We must now turn for a few moments to Luke's report of the prayer, which differs in several respects from Matthew's, though both be of equal (i.e. divine) authority, and the points of distinction therefore not the slips of the evangelists, but the result of a different object in the mind of Him Who inspired them. Difference there is, unquestionably, even in our common and excellent English Bible; but that difference is considerably greater if we adopt the text which flows from the combined testimony of the most ancient and best witnesses (manuscripts, versions, and Fathers). It is notorious that there has always been a tendency on the part of copyists to assimilate the language of various portions of scripture as much as possible; and clearly from its nature we might expect, as we find in fact, that no part has suffered so much in this way as the synoptic Gospels. These copyists seem sometimes to have assumed that, if they found the same truth or fact variously presented in Matthew and Luke, there must needs be an error; and then they sought, by marginal glosses and even by textual changes, to make the corresponding passages almost a verbal repetition one of another. This of course has entailed trouble on those of our day who desire in all cases to know the very words of the Holy Ghost; for if they, resting on the weightiest authorities, recur to a better text than the vulgar one, they are open to the charge of innovation—at least from the ignorant or the prejudiced. Most groundless charge! for they are in truth those who alone vindicate the oldest vouchers for the word of God against comparatively modern change and corruption.
To return however: the place or connection in which the prayer is given in the two Gospels may be noticed with profit. In Matthew the Lord speaks as Jehovah-Messiah, not neutralizing the statutes of His servant Moses, but with the conscious authority of the Master. And hence it is that, whether or not the questions of the disciples drew out any part of that instruction, nothing is permitted in the first Gospel to break the onward continuous flow of its sententious wisdom and lofty discourse. Hence, such notes appear as “Ye have heard that it was said to [not by] them of old time... but I say unto you,” not annulling the law or the prophets, but giving fresh heavenly light on some things, and opening the way for other things far higher. Hence, too, the prayer is introduced by Matthew in pointed contrast with Jewish or Pharisaic love of publicity and lack of pitifulness. It is one of the three examples of the righteousness (not “alms” in ch. 6: 1) which was not to be done before men to be seen of them.
In Luke, on the other hand, the Lord meets the condition of man here below—if there was any difference; of the Gentile more emphatically than the Jew. Therefore it is that here only we have the scene of the woman of the city that was a sinner (whom there is no good reason for identifying with Mary Magdalene or with the sister of Lazarus), the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the rich man and Lazarus, the preaching at Capernaum, the Samaritan leper, Zacchaeus the chief tax-gatherer, &c. Facts and parables like these plainly indicated the affections of God, about to burst the barriers they had been pent up in under the Jewish dispensation, and soon to overflow wherever there was need created by sin and wretchedness. At the end of ch. 10 the Lord shows us the all-importance of the word of God—of His own words indeed. This had tested the two sisters, Martha and Mary, both of whom He loved (John 11). While Martha was cumbered about much serving, and her love, most true in its way, went forth in actively providing for the Lord's outward need, Mary, unconsciously perhaps, proved her stronger faith and deeper love by sitting at His feet and drinking in His words. The thought of Martha's heart was, What a feast! must give the Messiah, when I receive Him at my house! Mary, on the contrary, felt that the best feast for Him, as for herself, was to receive and treasure up all she could from Him—to see, and hear, and be with Himself. If we are learning thus from the Lord Jesus, we honor and please Him incomparably more than by anything we think to confer upon Him. In the long run, too, it is the listening at His feet which best fits for the most acceptable worship and service (compare John 12:1-81Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. 4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, 5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. 7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. (John 12:1‑8)).
But besides the word of God, we want another element and exercise of spiritual life. By that word we were begotten again, and then nourished (1 Peter 1, 2.); by it we are cleansed, and instructed, kept from the destroyer, and set apart to Christ in heaven. But withal we need something more, and that is prayer. Without prayer the word, not being received in dependence on God, may be used as new material for mere mental activity, and thus the soul may find a positive and grave snare. Really to thrive in the things of God is from hearing the word, not with the ears or mind only, but with conscience quickened and heart freed by the Holy Ghost's presentation of Christ. Now, prayer is the great means by which we are practically kept in God's presence, and the word is made welcome, profitable and sanctifying. It is the proper expression of our weakness to God and of our confidence in His love and care day by day and evermore. Instead of presuming, as men, to enter into the deep things of God or to take and pursue the path of the cross of Christ, we confess in prayer our constant need of dependence upon God. And hence it is that throughout Luke the Lord Himself, “born of a woman,” is so often brought before us as One that habitually walked thus with God (ch. 3:21; 5:16; 9:18, 28, 29; 22:32. See also His exhortations there to perseverance in prayer -ch. 11:5-13, and 18:1-8—besides the following parable). It was indeed His own praying which gave occasion to the request of the disciples in ch. 11.
In comparing the prayer in Luke with that in Matthew, it will be observed that, though the manner of its introduction be somewhat different, the application to the disciples is, if possible, more precise in the later Gospel. “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. And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Father.” It has been already noticed that the formula, “Our Father which art in heaven,” was in all probability an interpolation from the first Gospel, Matthew's. A scribe, from habit of using the longer address, may have written it down by mistake in Luke's Gospel, or he may have designedly assimilated the two reports of the prayer.
“Father, Hallowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come.” These two petitions are alike in both Gospels. It did not matter under what circumstances the Lord spoke, or with what special aim or outlook: that the Father should be exalted in His holiness; and that the bright scene and season may come when His love and power shall establish it without dispute or effort, must always be the prime desires of a true heart, and the necessary conditions of unalloyed and changeless blessing.
