The Sermon on the Mount: A Practical ExpositionGore, Charles
Religion
The Sermon on the Mount: A Practical Exposition
Gore, Charles
Sermon on the mount
What is the name of God? That is very well worth our consideration.
The name of God in the Bible means that whereby He discloses or reveals
Himself. You may indeed almost say that the name of God means God
Himself as He is manifested. God has shown Himself to man; He has spelt
out His great name, letter by letter, syllable by syllable, before
the eyes of men or into their hearts, in nature, in conscience, by
the voice of His prophets and in Jesus Christ His Son. Thus to hallow
or sanctify His name is to set store by His revelation of Himself, as
Father, Son and Spirit, one God. To pray that His name may be hallowed,
is to pray that His revelation of Himself may be accepted of men, and
His religion professed openly and secretly: that He may be acknowledged
in conduct and worship, in Church and in State, on Sunday and on
week-day.
“Thy kingdom come.”
The kingdom of God meant to the Jews, of course, the kingdom of the
Messiah: that is to say that coming age, when heaven and earth shall
be fused in one, when God shall be manifested in His glory, when all
things shall be seen in their true light, and the reign of Christ in
truth and meekness and righteousness shall be not only real but also
manifest and indisputable. This is “the end of the world,” the “far
off, divine event,” which is still future. At times, indeed, the Church
as it already exists among us is called “the kingdom of God,” but at
other times (as is implied here) the Church is regarded as a divine
institution, representing indeed the kingdom here and now in the world,
but also preparing for its arrival in the future. To pray for the
coming of the kingdom is therefore to pray for the spread and progress
of the Church, and also for the diffusion in every way of all truth
and meekness and righteousness and of all that can find its place
in the city of God. It is to pray for the overthrow of every form
of “lawlessness”――lawless lusts and appetites, lawless ambition and
insolence and denial, godless worldliness and lies and vanities,
cruelty, oppression and malice in every shape. For all these are
forms of rebellion; and we know that they represent only a temporary
usurpation. We are looking forward to, and would fain hasten, the
coming of the King.
“Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.”
This is a prayer against all wilfulness and also against all sloth:
a prayer for the vigorous co-operation of all rational creatures in
furthering the divine order of the world. And we should notice that
the phrase “as in heaven, so on earth” refers probably to all the three
preceding clauses: Hallowed be Thy Name, as in heaven, so on earth; Thy
kingdom come, as in heaven, so on earth; Thy will be done, as in heaven,
so on earth. The Church of Rome, in the _Catechism_ put forth by the
Council of Trent, specially exhorts her clergy to call the attention
of the faithful to this connexion of the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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