Jesus and Kingdom Prayer: An Examination of Matthew 6:5-15 in Light of Jesus Eschatological Kingdom Proclamation. Taylor Scott Brown

Transcription

1 Jesus and Kingdom Prayer: An Examination of Matthew 6:5-15 in Light of Jesus Eschatological Kingdom Proclamation By Taylor Scott Brown Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary NT 503: Life of Jesus Dr. Eckhard J. Schnabel October 22, 2013

2 2 Abstract In this essay I hope to show that Jesus teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:5-15 is best understood within the eschatological worldview of first-century, apocalyptic Judaism and its emphasis on the coming Kingdom of God. In doing so I first present an overview of the warfare worldview developed by Gregory A. Boyd in his work God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict. This warfare worldview helps in forming a conceptual bridge and continuity between Yahweh s victory over chaos (personified in the likes of chaos-monsters like Leviathan and Rahab) depicted in the Old Testament and Jesus own eschatological healings, exorcisms, and proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the New Testament, all of which were in opposition to the illegitimate rule of Satan. From that point I proceed to break down Jesus teaching topic by topic. I first address his preliminary comments on prayer and then proceed to examine Jesus model for Kingdom prayer verse by verse. In doing so I interact with the views of various scholars and commentators regarding each section of the prayer and attempt to frame it within the larger, eschatological context of Jesus ministry. I then proceed to examine how the Kingdom of God did, in fact, proleptically enter into history and was inaugurated in the death and physical resurrection of Jesus. I end the essay with a brief commentary on how the Church today is to view and pray Jesus model of Kingdom prayer in light of the inaugurated-but-not-yet-consummated Kingdom of God. The Church is to pray for God s Kingdom to come fully as Jesus and his disciples did. The Kingdom has already come in part and the people of God are to pray the Kingdom prayer of Jesus until it arrives fully. (Note: All quotations from the Old and New Testaments are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.)

3 3 Jesus Sermon on the Mount is arguably not only his most famous teaching, but also stands as one of the greatest ethical and moral teachings delivered in human history, religious or otherwise. While no orthodox Christian would dispute the high moral ideals that Jesus puts forward in the Sermon on the Mount, it often gets short-changed in its significance related to Jesus prophetic and apocalyptic proclamation of the coming of the Kingdom of God (or in the case of Matthew s Gospel the Kingdom of Heaven 1 ). It is true that the Sermon on the Mount proclaims superb moral truths, but it is only because these claims are related to the eschatological Kingdom of God that they have any ultimate and lasting significance. Indeed, there have been, and will continue be, those outside of the community of the people of God (I use this term because it encompasses both the Church as well as Israel prior to Jesus death, resurrection and exaltation as Lord) who shine as moral exemplars. But these moral bright spots are ultimately meaningless unless they are linked to the Creator God, Yahweh, and His ultimate victory over the rebellious evil both angelic 2 and human that has corrupted His good creation. While this essay is not primarily concerned metaphysical or philosophical presuppositions it is important to comprehend the severity of the rebellious evil that has fractured the good creation of Yahweh, the good Creator God. If we minimize the severity of evil and Yahweh s response to it in the nation of Israel and the healing and exorcising ministry of Jesus of Nazareth (and ultimately its 1 While Matthew uses the phrase Kingdom of Heaven throughout his Gospel, in this essay the phrase Kingdom of God will be utilized throughout. This is because (1) both phrases refer to the same reign of Yahweh and (2) the latter phrase is used across the other three Gospels and therefore will be used for clarity of crossreferencing. 2 Note that when angelic is used in this essay it is merely referring to the created, non-material beings that inhabit what the New Testament authors refer to as the heavenly realms. This category includes Satan, the rebellious, angelic originator of evil. Indeed, Yahweh alone in his triune nature is uncreated; everything else is a created being, be they angelic, human, or animal.

4 4 proleptic defeat in his crucifixion and resurrection), then we will inevitably miss the significance of Jesus teachings and proclamations in his Sermon on the Mount. 3 With this in mind, this essay will narrow its focus to Jesus teaching on prayer in the Sermon, located in Matthew s Gospel. 4 It is within this teaching that the famous Lord s Prayer is located. As I hope to demonstrate in this essay, this prayer not only shows the people of God how to pray to Yahweh, but also reveals the eschatological nature of such Kingdom-centric prayer. Not only are the people of God called to pray to Yahweh our heavenly Father to foster a loving relationship with Him, but while doing so we also pray that His Kingdom would come fully and that in doing so, the evil that He wars against would finally be defeated. Preliminary Comments on Authorship Much has been written about the authorship of Matthew s Gospel. Ever since historicalcritical studies of the Gospels began, most skeptical scholars have dismissed the possibility of actual Matthean authorship. While there are solid arguments against Matthean authorship, there are also quite compelling arguments for Matthean authorship. By the early second century the four canonical Gospels were unanimously accepted by orthodox Christian communities across a very wide geographical region and with their respective authors given credit for their composition. 5 This, combined with testimony from Papias 6 citing Matthew as the author and the 3 N.T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), 69. Wright illustrates well the lunacy of ignoring or minimizing the evil seen in the world: That s about as much use as saying, when the house is on fire, that yes, it is getting a little warm, but if we all take off a layer of clothing and drink more iced water things will be just fine. 4 Matt. 6: Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009), W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), xi.

