Luke 11:1-4

This account embraces: 1 st. The model of Christian prayer (Luke 11:1-4); 2 d. An encouragement to pray thus, founded on the certainty of being heard (Luke 11:5-13).

1 st. Luke 11:1-4. The Model of Prayer. “ And it came to pass, that as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Father, hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; 3 Give us day by day our needful bread; 4 And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation. ” It was the custom among the Jews to pray regularly three times a day. John had kept up the practice, as well as that of fasting (Luke 11:33); and it was doubtless with a view to this daily exercise that he had given a form to his disciples.

In the words, when ye pray, say, the term προσεύχεσθαι, to pray, denotes the state of adoration, and the word say, the prayer formally expressed.

It is evident that this order, when ye pray, say, does not mean that the formula was to be slavishly repeated on every occasion of prayer; it was the type which was to give its impression to every Christian prayer, but in a free, varied, and spontaneous manner. The distinctive characteristio of this formulary is the filial spirit, which appears from the first in the invocation, Father; then in the object and order of the petitions. Of the five petitions which the Lord's Prayer includes in Luke, two bear directly on the cause of God they stand at the head; three to the wants of man they occupy the second place. This absolute priority given to divine interests implies an emptying of ourselves, a heavenly love and zeal which are not natural to man, and which suppose in us the heart of a true child of God, occupied above all things with the interests of his heavenly Father. After having thus forgotten himself, and become lost as it were in God, the Christian comes back to himself; but as it is in God that he finds himself again, he does not find himself alone. He contemplates himself as a member of God's family, and says thenceforth: we, and not I. The fraternal spirit becomes, in the second part of his prayer, the complement of the filial spirit which dictated the first; intercession is blended with personal supplication. The Lord's Prayer is thus nothing else than the summary of the law put into practice; and this summary so realized in the secrecy of the heart, will naturally pass thence into the entire life.

It appears certain from the MSS. that in the text of Luke the invocation ought to be reduced to the single word Father. The following words, which art in heaven, are a gloss taken from Matthew, but agreeable, no doubt, to the real tenor of our Lord's saying. In this title Father there is expressed the double feeling of submission and confidence. The name is found in the Old Testament only in Isaiah 63:16 (comp. Psa 103:13), and is employed only in reference to the nation as a whole. The pious Israelite felt himself the servant of Jehovah, not His child. The filial relationship which the believer sustains to God rests on the incarnation and revelation of the Son. Luke 10:22: “ He to whom the Son will reveal Him....” Comp. John 1:12.

The first two petitions relate, not to the believer himself, or the world which surrounds him, but to the honour of God; it is the child of God who is praying. Wetstein has collected a large number of passages similar to those two petitions, derived from Jewish formularies. The Old Testament itself is filled with like texts. But the originality of this first part of the Lord's Prayer is not in the words; it is in the filial feeling which is here expressed by means of those already well-known terms.

The name of God denotes, not His essence or His revelation, as is often said, but rather the conception of God, whatever it may be, which the worshipper bears in his consciousness

His reflection in the soul of His creatures. Hence the fact that this name dwells completely only in One Being, in Him who is the adequate image of God, and who alone knows Him perfectly; that One of whom God says, Exodus 23:21, “ My name is in Him. ” Hence the fact that this name can become holier than it is be hallowed, rendered holy. What unworthy conceptions of God and His character still reign among men! The child of God prays Him to assert His holy character effectually in the minds of men, in order that all impure idolatry, gross or refined, as well as all pharisaic formalism, may for ever come to an end, and that every human being may exclaim with the seraphim, in rapt adoration: Holy, holy, holy! (Isaiah 6) The Imper. Aor. indicates a series of acts by which this result shall be brought about.

The holy image of God once shining in glory within the depths of the heart, the kingdom of God can be established there. For God needs only to be well known in order to reign. The term kingdom of God denotes an external and social state of things, but one which results from an inward and individual change. This petition expresses the longing of the child of God for that reconciled and sanctified humanity within the bosom of which the will of the Father will be done without opposition. The aor. ἐλθέτω, come, comprises the whole series of historical facts which will realize this state of things. The imperatives, which follow one another in the Lord's Prayer with forcible brevity, express the certainty of being heard.

The third petition, “ Thy will be...,” which is found in the T. R., following several MSS., is certainly an importation from Matthew. It is impossible to discover any reason why so many MSS. should have rejected it in Luke. In Matthew it expresses the state of things which will result from the establishment of the kingdom of God over humanity so admirably, that there is no reason for doubting that it belongs to the Lord's Prayer as Jesus uttered it. The position of this petition between the two preceding in a passage of Tertullian, may arise either from the fact that it was variously interpolated in Luke, or from the fact that, in consequence of the eschatological sense which was given to the term kingdom of God, it was thought right to close the first part of the prayer with the petition which related to that object.

Ver. 3. From the cause of God, the worshipper passes to the wants of God's family. The connection is this: “And that we may be able ourselves to take part in the divine work for whose advancement we pray, Give us, Forgive us,” etc.

