What does "you have asked nothing in my name" mean (John 16:24)?

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.

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.

And this is followed up in verse 24: "Hitherto ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled." The importance of this can hardly be exaggerated: I do not mean as bearing merely on the use of the blessed prayer given long before to the disciples, but on the broader question of their approaching new relationship, and standing by redemption and the gift of the Spirit. On the face of the words, however, it is plain that to use that prayer is not to ask the Father in Christ's name. The disciples were, no doubt, in the habit of using it day by day; yet up to the present they had asked nothing in His name. Now, so to ask the Father in the Son's name is alone Christian prayer in the true and full sense. Those, therefore, who insist on going back to the prayer of the disciples fail to enter into the new place on which the Lord here sets all that are His. It may be reverently meant; but is it the faith which really enters into God's mind and honours the Master? I trow not. As a prayer to be used when the disciples knew not how to pray it was perfection; as a model, it abides ever full of depths of instruction. But the Lord, now at the end of His career here below, lets them know the shortcoming in ground and object of their previous petitions, and tells them what should be their appropriate character in future through their new blessing at hand, through redemption and ascension.

It would have been out of season and presumptuous for the disciples in the past to have drawn near to the Father as the Son did, Who, in His wisdom and goodness, gave them a prayer perfectly suited to their then state when the atoning work was not yet done, and the Holy Ghost accordingly not given. But now, as we have already seen so often in this context, consequent on Christ's glorifying God on earth by death and going up on high, the Holy Ghost would come to be in and with them. And this is the great result Godward, as we have already seen much saintward: they should ask in Christ's name; and they are called to ask and receive, that their joy might be full. Life in Christ would go forth in suited desires, to which the Holy Ghost would impart power as well as intelligence; and assuredly, with such a ground and motive before Him as the Son of man Who had devoted Himself at all cost to His glory, the Father would fail in nothing on His part. Their joy would indeed be at the full.

Then there is another privilege. The Lord intimates a new character of drawing near to the Father, which they had not yet known. (Verses 23-26) Hitherto they had asked nothing in His name. "In that day," He says, "ye shall ask me nothing." We are in "that day" now. "In that day" does not mean in a future day, but in one that is come. Instead of using Christ's intervention as Martha proposed, instead of begging Christ to ask* the Father, demanding each thing they needed of Christ Himself, they might reckon on the Father's giving them whatsoever they should ask Him in Christ's name. It is not a question of a Messianic link to get what they wanted, but they would be able to ask the Father in His name themselves. How blessed to know the Father thus hearkening to the children asking in the Son's name! It is of children on earth now the Lord speaks, not of the Father's house by-and-by. Evidently this is a capital truth, bearing powerfully on the nature of the Christian's prayers, as well as on his worship.

1910 75 "And 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; and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God" (John 16:23-27). Has the reader ever noticed how a letter-knowledge of Scripture may sometimes hinder its spiritual apprehension? Perhaps it is thus with the expression, "In my name" — so familiar as a phrase, yet its power so slightly understood. The fact is that prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus is one of the special distinctions of the present day of grace. The Lord indicates this by the statement, "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name," and thus marks off our position in prayer from that of God's people in the past. Whether Abraham in Gen. 18, or Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, Daniel in Babylon, or Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:15) — each addressed God suitably according to the character, or the relationship, in which He was known. But the revelation of the divine nature was then only partial. Jesus, however, revealed the Father — yet, until the coming of the Holy Ghost, the disciples' comprehension of that revelation, as of much that He taught, was obscure. In the 16th of John, however, the Lord is about to go away. He had already taught them to pray to God as their Father, but naming Him only by description, as "Our Father who art in heaven"; now, he announces a new thing, based on His ascension. They would approach the Father in His name; that is, not now One distantly described as "in heaven" (for He had not as yet shown them plainly of the Father, John 16:25), but One fully known as The Father: even as John states, "I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father" (1 John 2:13).

"And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full . In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God" (John 16:23 - 27). Has the reader ever noticed how a letter - knowledge of Scripture may sometimes hinder its spiritual apprehension? Perhaps it is thus with the expression, "in my name," so familiar as a phrase, yet its power so slightly understood. The fact is that prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus is one of the special distinctions of the present day of grace. The Lord indicates this by the statement, " Until now you have asked nothing in My name," and thus marks off our position in prayer from that of God's people in the past. Whether Abraham in Genesis 18, or Solomon at the dedication of the temple, Daniel in Babylon, or Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:15), each addressed God suitably according to the character, or the relationship, in which He was known. But the revelation of the divine nature was then only partial. Jesus, however, revealed the Father - yet, until the coming of the Holy Ghost, the disciples' comprehension of that revelation, as of much that He taught, was obscure. In the 16th chapter of John, however, the Lord is about to go away. He had already taught them to pray to God as their Father, but naming Him only by description, as "Our Father who art in heaven"; now, he announces a new thing, based on His ascension. They would approach the Father in His name, that is, not now one distantly described as "in heaven" (for He had not as yet shown them plainly of the Father, John 16:25), but One fully known as The Father: even as John states, I write to you, little children, Because you have known the Father" (1 John 2:13).

This perfect model of prayer was given by our Lord to His disciples to be used by them individually and previous to the gift of the Holy Spirit. It was then all on Jewish ground; they were Jewish believers and as such they received this model prayer and used it in the transition state. There came a day when our Lord said another word to these very disciples who had come to Him with the request, "Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples." It was in the upper room where He spoke all the precious words concerning the Comforter, all that which was so new, altogether new, that which would take them upon a new ground. He said, "Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name; ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. ... In that day ye shall ask in My name" (John 16:24-25). This message alone ought to give perfect light and understanding to any of our readers who are in doubt about this matter. "Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name." This shows two things: (1) They asked of God, and (2) They asked not in His name. They had then used the prayer He had taught them, and it was a prayer not in His name. Now He tells them that they were to ask in His name. This, then, is Christian prayer to ask God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When He says "in that day" He means the day which began when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, and this day is still present.

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.

Hence the Lord could speak to His disciples, in view of the accomplishment of His work, and of His now imminent return to His Father, of prayer in His name as a new thing which would be now for the first time their privilege, when the Spirit of truth having come to lead them into all the blessed reality of the new position, they should know that He was in the Father, and He in them, and they in Him (John 14:20). Conscious of their gracious identification with Him on high, they were now for the first time to approach the Father as thus identified; and the answer to their prayers, however feeble these prayers, would be the testimony of Divine satisfaction with Christ and with His work.

Our first enquiry is, what is the force and meaning of asking in His name? The answer surely is, that the Lord was leaving His disciples during His absence as His representatives. As far as His interests in this world are concerned, they were left to represent Him, and their requests as His representatives would be granted. A place of remarkable privilege indeed: and equally a place of great responsibility.