Okay, so Pious and Elaborate Treatise Concerning Prayer and the Answer of Prayer by John Brown and Wanfrey, Chapter 5, in whose name we should pray. John 14, 13 and 14, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified, and the Son, if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. The name, the name is Jesus. The reason for taking hold of that name is he is the surety of the covenant. done what we were unable and unwilling to do in ourselves. And he's actually surmounted the obstacle that we can't do. Once the covenant of works is broken, there has to be a removal of the guilt of sin. There has to be some kind of an atonement made in order for there to be an acceptable service rendered. Jesus does both. He makes an atonement for us and then he stands in as a surety and gives complete obedience to the terms of this covenant so that it's a covenant of grace to us. And so when we we pray we're going to call upon the Son of God in his meditatorial character, Jesus. And we're going to stand to God In his character not on any merit or ground of our own Okay, we're going to begin with question 308 Question 308 What is the third particular in the manner of right prayer So the third particular And he's talking about the particulars that are held forth here in this text of John 14 and that is The name right the name of the person in and through whom we are to ask or pray And this name This name is the name of the the Son of God incarnate. And in and through this name we have complete confidence that the covenant of grace is made sure or established between God and man. So, 309. How is this name invoked in this place? There's an invocation of the name of Christ. Well, we know that Christ is God. And we've already seen we're to pray to God. But again, what is particularly in view here is not not His divinity, but that humanity through which we take hold of His divinity. In other words, we're to make use of Christ as the way to the Father. We are acknowledging the need for, the desirability of, and the necessity of a mediator. So we're not simply praying with an eye to Christ's divinity, but with an eye to the office of mediator, because we're acknowledging our own inability our own indisposition, our own indigency when it comes to the keeping of the law of God. We are covenant breakers in Adam, call that original sin, but as Paul points out, really from the moment we're born, we go astray. We show, we demonstrate that we are in fact sinners by nature, right? That this is not the imputation of the guilt of Adam's sin is no mistake. It's actually very much warranted because our nature now demonstrates that we are sinful creatures. We're not simply creatures, but we're sinful creatures. So again, with respect to a different topic, but there's an idea a lot of people have that, you know, children are innocent, that children are somehow unspotted and untainted. And there's a lot of thought that, you know, you don't even, and this is really why Baptistic theology has taken root, the idea that you don't need to be baptized until you've come to some mystical age of accountability. The fact is that infant baptism is a declaration on the part of the church that all are born in sin and all need to be cleansed from that natural corruption. It is the first and tangible tendering of the gospel to all who are born within the hearing of that preached or administered covenant. And that goes back to the fact that we need a mediator. If there was some point at which we didn't, then perhaps we could approach God apart from a mediator. But no one can be saved apart from the mediation of Christ. All right, 310. And now we're going to begin looking at several things that he wants us to remember. There are ten things I believe in this chapter, and then there are some other sub points that we're going to talk about as we go. So 310, what is the first thing that this should bring to remembrance? This idea that we're praying to God through Christ, through his mediation. So the first thing is, and I've been talking about this to some of these points to make the point about the mediation but let's break them down now. The first thing that you should remember is man by his sin and rebellion against God has put himself out of favor of God and has separated man from God. And we could look at Isaiah 59 verse 2. Isaiah 59 verse 2. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you. on here. This theme of the separation wrought between God and man by sin, this is a theme that we find reiterated again and again throughout Scripture in different ways, but it's really the same message that is being transmitted. Because one thing that fallen men need to understand, and they resist, fallen corrupt human nature hates this idea that you can't save yourself, that you can't even contribute anything to your salvation. You know, Christianity in this respect is very, very tricky. Because every other religion in the world, including Talmudic Judaism, teaches that you are responsible for, in some degree, some respect, you're responsible for the work of your own salvation. Some degree of obedience is going to justify you before God. And while we do think that obedience is part of your salvation, Your obedience has nothing to do with your justification before God. There's nothing you can do to contribute to that. I think, well, this is a problem. We already see it in the Gospels. They come to externalize and compartmentalize the keeping of the law. And so there is a sense in which you could potentially keep the law externally. Yeah, you could hold to it and uphold it in an external manner, but remember what Paul says when I get to that 10th commandment, the Asherah Kovet, well, that's not something that is addressing an external action. Okay, even if I thought all