Robert Craig
John 11:41,42. Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always.
The blessed Saviour was most evidently a man of prayer, which was all the more wonderful when we consider that He was the Son of God. God Himself, the answerer of prayer, was able to command all He needed or desired, as man, at any time and in any circumstances.
We must never forget, however, that as the God-man He was the servant of the Father and bound to do His will, not merely on the whole, and in great and important affairs, but in every particular and from day to day. In everything it behoved him, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, to make his requests known unto God, who always heard him.
There was thus, as was most fit, a constant recognition of his Father, a perpetual honouring of him, a habitual laying down of his own will and wish, as a free-will offering on the altar of his God, saying, “Thy will be done”; “Not as I will, but as thou wilt”. For himself he ever presented that prayer which he taught his disciples: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” His prayers were always such as the Father willed them to be; therefore, as often as he prayed, he was certain the Father would hear him. Thus all of them were the utterances of His desire, and at once the offspring of perfect submission and of entire confidence. He prayed “in faith, nothing wavering”.
In this way we perceive how prayer could be no burden to him. He never could grow weary in it or of it – never could feel it to be a hard or difficult task, but always a spontaneous, natural, pleasing flowing-out of the desires of his heart to the attentive, delighted ear of him whom he loved and trusted, and in whom all his delights were placed.
We read of Him spending whole nights in prayer and of often retiring to pray. His prayers were not offered to be seen of men, or in pretence. He never made long prayers in the hearing of anyone. The longest of them, uttered in the hearing of his disciples, was the one which solemnly closed his first Lord’s Supper with them. He wished them and all men to hear it, and it is by no means tedious. It was an act of his own, and for others as well
1Taken with editing from The Christian Treasury for 1866; it appeared originally in Craig’s book, The Man Christ Jesus. Craig (1792-1860) was latterly a minister of the Free Church of Scotland in Rothesay. It is said that this volume contains “many precious views of Christ as the great example of His people” and that Christ’s character is considered in detail, with an impressive reverence.
as for Himself. In the offering of it, they had no share except to hear, wonder and admire the one who offered it. It was therefore chiefly private. It was only overheard by the eleven, who were nearby – his believing, loving hearers at the time.
It is also plain that he often prayed silently, even though he was in the midst of a throng, and when no one else knew that he was praying. This appears, for instance, from what he said at the grave of Lazarus. Then he thought it necessary, for the sake of those who were around him, to express aloud, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it.” They had not heard his prayer, nor observed him praying, but he let them hear the expression of his thanks for having been heard and answered. It was by his audible thanks they came to know that he had prayed at all.
We are warranted to believe that everything he did or said or suffered was preceded by prayer to his Father; that in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, he made his requests known to God. What a filling up this was of his whole life with prayer – joining with others in the house of God; or the companies of devout men and women throughout the land, at the stated hours of the morning and evening sacrifice, wherever he might happen to be at the appointed times! He prayed always, “prayed without ceasing”, continued “instant in prayer”, because it was the law of his God to him as well as to others, because it was his delight, because he would teach his people thus, and because the very Spirit of prayer dwelt in his heart. How all this should instruct us!
We have enough left on record to show that he prayed no less for others than for Himself – for his disciples, and for his enemies. He said to Peter, for instance, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”; and for his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. This he did in sympathy and love for them, and according to the will of his Father in heaven.
When He wept over Jerusalem in the deepest distress of soul and with the most tender pity, we do not read that He prayed for it. Why? Because He knew its doom was sealed – that repentance was hidden from the eyes of its leading inhabitants and from the blinded multitude whom they had led into the same unpardonable sin with themselves. Their house was left unto them desolate. They had sinned a sin unto death, and therefore He did not – He knew he ought not, he would not – pray for it. He refrained from praying for what he knew was contrary to his Father’s will and decree. He would not even seem to be more pitiful than God his Father. He knew the holy bounds which God had set to the exercise of pity, that blessed attribute of His nature, which is so gloriously displayed in His government of our sinful world.
In this, the blessed Lord showed the true sphere and limits of prayer. He knew them and he kept within them; he filled up all the space but did not go beyond it; he prayed for what was well pleasing for God to grant or to do – to grant or to do in answer to prayer. He asked for all that he was authorised to ask at the throne of grace, but for no more.
In this manner He shed a clear and much-needed light over all the difficulties and perplexities which are apt to present themselves to our minds when we think about this mysterious subject. If cavillers at prayer would but look into the Word of God, and to the practice of Christ in this matter, they would see no ground whatever for their objections to the power or the holiness or the efficacy of this exalted exercise. They would see how it neither alters, nor attempts to alter, the purpose of God, but is the plainest, worthiest means of bringing about the fulfilment of the divine decree – that true and authorised prayer is in perfect harmony with the whole scheme of providence, and is even necessary to complete the whole of that gloriously complex movement towards its great end.
Who would ever say that a child altered a father or a mother’s plans for him by his desires for all that was truly good for them to give and for him to receive? Christ’s prayers were according to God’s will and purpose and were but parts of God’s decrees for accomplishing his purposes. They were the very channels through which he constantly received the things which he lawfully, dutifully desired. They were part of that grand communication which his beloved Son kept up with his heavenly Father, and part of the fit means by which the Father let in upon Christ’s holy soul the answers which he did crave, and which he and the Father had ordained to be antecedents to bestowing these things on the beloved Petitioner.
Christ’s prayers, we say, formed a part of all these communications and means of conveying them. They were not indeed the only channel, or the whole of the means. For everything else which Christ thought, did and suffered, along with His prayers, brought down upon Him the blessing of His Father. His whole character was a solicitation, a prayer. Holy obedience in love, like prayer, is an offering of the soul, heart, body and life to the great God who can make “all things work together for good to them that love” Him – “to them who are the called according to His purpose”. For as prayer is an offering up of the desires, so loving obedience is the offering of the whole man to God and will therefore receive the most significant tokens of God’s good pleasure. Thus, through both of these together, the one always accompanied by the other, a perfect fellowship is maintained, and God is all in all. Prayer, without obedience and the holy use of answers to prayer, is mockery; and obedience attempted without prayer is atheistical pride and in-
solence in God’s sight, without which no creature can do anything good.
Christ was always complete in both prayer and obedience, and therefore his Father poured out on him as man incessant showers of light, and richest appropriate answers, making all he did the fruit of prayer, and of his own and his Father’s united working.