But it is remarkable that the next clause in the ordinary text was foisted in, probably in the same way as the address has suffered. “Thy will, be done, as in heaven, so in earth” is a petition peculiar o the earlier book. And let me now state once for all that in these questions of the true text, I never give a mere conjecture, but a judgment founded on a full survey of the extant evidence, and one which is generally received by those who are best informed and most able to pronounce on matters of the kind. If the omission be allowed here, it becomes us to ask why it is that the Spirit drops that clause in Luke which He had given by Matthew. What are we taught by the omission? It is well known that, throughout Luke, God has Gentiles in view, and not Jews merely. Therefore such words of Christ and such circumstances as bear upon the uncircumcision, both in their natural outcast condition and in the character of their privileges when brought in, are recorded here with care and precision. With this agrees the very genealogy of the Savior; for He is not, as by Matthew, traced down from Abraham and David, the heads of Jewish promise and glory, but traded up beyond all such limits to the first man, the head of the whole human family, to “Adam, which was the son of God.” What, then, would the poor heathen have known about the righteous expectation of Israel as regards the earth? To the latter it was an ever present desire of faith, whatever their temporary degradation through their deadly sins. “For Jehovah loveth judgment and forsaketh not His saints; they are preserved forever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.” Then and thus would God's will be done on earth as in heaven. This expectation is kept up in the Sermon generally as well as the Lord's prayer in Matthew, while other and brighter hopes accompany it; but from Luke it disappears in the wisdom which ever marks the Holy Ghost. Peculiarly familiar to the Jew, it was foreign to the Gentile's proper hope even when converted; his outlook, when eyes were given him spiritually, was to be exclusively heavenly.
Then we have a perceptible difference in the language of the next petition. Luke says, “Give us day by day our daily bread;” Matthew had, “Give us this day,” &c. The believing Jews looked simply at the one day, it might be, before them. It was a definite request for the present exigency. How soon the trumpet of Jubilee would sound, and the true liberty and final return and everlasting possession would come, they knew not; meanwhile they say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But the Gentile believer, for whose instruction the Lord was specially providing in Luke, is characterized by a more constant spirit of dependence— “day by day” is the word. He was never to expect rest, or establishment on the earth, as the other might. His inheritance lay elsewhere; his portion here was to be always that of a stranger. And I think that this is strengthened by the mode of its introduction here. The prayer is much later, and nearer the close, than in Matthew. All hope of Messiah's reception by the Jews was manifestly at an end. Thus in ch. 9 He had His rejection and death ever in His view, and repeatedly names it to the disciples, both before and after His transfiguration (cf. 1 Peter 1:1111Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. (1 Peter 1:11)). In ch. 10 the mission of the seventy follows, as a sort of final message, in which He pronounces woe on the cities which had seen His mighty works but had despised Himself. Grace is then shown as replacing law, and doing what law could not do. The prayer in ch. 11 partakes of the progressive character of the circumstances which surround it.
But this is not all. In the next petition, “Forgive us our sins,” the expression is worthy of note. The only right principle for interpreting God's word is, that God never changes without reason. It is our own ignorance if we do not see the bearing of different words used, in scripture. Thus, if in Matthew it is said “debts,” and in Luke “sins,” there is a slight shade of difference that ought not to pass unnoticed. What is the distinction? I believe it to be this: that “sin” expresses, in all plainness of speech, the depth of the soul's moral need. The simplest Gentile would understand the word “sin.” The Jew would feel what a “debt” was in his responsibility to God: it supposes a known relationship in which he had been placed and had failed. To the Gentiles who had not been in such a position, the idea of “debt” was not so obvious or applicable, unless the word “sin” prepared the way for it and made it more intelligible. The word “sins” has a more evidently moral meaning, being equally true whether people were without law, or under it. “Debt” is figurative rattier, though perfectly understood by a Jew. The parable of the merciless servant in Matt. 18 sets forth the Lord as dealing with Jew and Gentile in a way substantially similar. The servant that owed his lord ten thousand talents is the Jew guilty of the rejection of Christ. How deeply was he involved! Forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, &c. But, moved with compassion, he forgave him the debt. Then the same servant went out and found one of his fellow-servants which owed him one hundred pence. The Gentile was certainly indebted to him, but now found no mercy (1 Thess. 2:1414For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: (1 Thessalonians 2:14)) for a debt small indeed compared with that which had been forgiven the Jews; and therefore wrath is come upon the Jews to the uttermost (compare also Matt. 5:25, 2625Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. (Matthew 5:25‑26), and Luke 12:5858When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. (Luke 12:58), both of which refer to Israel's position in our Lord's time). There is another expression which confirms this, the Gentile dispensation being one of full grace; “for we ourselves also [poor as we are] forgive every one that is indebted to us.” It is not only the habit, but more unrestricted and universal than the expression in Matthew.
The conclusion in Luke appears to be, “And lead us not into temptation,” what follows ("but deliver us from evil”) being probably copied into it from the first Gospel. No motive can be assigned for leaving out this clause, like the former one, if it had been originally inserted; whereas it is natural that men, observing that the words undoubtedly are found in Matthew, should hastily conclude that they ought to be in Luke also. Nor is anything lost thereby, but the contrary. For the omissions in an inspired book, as well as what is declared there, are meant to arrest attention and to instruct.
The last clause is most appropriate in Matthew, where it has special reference, I think, to the power of Satan; which, beside what is ordinary, is directed against Israel as God's great earthly witness, and the severity of which is yet to fall upon them in the last days (cf. Zech. 3) Luke, as usual, brings out general moral principles, and hence retains the petition lest we enter temptation.
(To be continued.)