5 5 improbability of using a hardly-mentioned apostle like Matthew to give credibility to a biography of Jesus (it would have made much more sense to use the name of someone like Peter or James, which the later Gnostic gospels did) lend a fair amount of support to genuine, Matthean authorship. However, issues arising with the quality of the Greek and the lack of personal reminiscences which some modern critics expect from a disciple of Jesus (although more than a few scholars has been guilty of projecting their modern, post-gutenberg literary paradigm onto ancient, pre-gutenberg, orally-based sources 7 ) lead others to reject Matthean authorship. 8 While I find some of the arguments for Matthean authorship slightly more persuasive than those in opposition to it, I ultimately end up siding with Craig Keener s assessment of the matter: I am inclined to accept it, but with admitted uncertainty. 9 I also side with Keener in the respect that even if Matthean authorship is not the case, there are undoubtedly large stores of Matthean tradition and history in the gospel that go back to the first and second generations of Jesus disciples. Whoever the author was, he was clearly Jewish, with an excellent grasp of the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. 10 While the authorship of Matthew s Gospel remains an open question (and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future), Matthean authorship will be presupposed in this essay, if for no other reasons than brevity and clarity. 7 Paul R. Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007). I borrow the post-gutenberg phrase from them, which they use throughout the book, but primarily in chapter 6 Ancient Literacy and Oral Tradition and chapter 7 Historical Remembrance or Prophetic Imagination? Both chapters present fascinating overviews of the role of memory, mnemonic techniques, and oral tradition/history in the transmission of the Jesus tradition prior to the written composition of the four canonical Gospels. 8 Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, xi. 9 Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, Ibid, 41.

6 6 The Cosmic Rebellion Any discussion of Jesus life and ministry in it s historical context must deal with the apocalyptic worldview of second-temple Judaism and Jesus own eschatological proclamation of the arrival of the Kingdom of God, and thus the coming defeat of rebellious evil, both of the pagan empires that ruled over Israel, and of the demonic, evil empire of Satan himself. While much has been written on the apocalyptic and prophetic character that dominated Jesus ministry, one of the most helpful volumes in recent years in this regard has been Gregory A. Boyd s work on the subject of what he has appropriately called the warfare worldview of the New Testament writers and the early, pre-augustinian Church. In his work God at War, Boyd examines the warfare motif of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, particularly Jesus ministry. By first examining the cosmic warfare motifs of the Hebrew Scriptures, Boyd builds a helpful bridge between the cosmic warfare seen in the Old Testament texts and the eschatological and apocalyptic proclamation and work of Jesus and subsequently the Church itself. By examining the depictions of Yahweh subduing chaotic waters in Genesis in relation to and in a polemic against other Ancient Near Eastern creation stories, Boyd shows how Yahweh not only subdued primordial chaos and rebellion, but how, as Creator, He alone is supreme over it. Evil itself is not a primordial reality; it is not meant to be an inherent part of God s good creation; it is aberrant, a self-consuming inversion of Yahweh s good creation that He created out of perfect, other-oriented love. 11 This warfare worldview is also seen in other texts such as Job and the Psalms, especially in the guise of primordial chaos- 11 Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1997), See also Boyd s follow up volume, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001), Boyd provides an interesting discussion on the nature of evil as related to Barth s concept of das Nichtige, the nothingness. While Boyd himself finds Barth s concept unsatisfactory in constructing a completely coherent model of the origination of evil, rebellious wills, das Nichtige nevertheless provides an interesting perspective to help us examine the cosmic warfare elements seen in both the Old and New Testament texts.

7 7 monsters that can only be defeated and subdued by Yahweh, since He alone is Creator. 12 Boyd also provides an in-depth analysis of the early references to ha satan, the adversary, in the Old Testament texts and provides a discussion of what could arguably be seen as the early manifestations of the apocalyptic idea of ha satan as the angelic, rebellious originator of the evil that is so out of order with Yahweh s good creation. 13 It is with the warfare worldview of the New Testament authors in mind that we can now adequately address Jesus teaching on prayer, and his model for Kingdom-oriented prayer itself. While it is impossible to tell if the warfare worldview espoused by Boyd is the exact same as the eschatological/apocalyptic worldview held by Jesus himself and by his disciples, it is nevertheless helpful for our purposes in offering a very general reconstruction of the Hebraic Scriptural basis for the apocalyptic worldview of many first-century Palestinian Jews. 14 It is from this basis that we see Jesus proclaiming the work of his ministry. 15 As Luke writes in Acts: he [Jesus] went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 16 It is from this perspective and basis that we can better understand contextually what exactly Jesus is saying about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. And When You Pray 12 Boyd, God at War, Ibid, I am aware that apocalyptic views varied in first-century Palestine. However, for the sake of space and as a broad generalization, I find Boyd s warfare worldview helpful in reconstructing a basis for the apocalyptic worldview of first-century Jews that is rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures, the texts that were the canonical authority for Jesus and his disciples. 15 Boyd, God at War, Acts 10:38.

