At that day you shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:
All Commentaries on John 16:26 Go To John 16
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
He suffers them not to ask for anything at all by prayer and supplication, except only in His Name. He promises, however, that His Father will very readily grant their requests, not indeed as induced thereto by the intercessions of the Son in His capacity as our Mediator and Advocate, but prompted by His own Will to be liberal in His dealings towards them, and making haste to shower upon those who love Christ the exceeding riches of His goodness, as though He were but paying them their due. And no man in his senses can think, nor can any one be so ignorant as to affirm, that the disciples or any others of the Saints stand in no need of the mediation of the Son in working out their own salvation. For all things proceed through Him from the Father in the Spirit, since He is the Advocate, as John saith, not for our sins only, but also for the whole world. And in saying this, He shows us too, to our profit, that very acceptable to God the Father is the honour and love which we have towards His Offspring. Not understanding this, the miserable people of the Jews did not shrink from assailing Him with intolerable blasphemies, and sought to kill Him, according to the Scripture, because of the conversion of the mind of His believers from the obscure commandment of the Law to the clearness of the life according to the Gospel. For these wretched men said in their ignorance, or rather in their desire to sharpen their blasphemous tongues against Him, If this man were from God, He would not have broken the Sabbath day. He says then, that God the Father will very readily vouchsafe His favour to those who have undoubting faith, and are well assured that He came out from God the Father. For the Father will, as it were, He says, hail in advance, and anticipate, the request of the Mediator, and overwhelm with spiritual blessings the mind of those who have a right understanding concerning Me, and not according to the imaginations of those who are too much enamoured of the letter of the Law.
