Instructions for Prayer
BUT THOU, WHEN THOU PRAYEST, ENTER INTO THY CLOSET, AND WHEN THOU HAST SHUT THY DOOR, PRAY TO THY FATHER WHICH IS IN SECRET; AND THY FATHER WHICH SEETH IN SECRET SHALL REWARD THEE OPENLY. BUT WHEN YE PRAY, USE NOT VAIN REPETITIONS, AS THE HEATHEN DO: FOR THEY THINK THAT THEY SHALL BE HEARD FOR THEIR MUCH SPEAKING. BE NOT YE THEREFORE LIKE UNTO THEM: FOR YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT THINGS YE HAVE NEED OF BEFORE YE ASK HIM. (Matt 6:6-8)
My intention is to work through the Lord's Prayer, and to prepare the way for that, I will first say a few words about these preceding verses, in which our Lord addresses the duty of prayer and the importance of practicing it faithfully.
At the opening of this chapter, our Lord confronts the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, which was plainly visible in everything they did: their giving, their praying, and their fasting.
1. For their alms. Christ addresses this in the first four verses. Apparently, it was common practice among the Pharisees to sound a trumpet when giving alms. Their stated reason was to summon the poor within earshot, or to announce that a particular rabbi was distributing charity that day. Our Lord points out that while this may have sounded like a reasonable way to gather the needy, their hearts were entirely fixed on their own glory and their reputation among men. He therefore urges His disciples toward greater secrecy in this work, and to be satisfied with God's approval, which will be open, visible, and more than honorable in due time, when the archangel sounds the trumpet to gather the whole world together (1 Thess 4:16), and Christ publicly declares their good works before men and angels (Matt 25:34-36). This is how He handles the matter of alms.
2. For their prayers. Christ rebukes their craving for applause, because they deliberately sought out the most crowded locations, the synagogues and street corners, and there positioned themselves in a posture of prayer so that people would notice them and regard them as deeply devout. This served two purposes: it advanced their public ambitions (the Pharisees were fierce competitors for influence at that time), and it served their private interest in gaining access to widows' households, so they might be entrusted with managing the estates of widows and orphans on the strength of their reputation for piety and holiness.
In this practice, there were two distinct failures.
1. The first concerned the choice of location: offering what was meant to be personal, private prayer in a public setting was a serious impropriety, and it revealed that the whole act was theatrical, staged purely for public admiration. It's worth noting that private prayer performed by individuals in churches rightly falls under the same rebuke from our Lord.
2. Their second failure concerned their motive: "Truly, they do it to be seen by men."
*Objection:* But what was actually wrong with this? Doesn't Christ himself instruct us in his sermon, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt 5:16)? And yet the Pharisees are condemned here for praying, fasting, and giving alms precisely in order to be seen by others. How do these two passages fit together?
*Answer:*
1. We need to distinguish between the different aims and intentions Christ has in these two passages. In the first, Christ's purpose is to commend and require good works to be seen by others for their edification (ad edificationem); in the second, his purpose is to forbid us from doing good works to be seen by others for our own display (ad ostentationem). The first passage commends Christian charity toward the souls of others; this one forbids vainglory.
2. We also need to distinguish between different kinds of good works. Some are genuinely good in substance; others are good only in outward appearance. Christ requires the former in that passage; the latter, which are hypocritical and counterfeit acts that only wear the mask of goodness, are forbidden here. Prayer, considered in both its inward and outward dimensions, is a genuine good work and is therefore required. But hypocritical and hollow prayer, which has only the surface appearance of goodness, is what is forbidden.
3. We need to distinguish between the different ends that good works can serve: principal and subordinate, adequate and inadequate. First, the primary and principal end of good works must not be to be seen by others, but to glorify God. However, a subordinate or secondary end may indeed be to be seen by others. Furthermore, being seen by others must not be our adequate end, meaning our whole and central intention, but it may serve as a collateral, side purpose. There is a real difference between doing good works solely to be seen, and doing good works so that they may not only be seen but also imitated, drawing others to give glory to God. There is likewise a difference between doing good works for God's glory and doing them for our own. We may do good works to be seen in the first sense, but never in the last. We may not pray, as the Pharisees did, merely to be seen by others; yet we may let our light shine before others to draw them toward their duty and to bring greater glory to God.