8 8 It is all too easy to take Jesus Kingdom prayer for granted. Modern Christians (and even many non-believers) hear it frequently, all the while letting it go in one ear and out the other, not even realizing the significance of the prayer itself. This is inevitably due in large part to the foreign nature of the Jewish apocalyptic worldview to modern readers and hearers of the New Testament. Despite the fact that evil is readily visible in the world around us (the evening news will suffice to demonstrate that), many would rather resort to trying to explain it away. 17 Others simply do their very best to ignore it. 18 While there are undoubtedly many social ills and wrongs that can be explained by scientific investigation and remedied by better social teaching and upbringing, materialistic explanations can only go so far when one is confronted with the desolate and stark reality of an Auschwitz, a Rwandan Genocide, or in the case of Jesus and his contemporaries the accursed crucifixions suffered by thousands of Jews at the hands of their oppressive, Roman overlords. 19 It is into this reality that Jesus life, death, and resurrection speak: the reality of God s good creation that has been fractured and corrupted by the rebellious choices of free agents, both human and angelic. And it is to this reality that Jesus instruction and model of prayer speak as well. The Sermon on the Mount While the focus of this essay will be over one specific teaching within Jesus larger sermon (Matt. 6:5-15), it is still important to lay down a basic layer of context in order to better grasp the nature of Jesus teaching on prayer. Jesus Sermon on the Mount which takes up chapters 5-7 of Matthew s Gospel functions as a sort of Kingdom manifesto. Here, Jesus is 17 N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), Ibid, Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977),

9 9 laying out what it means to live in the immanent Kingdom of God. As Keener notes, while these ethics do indeed cover the interim period between Jesus proclamation and the inauguration of the Kingdom on the cross, they are also the ideal ethics for the Kingdom of God itself. The people of God exemplify these ethics in advance of the consummation of the Kingdom that is too come. 20 While at first glance the Sermon on the Mount seems to present a world that is upside down a world where the first are last and the poor inherit the Kingdom Jesus proclamation is really announcing a world that is right side up; it is the present age that is upside down. 21 It is within this larger context of teaching and proclamation of the ethics of the Kingdom of God that we find Jesus particular teaching on prayer. Praying in Supply Closets (vv. 5-6) We first must examine Jesus preliminary statements on prayer before we delve into the main section of his teaching where he models the type of prayer his disciples should pray. 22 Frederick Bruner helpfully breaks this part of Jesus teaching into two sections. Section one (vv. 5-8) Bruner labels How Not To Pray and the second section (vv. 9-15) he labels How To Pray. 23 Likewise, Davies and Allison break Jesus teaching into a section of negative prohibitions and a section of positive injunctions, both respectively corresponding with Bruner s 20 Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone: Part 1(London: SPCK, 2002), 36. While not a scholarly work by Wright, this section of his little book is very helpful in portraying what Jesus eschatological proclamation was about. 22 Matt. 6: Frederick D. Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 286.

10 10 aforementioned sections. 24 In verses 5-6, Jesus specifically addresses the issue of pious, public prayer: 5 And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. As Bruner notes, rabbinic ruling stated that one could not pray loudly out in public. However, even if the person praying in public was quiet or mostly silent they could (and inevitably did) continue to use this method to try and impress others in the immediate vicinity with their perceived piety. Not only does Jesus tells his disciples to refrain from such actions, but to retreat to a solitary room and close the door when praying! The word used here for room, tameion (ταµειον), refers not just to any ordinary room either. It actually refers to the storeroom of a first-century Palestinian house. This is by no means a holy place; it is essentially the first-century, Palestinian equivalent of a pantry or supply closet. 25 While Jesus is undoubtedly using the common Jewish practice of hyperbole here, the point of intimacy with Yahweh in non-holy places is driven home nonetheless. 26 This idea of private prayer with Yahweh, combined with Matthew s use of the word pater (πατηρ) to address Yahweh in v. 9, as well as Jesus own use of the more intimate Aramaic 24 Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 89.