the other commandments were and they're not, but even if I were to concede that, when I get to that 10th commandment, I have a problem because coveting now is telling me that God is not only looking at our outward actions, but he's looking at the inward disposition of my heart. And Paul actually says, when that commandment gripped me, when I realized what that meant, that's when I was really forced to my knees. At that point, I knew that all of my pretensions to keeping the law couldn't be right because my heart when I examine my heart, I mean, I know even if I didn't break out in any outward, egregious transgression of these commandments, in my heart, you know, I've committed idolatry. I've committed, you know, blasphemy. I've broken the Sabbath, you know, because I've thought about things other than keeping the Sabbath on the Sabbath, right? I haven't honored my parents, you know? Yeah, outwardly maybe I complied with what they said, but inwardly, you know, there were times when I was griping with that. You know, and you can go right down that list because that's what coveting is. You know, coveting is ultimately you want your own way. And so Paul understands this. And that's, you know, that's something that Jesus is continually trying to get the scribes and the Pharisees to understand. You know, you've got a very clear division going on in Israel at the time of Jesus, right? There are going to be Jews who believe, and then these other people who are going to follow after the leaders of this anti-Christian Judaism. Which will become Talmudic Judaism, right? It's going to be codified in the Talmud and And that's why in the response in response to the New Testament the it sure you can't I don't know how anybody could deny that I mean there are things in the Talmud Blaspheming the name of Jesus. So, you know, it has to be in response to Christianity, right? I mean it this is not just something representing the teaching of the ages it represents Their take on the teaching of the ages in response to Christianity, right? They're trying to to whitewash out of their tradition anything that would would point to or Possibly favor the interpretations of the Christians Yeah, and and and it you know even among even among the Jews to this day, right? They're not all Talmudic Jews. And among the Talmudic Jews, you've got different flavors. But I mean, you've got an entire movement called Karaites who reject the Talmud. And they just hold to the Old Testament. And yet, you know, when you read their interpretations, and I have a couple of books by Kerajews, you can see them arguing very strenuously against the Christian interpretations of things in, say, Isaiah or whatever. It's all based upon this idea, though, and it's the same idea. Whether they fall into this Talmudic codification or the other, it's this idea that they retain, that they can somehow keep enough of the law to be pleasing to God. Right, but the point is, you know, sin. Sin, and this is where James, when he's talking about faith, you know, the works that justify or the works that demonstrate that we've been justified by faith, James makes clear if you break the law at any point, and this is what Paul was saying in Romans 7, you know, when I got to that 10th commandment, I realized I really broke all the laws, right? I can't keep nine of the 10 commandments and think that, you know, well, I'm 90% there. And therefore, you know, in fairness, God would have to allow that I'm 90% there. No, once you start looking at the command you broke you're going to begin to realize in order to break that commandment you actually had to trample over all the other commandments as well. There's just no way you can transgress one command without it not only impacting the others but without the demonstration that you've already shown yourself to be rebel against the whole law of God. So this is why sin is separated between God and man. Man is a rebel, a hater of God, and by nature an enemy of God. So that's the first thing that, you know, this invocation of the name of Jesus is going to remind us when we're praying that we are not in a position of ourselves to make an approach to God, because by nature we're rebels. And, you know, we hate God and the Bible indicates God is not fond of the wicked either. Alright, what's the second thing we should bring to remembrance? 3.11. After we've considered our sinful estate, the second thing is this, that the Lord of His grace and free love is condescended to take away this enmity and distance. In order that He would make a way for people that have departed from Him to draw near to Him again. And so not only, and by the way, we see this right away in Genesis, when we're told that when God drives Adam and Eve out of the garden, out of paradise, he puts an angel with a flaming sword, and the Hebrew says to keep the way. A lot of people tend to look at that and think that that angel is standing there preventing them from getting back. What's preventing them from getting back is actually the fact that they stand under the judgment of God and are dispossessed. But what that angel with the flaming sword is doing is actually maintaining a way back. In other words, there's already this idea that God himself will see that, I don't know that it's Christ, but it's certainly a messenger of God. These are the same angels, I think, that are there that we see over the mercy seat. They're there keeping the way to God. That is the sense of guarding it. So no one is going to come without a wedding garment, as it were. But on the other hand, it's not entirely closed off forever. There's actually a passage that's been kept open. And it's through this passage that God descends condescends in free love to take away that enmity, that barrier of sin so that God and man can be