Who are we to pray to, the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit?

Whether we should pray to God the Father, or to the Lord Jesus, or both, has often been a great question. Prayer in Old Testament times was always to God, but an added thought comes out in the New Testament. Christians can pray to God the Father, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we can pray to the Lord as well as the Father is evidenced by Paul beseeching the Lord thrice that the thorn in the flesh might be removed. This leads us to believe that in matters of service especially the Lord might be addressed in prayer.

It must be stressed that this does not rule out prayer and worship to God the Father. The matter for prayer should decide the Person to be addressed. For example, the Lord Jesus gave the commission to preach the gospel and thus, as the Lord's servant, I would seek direction from Him about this. It is God who desires that all men should be saved and hence our pleadings for the lost may be addressed to God (1 Tim. 2: 3-4). And as children of God, we can address the Father.

Prayer for one's self (James 5:13); prayer for others, for saints (Eph. 6:18), and for all men (1 Tim. 2:1); prayer too for the work of God upon earth (Col. 4:3-4) — with such requests are we permitted to approach God. Nor is this anything new; for saints in Old Testament times addressed Him, and in accordance with the revelation of their day drew nigh to God as the Almighty (Job 8:5), or as Jehovah God of Israel (1 Kings 8:23), who dwelleth between the cherubim. (2 Kings 19:15.) As seated on His earthly throne, Israel addressed to Him their supplications. Christians, however, are privileged to call on God as their Father who is in the heavens, and to pray likewise to the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 12:8); but nowhere are they authorized in Scripture to pray to the Holy Ghost. Praying in the Holy Ghost (Jude 20; Eph. 6:18) is what Christians are exhorted to do; but never are they told to pray to Him. Praying in the Holy Ghost we shall express the desires which the Spirit of God has formed in our hearts, and as the Spirit would lead us to present them; and, as having access to the heavenly sanctuary, we pray to Him who is in the heavens. Prayer then should ever be in accordance with the revelation vouchsafed to God's saints. What was suited to Solomon and Hezekiah would not be fitting for us. We should not address God as the God of Israel, nor speak to Him as dwelling between the cherubim. Similarly, since the Holy Ghost is with us, making intercession too for us according to God (Rom. 8:27), and with the bride asks the Lord Jesus to come (Rev. 22:17), addresses to Him, whether invoking His presence on earth, or asking Him to help us, receive no countenance from the divine word, and indicate a lack of spiritual understanding in those who resort to them.

It is one of the ways to warm our hearts when we bend our knees in prayer, not immediately to embark upon our requests for help or support or guidance, but just for a few moments to be engaged with the greatness of God Himself, just to let something enter into our souls of the greatness of the One to whom we are speaking, whether it is the Lord personally, or whether it is to God our Father, and doing these things in the power of the Spirit. We are exhorted to pray in the Spirit and I believe this is the way we pray in the Spirit, by addressing God the Father, by addressing God the Son, by His power and service, so that we say the things that are consistent with Their glory and greatness. This warms our hearts when first of all we recognise Their greatness and glory and supremacy, so small and puny as we are, and yet privileged to speak to Them in freedom and in liberty, with some intelligence in our souls as to Their greatness and yet who are we that can speak to them?

As Christians we are now allowed to pray to God, our Father in Christ, by the power and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 6:18; Jude 20). By the Spirit we have boldness to let our requests be made known unto God by prayer and supplication (Phil. 4:6). In Matthew 6 the disciples did not yet know this privilege.

In Romans 8:26-27 we are taught that the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us. He it is who is the Author of every true and right desire in our hearts. He teaches us to pray to the Father in the Name of Jesus. It is only by the Spirit that we can pray as we ought. As to the question of praying to the Holy Spirit, we do not think it intelligent. True, the Holy Spirit is God and is to be viewed in His own distinct Personality, but still the New Testament teaches us that He prays in us to the Father by the Son. A person praying to the Holy Spirit can hardly see with clearness the Spirit's indwelling.

In Acts 7:59 we have Stephen addressing prayer to the Lord Jesus. We cannot see how anyone could object to our doing the same. We must beware of being hyper-critical.

288 Then the passage has been used for a very bad purpose indeed, "ye shall ask me nothing," as if you are not to look or pray to Christ Himself, a mere abuse of the words. They were not to come to Him like Martha and say, "I know that, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." The Lord says, "do you come yourselves to the Father and do not be asking Me that I should go for you." But in all that concerns the administration, of what concerns His lordship on earth, the Christian prays to the Lord, not to the Son in that character. As a child and son I go to the Father, but it is to Christ I go, not to the Father, in matters that relate to His service. If I am a child, I go to the Father, but if I have something of administration in the church, I go to the Lord. It is a definition of a Christian that he calls on the name of the Lord Jesus; and you have Stephen's example, and Paul besought the Lord thrice. You cannot properly address the Spirit, but this is for another reason, the Holy Ghost being the One who is in me, and so He cannot address Himself. It is the different place the Holy Ghost takes in the economy of grace that is the reason of this. He is the agent in us to sustain us in prayer, for by one Spirit we have access unto the Father.

We cannot define, in any cut-and-dried way, the occasions when prayer should be addressed to the Father and when to the Son. Generally speaking, we turn to God our Father with reference to our needs as His children here on earth; we turn to the Lord Jesus in connection with His service in which He graciously permits us to engage.

It only remains to be said that the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, is never presented as the object of either prayer or praise. He is on earth, dwelling within us, to indite, not to receive, our prayers and praises.

To pray to the Spirit, as some insist on, is far more excusable, because the Holy Ghost is God; but even doing this betrays ignorance of the order of Scripture teaching; for the Spirit being the power of prayer, and the One who teaches us how to pray and what to pray for, who makes intercession for the saints according to God, we are spoken of as praying in the Spirit instead of to the Spirit.

Praying to the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is in us, and is Himself the moving power and inditer of our prayers, then obviously to address our prayers to Him is an incongruity; it is "by Him" that we "have access to the Father" (Eph. 2:18). For addressing the Holy Spirit, scripture gives us neither precept nor example. Such hymns, therefore, as that commencing, "Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove," however pious their intention, are not framed in an intelligent apprehension of Christian doctrine. When we address God indefinitely, of course the three Persons of the Trinity are included, but when we pray to the Persons distinctively, it can only be to the Father, or to the Lord Jesus Christ.