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1. We have now to consider these words of the Lord, "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father in
my name, He will give it you." It has already been said in the
earlier portions of this discourse of our Lord's, on account of those
who ask some things of the Father in Christ's name and receive them
not, that there is nothing asked of the Father in the Saviour's name
that is asked in contrariety to the method of salvation. For it is not
the sound of the letters and syllables, but what the sound itself
imports, and what is rightly and truly to be understood by that sound,
that He is to be regarded as declaring, when He says, "in my
name." Hence, he who has such ideas of Christ as ought not to be
entertained of the only Son of God, asketh not in His name, even
though he may not abstain from the mention of Christ in so many letters
and syllables; since it is only in His name he asketh, of whom he is
thinking when he asketh. But he who has such ideas of Him as ought to
be entertained, asketh in His name, and receiveth what he asketh, if
he asketh nothing that is contrary to his own everlasting salvation.
And he receiveth it when he ought to receive it. For some things are
not refused, but are delayed till they can be given at a suitable
time. In this way, surely, we are to understand His words, "He
will give you," so that thereby we may know that those benefits are
signified which are properly applicable to those who ask. For all the
saints are heard effectively in their own behalf, but are not so heard
in behalf of all besides, whether friends or enemies, or any others:
for it is not said in a general kind of way, "He will give;" but,
"He will give you."
2. "Hitherto," He says, "ye have not asked anything in my
name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." This
that He calls a full joy is certainly no carnal joy, but a spiritual
one; and when it shall be so great as to be no longer capable of any
additions to it, it will then doubtless be full. Whatever, then, is
asked as belonging to the attainment of this joy, is to be asked in the
name of Christ, if we understand the grace of God, and if we are
truly in quest of a blessed life. But if aught different from this is
asked, there is nothing asked: not that the thing itself is nothing at
all, but that in comparison with what is so great, anything else that
is coveted is virtually nothing. For, of course, the man is not
actually nothing, of whom the apostle says, "He who thinketh himself
to be something, when he is nothing." But surely in comparison with
the spiritual man, who knows that by the grace of God he is what he
is, he who makes vain assumptions is nothing. In this way, then,
may the words also be rightly understood, "Verily, verily, I say
unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the Father in my name, He will
give you;" that by the words, "if anything," should not be
understood anything whatever, but anything that is not really nothing
in connection with the life of blessedness. And what follows,
"Hitherto ye have not asked anything in my name," may be understood
in two ways: either, that ye have not asked in my name, because a
name that ye have not known as it is yet to be known; or, ye have not
asked anything, since in comparison with that which ye ought to have
asked, what ye have asked is to be accounted as nothing. In order,
then, that, they may ask in His name, not that which is nothing,
but a full joy (since anything different from this that they ask is
virtually nothing), He addresses to them the exhortation, "Ask,
and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full;" that is, ask this
in my name, that your joy may be full, and ye shall receive. For
His saints, who persevere in asking such a good thing as this, will
in no wise be defrauded by the mercy of God.
3. "These things," said He, "have I spoken to you in
proverbs: but the hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in
proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of my Father." I might be
disposed to say that this hour, whereof He speaketh, must be
understood as that future period when we shall see openly, as the
blessed Paul says, "face to face;" that what He says, "These
things have I spoken to you in proverbs," is one with what has been
said by the same apostle, "Now we see through a glass, in a
riddle:" and "I will show you," because the Father shall be seen
through the instrumentality of the Son, is akin to what He says
elsewhere, "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and
to whom the Son shall be pleased to reveal Him." But such a sense
seems to be interfered with by that which follows: "At that day ye
shall ask in my name." For in that future world, when we have
reached the kingdom where we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is, what shall we then have to ask, when our desire shall be
satisfied with good things? As it is also said in another psalm: "I
shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall be revealed." For petition
has to do with some kind of want, which can have no place there where
such abundance shall reign.