reconciled. And that's what Christ represents. He is the grace revealed the condescending free love. He, you know, God condescended. He came down from heaven in order to affect our salvation. That's, the incarnation is a demonstration of the condescension of the love of God for his people. Alright, the third thing that this should bring remembrance, 3.12, is that this way is through his son, that this is the son of his love, his only begotten son, and that he is the way and no man comes to the father but by him. So for example John 14 verse 6. John 14 verse 6. Jesus saith unto him I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me. When God condescends, this is something I haven't really talked about and I probably could have in the context of the Gospels, but when the Bible talks about a way, I am the way, In Oriental culture, the first roads, which is what hadas or derek in Hebrew, what these words connote, these first roads, the first roads were actually roads which were established by kings. There's actually a reasonably good explanation for this. Throughout the ancient Middle East, you don't have easy access to water. And so it took someone with not only a measure of wealth, but also the command of a number of men, because you have to build wells along the way. And that creates a road or a path in the way. And then that path created by the prince or the king, that over time becomes a highway that travelers use. So the idea that Christ is the way, when the Bible says that, is the idea that the great king has, when the Orientals heard this, they would think of that road opened by a king. that anyone who is going to travel to heaven has to take that road. There's no other road. Because there's no one from this side who could have opened a road. Because no one has the required resources to make that way. And so that name that we're invocating when we think about this, you know, we're talking about the one who is mediated, the one who's taken upon himself the office of mediator, is the eternal Son of God, and more importantly, I think, for sinners who are trying to understand what this love is that God has for them, this eternal Son by nature is the Son of His love. The love of the Father is eternally and constantly reflecting upon the Son. In the hypostatic union, when the Son of God assumes our nature, which is what we're going to talk about in the next point, that love is experienced in our nature. We experience it in a mediated way, correct? Correct. All right, so 3.13. What's the fourth thing that they should bring to remembrance? And then why is this necessary and to what is he compared? So the fourth thing is that the mediator, this mediator is God-man. which is to say he is God and man in one person. The hypostatic union, it's not a natural union. It's not a union of natures. The divine and the human are not joined together, but the divine and the human commune being joined to the same person. So it's not a natural union, it's what we would call a hypostatic union or a personal union. So the mediation is not natural, but personal. And this again gets to, well, why is this necessary? This union, becomes the meeting place where sinners meet with God. God is in Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, reconciling the world to himself. So what is happening is if this union were a natural union Then the panentheist notion that everything is in some sense God and God is in everything. That everything has a spark of divinity. You may call it pantheism, but it's actually panentheism. There's this theism in everything, right? That's really what pantheism is teaching. And a lot of people are pantheists right they'll and they'll say, you know, I'm I'm God God is in me and and all of that that would be true if if in fact the divine nature entered into a union with the human nature Right if it was a natural union, but there is no natural union there's a personal union and that's exactly why the person in whom that union occurs, that's the meeting place between God and man. And that's exactly why Jesus is a unique person and the central figure of our religion. Because in him, the divine nature and human nature actually meet together and kiss one another. There's a reconciliation But again, it's hypostatical union or personal union, not a natural union. I don't know that a lot of people have thought much about this point, but it's an important point and it's a point that Brown clearly understands when he's making this. And he's assuming that you understand that difference. All right, so what is this compared or he compared here then, 313 C? And that is he's compared to the mercy seat. He's the true mercy seat. What is a mercy seat? It's above the ark between the cherubim where God appeared to speak with his people, to make known his will to his people. and he's the true temple unto which his people were to look in faith. So if you wonder why in the Bible, in the Old Testament, whenever there's a mention and you can kind of figure out what's going on of the people in the Old Testament praying, They're always praying toward Jerusalem. Sometimes it says they're praying toward the east or what have you. But when you break it down, ultimately they're always praying toward Jerusalem. And they're praying toward Jerusalem because Jerusalem is where the temple either was or was to be built. And the temple is a great type of Christ. So they're recognizing, typically, what Christ himself embodies. The need for this mercy seed to be revealed in our nature, which is what Christ has done. Okay, five, the fifth thing that this should bring to remembrance, 3.14. And you could probably have already Gathered this point to some extent and that is the mediator To the end that the enmity might be taken away and access granted to rebel