The Lord's Prayer
Is It For The Dispensation Of The Mystery
This is the name given to the prayer that is recorded in Matthew 6:9-13. We may think that the prayer of John 17 more justly merits the title "The Lord's Prayer," but this is no place for quibbling. Before we consider the implications of the prayer itself, there are three things that must be known and understood:
- The prayer forms a part of the Sermon on the Mount.
- The prayer was given to the disciples at their request.
- The prayer has much in common with the form adopted by the Jews themselves.
The Sermon on the Mount. The Gospel, according to Matthew, shows the place occupied by the Sermon on the Mount. Suffice it for the moment to realize that this prayer was given at a time when the disciples did not know that Christ must suffer and die (see Matt. 16:21-22). What is the place and purpose of this Sermon on the Mount? Speaking broadly, the varying views can be reduced under two heads:
- The Sermon on the Mount is the great outline of Christian practice (Bloomfield) and applies to the church today.
- The Sermon on the Mount does not apply to The Church of today but constitutes the laws of The Kingdom which is yet to be set up on the earth.
A reference to the article The Church Which Is In Heaven will reveal that we could not possibly endorse No. 1, and a moment's consideration will show that No. 2 is just as untenable.
The opening beatitudes speak of "mourning" and being "persecuted for righteousness' sake." A blessing is pronounced upon those who are "reviled," "persecuted," and "slandered" falsely for the sake of Christ. We believe that the Scriptures testify that when The Kingdom of prophecy is set up, and Christ reigns as the Son of David:
"In His days shall the righteous Flourish; and abundance of Peace so long as the moon endureth" (Psa. 72:7).
The "needy" and the "poor" are to be His special care and:
"They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My Holy mountain, saith the Lord" (Isa. 65:22-25).
One cannot but realize that a different atmosphere pervades the references of the O.T. to The Kingdom of the Messiah from that of the Sermon on the Mount.
Under the conditions recognized by the Sermon on the Mount, a man may be in danger of gehenna or of prison and the payment to the uttermost farthing. Divorce is still contemplated as a possibility, which we feel can find no warrant from O.T. prophecy of the future kingdom. Again, the injunction to resist not evil, and being sued for one's coat, or being compelled to go a mile, etc., bring before the mind a totally different economy from that which fills the vision of the prophets of old. Enemies are still abroad, and so are those that curse and hate. In the great prayer taught by the Lord to His disciples, The Kingdom is still future. They pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Those addressed still "fasted" and still had the possibility of serving "two masters." The Kingdom of God is to be the first object of their seeking, and "evil" is still to be expected day by day. "Dogs" and "swine" may still turn and rend those who indiscriminately dispense Holy things, and those addressed are still in the condition that can be spoken of like this, "If ye then, being evil, etc." False prophets will still deceive, and some still build upon sand. Such a state of things makes the idea that the Sermon on the Mount is the law of the future Kingdom impossible. Rather do we see a persecuted, waiting for people, suffering during the absence of their Rightful King, sustained by the hope that, when He comes, and The Kingdom is set up, they will then receive their great reward, which is in heaven, a waiting the day when they, the meek, shall inherit the earth.
The Sermon on the Mount relates neither to The Church of the present day nor to The Kingdom of the future but were words of counsel and encouragement given by the rejected King to the men who had followed Him and who now began to realize that The Kingdom would not immediately appear, and it is in that atmosphere that the Lord's prayer was uttered and to this condition it belongs.
The prayer was given at the request of the disciples. From Luke 11:1, we learn that one of the disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." It was a custom for a Rabbi to teach his pupils a form of prayer; it set a tone for the school and gave a pointer to his special doctrine. John the Baptist had done this, and the disciples expected that Christ would do so too. It is a solemn thought to think that the prayer is prefaced by the words "use not vain repetitions" and that at some services, it is used so many times that one wonders why prayer for daily bread and for any other of this set of petitions need to be iterated so frequently. It was an axiom with the Jews "Everyone that multiplies prayer is heard" (Heiros Taanith, fol. 67.3). When the Saviour gave this prayer to His disciples, the stated number of prayers used by the Jews daily was Eighteen. Owing to human frailty, these eighteen prayers were reduced to a brief summary. This summary was called "a fountain," and the Lord's Prayer belongs to this category. Another canon of the Rabbis was that "he who prays, ought always when he prays, to join the church," and when alone, his prayer should still be in the plural, as the Lord taught "Say Our Father."
Three clauses in this prayer call for consideration, as they have a bearing upon dispensational truth:
- The prayer for daily bread.
- The prayer concerning temptation.