11 11 word abba (αββα) in other instances, 27 points to the fact that Jesus himself not only shares an intimate relationship with Yahweh, but that he is, in some sense, bestowing this same right to such a relationship with the God of Israel onto his disciples; they too have the right to call Yahweh abba. This concept of intimacy with the Father not only echoes back to Genesis 1-2, relating to Adam and Eve s walking with God in the garden, 28 but also to Yahweh s rescue of the Hebrews from Egypt and His naming of Israel as His son, 29 as well as in prophetic writings such as Isaiah 30 and Hosea 31 where Yahweh is depicted as the Father of Israel. Yahweh can now not only be communicated with intimately in prayer as a child talks to his/her father but in unsanctified places such as common storerooms. As we will see, this combines with Jesus eschatological proclamation to show that the Kingdom is breaking in and that the Exile, and the breakdown of relationship that came with it, is ending. Don t Pray Like Pagans (vv. 7-8) While Jesus first prohibition on prayer was aimed at hypocritical Jews, the second prohibition in vv.7-8 is aimed squarely at the prayer methods of the pagan Gentiles: 7 When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 27 Mk. 14:36 (NRSV). 28 While the recent scholarly debates pertaining to the historicity of Adam are intriguing, they are beyond the scope of this essay. For an excellent work on reading Genesis 1 within its Ancient Near Eastern context see John Walton s The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009). 29 Ex. 4: Isa. 63: Hos. 11:1-4.

12 12 It was well known in the Greco-Roman world of the need for long, repetitive, and complex prayers to get the attention of the gods and to manipulate them to do the will of their pagan worshippers; what one might loosely call magic. Indeed, in many pagan religions and cults it was believed that one had to get the god s attention with such prayers and incantations and then prove one s sincerity by the continued use of them. 32 As Rudolf Schnackenburg notes, Jesus prohibited such a human manipulation of the divine for his followers. Israel s God is the Living God, and as such cannot be manipulated with such futile repetition and incantations. Rather, as children addressing the infinitely wise abba Father (who in His infinite wisdom, already knows what His children need), Jesus disciples are to keep their prayers simple and short, in the manner they would talk to a Person, rather than an idol. 33 Even in the fear and anxiety-filled hours before his crucifixion, Jesus keeps his own prayer simple and free of verbosity. 34 If one were to translate Jesus prohibitions on prayer into modern phrasing, it would be that prayer should be short, sweet, and to the point. Indeed, seen within the larger scope of the warfare worldview and within Jesus eschatological and prophetic proclamation of the immanent arrival of God s Kingdom, we begin to see that the private, childlike, and straightforward prayer taught by Jesus shows that both the end of Israel s exile, and the very first hints of Yahweh reclaiming His creation from the rebellion that has overtaken it, are beginning to take place. Even in his preliminary prohibitions on prayer, Jesus is implicitly proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Kingdom Prayer (vv. 9-13) 32 Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), Matt. 26:36-46.

13 13 The heart of Jesus teaching on prayer commences in v.9, with Jesus teaching his disciples the way they should pray. It is here that readers and hearers of Matthew s Gospel begin to really see the eschatological nature of the Lord s Prayer: 9 Pray then this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but deliver us from the evil one. 35 The very first words of the prayer in verse 9, Pray then this way offer some insight into the nature of the prayer itself. Traditionally, Christians across vastly different traditions have prayed this prayer largely verbatim (accounting for differences in contemporary translations, of course). To be sure, there is nothing at all wrong with this approach. However, one could easily interpret this injunction by Jesus as more of a model or framework for how Kingdom prayer should be done. If this understanding of the Lord s Prayer as a model/framework for Kingdomprayer is correct, then one can easily see why there are slight differences in Matthew s version of the prayer and Luke s version 36 of it; a Kingdom prayer framework presupposes slight variation. This, combined with the fact that Jesus was an itinerant preacher and prophet and therefore would have consistently and repeatedly taught and proclaimed the same core and principal Kingdom proclamation would have meant that his sayings likely would have had some variation, while at the same time maintaining the same principle message and gist Matt. 6: Lk. 11: N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 424. See also Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 92. See also Paul R. Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd s excellent treatment of the subject in their book: The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the

14 14 Our Father (vv. 9-10) Moving on to the first actual line of the prayer, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, we begin to see the revolutionary nature of Jesus Kingdom-centric prayer. As mentioned above, the fact that Matthew uses the word pater (πατηρ) here and that Jesus himself almost certainly used the Aramaic abba, as mentioned above denotes an intimate relationship between Jesus and Yahweh; essentially a child-parent relationship. Also, as previously mentioned, Jesus is saying that his disciples are to have this same relationship with Yahweh. Jesus is implying that right relationship with Yahweh is being restored, which implies an eschatological reality: the Kingdom of God is about to break into the present, bringing with it a restored relationship between God and his creation. As Davies and Allison note here, the our (ἡµῶν) denotes that this is to be a communal prayer, as well as one that can be prayed privately in a storeroom; it is the prayer of a renewed Israel, a new and restored people of God. This, linked with Yahweh as pater, echoes Israel as the child (and individually, children) of God in Exodus 4. This is also seen in intertestamental Jewish literature, such as the Wisdom of Solomon. 38 All the while that Jesus refers to Yahweh as Father, he also is careful to denote the fact that Yahweh is holy. Yahweh is our Father but he is also the Creator, the one Person who stands above all creation. Granted, this would have already been understood by the Jewish audience to whom Jesus was preaching. What Jesus is really getting at with the second half of v. 9 ( hallowed be your name ) is Yahweh s name being known; that is to say, His rule coming Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), Dale C. Allison also discusses this in his Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010), Wis. 14:3.