man He satisfied justice by sufferings and death and he's taken away the enmity between God and man That's right, I mentioned this earlier right that that I This is precisely why a fallen man cannot get back to God simply by keeping a covenant of works. Right? Simply by a course of active obedience. It's not going to happen. Because before that obedience could be acceptable, the person rendering the obedience must be acceptable. And people possessed of sinful nature cannot possibly be acceptable. There is no place of acceptance for them before God. Which is why even if you were to be born and you never broke the law, you say to me, I never, like that rich young ruler, you know, I've kept the law from my youth up. I've done everything. Of course, what does Jesus say? He says to him, go, okay, fine, go sell everything you have and come and follow me. Well, you see what he did, what Jesus did actually is pointed him to which commandment? The 10th, that's the one that got Paul. because that's where you have to grapple with the idea that what I'm doing is rendering an obedience outwardly, but unless there's an inward disposition going along with it, it's not going to be acceptable. When you are rendering an obedience, But you're just going through the outward motions. It's not really acceptable. It's not really obedience. You're paying what we call lip service, and the Bible does as well, right? It's lip service. You're saying yes, but, you know, inwardly you're rebelling. And so Christ has made peace by taking away the guilt, right, that was imputed the guilt that was incurred when Adam fell. 315, what is the sixth thing that should bring remembrance and then also what office in particular is viewed herein. So, the sixth thing is this, we can We can see in this that the mediator has taken on suitable offices to work on this access and to perfect the same and also to encourage us to make use of him for that end. That's what Christ has done. And invocating his name reminds us that he himself has taken upon himself this, you know, suitable office. He's a mediator. And he has, you know, worked in us this access, worked for us this access, and he'll bring it to perfection. And he encourages us and all of that. So the office in particular viewed here is the office of High Priest. He's the great High Priest. And he is the one who is He's the one who has taken upon himself the responsibility for the sacrifice to see that it is offered in an acceptable manner. The Bible actually has a lot to say, and Brown at this point gets into a number of points with respect to this idea of Christ being the Great High Priest. He points, among other things, to Revelation 8, where we see the prayers of the saints being offered up, and they're being offered up with an incense which represents that work of atonement by which those prayers are made acceptable to God. So this office of high priest, again, frankly is a reminder of the fact that we are making use of a mediator. You know, if you look, all of the people of God were taken by God in Exodus 19 to be a kingdom of priests. They were all to be priests to God. And yet God, under that Old Testament economy, sets apart the Levites in particular. and the family of Aaron to be priests and high priests and to take care of all of these things. So this is pointing to the idea of what we call substitutionary atonement. There are substitutes who are going to be substitutes for all of the people of God. so that all the people of God are not going in to make these sacrifices. They're doing it on their behalf. And the responsibility to see that it's done acceptably falls on their shoulders. Well, that's exactly what Christ is doing. And that's mediation. So these Old Testament priests are types of that, and Christ himself is a great antitype. All right, 3.16. What's the seventh thing this should bring to remembrance? And then, why did he take upon himself the seat of Abraham? So, the seventh thing that it brings or should bring to remembrance is that the mediator being a true man, though he was in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, he yet made himself of no reputation but took upon himself the form of a servant. So, in other words, the Son of God, in order to take upon himself our nature and to live as a true man, he had to be prepared to set aside all the divine prerogatives. Adam didn't get to live the life of God, as it were. He was living the life of a man, a perfect man, a sinless man, to be sure, but nonetheless he was not living the life of God as it were. And this is what Jesus, when he comes, when the Son of God is incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, he is setting aside, and the word Paul uses here actually inspired a movement in the 19th century. The word is kenosis. He's emptied himself. And that means that he has set aside that the divine nature and all of its prerogatives, sort of like Walking into a room and taking off your kingly outfit or what have you, exactly, as you go into your personal chamber. You're setting aside all the prerogative, the royal dignity and all of that. in order to make himself of no reputation. This is all, by the way, keep in mind, this is why the Bible talks about and references the condescension of God and the condescending love of God. Because what he's done is, in order to redeem man, he set aside all divine prerogative and made himself of no reputation. Now, why did he take upon himself the seat of Abraham? Well, this gets into, I think, a very interesting question slash point. There are a lot of people today, a lot of even people claiming to be Reformed theologians. Wayne Grudem is one of them. He's very popular now among certain circles. He is asserting, along with some others, these are Calvinistic, but also Baptistic. A lot of