In order to serve God, it is first of all necessary that we live. The Fathers in general understood the word bread in a spiritual sense: the bread of life (John 6); but the literal sense seems to us clearly to flow from the very general nature of this prayer, which demands at least one petition relating to the support of our present life. Jesus, who with His apostles lived upon the daily gifts of His Father, understood by experience, better perhaps than many theologians, the need which His disciples would have of such a prayer. No poor man will hesitate about the sense which is to be given to this petition.

The word ἐπιούσιος is unknown either in profane or sacred Greek. It appears, says Origen, to have been invented by the evangelists. It may be taken as derived from ἔπειμι, to be imminent, whence the participle ἡ ἐπιοῦσα (ἡμέρα), the coming day (Proverbs 27:1; Acts 7:26, et al.). We must then translate: “Give us day by day next day's bread. ” This was certainly the meaning given to the petition by the Gospel of the Hebrews, where this was rendered, according to Jerome, by לֶחֶםמָחָר, to-morrow's bread. Founding on the same grammatical meaning of ἐπιούσιος, Athanasius explains it: “The bread of the world to come.” But those two meanings, and especially the second, are pure refinements. The first is not in keeping with Matthew 6:34: “ Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. ” Comp. Exo 16:19 et seq. It is therefore better to regard ἐπιούσιος as a compound of the substantive οὐσία, essence, existence, goods. No doubt ἐπι ordinarily loses its ι when it is compounded with a word beginning with a vowel. But there are numerous exceptions to the rule. Thus ἐπιεικής, ἐπίουρος (Homer), ἐπιορκεῖν, ἐπιετής (Polybius). And in the case before us, there is a reason for the irregularity in the tacit contrast which exists between the word and the analogous compound περιούσιος, superfluous. “Give us day by day bread sufficient for our existence, not what is superfluous.” The expression, thus understood, exactly corresponds to that of Proverbs (Pro 30:8), חקי לחם, food convenient for me, literally, the bread of my allowance, in which the term חֹק, H2976, statutum, is tacitly opposed to the superfluity, περιούσιον, which is secretly desired by the human heart; and it is this biblical expression of which Jesus probably made use in Aramaic, and which should serve to explain that of our passage. It has been inferred, from the remarkable fact that the two evangelists employ one and the same Greek expression, otherwise altogether unknown, that one of the evangelists was dependent on the other, or that both were dependent on a common Greek document. But the very important differences which we observe in Luke and Matthew, between the two editions of the Lord's Prayer, contain one of the most decisive refutations of the two hypotheses. What writer would have taken the liberty wilfully and arbitrarily to introduce such modifications into the text of a formulary beginning with the words: “ When ye pray, say...”? The differences here, still more than anywhere else, must be involuntary. It must therefore be admitted that this Greek term common to both was chosen to translate the Aramaic expression, at the time when the primitive oral tradition was reproduced in Greek for the numerous Jews speaking that language who dwelt in Jerusalem and Palestine (Acts 6:1 et seq.). This translation, once fixed in the oral tradition, passed thence into our Gospels.

Instead of day by day, Matthew says σήμερον, this day. Luke's expression, from its very generality, does not answer so well to the character of real and present supplication. Matthew's form is therefore to be preferred. Besides, Luke employs the present δίδου, which, in connection with the expression day by day, must designate the permanent act: “Give us constantly each day's bread.” The aor. δός, in Matthew, in connection with the word this day, designates the one single and momentary act, which is preferable.

What a reduction of human requirements to their minimum, in the two respects of quality (bread) and of quantity (sufficient for each day)!

Ver. 4. The deepest feeling of man, after that of his dependence for his very existence, is that of his guiltiness; and the first condition to enable him to act in the way which is indicated by the first petition, is his being relieved of this burden by pardon. For it is on pardon that the union of the soul with God rests. Instead of the word sins, Matthew in the first clause uses debts. Every neglect of duty to God really constitutes a debt requiring to be discharged by a penalty. In the second proposition Luke says: For we ourselves also (αὐτοί); Matthew: as we also...The idea of an imprecation on ourselves, in the event of our refusing pardon to him who has offended us, might perhaps be found in the form of Matthew, but not in that of Luke. The latter does not even include the notion of a condition; it simply expresses a motive derived from the manner in which we ourselves act in our humble sphere. This motive must undoubtedly be understood in the same sense as that of Luke 11:13: “ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children...” “All evil as we are, we yet ourselves use the right of grace which belongs to us, by remitting debts to those who are our debtors; how much more wilt not Thou, Father, who art goodness itself, use Thy right toward us!” And this is probably also the sense in which we should understand the as also of Matthew. The only difference is, that what Luke alleges as a motive (for also), Matthew states as a point of comparison (as also).

Luke's very absolute expression, We forgive every one that is indebted to us, supposes the believer to be now living in that sphere of charity which Jesus came to create on the earth, and the principle of which was laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. The term used by Jesus might be applied solely to material debts: “Forgive us our sins, for we also in our earthly relations relax our rights toward our indigent debtors.” So we might explain Luke's use of the word sins in the first clause, and of the term ὀφείλοντι, debtor, in the second. This delicate shade would be lost in Matthew's form. It is possible, however, that by the words, every one that is indebted to us, in Luke, we are to understand not only debtors strictly so called, but every one who has offended us. The παντί is explained perhaps more easily in this wide sense of ὀφείλοντι.