15 15 forward in the world. As Davies and Allison note here, this is the part of the prayer where Jesus asks God to fulfill his promise made in Ezekiel 36:23: I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes. 40 This finds a close parallel in the prayer known as the Kaddish that was prayed in synagogues and found in later Jewish sources: Exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world which he created according to his will. May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon. Praised be his great name from eternity to eternity. While it is uncertain if the Kaddish was known to Jesus and his contemporaries in the third decade of the first century, it undoubtedly demonstrates that Jesus Kingdom prayer is rooted in Jewish apocalyptic tradition. Jesus is making an unabashedly eschatological proclamation related to the Kingdom here. 41 Ben Meyer describes such a proclamation of Yahwehs s name being hallowed as both a reference to Isaiah 42:10 (the hallowing of God s name by the new song) and as a cry of the triumph of Yahweh over evil. 42 This desire for Yahweh s name to be hallowed ties in directly with the next petition of the prayer in v. 10: Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is heaven. This is 39 Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, Ezek. 36: Craig L. Blomberg, The New American Commentary: Matthew vol. 22 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), See also Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 93. Also see Allison, Constructing Jesus, Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (San Jose: Pickwick Publications, 2002 [SCM Press, 1979]), 208.

16 16 following on along with the eschatological nature of Jesus prior statements. While it is all too common for modern interpreters of the New Testament to take this petition of kingdom come as denoting a sort of mystical experience of God s presence in the present moment, this was not the case with Jews of first-century Palestine. As Craig Keener notes, Jews of Jesus day (and Jesus himself) were praying for God s future reign to come. 43 Indeed, it was something that Jesus and his disciples prayed for, not as Boyd notes something that had already been accomplished. 44 Our Daily Bread (v. 11) Admittedly, vv are pretty straightforward when read through the appropriate contextual lens of the warfare worldview and apocalyptic Jewish thought. They are a desire and petition for the Kingdom of God to come and defeat the present evil powers (both human and angelic) that illegitimately rule over God s good creation. However, v. 11 is not so straightforward. While it undoubtedly expresses reliance on Yahweh for one s needs, 45 the question is whether the strange use of epiousion (ἐπιούσιον) here denotes bread for the present day or for tomorrow (e.g. in an eschatological sense). As Davies and Allison note, the word does not appear in any other Greek usage outside of the New Testament. They argue that the most likely designation of the word is that it denotes for the coming day. 46 This proposition is not only bolstered by the eschatological context of the Kingdom prayer itself (as well as Jesus entire healing and preaching ministry), but finds support in the writings of the Latin Church Father, St. 43 Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009), Boyd, God at War, Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009), Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 94.

17 17 Jerome. In his commentary on Matthew s Gospel, St. Jerome also comes to the conclusion that epiousion (ἐπιούσιον) denotes bread for tomorrow. 47 Given this line of argumentation, it is highly likely that the petition, Give us this day our daily bread is eschatological in nature, just as the rest of the prayer is. Forgive Us our Debts (v. 12) The forgiveness of debts and sins played a crucial role not only in Jesus own ministry, but also in the larger, apocalyptic, Judaic framework of the day. Indeed, while the Greek word utilized by Matthew in v. 12, opheilemata (ὀφειλήµατα), translates to debts, or possibly wrongdoings, as Keener notes, the Aramaic word that Jesus himself would have utilized, hoba, is used to describe both debts and sins. 48 This usage of the word as denoting debts against God (e.g. sins ) is further bolstered by Luke s usage of the conventional word for sins, hamartias (ἁµαρτίας), in his version of the Kingdom prayer. 49 While Jews could have their individual sins forgiven each year on the Day of Atonement, it was believed that when God s Kingdom was finally established Israel s collective sins of idolatry and of injustice toward the oppressed would be forgiven, a mark of the end of the Exile that Israel had been suffering under since 586 B.C.E. As Davies and Allison helpfully point out, this eschatological forgiveness of sins is present in Jesus teaching elsewhere in Matthew s Gospel. 50 This eschatological notion of forgiveness can be seen in its link to Jesus healing 47 Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, trans. Thomas P. Scheck (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, Lk. 11:4. 18:23-35 here. 50 Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 95. They specifically list Mt. 5:23-25 and Mt.

