But before Adoration or Confession, before any of the elements of prayer are even begun, there is a great matter to be attended to in all prayer. It is the name of Him to whom prayer is to be made. How do we address God when we approach Him in prayer? What name do we give to God when we pray to Him? What do we call Him? When we pray, what do we say? Jesus bids us say “Father” — “When ye pray, say, Father” (Luk_11:2, R.V.). Do we say “Father” when we pray?
It is not a matter of no moment. Jesus never commanded things of no moment. It seems to be in the line of God’s discipline. If we may follow the history of redemption as it is at present set forth in the Old Testament (and whatever criticism may discover as to dates and documents, the present arrangement of the Old Testament seems purposely made for edification), there appear to be stages of progress marked by the use of the name of God. There appears to be three great steps.
At first when men prayed, they seem to have simply said “God”. This continued down to the time of Moses and the deliverance from Egypt. Then the name “Jehovah” was revealed. Never mind whether it was used already, according to our documents, or not. Never mind where it came from. The Old Testament was written for our edification, and in the process of edifying us it seems to reveal to us that at the recovery of Israel from the bondage of Egypt to serve the living God this name was given. Henceforth, when an Israelite prayed, he said “Jehovah”. Long after the Exodus, looking back on all the way, the pious Israelite could say, “Jehovah, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. But when Jesus came, He said “When ye pray, say, Father”. And that is our name for God. That is the name in all our generations.
Some still say “God”. To say “God” is to think of Him chiefly as Creator and Preserver. It is to put Him, perhaps, somewhat far away. It is to make Him somewhat doubtful. George Eliot has a woman in Silas Marner, a churchgoer and Christian, who never ventured nearer than “Them as are above us ”. And there is a story which, though it be not true in particular, is perfectly true in general, that an infidel took to praying once because he feared the ship was sinking, and said, “O God, if there be a God”. That is the danger of saying “God”. We almost add “if there be a God”. But they that come to God must believe that He is.
It is better to say “Jehovah”. For Jehovah is nearer and surer. If it is not so evident that He is the God of all the Earth, it is certain that He is the God of Israel. And we have entered into that inheritance. When Moses went down into Egypt he took this Name with him. He took other things besides this. He took the wonder-working rod. It was wonderful to see the rod turn into a serpent when Moses threw it on the ground. But the rod did not make the deepest impression upon the people who were crying by reason of the bondage. “When they heard that Jehovah had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.”
And in all their generations thereafter Jehovah was their God. What is their secret? They gave us our Bible. They gave us our Religion. They gave us our Saviour. Other nations have offered us Bibles, Religions, and even Saviours, but we will not have them. Egypt offers us its Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead? It is the book of a dead nation; we are not interested in it. Greece offers the world a religion—the gods of hoary Olympus, and the goddesses; but the world has been amused at it or ashamed. What is Israel’s secret? The secret of Israel is Jehovah. The prophets lisped “Jehovah” at their mothers’ knee; and they came to Israel and said, “When ye pray, say Jehovah”. That is the secret of the history of Israel.
But the best name is “Father”. Jehovah came with the tabernacle and went with the temple. When the temple was ready to depart, Jesus met a woman of Samaria. “Our fathers,” she said, “worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” It depends on whom men worship. No doubt Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Jehovah. But “the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father”.
“Father” is best. For “Father” is as wide as “God” and as near as “Jehovah”. As wide as God? Surely. “The Father of all men” — we have good Scripture for it. And yet as near as Jehovah. For, though it is true that God loved and loves the world, yet says Jesus, “If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him”. There is a wider circle of love and there is a nearer. He is “the Father of all men, but especially of them that believe”. And in that “especially” lies a great difference. [Note: The Expository Times, xvii. 101.]
The Divine names in the 86th Psalm are very frequent and significant, and the order in which they are used is evidently intentional. We have the great Covenant name of Jehovah set in the very first verse, and in the last verse; as if to bind the whole together with a golden circlet. And then, in addition, it appears once in each of the other two sections of the psalm. Then we have, further, the name of God employed in each of the sections; and, further, the name of Lord, which is not the same as Jehovah, but implies the simple idea of superiority and authority. In each portion of the psalm, then, we see the writer laying his hand, as it were, upon these three names—“Jehovah,” “my God,” “Lord” — and in all of them finding grounds for his confidence and reasons for his cry.
Nothing in our prayers is often more hollow and unreal than the formal repetitions of the syllables of that Divine name, often but to fill a pause in our thoughts. But to “call upon the name of the Lord” means, first and foremost, to bring before our minds the aspects of His great and infinite character, which are gathered together into the name by which we address Him. So when we say “Jehovah!” “Lord!” what we ought to mean is this, that we are gazing upon that majestic, glorious thought of Being, self-derived, self-motived, self-ruled, the Being of Him whose name can only be “I am that I am”. Of all other creatures the name is, “I am that I have been made,” or “I am that I became,” but of Him the name is, “I am that I am”. Nowhere outside of Himself is the reason for His being, nor the law that shapes it, nor the aim to which it tends. And this infinite, changeless Rock is laid for our confidence, Jehovah the Eternal, and Self-subsisting, Self-sufficing one.
There is more than that thought in this wondrous name, for it expresses not only the timeless, unlimited, and changeless Being of God, but also the truth that He has entered into what He deigns to call a Covenant with us men. The name “Jehovah” is the seal of that ancient Covenant, of which, though the form has vanished, the essence abides for ever, and God has thereby bound Himself to us by promises that cannot be abrogated. So when we say, “O Lord,” we summon up before ourselves, and grasp as the grounds of our confidence, and we humbly present before Him as the motives, if we may so call them, for His action, His own infinite Being and His covenanted grace.
Then, the same psalm invokes “My God”. The name “God” implies, in itself, simply the notion of power to be reverenced. But when we add to it that little word “my” we rise to the wonderful thought that the creature can claim an individual relation to Him, and in some wondrous sense a possession there. The tiny mica flake claims kindred with the Alpine peak from which it fell. The poor, puny hand, that can grasp so little of the material and temporal, can grasp all of God that it needs.
Then, there is the other name, “Lord,” which simply expresses illimitable sovereignty, power over all circumstances, creatures, orders of being, worlds, and cycles of ages. Wherever He is He rules, and therefore my prayer can be answered by Him. When a child cries “Mother,” it is more than all other petitions. A dear name may be a caress when it comes from loving lips. If we are the kind of Christians that we ought to be, there will be nothing sweeter to us than to whisper to ourselves, and to say to Him, “Abba! Father!” See to it that your calling on the name of the Lord is not formal, but the true apprehension, by a believing mind and a loving heart, of the ineffable and manifold sweetnesses which are hived in His manifold names. [Note: A. Maclaren, The God of the Amen, 58.]
