But how must those who are united to Jesus Christ by a living faith that reveals itself in an obedient love pray if they are to get the very thing that they ask? Let us read the verse again: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do.” If we are to get from God what we ask, we must ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Prayer in the name of Jesus Christ prevails with God. No other prayer does. There is no other approach to God for any man or woman except through Jesus Christ, as the Lord Himself tells us in the sixth verse of this same chapter: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
But just what does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? I have heard many explanations of this. Some of them were so pro- found or mystical, or so mixed, or so obscure, that when I fin- ished reading them or listening to them, I knew less about it than when I started. I have heard two great Bible teachers, two of the most renowned Bible teachers in the world, say that to “Pray in the name of Jesus means to pray in the person of Jesus.” Now I do not question that these two great Bible teachers had some definite thought in their own minds, but it cer- tainly conveyed no clear and definite thought to my mind. The truth is, there is nothing mysterious about this matter. It is as simple as anything possibly can be, so simple that any intelligent child can understand it. I am always suspicious of profound ex- planations of the Scriptures, explanations that require a scholar or philosopher to understand them. The Bible is the plain man’s book. The Lord Jesus Himself said in Matthew 11:25, “I thank thee. 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes.” In at least ninety-nine cases in a hundred the meaning of Scripture that lies on the sur- face, the meaning that any simple-minded man, woman, or child who really wants to know the truth and to obey it would see in it, is what it really means.
I have great sympathy with the little child who, when she once heard a learned attempt to explain away the plain meaning of Scripture, exclaimed, “If God did not mean what He said, why didn’t He say what He meant?” Well, God always does say just what He means, just what you and I would understand by it if our wills were really surrendered to God and we really desired to know exactly what God wished to tell us and not to read our own opinions into the Bible. By this expression, “In my name,”
He means just exactly what the words would indicate to any earnest and intelligent seeker after the truth who was wining to take God’s words at their exact face value.
When you come across a word or a phrase in the Bible and do not know what it means, the thing to do is not to run off to a dic- tionary, or a commentary, or to some book of theology, but to take your concordance and go through the Bible and look up every place where that word or phrase, or synonymous words or phrases, are used. Then you will know just what the word or phrase means. The meaning of words and phrases in the Bible is to be determined just as it is in all other books, by usage. Now I have done this with this phrase, “In my name” and with synonymous phrases, “In his name” or “In the name of Jesus Christ.” I have looked up every passage in the Bible where they are found, and I have discovered what I suspected at the outset, that these phrases mean exactly the same in the Bible that they do in ordinary everyday speech. What does it mean in ordinary everyday speech to ask something in some other person’s name? It means simply this, that you ask the thing that you ask from the person of whom you ask it, on the ground of some claim that the person in whose name you ask it has upon the one from whom you ask it.
Let me illustrate. Suppose I should go down to the First Na- tional Bank of your city and should write out a check “Pay to the order of R. A. Torrey the sum of five dollars,” and then should sign my own name at the bottom of the check and then go to the paying teller’s window and put that check in. What would I be doing? I would be praying that bank to give me five dollars. And in whose name would I be asking it? In my own name. And what would hap- pen? The paying teller would take the check and look at it, and then look at me, and then he would say “Dr. Torrey, have you any money in this bank?” “No.”
Then what would he say? Something like this. “We would like to accommodate you, but that is not good business. You have no claim whatever upon this bank and we cannot honor your check even though it is for only five dollars.” But suppose, instead of that, some man in your city who had a hundred thousand dollars in that bank should call me in and say, “Dr. Torrey, I am greatly interested in the work of the Bible Institute, and I have wanted to give some money to it and I am going to hand it to you.” And then he draws a check “Pay to the order of R. A. Torrey the sum of five thousand dollars,” and then he signs his name at the bottom of the check. I go to the bank again, and in presenting that check what would I be doing? I would be asking that bank to give me five thousand dollars. And in whose name would I be asking it? Not in my own name, but in the name of the man whose name is signed to the bottom of the check, and who has claims of a hundred thousand dollars on that bank.
What would happen? The teller would look at the check, and then he would not ask me whether I had any money in that bank, and he would not care wheth-er I had a penny in that bank or in any bank. If the check were properly drawn, and prop- erly endorsed, he would count me out five thousand dollars; for I would be asking it in the other man’s name, asking it on the ground of his claims on that bank.
Now that is exactly what praying in the name of Jesus Christ means. It means that we go to the bank of Heaven, on which neither you nor I nor any other man on earth has any claim of his own, but upon which Jesus Christ has infinite claims. In Jesus’ name, which He has given us a right to put on our checks, if we are united to Him by a living faith that reveals itself in an obedient love, we may ask whatever we need in His name. Or, to put it another way, to pray in the name of Jesus Christ is to recognize that we have no claims on God whatever, that God owes us nothing whatever, that we deserve nothing of God; but, believing what God Himself tells us about Jesus Christ’s claims upon Him, we ask God for things on the ground of Jesus Christ’s claims upon God. And when we draw near to God in that way we can get “whatsoever we ask,” no matter how great it may be.
Praying in the name of Christ means more than merely attaching that phrase, “In Jesus’ name,” or “For Jesus’ sake” to your prayers. Many a man asks for things and puts that phrase, “In Jesus’ name,” or “For Jesus’ sake” in his prayer, while all the time he is really approaching God on the ground of some claim that he fancies he has on God. In reality, though he uses the phrase, he is not praying in the name of Jesus Christ but praying in his own name. And a man might not put that phrase in his prayer at all, and yet all the time draw near to God re- alizing that he has no claims on God, but believing that Jesus Christ has claims on God and be approaching God on the ground of Jesus Christ’s claims. Here is where many a person fails in getting an answer to prayer. Such people may ask things of God on the ground of some claim they fancy they themselves have on God. They fancy because they are such good Christians, so consistent in their lives, and so active in their service, that God is under obligation to grant their prayers.
R.A. Torrey – The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power, 1924