- The prayer for forgiveness.
Daily bread is the basic need of all men, whatever their standing or state, and its inclusion in this prayer should cause no questioning. When we examine the original, however, we meet with a fact that calls for considerable thought. One would imagine that such a word as "daily" would be so common as to need no comment. Yet although there were six different ways of expressing the thought of "daily" in use in the N.T., not one of these is used, but a word unknown either in the Greek N.T. or in any extant Greek writing is employed! The word translated as "daily" is the Greek epiousios. It seems extraordinary to think that for so common a theme, the Lord or His Apostle was obliged to "coin" a word. The word is composed of epi "upon" and the participle of eimi "to come," and so the passage literally means "the bread which cometh down upon us." Now no Jew could ever hear the phrase "bread which cometh down upon us" without thinking immediately of the manna. If this prayer is a legitimate petition for the time now present, and if it actually refers to daily food, what reason can be given for employing so extraordinary a term? Suppose, however, a day is coming when some of the people of Israel will once again be delivered, as from Pharaoh, and once again in a wilderness be absolutely dependent upon bread from heaven, then, if such a condition could be proved to be Scriptural, we should have both the time, place and people for whom "the Lord's prayer" will become a prayer indeed.
The Book of Revelation tells us that a day will come when Satan will be cast out of heaven to the earth, and when that day comes, Israel will be the object of his attack.
"And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man chi1d. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent" (Rev. 12:13-14).
Here, as never before, will the petition arise from the heart, "Give us this day, the bread that cometh down upon us." Closely allied with this is the clause dealing with temptation. If it is difficult to understand how thousands of Christians, in times of peace and plenty, with money in the bank and with staples well stored, could honestly adopt words that practically meant that they were as destitute as Israel would have been in the wilderness but for the manna; it is also difficult to understand how anyone using the prayer "lead us not into temptation" over and over again, can avoid the charge of insincerity, for if after any service where the Lord's Prayer is used, one were to ask any one of the congregation "what temptation" they had in mind, and why they felt it necessary, day in day out the whole year through to pray so extraordinary a prayer, most would have to confess that they really did not know. Do we believe that God is daily leading His people into temptation? Does He need this incessant pleading to spare us this temptation? Or are we once again proving the practical value of Dispensational Truth? In the Book of Revelation, we have the promise, "I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth" (Rev. 3:10). We come back, therefore, to our original position. The Sermon on the Mount is the Lord's encouragement for His disciples while The Kingdom is postponed and the King rejected, and the prayer embodied in that sermon is luminous when seen in its true setting, which a due regard for dispensational Truth makes clear and inevitable.
One other clause in the prayer calls for consideration. The prayer for forgiveness.
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
It is the intention and meaning of the word "AS" that we must consider. A casual reading may take the prayer to mean, "Lord, we forgive our fellow men, and so we confidently hope that Thou wilt forgive us." Or a parallel might be sought in Ephesians 4:32:
"Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
All endeavors to soften the contractual element in this petition breaks down in the face of the Lord's own added explanation:
"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive NOT men their trespasses, NEITHER will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matt. 6:14-15).
Later in this Gospel, the Lord enforced this lesson by the parable of the unforgiving servant. There the forgiveness was rescinded, and the forgiven man was put into prison. No one with any knowledge of the Gospel of Grace, as revealed in the ministry of Paul, could ever think of forgiveness that could be canceled or rescinded and the forgiven person put back as he was before salvation. We are here faced with a problem that only "Dispensational Truth" can solve. If the Gospel as preached in Matthew and Ephesians, is "all one and the same," we must accept the condition, but no amount of reasoning can make the two accounts square. The answer to the problem is contained in the fact that in Matthew, we have the Pardon of a King, whereas, in Paul's Epistle, we have the Acquittal of a Judge.
Taking, therefore, the context, the strong affinity with Jewish thought and practice, and the three clauses of the prayer we have considered, we believe it is impossible to deny that the Lord's prayer belongs to a Dispensation very different from that of The Church of The Mystery.
A concluding feature, last but by no means least, is that this prayer is not offered "in the name" of the Saviour. In John 16, the Lord said, "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name." This includes "the Lord's prayer." He continued saying, "Ask, and ye shall receive" (John 16:23-24). If we ignore this Word of the Lord and persist in using a prayer that He Himself must have included in the word "hitherto," we shall not only defeat our own ends, but we shall exhibit before men that we do not appreciate as we should that most vital of all doctrines, namely the Mediation of Jesus Christ.
