The Lord here enforces prayer, and this on considerations drawn (as often in Luke) from the human heart, as showing still more powerfully what God feels in answer to the earnestness of men.
“He said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as be needeth.” The time may seem ever so inopportune, but although a man may not for friendship's sake listen to him who requests the loan of bread, he would rather rise and give than expose himself to trouble. Every one knows that such is apt to be the way of a man with the neighbor who is bold enough to press. He might be ever so much annoyed at the importunate suitor, but still to avoid the trouble of a continued appeal at his door, he yields. At least such is an ordinary case: “Because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.”
If such is the way of selfish ease-loving man, how much more will the God of all grace hearken to those who cry to Him? He is not weary; He never slumbers nor sleeps; He is full of goodness and compassionate care. “I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” —an evident climax, all tending to urgency of supplication before God: not as if God needed it, but man does; and God values the earnestness of man's heart, although His own is open to the cry of want or distress from the very first. But we know that there are hindrances from other causes, and that the Lord has Himself told us of a kind (speaking of evil spirits) that goes not forth but by prayer and fasting. There we have the highest degree of the soul's abstraction from all else, giving itself up to God's power in order to defeat the devil. “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” There is always in Luke not only an appeal to the feelings of the heart, and man's own concession of what even he would do in order to illustrate the ways of God, infinitely more admirable and excellent, but there is also a comprehensiveness which goes far beyond the narrow bounds of Israel. “Every one that asketh receiveth.” Thus we have here the call to importunity of prayer, and the certainty of God's answer.
But this is again enforced on the ground of the relationship of a child with a father. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” How contrary to the feelings of a parent, to mock when he affects to give! to give what is injurious instead of what is good! Impossible that a father, speaking now ordinarily of any father, would be guilty of such ways. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” In the Gospel of Matthew it is “Give good things to them that ask him.”
But Luke goes farther, and shows us not, it is true, the person of the Comforter, as in the Gospel of John, but certainly the Holy Spirit as characterizing the gift of the Father's love to those who ask Him. For we must remember that the disciples had not yet the Holy Spirit. They were born of the Spirit, but this is a very different thing from enjoying the gift of the Spirit. To have the Holy Ghost given is over and above conversion or new birth; it is not life, but power; a privilege superadded to the possession of the new nature, and the chief or only means of enjoying God according to all the instincts of that nature, and consequently of entering into His wisdom in the word of God. This is the richest distinctive gift of Christianity on earth, as Christ on high, the Head to whom we are united as His body, is the main heavenly characteristic. Neither of these privileges was true as yet; no one had ever enjoyed them since the beginning of the world. The disciples were told then and encouraged to ask their heavenly Father, who would surely give the Holy Spirit to those who asked Him. The disciples accordingly continued in prayer, as we know from Acts 1; so that even after the Lord died and rose they had not received the Holy Spirit according to this word; they were still expecting. Yet they had received the Spirit as life more abundantly, as the power of His resurrection life; but the gift of the Spirit is something more. It was the indwelling of the Spirit of God, who would also act in various gifts in the members and, above all, in baptizing them into one body. All this was accomplished, but not before Pentecost. They were therefore to ask their heavenly Father, and so they did; and the Holy Spirit of promise was given according to the Savior's word.
There may be cases still, I cannot but think, where it would be right thus to ask our Father. This would be where souls are, like the disciples, converted, but who have not yet submitted to the righteousness of God—who do not yet consciously rest on redemption. In such a state it would be hazardous to say they had received the Holy Ghost while they do not enjoy peace with God. When there is a simple rest by faith on the great work of the Lord Jesus, and not merely faith in His person, then the Holy Ghost is given. Where the blood was put the oil followed, according to the types of Leviticus.