4. Beyond this, Christ in that passage is speaking about the general character of our conduct, while here He speaks only of particular and private duties. It would betray too much hypocrisy to perform these private duties in public, even though the whole pattern and course of our behavior before others must be visibly religious. This is consistent with what the apostle says: "We should provide for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men" (2 Cor 8:21). Christians are also urged to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, shining among them as lights in the world" (Phil 2:15). Whatever is naturally visible to others must reflect our holy calling; but our private and particular duties, those that pass between God and us alone, must be kept out of sight. I trust that someone may prove himself honest and devout to me without falling down to offer his personal prayers in my presence. But to leave no room for doubt, if that is possible:
5. We need to distinguish between the different meanings of the Greek phrase used here, ὅπως, translated as "that we may be seen." The word ὅπως, or "that," can be understood in two ways: causally or eventually. When taken causally, it points to the purpose and goal behind an action, meaning someone does something specifically in order to achieve that result. This is exactly how the Pharisees used prayer: "that they might be seen of men" (Matt 6:5) means that being seen was their primary goal and driving intention. That is the causal sense. The second sense is eventual, where "that" doesn't indicate a purpose at all, but simply describes what will naturally follow from something. Scripture uses "that" in this eventual sense quite often. Jesus says, "For judgment I am come into the world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind" (John 9:39). It was never Christ's goal to blind anyone; rather, He foresaw that this would be the outcome of His coming into the world, and so He says "that" in the eventual sense. Similarly, in Luke 14:10, Christ tells His listeners, "But when thou art bidden to a feast, go and sit down in the lowest room, that when he that bade thee comes, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee." Here "that" is eventual, not causal. Christ is not telling them to take the lowest seat with the calculated aim of securing the highest one. In fact, that kind of scheming is precisely what He forbids, since it is just another form of craving status. Rather, "that" here means this is what will likely follow: if you genuinely humble yourself, the host will come and honor you. The goal is not to fake humility as a strategy for winning the best seat. In the same way, Christ's words "let your light so shine" (Matt 5:16) can be read eventually: the natural result will be that people notice your Christian conduct and gracious character, and through that, God will be greatly honored and glorified. But in the case of the Pharisees, "that they might be seen of men" is clearly causal, meaning it was their deliberate aim and central motivation. Understanding this distinction is how you reconcile these two passages of Scripture.
Well, Christ had just called out two specific failures: praying in the wrong place (the synagogue and street corners were no setting for a private, personal act of worship), and praying with the wrong motive (to be seen by others). His verdict on such people is blunt: "They have their reward." In other words, the debt has been paid in full, and they have no further claim on God. God will not be outdone by any of His creatures, but neither will He pay the same bill twice. These people got exactly what they were after, and that is all they will get. They must be content with their penny. The phrase itself is borrowed from the language of contracts and commerce, and it carries the specific sense of signing off on a debt that has been settled. When a creditor has been repaid every last coin owed to him, he can demand nothing more. In the same way, those who prayed for public admiration must now be satisfied with the hollow, fleeting pleasure of it: the empty applause, the stale breath of popular approval. They can expect nothing from God, because the bond has been cancelled and the account closed. To put it plainly, this is the essential difference between the reward of the hypocrite and the reward of God's children: the hypocrite takes everything now, receives his reward in full, and good luck to him with it, because there is not a fraction left in reserve. It would be pointless for him to expect anything more. God's children, by contrast, are told that their Father will reward them, which means they must look ahead and wait. And yet Scripture does speak, at times, of God's children receiving their reward even in this life. The key is in the original Greek: that kind of language uses the word ἔχουσι, which means to have something partially or in part. The word used here is ἀπέχουσι, which means to have received in full, to have been paid off completely. That distinction matters enormously. When Scripture says things like "You have eternal life," or "he has it," or "that you may have it," these are not statements of complete possession but of partial, present experience. God's children do have a reward now, but it is incomplete. The best of it still lies ahead. A believer has promises, first-fruits, the early stirrings of real communion with God in this life; but he lives in expectation of something far greater still to come.
Well then, having disproved the practices of the Pharisees, Christ turns to set His own disciples right in how they manage their prayers, just as He had done with their giving. Pharisaism comes naturally even to the best of us; we are prone to being haunted by a carnal spirit even in our finest duties, not only in giving, where we deal with other people, but in prayer, where our business lies entirely with God. This is especially true in public prayer, where so much of our human nature creeps in. The devil is like a fly: drive him away from one spot and he simply lands on another. Drive him out of your giving, and he will turn his attention to corrupting your prayers.
So Christ, in order to correct His disciples in their personal and private prayers, instructs them to withdraw to some quiet, secluded place and to be content with God alone as their witness, their approver, and their judge: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret," etc.
In these words you can observe:
I. A supposition concerning solitary prayer: "But thou, when thou prayest."
II. A direction about it: "Enter into thy closet, and shut thy door, and pray to thy Father which is in secret."
III. An encouragement to carry it out: "And thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Here two things are affirmed:
1. God's sight: He is aware of your prayers even when no one else is.
2. God's reward: "He will reward thee openly."
To unpack the details of this text:
I. In the supposition, "But thou, when thou prayest." Notice: 1. Christ takes it for granted that His disciples will pray to God. He does not say, If thou prayest, but When thou prayest, assuming they are already fully persuaded of their duty to spend time with God in private.
