do it," because, indeed, it is the joy of the heart of God to grant every request that is so preferred. The promise is absolute, without any limitation; for the simple reason that nothing could be asked in the name of Christ which was not in accordance with the will of God. For we could not use His name for any request which was not begotten in our hearts by His own Spirit.

Now it is quite true that there is a class of prayer which is above the level of personal needs and circumstances. Examples of this are the magnificent prayer of the church in Acts 4:24-30; the two prayers of the apostle Paul in Ephesians (first, in Eph. 1:16-23, and secondly, in Eph. 3:14-21). But that we have not Christ's name for prayer about personal needs and circumstances, as well as for the more exalted descriptions of prayer just referred to, is pure imagination, and not to he found in Scripture. All true prayer now is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:23-24). Doubtless there is a great deal of prayer colourably in the name of Christ, which is not genuinely so, and this is not transmuted into true prayer by adding at the end, as a formula of words, "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Scripture admits that "we know not what we should pray for as we ought," but "he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God" (Rom. 8:26-27). The great requisite for prayer, therefore, is to have the mind of the Spirit about the matter in hand, and this can only be acquired by being morally near to the Lord, abiding in Him experimentally. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). Hence the humility, the self-distrust, submissiveness to the divine will, in which spirit only can true prayer be made; but whatever the Father recognises as in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will undoubtedly be granted. There is, however, no other name in which to pray.