times there are elements of the charismatic movement mixed in with these folks. But what they're asserting is that God has an emotional life. Which is true, only in Christ. And that's their point, right? Taking upon himself the seed of Abraham means that he has a human heart, as Brown puts it, that can be stirred and moved and affected in a holy and sinless manner, as well as our own with our infirmities, and as much as the bowels of a mother yearning for a child. God, the divine nature is, and the church has always confessed this, it is impassable, which means it does not have emotion. The divine nature. When the Bible speaks of things that sound like emotion, just like when the Bible speaks about God changing his mind, those are anthropopathisms. These are condescending statements to help us have some sense of what's going on. But the divine nature does not change. Whereas emotion, passions, are almost by their very definition, I would say, representative of this idea of changing. They rise and they fall, they're hot and they're cold, and so on. Are emotions inherently sinful? You know, the Bible has a number of things to say negatively about emotions. Paul says of some in Philippians 3, whose God is their bellies, talking about their emotions, their belly gods, whose end is destruction, he said they're enemies of the cross. Paul says to the Corinthians he would have giving them much more information. He wasn't constrained, he said it himself, but he was constrained because of their own bowels, their own emotions were keeping them from hearing the full truth. And yet, as I alluded to recently, There's an article, an interesting article by B.B. Warfield on the emotional life of our Lord. And it's clear Jesus has emotions because he's a true man. So while the divine nature does not experience this impassionating, the fact is that the eternal Son of God does experience Passion Because he's assumed the divine nature or the human nature, excuse me, because he's assumed our nature He experiences passions. So God does In fact having an experiential knowledge of our passions Which is why when the Bible speaks in that way about God feeling this way or that way it's not a simply theoretical. It is grounded in the reality that is the Incarnation. But that doesn't mean that the divine nature is impassioned. So I think it's an interesting point and it's a very interesting thought to meditate upon, and it certainly, I would say, has very profound implications for how we interact ourselves with God. But again, this just shows us, and Luther was very big on this point, Luther hated the idea of what he would call the absolute God, the God of the philosophers or the God of the scholastic theologians that is being contemplated apart from Christ because Luther would emphasize we can't really know God apart from Jesus. Okay, and God is not really reconciled to us apart from Jesus. Anyway, this human nature, which is now hypostatically or personally united to the Godhead, is capable of being affected with our griefs and miseries, our afflictions, right? He is tempted in all points, like as we, sin only accepted, there's no sin. So why is it, you know, when you're tempted, very often you're drawn away. Why does the Bible say, you know, Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer that we should pray, lead us not into temptation that delivers from evil. Well, because of your sin nature. When temptation comes, it finds hooks in you to draw you, you know, either it can grab hold of those hooks and draw you. But when temptation came to Jesus, as we see with his temptation by the devil, there's nothing in him that is going to be able to be snagged and pulled into that temptation. There's no sin in him. We're not like that. But anyway, he has the point of all of this. If you want to reduce what I've just said into the point that Brown of Wemphrey wants you to have on this is this. The fact that he's assumed the seat of Abraham makes him able to be a sympathetic. He has sympathy. He can be a sympathetic Savior. And that's an amazing thing. God has condescended so much as to assume our nature so that He could be in sympathy with us in our misery. And that's something we should think about when we take We take hold of the name of Christ when we pray. All right, 317. What's the eighth thing that this should bring to remembrance? And then how can this be? So, the eighth thing is that this high priest our profession and this mediator Jesus being man still because he hasn't by the way he when he ascends into heaven he does not lay aside that assumption of our nature right he is personally united with our nature forever once he assumes it he's forever retains this and so He has a real human perfect and sinless sympathy with his people in their necessities and distresses. And this is precisely because of this personal union that he's taken upon himself our nature. All right, the ninth thing. Because really the seventh and eighth points are very much related, taking upon himself the seed of Abraham and all of that. The ninth thing that they should bring remembrance, 3.18, and then in what respect is Jesus inferior to the Father, and then what has he been given to carry on and finish this work. So, the ninth thing is when we invoke Jesus' name, we should remember this Lord Jesus is employed and sent of the Father, so that he comes with that authority of the Father and that commission of the Father. He's not unsent. Another important point. And this gets into questions that we've talked about in different connections regarding what we call the covenant of redemption, that agreement from eternity between the father and the son, that the father would give to the son of people, that the son would fulfill the conditions of covenant for that people. He didn't simply demand, as it were, out of nowhere that what he does for a people is acceptable. In other words, this is a result of an agreement, an eternal agreement, a covenant, that he would come and do this. And so he sent with the authority and commission to do just that. That's important. So in what respect Is he inferior to the father? 