2. I also observe that Christ is speaking here about solitary prayer, the kind where a person alone, without any company, pours out his heart to God. This is why Christ uses the singular: "When thou prayest," not the plural "When ye pray" or "When you meet together in prayer." He is not, therefore, forbidding public prayer in the gathered church or in family worship; both are required elsewhere in Scripture. God has made promises specifically to public and corporate prayer, to praying with others or before others: "When two or three are met together, and shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt 18:19). When believers unite in a single public prayer, that prayer seems to carry greater power, because more people are invested in it, and with their combined force they effectively besiege the God of heaven, refusing to let Him go until He leaves a blessing. Consider how a petition signed by an entire county carries more weight than one man's private appeal to the authorities; in the same way, when we gather as a church or as a family to pray, there is a combined strength in it. In this sense, the old scholastic saying is sound enough: that prayer offered in the church finds a more ready hearing with God, because of the many who have gathered there to worship Him together. Christ has no intention here of undermining what He establishes elsewhere. Let your motives be private, even when your prayers are public, whether in the family or in the gathered assembly of believers.
II. Let us now examine the specific direction our Lord gives concerning solitary prayer. This direction is carefully shaped to correct two distinct errors of the Pharisees: their error regarding place, and their error regarding aim and purpose.
1. Their offense regarding place: "Enter into your closet, and shut your door." These words should be taken neither metaphorically nor too literally. Not metaphorically, as some would have it, suggesting you should descend into your heart and be serious with God in the inner chamber of your soul, the deepest and most private recess of a person's being. That kind of reading plays fast and loose with Scripture. The literal sense should not be abandoned without good reason, but it shouldn't be pressed too rigidly either, as if prayer were confined strictly to a bedroom or private room. Christ prayed on the mountain (Matt 14:23), and Isaac went out into the field to meditate (Gen 24:63). The point is simply this: private prayer must be offered in a private place, withdrawn from company and the eyes of others as much as possible.
2. Christ corrects them regarding purpose: "Pray to your Father who is in secret," meaning pray to God, who is present in that private place even though He cannot be seen with physical eyes. In saying this, Christ subtly exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who were praying more to men than to God, since their entire aim was to win human approval and be celebrated as devout people. God was invisible to them, and so He was irrelevant to their real goal. This is what the Lord said about fasting: "When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, even for those seventy years, was it really to me that you fasted? And when you ate and drank, were you not eating and drinking for yourselves?" (Zech 7:5-6). The same applies here. Was any of this directed to God? No. Though the words sounded as if they were addressed to God, they were really aimed at men. When God is not both the object and the goal of prayer, the prayer is not truly offered to Him. When you go looking for another paymaster, you are turning away from God; you are, in effect, making Him a footstool, a mere stepping stone to something else.
III. Here are the encouragements to this personal, private, and solitary prayer, and they are drawn from two sources: God's sight and God's reward.
1. From God's sight: "Your Father sees in secret" means He observes how you conduct yourself. The posture and condition of your spirit, the intensity and sincerity of heart you bring to prayer, are fully known to Him. Notice that what the hypocrite fears, and what seals condemnation on the heart of a wicked person, is here presented as the believer's support and source of comfort: they pray to an all-seeing God. "If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knows all things" (1 John 3:20). Their heavenly Father sees in secret; He can interpret their groans and read the language of their sighs. Even when they fall short in the outward expression of prayer, when speech breaks down and words fail, God sees the brokenness of heart beneath it all, and that is precisely what He is looking for. What does it mean that God sees? It means He sees both whether you pray and how you pray. (1.) He sees whether you pray at all. Consider this passage: "The Lord said to Ananias, 'Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying'" (Acts 9:11). Go to this city, this street, this house, this room, this corner: behold, he is praying. The Lord knew every detail. He knows whether we waste our time or whether we pray in secret; He knows which house, which corner of the house, and what we are doing there. (2.) He sees how you pray. This is offered as a comfort to believers: "He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit" (Rom 8:27). God knows you thoroughly, and He can distinguish whether your prayers are mere habit and empty form, or genuine acts of love toward Him and real communion with Him.
