Matthew 3:2 Mark 1:15 and which Christ, in this chapter, Matthew 6:33, directs his followers to seek, in preference to all other things and here to pray for. But the kingdom of God under the Messiah, to be set up, enlarged, and perfected by the preaching of the gospel, and the exercise of Christ’s kingly power, is evidently here intended even that kingdom which the Jews thought would immediately appear, Luke 19:11 which the pious among them expected and waited for, Luke 2:38 Mark 15:43 which both the Baptist and our Lord announced as at hand, chap. Thy kingdom come - This cannot with propriety be understood of that general kingdom, by which God ruleth over all the world, that being always come, and not capable of any amplification. That all wills on earth should be brought into the same entire conformity with the divine will as theirs, is what we are taught to pray for.īenson Commentary Matthew 6:10. And in really praying for this we, as before, in part fulfil the prayer.Īs it is in heaven.-The thought is true of the order of the visible heaven, where law reigns supreme, with no “variableness or shadow of turning.” But seeing that the obedience contemplated is that of the will, it is better, perhaps, to think of the words as pointing to the unseen hosts of heaven, the ministering angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. In one sense the will of God, which is also the eternal law, must fulfil itself but it is one thing for that law to work in subduing all things to itself, another for it to bring all created wills into harmony with itself. And the answer is found, as before, in accepting the seeming paradox of prayer. The question, “Who hath resisted this will? Does it not ever fulfil itself?” forces itself on our thoughts. It assumes that even the will of God is in part dependent on our wills, that it will not be done unless we so pray. The real difficulty in the prayer is, that it lands us, as before. It is the will that desires our sanctification ( 1Thessalonians 4:3), that does not will that any should perish. We pray that the will of God may be done because we believe it to be perfectly loving and righteous. But as it came from the lips of the Son of Man, it was surely far more than this. Thy will be done.-The prayer has often been, even in the lips of Christians, hardly more than the “acceptance of the inevitable.” Like the Stoic, we have submitted to a destiny like the Moslem, we have been resigned to a decree. So tar as that prayer comes from the heart and not from the lips only, it is in part self-fulfilling, in part it works according to the law by which God answers prayers that are in harmony with His own will and in so far as the kingdom, though in one sense it has come, and is in the midst of us, and within us, is yet far from the goal towards which it moves, ever coming and yet to come, the prayer is one that never becomes obsolete, and may be the utterance of the saints in glory no less than of toilers and sufferers upon earth. And therefore we pray that it may “come” in its fulness, that all created beings may bring their wills into harmony with God’s will. Its advance to that completeness might be retarded by man’s self-will, and hastened by man’s fulfilment of its conditions. It was therefore ever growing to a completeness, which it has never yet reached. But it was not, like the kingdoms of the world, one that rested on the despotism of might, but on the acknowledgment of righteousness. The Teacher of the prayer knew Himself to be the Head of that kingdom. Now the kingdom of God, that in which He manifests His sovereignty more than in the material world or in the common course of history, had been proclaimed as nigh at hand. It had long been familiar to all who looked for the consolation of Israel. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(10) Thy kingdom come.-Historically, the prayer had its origin in the Messianic expectations embodied in the picture of the ideal king in Isaiah 11:1-6 Isaiah 42:1-7, Daniel 7:14.
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