18 18 ministry. When Jesus heals the paralytic man 51 he first forgives his sins. This subsequently heals the man. If Jesus whole healing ministry was part of his eschatological aims and proclamation 52 then it is reasonable to conclude that his teaching on Kingdom-centered prayer and forgiveness was eschatological in nature as well. Along with the rest of the prayer there is an eschatological element at work, but it is also important to take into account the present reality of forgiveness of sins for Jesus and his listeners. While the Day of Atonement offered annual forgiveness of sins to orthodox, observant Jews, it was also understood that they too would take that forgiveness which had been granted to them by Yahweh and pay it forward by forgiving their fellow citizens who were indebted in one way another. While Jesus is making a larger eschatological statement with Yahweh s forgiveness of sins in this part of the prayer, he is also reflecting the part of God s already-existing Law declaring that forgiveness is meant to be given, especially by those who themselves had been forgiven by the God of Israel. Despite pleas centuries later from the likes of Luther, this part of Jesus Kingdom Prayer demonstrates that while the God of Israel is truly loving as displayed by His bestowing of gracious forgiveness on rebellious human beings who do not deserve it at all this grace is not in an antinomian fashion. 53 Mercy given by God is to be given to others as well Mt. 9:2. 52 See Jesus address to the imprisoned John the Baptist in Matt. 11:2-6 as confirmation of his eschatological and Messianic vocation. See also Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew, Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, A case could potentially be made that even this non-eschatological meaning is itself still eschatological in the sense that it describes how the reign of Yahweh is supposed to be carried out, even if it is already a present reality. In that sense it could be presented as in the vein of Pannenberg a proleptical element of the Kingdom in the same way that Jesus physical resurrection is a prolepsis of the final establishment of Yahweh s reign and the resurrection of the dead. Of course such a discussion is beyond the scope of this essay.

19 19 And Do Not Bring Us To the Time of Trial (v. 13a) It is in this section of the Kingdom prayer that we come to what may be the most eschatologically-loaded phrase of the whole teaching. The key word here in the first half of v. 13 is peirasmon (πειρασµόν). It is often translated either as trial or temptation in most modern English translations. While either translation can adequately convey the meaning that Jesus is trying to get across to his audience, keeping with the eschatological theme and warfare worldview of Jesus ministry and teaching, it seems reasonable to conclude that trial would be a better translation and meaning of the word. Jesus anticipating the testing that would come upon those loyal to the Kingdom of God instructed his disciples to pray to Yahweh for deliverance and strength to persevere through such testing by those evil agents set against the will and reign of Yahweh and His Kingdom. Keener s commentary on the line proves very helpful here. Keener presents the argument that since the present and future periods of testing often lacked a defined distinction in Jewish and New Testament texts, hearers of Jesus prayer would have regarded what remained of the present age as the time of trial. 55 In this sense the saying is not strictly eschatological in that it refers only to a future time of testing, but rather to present and future trials. 56 Despite the hermeneutically-errant interpretations of some modern Christians who believe that being a member of the people of God means prosperity and happiness, Jesus Kingdom prayer presupposes that suffering will come to his followers, as it did to the ancient Israelites in the wilderness and to the prophets loyal to the will and proclamation of Yahweh s rule. One does not pray to escape suffering if that was the case one wonders why 55 Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, 224. Keener notes here that most other Jewish prayers requested protection from trials in the present time. 56 Ibid, 225.

20 20 Jesus would tell the Twelve that they must take up their cross to follow him 57 but rather that Yahweh, in His infinite wisdom and love, would sustain and protect them through it. 58 The obvious next question is this: Who is the one that is subjecting Jesus disciples to such trials? While modern interpreters may have differing views on this matter, especially depending on whether or not they adhere to a Free-Will/Arminian or Augustinian-Calvinistic perspective 59 on divine foreknowledge and providence, the fact is that Jesus answers the question in the second line of v. 13. It is the evil one whom they (and we) are to pray for deliverance from. But Rescue Us From the Evil One (v. 13b) It is easy to think of evil as being out there, away from our own insulated lives and off in some distant land that we have no contact with, other than the 30 second clips seen on the nightly news. We then proceed to drown these uncomfortable bits of reality out with the latest sports highlights. One of the most startling things (for modern readers) about Jesus Kingdom prayer is that it not only views evil as being very, very real, but that there is an evil one. As mentioned briefly above, in stark contrast to the worldview of many modern Westerners, the ancient Jews and the early Christians lived within a warfare worldview. In the Old Testament 57 Matt. 16: Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, 225. One need only look at the Warning Passages in Hebrews to see the reality of this suffering in the first and second generations of Christians. Many did persevere through trials and persecution; sadly others did not and apostatized. Thus the author of Hebrews sees the need to warn his audience of the need to persevere through such trials so that they do not fall away as others have. 59 I realize that this debate is somewhat of an anachronistic projection onto the first-century Jewish mindset as the debate in its modern form arose largely in the 16 th and 17 th centuries but it is an important one to take into consideration. This is because one s preconceived notions of divine foreknowledge and providence can be (and often are) projected onto texts that had no notion of such a debate. However, for a good introductory text that covers four of the main contemporary views on the foreknowledge debate see: James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, eds., Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001). For the providence debate see: Stanley N. Gundry and Dennis W. Jowers, eds., Four Views on Divine Providence (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).