2. The second thing presented here is God's reward: "And he will reward thee openly." How does God reward our prayers? Not because of any worth or merit in the prayers themselves. What merit can there be in begging? What does a beggar deserve simply for asking? No, the reward comes from God's own grace and mercy, since He has, through His promise, made Himself something like a debtor to the poor, faithful, believing person who comes to Him in prayer. But consider what it means that "He will reward thee openly." This can happen in several ways. It may come as a direct, perceptible answer to prayer, as God often gives His children by granting what they ask for. When Daniel was praying in secret, God sent an angel to him (Dan 9:20). Or it may come as a clear and evident blessing on their prayers in this life, as a reward for faithfully carrying out this duty. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were men of deep communion with God, and they were visibly and abundantly blessed; they were rewarded openly for their secret fellowship with Him. It may also come in the form of respect from others. A praying people strike conviction into the consciences of those around them. It is worth noting that when Pharaoh was in distress, he sent for Moses and Aaron, not for his magicians. The consciences of wicked men are opened at such moments, and they recognize that God's children hold a special place with Him and receive a hearing from Him. Since God holds the hearts of all people in His hands, He can direct and arrange the respect they receive however He chooses. When others are in distress, this is the honor God places on you: they will send for you to pray with them. Those who honor Him, even in secret, God will openly honor in return (1 Sam 2:30). But the primary meaning here points to the day of judgment. Those who pray in secret will be openly rewarded by their heavenly Father on that day. When you relieve the poor and bring comfort to those in need, they cannot repay you; but you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just (Luke 14:14). That is the great and most public reward awaiting Christians: "Then he will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall every man have praise of God" (1 Cor 4:5). That is, every person who is truly praiseworthy will be recognized, no matter how misunderstood or misjudged they were by the world, for the apostle speaks these words to comfort believers against the harsh judgments of others. Notice also that this stands in direct contrast to the reward the Pharisees were so pleased with. It meant a great deal to them to be well regarded in a particular synagogue or before a particular crowd of people. But your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly, not merely in the eyes of one city or town, but before the entire world.
*Doctrine.* That private, solitary, closet prayer is a duty that is both necessary and profitable.
It is necessary because Christ assumes it of His disciples, the very people He is addressing: "But thou, when thou prayest," etc. And it is profitable because God attaches promises to it; you have a Father who sees what is done in secret, and who will one day acknowledge it before the whole world.
First, it is a necessary duty, and this becomes clear on several grounds. 1. From God's command: any command that requires prayer also requires secret, private prayer. God's call to pray falls first on individuals before it falls on families and churches, which are themselves made up of individuals. So wherever God has told you to pray, you must understand that command as addressed to you personally. Consider some of these commands: "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving" (Col 4:2), and "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess 5:17). These texts speak primarily to our personal, individual approach to God, each person praying for himself. When we join others in prayer, the act is more imposed on us than freely chosen, and it can only happen at set times when people are able to gather. But we ourselves are called to pray continually and without ceasing, meaning we should be frequently in God's presence, maintaining not just a prayerful disposition but a constant, living correspondence with Him. Surely every person who acknowledges God, who believes in His providence, and who depends on Him for every blessing, and far more so anyone who claims to have a Father in heaven who governs all the affairs of the world, is bound to pray personally and alone, to commune with God by himself.
2. My second argument comes from the example of Christ, which is binding on us and carries the force of law in moral matters. Just as Christ's words are our rule, His practice is our model. True religion means imitating the One we worship, and in this area, we must do as Christ did. We read repeatedly that Christ prayed alone, withdrawing to be with God in private. If we are Christians, the same pattern should mark our lives: "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed" (Mark 1:35). He left the company of His disciples, with whom He often prayed, so that He could be alone with God early in the morning. Again, we read, "And when he had sent the multitude away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone" (Matt 14:23). And again, "He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12). Christ seized every opportunity to withdraw and be alone with God. His example is both compelling and encouraging.
It is deeply compelling. Can we really think we have no need of the very help that Christ Himself embraced? Many proud people imagine they are above prayer. Christ had no need to pray the way we do; He had the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily, and yet He was not above prayer. And if He needed prayer at all, He certainly had no need for solitude. His affections were always steady, He was never troubled by distraction, and every place and every company were the same to Him. And yet He still withdrew to a solitary place so that He could be alone with God.
Then the pattern of Christ's own life is deeply encouraging, because everything He did, He consecrated by doing it. His footsteps through every act of devotion leave a blessing in their wake. Consider how Christ sanctified baptism by submitting to it Himself, making those waters saving and comforting for us. Consider how He sanctified the Lord's Supper by sitting as a guest at His own table and eating with His disciples. In the same way, He sanctified private prayer. When He prayed, a power went out from Him, and He left behind a strength that enables us to pray as well. This is encouraging for a particular reason: He has personally experienced this duty. He knows how quickly human strength gives out and reaches its limit, because He Himself wrestled with God in prayer with everything He had. By submitting to these disciplines, He gained a deep sympathy with us. He understands the heart of a person who is wrestling earnestly with God in prayer, and so He helps us through those agonies of spirit. Beyond that, His praying is also an encouragement against our own imperfections. Christians, when we are alone with God and our hearts feel as heavy as stone, what a comfort it is to remember that Christ Himself prayed, and prayed earnestly, and was once alone in human nature wrestling with God (Matt 14:23). When the enemy came to attack Him, He was alone, striving with God in prayer. He seized every opportunity for communion with God, and if you have the Spirit, you will do the same.
