If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Read Chapter 14
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
1. The Lord, by His promise, gave those whose hopes were resting on Himself a special ground of confidence, when He said, For I go to the Father; and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it. His proceeding, therefore, to the Father, was not with any view of abandoning the needy, but of hearing and answering their petitions. But what is to be made of the words, Whatsoever you shall ask, when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, You ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. James 4:3 What one, therefore, wishes to receive, in order to turn to an improper use, God in His mercy rather refuses to bestow. Nay, more, if a man asks what would, if answered, only tend to his injury, there is surely greater cause to fear, lest what God could not withhold with kindness, He should give in Hi...
If ye shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it. What Christ in the last verse said of the Father He here says of Himself, that He may show that He is the same God with the Father, that He hears those who pray to Him, and that He doeth all things which the Father doeth. Whence S. Cyril asserts that Christ is here speaking of His Divinity. Some are of opinion that the same thing is spoken and confirmed which He had said in the verse preceding. Wherefore Chrysostom and Nonnus omit this verse. But it is found in the Arabic, Syriac, S. Augustine, S. Cyril, Theophylact, &c.
But Toletus and others, with better reason, think that something different is meant from the verse preceding. They think that the words of the former verse relate to the petition for the greater things: but that in this verse Christ says that He will hear particular prayers. He means that although He is going away to the Father, and will be absent in the body, yet He is always present and will hear their prayers, and ...
Undisguisedly now He says that, being Very God, He will accept exceeding readily the prayers of His own people, and will supply right gladly what things soever they desire to receive, meaning of course spiritual gifts and such as are worthy of the heavenly munificence. And not as the minister of another's benevolence, nor yet as subserving another's kindness, does He say such things; but as, with the Father, having all things in His power; and as Himself being the One through Whom are all things, both from us to God-ward, and to us-ward from Him. For this cause Paul also prays on behalf of the worthy for such supplies of benefits as are by him ever mentioned in conjunction, in the following words: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; and surely no man in his senses will ever in the face of this suppose that the Father by Himself separately grants a grace, and again the Son by Himself separately and as it were in turn does so; but the grace is one and th...
Do you see His authority? The things done by means of others Himself does; has He no power for the things done by Himself, except as being wrought in by the Father? And who could say this? But why does He put it second? To confirm His own words, and to show that the former sayings were of condescension. But the, I go to the Father, is this: I shall not perish, but remain in My own proper Dignity, and Am in Heaven. All this He said, comforting them. For since it was likely that they, not yet understanding His discourses concerning the Resurrection, would imagine something dismal, He in other discourses promises that He will give them such things, soothing them in every way, and showing that He abides continually; and not only abides, but that He will even show forth greater power.
3. Let us then follow Him, and take up the Cross. For though persecution be not present, yet the season for another kind of death is with us. Mortify, it says, your members which are upon earth. Colossians 3...