318B. And the fact is that his inferiority to the father, which is alluded to, let's look at it, there's a couple of verses I want to have read here. John 10.29 and 14.28. John 10.29, John 14.28. 1428, John 1428. So in what sense is the Father greater than the Son? These kind of statements have caused a lot of controversy in the history of the Christian Church. Is the father greater than the son naturally? Well, the church has answered that and said no. They're the same God. But there are these relational and particularly these economic aspects, right, that he's been and so he's inferior in respect. Brown says, In this he was appointed or made for this Right for this act of condescending He was sent by the father on this errand So, you know there is And there has been a question that's been very much agitated. And here's a case where I think Wayne Grudem is on the right side of the question and a lot of people today are not. And that is regarding what this subordination of the sun is or is not. There's clearly the sun is subordinate in the economy or the work of redemption. But there's a question as to whether or not the Son is in any sense subordinate to the Father ontologically. And I think the answer is and has to be that He is in the sense of there's an order in the Holy Trinity. It's not a natural subordination. It's not even a personal subordination in the sense of any person As he is God, but it is a personal subordination as These persons relate to one another Right so he is the son of the father and And you know the Bible always speaks of the Son doing the will of the Father. The Father's never doing the will of the Son. Right? The Spirit's always being sent by the Father and the Son. It doesn't go in the other direction. That's why we talk about the first, second, and third persons of the Trinity. So these are personal relative Properties which which are demonstrating a there's a personal relative Subordination, but there's not a personal a Personal natural subordination All right, so the I think you have to be careful about this because if Jesus is God but not the same God as the Father, like the Aryans or the Jehovah Witnesses today, they're modern Aryans, like they assert, then what we're really asserting is polytheism. There's more than one God. But we're not asserting that there's more than one God. There's only one God. There are three persons in that divine nature, but there's only one inseparable divine nature. And that's because the divine nature, and I've said this before and you may not understand it, but the divine nature is simple. which means it does not admit of division because it's not compounded. It's not a mixture. It is something which is simple, is singular. And it's not divisible. It's not separable. It's not in any way conceivable of being divided. And yet the three persons conceivable distinctions which have a direct relation to this divine nature, each of them being God. By reason of perichoresis, the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, and the Spirit is in both, both are in the Spirit. reason of the perichoresis that singular divinity is able simultaneously and fully to be the nature of each person. Yeah, there's not Their human nature is compounded and There's a spiritual and there's a physical and That which is Or I should say material and that which is material is divisible Which is why? Individuation is Clearly Happening with you know humans All right the 318 see what what has he been given carry on and finish this work and The fact is he's been given the authority and commission And so he has the what we would call the furniture or the abilities granted of God For carrying on and finishing this work and what we mean by that is this Because he has a commission from God the authority of God He has been given To have the spirit above measure And all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him. He doesn't have anything by half or in part. 319. What is the tenth thing they should bring to remembrance? And then who is the Lord Jesus Christ? And then why did those of old pray toward the temple? I've already answered that, but we'll come back to that. So the 10th thing that should bring your remembrance is this. The mediator, who is God and man in one person, The Godhead, which is infinite in itself and inconceivable by us, condescends to be some way accessible by us when we approach to Him in Christ, in whom this Godhead dwells bodily. That's actually, if you think about, I mean, in Luther, Luther is one of these people, and there are a couple of Puritans that talk this way as well. And it's a very interesting thing to contemplate but Luther would say this in the finite That humanity which Christ assumed That finite was made to circumscribe the infinite And in that condescension the infinite was made knowable to us This is why we can only approach God in an acceptable manner through Christ, right? We can't conceive of God absolutely, right? That is, we can't conceive of God outside of Christ. Because all of our thoughts of God outside of Christ, they go awry. Christ anchors our thinking about God in ways that are accurate and attainable by us. Because outside of him this Godhead is inconceivable and yet Paul says in Colossians that in him the Godhead dwells bodily. The fullness of the Godhead. Complete Godhead. The infinite dwells in the finite. Which is just an incredible thing to try to take in. Just meditate upon that and it