And this is the confidence that we have in him
Either in God, to whom prayer is made; or in the Son of God,
through whose blood and righteousness believers in him have
confidence with God at the throne of grace; they can come with
boldness and intrepidity, and use freedom and liberty of speech,
as the word here used signifies; especially when they have the
Spirit of Christ with them, and are under the sprinklings of the
blood of Christ, and have a comfortable assurance of being heard
and answered; and this is what the Jews call (hlpt Nwyye) , "the consideration", or
"attention of prayer" F19, which they explain thus;
``after a man has prayed, he judges in his heart that the holy blessed God will give him his reward, and will do everything needful for him, and will hear his prayer, because he has prayed with intention;''but this is much better expressed, and upon a much better foundation, by our apostle here:
that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth
us;
to ask anything according to the will of God, is to ask, as to
matter, what, and in a manner which, is agreeably to it; by which
is meant, not his secret will, or his purposes and decrees, which
are unknown, though, so far as these are made known, they are not
to be prayed against, for they can never be made void; and
therefore, when God had declared it as his purposing will, that
the Israelites in the wilderness should not enter into Canaan's
land, and that he had rejected Saul from the kingdom, in these
cases it would have been wrong for Moses to have prayed for the
one, or Samuel for the other; ( 1 Samuel
16:1 ) ; and though no one person is to be excluded from our
prayers on the account of the decree of reprobation, since no man
can certainly be known to be a reprobate; yet it does not become
us to pray for the conversion and salvation of reprobates in
general, since this would be contrary to the decree of God: and
such purposes which God has declared by prophecy he has purposed
in himself, as the conversion of the Jews, the bringing in the
fulness of the Gentiles, the destruction of antichrist, and the
glory of the Gospel church, for these we should pray that God
would hasten them in his own time, and we are sure of being
heard; but the revealed will of God is here intended, by which it
appears that all grace is laid up in Christ, and all spiritual
blessings are with him, and that the covenant of grace is ordered
in all things, and full of the sure mercies of David, and of
exceeding great and precious promises; all which are treasured up
for the benefit and use of the people of God; and if, therefore,
they ask for any grace, or supply of grace, for any spiritual
blessing or mercy laid up in Christ, in the covenant, or in any
of the promises, they ask that for matter which is according to
the will of God, and which they may be assured they shall have,
sooner or later: and to ask in a manner agreeably to his will, is
to come in the name of Christ, and make mention of his
righteousness, and ask for his sake; to put up all petitions in
faith, with fervency, in sincerity, and uprightness; with
reverence, humility, and submission to the divine will, and with
importunity; and such askers God hears, even so as to answer, and
grant their requests in his own time, though not always in
theirs; in some cases sooner, in others later, according to his
infinite wisdom, and in his own way, which is always the best,
though not in theirs, as in the case of the Apostle Paul, (
2
Corinthians 12:7-9 ) . The Alexandrian copy and the Ethiopic
version read, "if we ask anything according to", or in his name:
that is, of Christ, and which agrees with ( John 14:13 John 14:14 ) ( John 16:23 John 16:24 ) .