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1 Corinthians 11:25
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped,
saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood:
this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
This verse has been used as a command to have communion. Some even will say communion is a good time to check yourself to make sure things are clean in your life or clear between you and others. The fear they have is taking the ceremony unworthily and judgment being placed on them. Once again, tradition has been received over Truth.
The Word of God centers around Jesus Christ, not around us. Remember, if we go to God's Word focused on getting to know Him more, rather than taking a self-centered approach to His Word, our own lives will become more fulfilled. For example, if we go to The Word with the mindset of: I would like to get to know who God is instead of: “What can you show me, God, to help me get through this day." When we focus on God through His Word and prayer, He, in turn, begins to work those things out in our life we thought were so important.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Getting back to communion;
1 Corinthians 11:25 After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
When Christ said to do this in remembrance of me, what was He saying? First, what meal were He and His disciples having? Answer the Passover feast. What was the Passover? About 1500 years before Christ, the night before Israel was allowed to leave Egypt, where they had been in slavery and bondage. The Lord was going to pass thru the land and suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite the firstborn of every family. If the children of Israel had slain a lamb without blemish and marked the doorposts of their home with the blood of the lamb, the Lord would pass over them. This is where the Passover name came from. From that time on, once a year, the Passover would be celebrated and remembered how the Lord had delivered Israel from bondage.
Fast forward to the night Christ was having His last Passover feast meal with His disciples. The Bible says Christ looked forward to having this last Passover with His disciples.
Luke 22:15 And he said unto them, With desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer:
Why did He desire this? He was about to show the disciples the deeper and fulfilled meaning of the Passover. Israel in bondage was a shadow of the bondage that sin has on mankind. The spotless lamb that was slain each year was but a shadow of Jesus Christ, the Perfect Lamb of God being slain upon the cross for the sin of the world. If the blood of the lamb was placed on the doorposts of the home where the Passover meal was being held, that blood would ensure life and not death. That blood was a shadow of the blood of Christ that He shed on the cross and His blood that can give everlasting life. So Christ was showing His Disciples the true meaning of the Passover. He no longer wanted the release from Egyptian bondage to be remembered but the blood that He was going to shed, and did shed on the cross that would free all from the bondage of sin forever. He, by the broken bread, showed how His body was soon to be brutally mangled and broken to provide physical and spiritual healing for us all free from the effects of sin. So from then on, as often as they ate that bread and drank that cup, they were to remember Christ and His suffering. How often would they have that meal? Once a year at Passover. But surely Christ's sacrifice and resurrection were meditated on daily by them that believed. And once the Gentiles were invited into The Kingdom message, they too could partake of the Passover tradition, but in remembrance of Christ, not deliverance from Egypt.
1 Corinthians 11:25 After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this does ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
Christ wasn't saying do this often; He was just saying when you do it, do it in remembrance. They would do it once a year, and now Passover, its true meaning is revealed.
Luke 22:20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
This was not a time to examine one's life for the worthiness of eating the bread or drinking the cup. Worthiness was all wrapped in Christ. When Paul said in;
1 Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
Some in the Corinthian church were partaking because they wanted to eat and drink and weren't considering at all the message behind the bread and wine. This is why many were sick and died because they were just eating and drinking for self-indulgence, not in remembrance of Christ. This was not set up for self-examination but for Christ's examination.
Fast forward to Acts 28:28 Be it known therefore unto you that The Salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. The message of The Kingdom to Jews and Gentiles has been paused because of unbelief by the Jewish nation, and a new message was delivered to Paul. A message where there is no Jew or Gentile, a message not pertaining to feasts or Sabbath days or holy days or ordinances (communions) or washings (baptisms). It is a message with a new hope of the appearing of Christ in glory, not Him coming in clouds with a shout and sound of a trumpet, a hope of heaven, not a city built by God with 12 pearly gates. Spiritual blessings in Heavenly Places, not sign gifts. A walk by faith, not by sight. Worshiping Christ in spirit and in Truth. A message covering all aspects of your walk for today. This message is distinct and was hid in God since before the foundations of the world. There is no reflection of earthly things but only heavenly. We don't need emblems of bread and wine to have a Passover, communion, or remembrance of what Christ did for us. We worship Him in spirit and in Truth.