4. It remains, therefore, for us, so far as my capacity to
apprehend it goes, to understand Jesus as having promised that He
would cause His disciples, from being carnal and natural, to become
spiritual, although not yet such as we shall be, when a spiritual body
shall also be ours; but such as was he who said, "We speak wisdom
among them that are perfect;" and, "I could not speak unto you as
unto spiritual, but as unto carnal;" and, "We have received, not
the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is of God; that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also
we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the
Spirit teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the
natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." And
thus the natural man, perceiving not the things of the Spirit of
God, hears in such a way whatever is told him of the nature of God,
that he can conceive of nothing else but some bodily form, however
spacious or immense, however lustrous and magnificent, yet still a
body: and therefore he holds as proverbs all that is said of the
incorporeal and immutable substance of wisdom; not that he accounts
them as proverbs, but that his thoughts follow the same direction as
those who habitually listen to proverbs without understanding them.
But when the spiritual man begins to discern all things, and he
himself is discerned by no man, he perceives, even though in this life
it still be through a glass and in part, not by any bodily sense, and
not by any imaginative conception which catches at or devises the
likenesses of all sorts of bodies, but by the clearest understanding of
the mind, that God is not material, but spiritual: in such a way
does the Son show us openly of the Father, that He, who thus
shows, is also Himself seen to be of the same substance. And then it
is that those who ask, ask in His name; for in the sound of that name
they understand nothing else than what the reality is that is called by
that name, and harbor not, in vanity or infirmity of mind, the
fiction of the Father being in one place, and the Son in another,
standing before the Father and making request in our behalf, with the
material substances of both occupying each its own place, and the Word
pleading verbally for us with Him whose Word He is, while a definite
space interposes between the mouth of the speaker and the ears of the
hearer; and other such absurdities which those who are natural, and at
the same time carnal, fabricate for themselves in their hearts. For
any such thing, suggested by the experience of bodily habits, as
occurs to spiritual men when thinking of God, they deny and reject,
and drive away, like troublesome insects, from the eyes of their
mind; and resign themselves to the purity of that light by whose
testimony and judgment they prove these bodily images that thrust
themselves on their inward vision to be altogether false. These are
able to a certain extent to think of our Lord Jesus Christ, in
respect of His manhood, as addressing the Father on our behalf; but
in respect to His Godhead, as hearing [and answering] us along with
the Father. And this I am of opinion that He indicated, when He
said, "And I say not that I will pray the Father for you." But
the intuitive perception of this, how it is that the Son asketh not
the Father, but that Father and Son alike listen to those who ask,
is a height that can be reached only by the spiritual eye of the mind.
5. "For the Father Himself," He says, "loveth you, because
ye have loved me." Is it the case, then, that He loveth, because
we love; or rather, that we love, because He loveth? Let this same
evangelist give us the answer out of his own epistle: "We love
Him," he says, "because He first loved us." This, then, was
the efficient cause of our loving, that we were loved. And certainly
to love God is the gift of God. He it was that gave the grace to
love Him, who loved while still unloved. Even when displeasing Him
we were loved, that there might be that in us whereby we should become
pleasing in His sight. For we could not love the Son unless we loved
the Father also. The Father loveth us, because we love the Son;
seeing it is of the Father and Son we have received [the power] to
love both the Father and the Son: for love is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Spirit of both, by which Spirit we love both the
Father and the Son, and whom we love along with the Father and the
Son. God, therefore, it was that wrought this religious love of
ours whereby we worship God; and He saw that it is good, and on that
account He Himself loved that which He had made. But He would not
have wrought in us something He could love, were it not that He loved
ourselves before He wrought it.
6. "And ye have believed," He adds, "that I came out from
God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world:
again I leave the world, and go to the Father." Clearly we have
believed. For surely it ought not to be accounted a thing incredible
because of this, that in coming to the world He came forth in such a
sense from the Father that He did not leave the Father behind; and
that, on leaving the world, He goes to the Father in such a sense
that He does not actually forsake the world. For He came forth from
the Father because He is of the Father; and He came into the
world, in showing to the world His bodily form, which He had
received of the Virgin. He left the world by a bodily withdrawal,
He proceeded to the Father by His ascension as man, but He forsook
not the world in the ruling activity of His presence.
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