My dear brother, —I have received your letter of perplexity, and lose no time in replying to it. The answer will appear to you when I point out to you that there is no such thing in Holy Scripture as you are founding your whole theory upon.
When the Lord says (John 16:2323And 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. (John 16:23)), “In that day ye shall ask nothing of Me,” it neither refers to formal prayer nor to worship, but to their enlightenment as to their relationship to the Father, through the Holy Ghost, the promised paraclete, so that they would need to ask him no question (1 John 2). They had, even in this discourse, been asking questions of Him about going to the Father (14:5, 8; John 16:18, 1918They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith. 19Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me? (John 16:18‑19)). They kept demanding this and that of Him; but the Holy Ghost, when He came, would be in them, a Spirit of divine knowledge of their place in Christ with the Father, and filled with divine intelligence and led of the Spirit, they would then pray the Father in His name.
All questioning about their place and relationship and privileges would be at an end—they would, after His death, resurrection, and ascension, know all in the present grace of the Holy Ghost; and thus they would be gainers, not losers, by His absence. For they would not need to ask Him to solve this and that question for them, and be at their wit’s end, when they would no longer have Him. They would sustain no loss in this respect by His absence, but be gainers. For they would then by the Holy Ghost be led on from the position of good Jews, and branches in the true Vine, to be good Christians and children of God with the Holy Ghost giving the cry of Abba in their hearts, and the consciousness of relationship and the knowledge of sonship, and being members of Christ’s body. (No doubt to be with Christ, or have Him return, would be far better.) But the Lord spoke in John 16. of the better thing about to come, then, and for them at that time, by the coming of the other paraclete, the Holy Ghost.
Now, dear Brother, this fact subverts your whole theory, that addressing Christ in prayer and worship is forbidden, and all that you have built upon it. It has no existence except in your own imagination. What a comfort for you to know this divinely by the true knowledge of God’s Word viewed in its proper connection.
The old “fathers” that led the early church astray from Christ; Grotius, a cold linguist after the Reformation, and several rationalizing German theologians, take the word here (ἕ((((() to mean to pray, but it is a mistake. The common word for formal prayer is another ((((s(ύ((((().
I am satisfied that the form our worship or prayers should take should be that indicated by Eph. 2:1818For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (Ephesians 2:18), and that the worship of the Father; and, as a rule, our prayers and worship, should be addressed directly to the Father, as His children, being all of the family of God, in a known relationship; but “God is a Spirit and they that Worship Him [God, i.e., surely Father, Son, and Holy Spirit equally] must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
The article you refer to in the Herald some years ago is quite correct, you will find, “according to the Scriptures,” and so is J. N. D. “We all say the same thing” but yourself. Now that you see that your thought is based on no word of God’s or Christ’s, but on your own misapprehension of Christ’s word, I have no doubt you will no longer make yourself an exception. The Lord keep us receiving all truth in the Spirit and in Christ “in faith and love,” that it may lead us to more practical conformity to the walk of our rejected Lord.
The above is a reply we wrote to a perplexed brother, three or four thousand miles away, on last Christmas day, and after it was written I found he had given no address, so I insert it here if possibly it may catch his eye and dispel his self-inflicted trouble; for his trouble is this, that in John 16:2323And 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. (John 16:23) the Lord absolutely forbids all addressing of prayer to Himself! He has swung to the very opposite of the common practice (perhaps too common) of addressing prayers and worship all but exclusively to the Lord Jesus. There is nothing that the Holy Ghost insists on more urgently and emphatically than honoring the Son as we honor the Father. But would not the general practice, as well as our hymns, lead people to conclude that we had been enjoined to honor the Son more than the Father, for sometimes from the beginning to the close of our worship, the hymns, thanksgivings, and prayers are addressed exclusively to the Lord Jesus and not to God the Father. This ought not so to be, for it will lead to humanize and weaken worship, for in being constantly occupied with the incarnate Christ, “The Man Christ Jesus,” and not the Father, we are in danger of sliding into the anthropological, and “God may not be in all our thoughts.”
It ought not so to be I grant, but I ask the question, Is it not a sad fact that it is so? We ought not to conceive of the Christ of God without being possessed of a sense of His Divine nature as the Son of God, for if He were not GOD, we dare not worship Him.
But I speak not of what ought to be, but what is, and therefore I recall our readers to the order of Christian worship. “We worship God in the virtue of the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” “To serve (as a worshipper) the living God” Heb. 9:1414How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14). “We may serve God acceptably (as worshippers),” Heb. 8:28. “Worship God,” Rev. 19:1010And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Revelation 19:10). “Worship God,” Rev. 22:99Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. (Revelation 22:9). “The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. For God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” John 4:23,2423But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23‑24). “For through (((ά) Him (Christ) we both have access (ἐ() in the power of one Spirit, (((όs) unto THE FATHER,” Eph. 2:1818For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (Ephesians 2:18). Where is the scene of worship when the prodigal returns? In the father’s presence.
This then is the divine order— ((ά, ἐ(, ((όs: ((ά, Christ; ἐ(, the Spirit; ((όs, the Father: the very word ((όs serving to point out the Father as the Object we are to reach. And if we take the Epistle to the Hebrews we have God as the object of worship, and Christ the great high priest over the house of God, and through the rent veil of His flesh we are to draw near by a new and living way, as worshippers, with full assurance of faith, and serve God acceptably (as worshippers) with reverence and godly fear. “Through Him (the Christ) therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of the lips, confessing His name,” Heb. 8:15.
Accepted in the Beloved.
O God of matchless grace!
We sing unto Thy name!
We stand accepted in the place
That none but Christ could claim.
Our willing hearts have heard Thy voice,
And in Thy mercy we rejoice.
Tis meet that Thy delight
Should center in the Son!
That Thou shouldst place us in Thy sight,
In Him Thy Holy One!
Thy perfect love has cast out fear,
Thy favor shines upon us here.
Eternal is our rest,
O Christ of God, in Thee!
Now of Thy peace, Thy joy possess’d,
We wait Thy face to see.
Now to the Father’s heart received,
We know in Whom we have believed.
A sacrifice to God,
In life or death are we;
Then keep us ever, blessed Lord,
Thus set apart to Thee!
Bought with a price, we’re not our own,
We died, we live to God alone!