We are not spiritual Israel or the Bride, but we are The Church of His Body. We don't wrestle with flesh and blood but the principalities of the dark. But sadly, as God's message was rejected, that was spoken by the prophets, and spoken by God in the flesh, and then His disciples. So was God's message of The Mystery, which was sent to Paul for us today, rejected and is still being rejected today. That is why Paul said in 2 Tim 1:15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me... Paul had been given a message that fulfilled God's Word, but most don't realize it even exists. But if we are diligent in seeking Christ and His Word, which are one and the same, and remember 2 Tim 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, then we can be part of Gods fulfilled Word, and we can have The Hope of Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed Hope, and the Glorious appearing of The Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
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Paul Was An Apostle Twice,
Both Before And After Acts 28,
That Leaves A Number Of Questions
If Paul preached only one message in the course of his ministry here on earth, and that message was concerning the Dispensation of The Mystery, we are led to wonder about a few things.
For instance, when on the Damascus road, Paul was given the order to preach the things which he had seen (Acts 26:16). The last record that we have of Paul seeing anything he could preach prior to his trip to Damascus was the sermon of Stephen (Acts 7:58 and Acts 8:1). Was Stephen preaching the Dispensation of The Mystery? Just wondering!
Again, in Acts 28:23, Paul is preaching that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of Israel, and he does so from Moses and the prophets. Now is this a part of the Dispensation of the mystery?
If Paul never preached concerning the King and The Kingdom, how did the people at Thessalonica get the impression that he was preaching to another King besides Caesar? Just wondering!
In Romans, the last epistle of Paul before the events of Acts closed, it is proclaimed that the Gentiles are partakers of the spiritual things of Israel. Are we to believe that the Dispensation of the mystery is where Gentile believers share in the hope of Israel?
In Gal. 4:26, Paul speaks of Jerusalem, which is above, as the mother of us all. Is this the hope of the Dispensation of The Mystery? This is also the hope of the seven synagogues of Asia in Revelation, and it comes down to the earth.
Paul had received sign-gifts from The Spirit, as did The Twelve Apostles. In fact, every believer received a sign-gift during the Acts period up until Acts 28:28. Are these sign-gifts also a part of The Dispensation of The Mystery? Could it be that the faith healers and the folks who speak in tongues today are the real body of Christ? Just wondering!
In Romans 7, Paul speaks of the law as being holy and the commandment holy and just and good. Is this speaking to those who belong to The Church of The Dispensation of The Mystery?
After Paul had preached for some time and had on several occasions turned to the Gentiles, he stood before the council in Jerusalem in the defense of his Gospel. Peter stood up in his defense and declared that he had done this (preached to Gentiles) first (Acts 15:7). If Paul preached nothing but The Mystery, then Peter must have proclaimed it first in the house of Cornelius. But here we have trouble. After all, was it Peter, or was it Stephen who preached it first?
At Athens, Paul declared that there was One coming Who had been raised from the dead and that He would judge the world. Is this One The King of kings (and The King of Israel), or is it The Head of The Church, which is His Body that will judge the world? Just wondering!
On his last visit to Jerusalem, Paul shaved his head, made a vow, and worshiped in The Temple. Is this a part of the Dispensation of The Mystery?
In Romans 11 the Gentile is described as being grafted into the olive tree. Was this a secret?
Strictly speaking, The Hope of Israel was their Messiah.
But with the coming of Messiah were connected many other things which also were a part of the hope of Israel.
In Ezekiel 37:4-11 we read of the valley of dry bones. It is a picture of Israel beginning to believe Jesus is Her Messiah, the bones come together, and when they stand up, Israel knows Her Messiah, and the Resurrection of Israel happens. She enters with Messiah into The Promised Land and The Times of The Kingdom. Daniel 12 begins with the same hope.
But it is in Isaiah 66 that we find something that we can link with Revelation 12. You will note that the travail of the woman, who is Israel, is the birth pangs mentioned in Matt. 24:8. Now Isaiah speaks of a manchild born before the birth pangs and then children after the travail. In Revelation 12, we see that there is first a man-child born, and then the time of tribulation, after which is The Resurrection at the seventh trumpet. The man-child is evidently the overcomers, faithful ones who died rather than serve Antichrist and the Beast.
So far, these have to do with Israel, the baptism by fire in the tribulation, and The Resurrection.
We go to John 11:23-27, and we find something about the last day, which relates to the same times. In reference to the last day, the Lord declares that He is The Resurrection and The Life. He then shows that He will be The Resurrection for the believing dead on that day, and He will awaken those that sleep. He also shows that He will be Life to believers who are alive on that day, for they shall never die.
This is a further explanation of Rev. 11:15, where the last or seventh trumpet sounds and the kingdoms of the earth come under the rule of The King of kings and Lord of lords.
Paul speaks of this great event in 1 Corinthians 15:51-58. He describes what happens at the last trumpet, speaking of the raising of the dead and the change of the living as in John 11. Note the use of the word sleep here and in Daniel 12.
