John 14:13,14

John 14:13-14. And whatsoever ye ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask of me any thing in my name, this I will do. The twice repeated ‘this I will do' of these verses, is the taking up again of the ‘do' of John 14:12 ; so that what Jesus says is, that He in His glorified condition, being the believer's strength for what he does, will be the real doer both of the ‘works' and of the ‘greater works' done by him.

The condition on our part of the accomplishment of this promise is prayer. (I) Prayer in the name of Jesus, the words ‘in my name' occurring in both these verses. This expression is connected not only with our asking, but, in John 14:26, with the Father's sending; and that the order as well as the contents of the thought is to be observed, is made clear by the fact that in the later part of the discourse the same order is observed (comp. chaps. John 15:16 and John 16:23). The ‘name' spoken of is in the first place the name of ‘Son;' as we shall find that in chap. 17 the ‘name' of God spoken of is in the first place that of ‘Father.' But the thought is not to be confined to this. When we bring all the passages together in which the words occur in chaps, 14-17, and particularly the verse before us and chap. John 17:11-12 (‘Thy name which thou hast given me'), it becomes clear that we must extend the meaning of ‘name' so as to include the revelation of what the Father is in the Son. To ask ‘in the name of' the Son of man, therefore, is to ask in a confidence and hope which have their essence and ground in the revelation of the Son. It is not so much asking ‘for the sake of Christ,' or ‘in Christ,' as asking because we know the Father in the Son, and have learned to cast ourselves, as sons, upon the revelation thus given us. (2) Prayer to the Son as well as to the Father; yet not to Jesus regarded as an independent personality, but to Him as the Son, so that in praying to Him we pray at the same time to the Father, for only in the Father do we know the Son. Hence also the ‘whatsoever' of John 14:13, and the ‘anything' of John 14:14, have in this their necessary limitations. Believers are not viewed here simply as members of the human family in the midst of the weaknesses, perplexities, and sorrows of humanity. They possess the spirit, they aim at the aims, of Jesus. They pray with the mind of the Son, which is the mind of the Father, and in that sphere alone can they be assured that whatever they ask shall be done for them and through them, ‘that the Father may be glorified in the Son.' Only by the explanation thus offered does it seem possible to account for the insertion of ‘me' in John 14:14; and the whole statement may be regarded as a realisation of chap. John 1:51, even the very same order of thought being there observed, the ‘ascending' preceding the ‘descending' of angels upon the Son of man. The third part of the reply to Philip follows in John 14:15-21.