1. Prayer to the Son and the Holy Ghost is a necessary and legitimate development from the Scriptural doctrine of their unity in the Divine essence with the Father. To Jesus Christ Stephen prayed at his dying hour in commendation of his parting soul, and in appeal to Him not to impute their sin to his murderers in condemnation. Before Jesus Christ, Ananias pleads the secret thoughts of his heart, and, in addressing Him as Lord, uses the significant phrase, “All who call upon thy name,” an expression, common in the Old Testament, derived from the way in which prayers addressed to God begin with the invocation of the Divine name. To invoke Jesus Christ in prayer as Lord is to Paul the Apostle the practice of the Christian, as to Saul the persecutor it had been the mark by which he had recognized his victims. Not only in the threefold entreaty that the “thorn in the flesh” might be removed did St. Paul address Jesus Christ, but constantly in prayer for himself, in intercession for his converts, in thanksgiving, and in benediction, where he co-ordinates the Father and Christ. And his prayer was no expression of passing emotion. It was, on the contrary, the result of a very definite conviction. St. John is speaking of the Son of God when he writes, “And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him”.
Certain it is that no sooner had Christ been lifted up from the earth, in death and in glory, than He forthwith began to draw all men unto Him. This attraction expressed itself, not merely in an assent to His teaching, but in the worship of His Person. No sooner had He ascended to His throne than there burst upwards from the heart of His Church a tide of adoration which has only become wider and deeper with the lapse of time. In the first days of the Church, Christians were known as “those who called upon the name of Jesus Christ”. Prayer to Jesus Christ, so far from being a devotional eccentricity, was the universal practice of Christians; it was the act of devotion which specially characterized a Christian. It would seem more than probable that the prayer offered by the assembled Apostles at the election of St. Matthias, was addressed to Jesus glorified. Stephen’s last cry was a prayer to our Lord, moulded upon two of the seven sayings which our Lord Himself had uttered on the cross. Jesus had prayed the Father to forgive His executioners. Jesus had commended His Spirit into the Father’s hands. The words which are addressed by Jesus to the Father are by St. Stephen addressed to Jesus. To Jesus Stephen turns in that moment of supreme agony; to Jesus he prays for pardon for his murderers; to Jesus, as to the King of the world of spirits, he commends his parting soul.
St. Paul tells us, “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me”. Now in the invariable usage of Paul’s Epistles, “the Lord” is not, as it popularly is with us, a mere synonym for God, but is the special title of Jesus Christ. With St. Paul, as he tells us, there were not gods many and lords many, but one God the Father, of whom were all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. The context is sufficient to show that the present passage is no exception to Paul’s ordinary usage, and that it is one of the proofs that the Apostles practically showed their belief in the Godhead of their risen Master by addressing to Him their prayers.
The Lord had answered his prayer, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness”. And the Apostle adds, with reference to this answer, “Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” showing most distinctly that Christ was the Lord whose strength was made perfect in his weakness. “I rejoice in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
When you direct any of your petitions to our Blessed Lord, let it be in some expressions of this kind: “O Saviour of the World, God of God, Light of Light; Thou that art the Brightness of Thy Father’s Glory and the express Image of His Person; Thou that art the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End of all things; Thou that hast destroyed the power of the devil, that hast overcome death; Thou that art entered into the Holy of Holies, that sittest at the right hand of the Father, that art high above all thrones and principalities, that makest intercession for all the world; Thou that art the Judge of the quick and dead; Thou that wilt speedily come down in Thy Father’s Glory to reward all men according to their works, be Thou my light and my peace,” etc. For such representations, which describe so many characters of our Saviour’s nature and power, are not only proper acts of adoration, but will, if they are repeated with any attention, fill our hearts with the highest fervours of true devotion.
Again, if you ask any particular grace of our Blessed Lord, let it be in some manner like this: “O Holy Jesus, Son of the Most High God, Thou that wast scourged at a pillar, stretched and nailed upon a cross for the sins of the world, unite me to Thy cross, and fill my soul with Thy holy, humble, and suffering Spirit. O Fountain of Mercy, Thou that didst save the thief upon the cross, save me from the guilt of a sinful life; Thou that didst cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, cast out of my heart all evil thoughts and wicked tempers. O Giver of Life, Thou that didst raise Lazarus from the dead, raise up my soul from the death and darkness of sin. Thou that didst give to Thy Apostles power over unclean spirits, give me power over my own heart. Thou that didst appear unto Thy disciples when the doors were shut, do Thou appear unto me in the secret apartment of my heart. Thou that didst cleanse the lepers, heal the sick, and give sight to the blind, cleanse my heart, heal the disorders of my soul, and fill me with heavenly light.” Now these kinds of appeals have a double advantage: first, as they are so many proper acts of our faith, whereby we not only show our belief of the miracles of Christ, but turn them at the same time into so many instances of worship and adoration; secondly, as they strengthen and increase the faith of our prayers, by presenting to our minds so many instances of that power and goodness which we call upon for our own assistance. For he that appeals to Christ, as casting out devils and raising the dead, has then a powerful motive in his mind to pray earnestly and depend faithfully upon His assistance. [Note: William Law, A Serious Call.]
2. It is true that we look to the Father, but only “through Jesus Christ”; and that “through” is no mere empty formula, but implies an actual communion of thought and fellowship of mind. It is true that we yearn to know the Father, but He is known only in Christ. If we are to make any distinction at all between prayer to the Father and prayer to the Son, we may follow the Litany, the larger part of which is addressed directly to the Son, but the whole of which is commended, both at the beginning and at the end, to the Father. Or we may go still further back, and take the Te Deum, for our example. Here, as a recent writer advocates with much probability, the whole of this Psalm of Praise, except three verses, is addressed to the Son, though the worship of the Father and the Spirit finds its place in the middle of the hymn. We cannot be wrong, then, in holding very full communion with our Lord in prayer and praise, whilst we shall naturally, when such spiritual communion has lifted us up to the Father, conclude our devotions with the Lord’s Prayer and such other prayers as are immediately addressed to Him.
It is remarkable that, in spite of Jesus’ injunction to pray to the Father, the address to God the Father—with the exception of the simple exclamation, “Abba, Father,” which occurs twice—is found only four times in the prayers of St. Paul. Everywhere else Christ is in some way implicated in Paul’s address to God, for whom the usual designation is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. This is certainly no accident. It is an eloquent testimony to the difference that Jesus made in Paul’s relations to God. What God now is to Paul, He is through Jesus. [Note: J. E. McFadyen, The Prayers of the Bible, 162.]
In a recent number of the Christliche Welt, Dr. Rade, its editor, a pronounced Ritschlian, declared he would pray to Jesus Christ; his soul needed such a devotional relation to Him; and whatever historical and anti-metaphysical considerations made Christ only a man, his faith and love and longing for peace embraced Jesus as Lord and God. [Note: Expository Times, xviii. 432.]