In 1 Thessalonians, Paul refers to the same event, except it is written sometime before the Corinthian letters. In 1 Thes. 4:15-18 he notes the archangel that is mentioned in Daniel 12. The trumpet is also spoken of. And the dead rise first (the Lord is The Resurrection to them). And then those believers who are alive rise up into the air (not heaven) with those who had been dead. They meet the Lord, Who is coming to set up His Kingdom as described in Revelation 11. So they do not stay in the air for long but come with the Lord to the earth. Note also that there will be clouds, just as at the ascension of the Lord. He comes in like manner as He left. The clouds are angels, sometimes called saints, and also plainly spoken of as His holy angels. Look up all these carefully. Angels have to do with Israel, the heirs of salvation. They are not connected with The Church.
Now, going back to Isaiah 66, we find there just what Nicodemus should have remembered but did not. He was told that he would have to be born again (Resurrected) in order to see and enter The Kingdom. He was told (plural YE) that his people Israel would have to be born again (Resurrected) so that they might enter The Kingdom. And the same was true of The King, for He is First Fruits, The First Born of them that slept. He is the new Head of the human race. As in Adam, all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. Isn't our God Wonderful?
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1 Corinthians 12:13
For by one spirit are we all baptized into One Body.
The word spirit has the small "s" in the A.V. of 1611, and correctly so, for it here refers to the new nature or the new man in the believers of the first century. So it is by virtue of having this spirit that the Corinthian saints were baptized into or identified with one body.
1 Cor. 12:8-10 tells us that this body of believers was endowed with nine spiritual gifts; wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, and their interpretation. And verse 7 says that these were given to every man, i.e., every man in that body. This is significant for every believer. When they believed that Jesus is The Christ received a sign-gift, no one was ever missed. This fulfilled The Lord's Promise of Mar 16:17-18 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Everyone who believed on Jesus Christ received one of these signs. Do you have one? Why not? Because no Christians after Acts 28:27-28 receive sign-gifts, they were for the last Dispensation. Now go thru The Book of Acts very carefully, and you will see every believer had a sign-gift and no one was missed. Christians today should have questioned this, and they would have known we were in a different Dispensation by this one proof alone. There are many others.
Back to 1 Corinthians Chapter 12:14-17 where this body is described as having feet, hands, ears, eyes, and the like. Now this body can not be The Mystery One Body of Christ because God protected His Secret not yet revealed by listing body parts on the head. Which members of The Church of The One Body are part of The Head? Now member because Christ Jesus and He alone is The Head of The Body.
This Acts period body was made up of Jewish and Gentile believers. The Jews are addressed in 1 Corinthians Chapters 10 and 11, and the Gentiles in Chapter 12. These Gentiles are described in Gal. 3:9 as being blessed by faith with faithful Abraham, as God made sure that was how the blessings of Abraham would come upon the Gentiles and that by faith, they would become Abraham's seed. These Gentile believers were at one time spoken of by The Lord as dogs that eat the crumbs that fall from Israel's table. But now they were partaking of Israel's spiritual things, and Israel was getting jealous. See Rom. 15:27 and Matt. 15:26
Paul writes to some length in Romans about this body made up of Jew and Gentile Christians. A prophecy is quoted in Rom. 9:25 concerning the fact that God would call a people His people who were not His people. In Rom. 9:28 the Gentile believers obtained righteousness which they sought not after. They were continuing to provoke Israel to jealousy (Rom. 10:19 & Rom. 11:11). And Rom. 11:17-24 describes them as being grafted into the olive tree as wild olive branches so that the original tree (Israel) might bear fruit.
This not only shows that they are unequal, the Jew being first, but it is plain that such a relationship does not and cannot constitute a joint body. Romans Chapter 2 tells us that the Jew is first in blessing and also first in punishment. Summed up, all this is proof that there was a fleshly distinction between Jew and Gentile in that body.
The Jewish believers were still under the law, but the Gentile believers had the gospel of the grace of God preached to them. So they became guests at Israel's table by grace, not by the law.
This body at Corinth had the hope of the coming Messiah and His Kingdom. Along with Israel, Gentiles had The Hope of the 1 Corinthians Gathering Together in chapter 15, by which they would meet the Lord in the air (not heaven) and come with Him to the earth to take part in His Millennial Kingdom. Heaven was never their hope.
Paul was still preaching this coming, the hope of Israel in Acts 28:20. It had been his constant theme until Acts 28:27-28 where finally, the salvation of God was sent to the Gentiles. Salvation was then no longer of the Jews, and this body ceased to be.
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