21 21 texts Yahweh warred against and defeated the pagan gods of Egypt by punishing Egypt with plagues, rescuing the Israelites, and defeating Pharaoh and his army. 60 Also, as previously mentioned, Yahweh s battle against cosmic chaos-monsters like Leviathan 61 and Rahab 62 are seen in the Psalms and Job. Indeed, Yahweh is seen as the One who alone can war against and defeat the cosmic, evil forces that have corrupted His good world; because He alone is Creator. By the time of Jesus, Satan the accuser who brings about Job s trials 63 had become known as the primary rebellious, evil agent at war with his Creator. Indeed, all the human powers who had oppressed and subjugated God s people were seen as being backed by this evil and illegitimate god of this age. 64 If Yahweh s Messiah was to come defeat the evil forces that had oppressed the people of God, then this inevitably included Satan. The final line of Jesus Kingdom prayer despite the efforts of some to dismiss it undoubtedly refers to rescue from Satan, the Accuser and trial-bringer. The Greek substantival adjective used here, tou ponerou (τοῦ πονηροῦ), denotes that Jesus followers are to pray to be rescued from a particular thing or being: an evil one. 65 If God s eschatological Kingdom is finally coming, there will be no room for Satan s illegitimate rule anymore. But like any cornered adversary, he will not go down without a fight. It is from the violent, desperate attacks of this defeated evil one that Jesus 60 Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000 [Broadman & Holman, 1994]), Ps. 74:14; Job 41; Isa. 27:1. 62 Job 26: Job 1: Cor. 4:4. Paul here is of course referring to Satan. 65 Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, 314; Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 96.

22 22 followers are to pray for rescue and deliverance. 66 Indeed, Jesus is in some sense telling his disciples that trials and testing will become worse before they get better with the arrival of God s Kingdom. This soon became evident in the persecution that marked not only the earliest Christians, but that still confronts many Christians around the world today. This request of rescue from the evil one was not to leave aside the evil that infects the human heart either. It would seem that this was presupposed in Jesus teaching. If not, one wonders why Jesus followers were (and are) to pray for forgiveness of sins. It is true that they (and we) were to pray for rescue from the evil that lurked in their own hearts, but if modern readers are to take the warfare worldview and eschatological nature of Jesus ministry and proclamation seriously, then we must realize the reality and importance of praying for rescue from the evil one. 67 Jesus Concluding Thoughts on Prayer (vv ) After presenting his model for Kingdom-centered prayer, Jesus concludes with a few closing thoughts that he relates back to the importance of forgiveness. Structurally speaking, he is really jumping back to the main points on his teaching on prayer. As Keener notes, the Kingdom prayer presented in vv is technically a digression off of Jesus main teaching. 68 With his digression complete, Jesus returns to his main point regarding private, intimate prayer. The final lines of Jesus teaching that Matthew recorded conclude with: 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 66 Boyd, God at War, 223. See also Boyd s Satan and the Problem: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001) for a detailed theological and philosophical exposition of how the free wills of created agents interact with God s plan and providential oversight for creation. 67 Stanley Hauerwas in his Matthew in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006) 79, makes an interesting contemporary comment related to the eschatological understanding of v. 13: Learning to pray with Jesus, therefore, is to become part of his struggle with the powers of this world. 68 Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, 210

23 23 Not much else really needs to be said here that has not already been discussed in the preceding section over v.12 of the Kingdom prayer. A few comments will suffice however. The need for forgiveness is stressed here. Jesus has stark words: while God is gracious and forgives those who don t deserve it, if those who have received this gift do not also forgive others then they would, in effect, lose their status as forgiven people of God. 69 The Kingdom of God is to be marked by radical forgiveness among its people; they are to imitate and pay forward the radical and gracious forgiveness granted to them by Yahweh. This is to be one of the marks of a Kingdom person. This is why Jesus teaching is shocking and stark in its proclamation on forgiveness; radical forgiveness is a membership prerequisite for the people of God. Has the Kingdom Come? Of course the next obvious question is whether or not the eschatological Kingdom that Jesus preached, displayed in his healings and exorcisms, and taught his disciples to pray for, did in fact come. The Jews lost their struggle against Rome in 70 C.E. Their revolutionary leaders were defeated, their people dispersed and the center of their world, the Temple, had been destroyed yet again by foreign Gentile invaders. If we looking back over 2000 years of history were to judge Jesus apocalyptic message solely by conventional conceptions of power (e.g. Nietzsche s concept of power) then we would have to side with Albert Schweitzer in saying that Jesus was mistaken and his mission a failure. And yet the disciples who had abandoned Jesus, the family members who deemed him crazy, and later Paul, the Pharisee whose mission it was to eradicate the followers of this failed Messiah, all turned to follow him. Even more astonishing, they did this while saying that he had 69 Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew, 69; Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, 214; Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, 317; Davies and Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, 96 note here that, prayer is not efficacious unless the members of the community are reconciled to each other.