will, you know, it will. Yeah. Isn't that what the early fathers talked about as well, where, you know, the cup always overflowing or the cup, the beatific vision, like we're always being filled. And in the beatific vision, yeah, it's the idea is that the cup is always being filled, it's always full, it's always overflowing. And yet it's not losing anything, right? It's there. Yeah, there's there's an idea that we're going to be able to. I think Edwards, Jonathan Edwards talks about. Every person. every person is in fact that capacity. So it doesn't matter how big or small your cup, when the cup is full, the sense of being filled that each cup has is the same. But anyway, All right, who is the Lord Jesus Christ? This is 319b. We've been talking about this, but let's just make it very clear. He is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the eternal Son of God. Now God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. And he is that person through whom we must approach God and in whose name we must ask what we ask. And finally, 319C, why did Jezebel pray toward the temple? And I mentioned that before, but Brown is very clear. They had their eye toward the temple, which was the type of Christ who was a true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. And there he's referring to John 1. John 1 says that when Christ came, he tabernacled among men. what the Greek says. That's an important concept, tabernacled among men. Because the idea is that God himself is pitching his tent, his tabernacle, true tabernacle. And so praying, looking toward that is, typically speaking, that is the same as praying in the name of Jesus. They don't know his name yet. Well, they should have guessed it. I mean, Jesus means the Lord is salvation. They should have guessed that and they might have guessed that because the name actually occurs in the Hebrew in a number of places in the Psalms. Yeah, but in the Psalms. Because I've always thought it was kind of funny. I remember someone a number of years ago when the idea of psalm singing came up he just said they'll never take away my hymns to Jesus and I just thought well you obviously you should know Hebrew but I mean if you did you would realize that every time the idea of salvation is mentioned it's Yeshua you know it's the name of Jesus is being referenced and there are Numerous other references and I do try to bring them up as we go through the Psalms but Anyway, these things are types the temple the tabernacle are types and He's the way of course and the door. All right. So there are just a few more things in this chapter. We want to address I 320 and what six things does the wonder and condescension of God appear in this that is in in him assuming our nature So the first a First is that There's a wonder love and condescension in that he should ever suffer sinners who were under a sentence of condemnation to return to him and present their petitions to him. Think about that. Right? I mean the name of Jesus is reminding you that that you are by nature an enemy of God and He's given you a name above every other name so that you can actually ask this God who is your enemy to grant your desires. 320d, second. It's a wonder of love and condescension that he himself should find out and point a way how they may approach him and present their supplications. He didn't have to do that. He didn't need to do that. But he does so anyway. In other words, God isn't simply interested in being reconciled. He takes upon himself to do everything, the whole work necessary to reconciliation. And that's a wonder of love and condescension. All right, 320C, third thing. It's another wonder of love and condescension. that God would make this way of approach, this way, in and through the eternal Son of God. In other words, think about of all of the things that might have been done, and there are probably a lot of them, it's amazing that he fixes upon a way of condescension and a way of reconciliation in and through his eternal son. 320d, the fourth thing which the wonder of love and condescension peers is that we should thereby have such encouragement and heart-strengthening considerations, excuse me, the fourth thing, that for this end, that is to be a way of salvation, the eternal Son of God himself must condescend so low as to become a man and to take on himself the form of a servant and be made to experience grief and sorrow. Incredible. And then 320E, the fifth thing, is that we should thereby have such encouragement and heart strengthening considerations to make use of this mediator in presenting our supplications to God. Finally, the sixth thing, 320F. It's a wonder of love and condescension that God would have us to make use of this way only in coming to himself. He says, you know, you think about it, it's really him having us come to himself in the arms of Christ. All right, then the last question in this chapter. How should this commend and endear prayer unto us and how should it encourage us to come? So 321a, this you commended in dear prayer to us that we have such a new and living way, such a glorious and exalted intercessor through whom to present all our desires. We should, we should recognize the advantage and make use of it. And 321B, how it should encourage us to come, should encourage us to come even when all things else would discourage us and make us faint. He says, after all, think about this. God in himself now become man. God and man in one person forever. In order that we could have access to God through him. So although it may seem like we have covered a bit, praying in the name of Christ. The next chapter, chapter 16, we're going to look at what it is to pray in Christ's name. So we're going to continue this theme and we'll be looking at this for the next couple of chapters.