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Transcript 278D — Do We Pray to the Father or to Jesus?
CALLER: Could you tell me how we pray? I was talking to one of my friends. I pray to my Father in Jesus' Name. She said she prays directly to Jesus. Could you help us out there?
HC: The question is raised: To whom should we pray?
Now in this area we have to be very very careful not to become wiser than God. We read the Bible, and we do find that there is a triune God. The word triune is not used, but the Bible speaks of God the Father, the Bible speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In other words, He is eternal God in every sense of the word, and the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit, that He is God.
And so we might think, well, since the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross on our behalf, we really ought to pray to Him. He is the most dear and precious to us. And many people pray this way.
But we must remember that God had laid out the rules, and these we are to follow. Remember when the disciples asked, "Teach us to pray," what did Jesus say? "Lord Jesus, who are in Heaven"? No, He didn't say that did He? He said, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name."
Again, when we study the prayers that are offered, we read, for example, of the apostle Paul, who constantly is talking about his prayers. In I Thessalonians l it is typical. We read in verse 2, "We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in Our Lord Jesus Christ."
In other words, God is insisting that we pray to the Father. Now this is a remarkable thing, you know, because in I Corinthians 11 we read that the head of Christ is God. The Father is the essence of God in the highest possible way that we could think of God. Not that the Lord Jesus Christ is any less. But it is God the Father who sent the Son. It is God the Father in whose Name Jesus came.
If you read the Gospel of John, through Chapters 5,6,7,8, you will see that again and again Christ referred to the Father, and that He comes on His authority, and that the Father is everything. And it is to Him that we are to pray. And we don't want to get holier than the Bible. We don't want to say, "I know, but Jesus is God, too. And why can't we pray to Him?" Well, let's just be obedient to what God has laid down.
Now it's true that the deacon Stephen, at the moment that he was martyred (we read about this in Acts 7), he had a vision, in verse 55 of Acts 7: "And he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into Heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." And then he prayed, in verse 59, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
And so this is a very special illustration, in which Stephen is actually looking into Heaven, a very unusual situation. But that's not typical. Throughout the New Testament we find that we are to pray to the Father.
Now Jesus said, "Whatever you ask, you ask in My Name." In other words, we go to the Father in the Name of Jesus. And "in the Name of Jesus" means to go on the authority of Jesus. Effectively, Jesus is saying, "You can talk to the Father, you can have open access into the throne room of Eternal God. What a magnificent blessing and opportunity this is. And it's all made possible on My authority, because I paid for your sins at the cross. I made it possible that you might become right with God. You have been covered by My righteousness. And therefore you can talk with the Father."
And so this is why we pray, "Our Father." And then we pray, "for Jesus' sake," or "in the Name of Jesus," which is indicating that we are doing so on the authority of Christ.
Now nowhere in the Bible does it say that we pray to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Eternal God, who is active in the world, evangelizing the world amongst other tasks. He fills us in order that we might be qualified to be an evangelist, to be a prophet. But we don't pray to the Holy Spirit, even though He is Eternal God in every sense of the word. We pray to the Father.