“If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:14)
Expositor’s Bible: “When we do anything in another’s name, it is for him we do it.”
Spurgeon: “….you are authorized to use the name of Christ….oh! what power there is in prayer at that time!….But you cannot ask everything in that name. You are obliged to draw back from some prayers, and say, ‘No; Christ would never authorize me to put his name to that.’….For we would not dare to ask some things in that wondrous name.”
A.B. Leever: “…to ask on his behalf, as if it were he himself asking for what we ask…as his representative, and in accordance with his will….this is a reasonable meaning to perceive…..Only a divine purpose can be asked in Jesus’ name….”
• “In the name of” asserts the reputation and authority of another person
• “Name” implies reputation, character, quality, essential nature of the individual
• “Name” may be rendered “nature” – implies that to have his nature, as a result of abiding in his words or teaching, is the condition requisite to bringing about an answer to prayer; having the Christ-like nature
• Requires us to pattern the Master’s complete surrender to God’s will
• Men must attain the knowledge of the Principle which Jesus demonstrated – knowing but one reality and abandoning that which is mortal and material
• Asking with Christlike purity of motive
• Asking in Christlike humility and receptivity
• Asking in Christlike recognition of man’s divine estate
• Recognizing the oneness of the divine name and nature
• Desiring that which accords with the Christ character; endeavoring to live as he lived
• Understanding, with a degree of Christly humility, the true idea of God that Jesus taught, and to make it our present basis for action
• Seeing the unity between name and nature in our prayer, our watching, and our work
Sources: (1) “Asking in His Name” (Willis F. Gross, CSJ, 2/1907); (2) “The Saving Christ” (Michael Hamilton, CSS, 8/4/2008); (3) “In My Name” (Edyth Whittemore Gulick, CSJ, 12/1930); (4) “In My Name” (Adela Le Page, CSJ, 5/1926); (5) “Name and Nature” (Jeanie C. E. Andrews, CSJ, 11/1910; (6) “The Conviction that Enforces Itself” (Francis Lyster Jandron, CSJ, 1/1959); (7) “Righteous Prayer” (Elfriede Ebbinghaus, CSS, 8/28/1915).