This petition, which supposes the Christian always penetrated to the last (day by day, Luke 11:3) by the conviction of his sins, has brought down on the Lord's Prayer the dislike of the Plymouth Brethren, who regard it as a prayer provided rather for a Jewish than a Christian state. But comp. 1 John 1:9, which certainly applies to believers: “ If we confess...”

The absence of all allusion to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the pardon of sins is a very striking proof of the entire authenticity of this formula, both in Luke and Matthew. If Luke in particular had put into it anything of his own, even the least, would not some expression borrowed from the theology of the Epistle to the Romans have inevitably slipped from his pen?

With the feeling of his past trespasses there succeeds in the mind of the Christian that of his weakness, and the fear of offending in the future. He therefore passes naturally from sins to be forgiven to sin to be avoided. For he thoroughly apprehends that sanctification is the superstructure to be raised on the foundation of pardon. The word tempt takes two meanings in Scripture to put a free being in the position of deciding for himself between good and evil, obedience and rebellion; it is in this sense that God tempts: “ God did tempt Abraham ” (Gen 22:1); or, to impel inwardly to evil, to make sin appear in a light so seducing, that the frail and deceived being ends by yielding to it; thus it is that Satan tempts, and that, according to James 1:13, God cannot tempt. What renders it difficult to understand this last petition is, that neither of the two senses of the word tempt appears suitable here. If we adopt the good sense, how are we to ask God to spare us experiences which may be necessary for the development of our moral being, and for the manifestation of His glorious power in us (Jam 1:3)? If we accept the bad sense, is it not to calumniate God, to ask Him not to do towards us an act decidedly wicked, diabolical in itself? The solution of this problem depends on our settling the question who is the author of the temptations anticipated. Now the second part of the prayer in Matthew, But deliver us from the evil, leaves no doubt on this point. The author of the temptations to which this petition relates is not God, but Satan. The phrase ῥῦσαι ἀπό, rescue from, is a military term, denoting the deliverance of a prisoner who had fallen into the hands of an enemy. The enemy is the evil one, who lays his snares in the way of the faithful. These, conscious of the danger which they run, as well as of their ignorance and weakness, pray God to preserve them from the snares of the adversary. The word εἰσφέρειν has been rendered, to expose to, or, to abandon to; but these translations do not convey the force of the Greek term, to impel into, to deliver over to. God certainly does not impel to evil; but it is enough for Him to withdraw His hand that we may find ourselves given over to the power of the enemy. It is the παραδιδόναι, giving up; of which Paul speaks (Romans 1:24; Romans 1:26-28), and by which is manifested His wrath against the Gentiles. Thus He punishes sin, that of pride in particular, by the most severe of chastisements, even sin itself. All that God needs thereto is not to act, no more to guard us; and man, given over to himself, falls into the power of the enemy (2 Samuel 24:1, comp. with 1Ch 21:1). Such is the profound conviction of the believer; hence his prayer, “Let me do nothing this day which would force Thee for a single moment to withdraw Thy hand, and to give me over to one of the snares which the evil one will plant in my way. Keep me in the sphere where Thy holy will reigns, and where the evil one has no access.”

The second clause, but deliver us..., is, in Luke, an interpolation derived from Matthew. Without this termination the prayer is not really closed as it ought to be. Here again, therefore, Matthew is more complete than Luke.

The doxology, with which we close the Lord's Prayer, is not found in any MS. of Luke, and is wanting in the oldest copies of Matthew. It is an appendix due to the liturgical use of this formulary, and which has been added in the text of the first Gospel, the most commonly used in public reading.

The Lord's Prayer, especially in the form given by Matthew, presents to us a complete whole, composed of two ascending and to some extent parallel series.

We think that we have established 1 st. That it is Luke who has preserved to us most faithfully the situation in which this model prayer was taught, but that it is Matthew who has preserved the terms of it most fully and exactly. There is no contradiction, whatever M. Gess may think, between those two results. 2 d. That the two digests can neither be derived the one from the other, nor both of them from a common document. Bleek himself is forced here to admit a separate source for each evangelist. How, indeed, with such a document, is it possible to imagine the capricious omissions in which Luke must have indulged, or the arbitrary additions which Matthew must have allowed himself? Holtzmann thinks that Matthew amplified the formulary of the Logia reproduced by Luke, with the view of raising the number of petitions to the (sacred) number of seven. But (a) the division into seven petitions is a fiction; it corresponds neither with the evident symmetry of the two parts of the prayer, each composed of three petitions, nor with the true meaning of the last petition, which, contrary to all reason, would require to be divided into two. (b) The parts peculiar to Matthew have perfect internal probability. It has been concluded from those differences that this formulary was not yet in use in the worship of the primitive Church. If this argument were valid, it would apply also to the formula instituting the holy Supper, which is untenable. The formula of the Lord's Prayer was preserved at first, like all the rest of the Gospel history, by means of oral tradition; it thus remained exposed to secondary modifications, and these passed quite simply into the first written digests, from which our synoptical writers have drawn.