24 24 been physically raised from the dead. Not only did they follow him to the point of their deaths (many of which were quite gruesome), but they declared his cursed, slave-criminal death on a Roman cross to be a victory! And not just any small victory, but the victory. They declared that God s Kingdom had, in fact, broken into the present age; the Kingdom prayer that Jesus had taught his disciples to pray had been answered. God s Kingdom had come through Jesus death and physical resurrection! Wolfhart Pannenberg describes it well in his seminal work on Christology, Jesus God and Man, particularly as seen by the Jewish eyewitnesses: If Jesus has been raised, then the end of the world has begun. The universal resurrection of the dead and the judgment are imminent. 70 But how did Jesus win the eschatological victory? He was brutally murdered by the very human oppressors who Israel had sought (and failed) to overthrow by military force, and by the cosmic powers of this present darkness 71 that reinforced their rule. It was only because of the cross and the resurrection that Jesus cursed death was declared the victory that God s people had longed for. By being crucified by human tyrants and thus by the cosmic, evil, rebel tyrant whom Jesus warred against in his healings and exorcisms and subsequently being resurrected by the God of Israel, Jesus had not only defeated death (the last and most feared weapon of evil tyrannical rule 72 ) but had also dealt the critical blow to the evil, cosmic rule of Satan by having it devour itself through its own evil. 73 The D-Day invasion of Yahweh s war against the rebellious powers that had corrupted His good world had been accomplished. The disciples 70 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man (London: SCM, 2002 [London: SCM, 1968]), Eph. 6:12 (NRSV) 72 N.T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008), Boyd, God at War, 259.

25 25 realized this, 74 and while the final consummation and establishment of God s Kingdom was (and is) yet to come, it had, in fact, proleptically entered into the present age with the ministry, death, resurrection, and vindication of Jesus of Nazareth as Yahweh s Messiah. Jesus taught his disciples to pray Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus Kingdom prayer had been answered with a divine Yes, and the eschatological Kingdom had entered into the present in the shape of a Cross. Now and Not Yet The disciples had lived to see Jesus exalted as King and Messiah. They had seen God s Kingdom inaugurated in history. But they died waiting for it to come to its consummation. Yahweh had established His eschatological reign through his Anointed One. This was evident and beyond any doubt for Jesus disciples. But the full establishment of God s Kingdom is still to come. Indeed, the Church, those who declare Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and Messiah and are loyal to God s Kingdom, are still waiting, living in an overlap of the pre-kingdom phase of history and the coming age of God s uncontested rule. The people of God wait with anticipation for Jesus parousia. 75 But how long are we too wait? Despite the fact that the Kingdom has come in part, it often feels as though it hasn t come at all. The people of God wholeheartedly affirm that Jesus is Messiah and Lord, yet it seems at times that the consummation of God s Kingdom is too far away to see. For Kingdom people 2000 years removed from Jesus ministry, death, and resurrection, we can often feel removed entirely from the Kingdom of God that has been proleptically inaugurated on the cross and witnessed in the form of the Church. Yet it is not the length of time between Jesus death, resurrection, and exaltation and the parousia that 74 cf. Paul s statement in Col. 2:15 and John the Elder s statement in 1 Jn. 3: Thes. 4:13-17.

26 26 determines the validity of the full, eschatological establishment of Yahweh s Kingdom that is too come. Pannenberg confronts this modern misunderstanding forcefully in his analysis of Jesus position of Messiah: This relation of the Christ event to the end of the world in the sense of an anthropologically interpreted apocalyptic expectation is not bound to the length of the interval between both events. It is bound only to the material analogy of what has already happened in and with Jesus and that for which the apocalyptic expectation hopes from the ultimate future. 76 The eschatological hope of the people of God is not bound up in the temporal space between events. Indeed, if we are to look at the temporal interval between Yahweh s promises and their fulfillment in the Hebrew Scriptures, we see that Yahweh is far more patient and longsuffering than we give Him credit for. We could look further still at the length of time between the formation of the Earth itself almost 4.5 billion years ago and the relatively recent arrival of man roughly 100,000 years ago, to show us that Yahweh works on a much larger time-scale than we could fathom. Your Kingdom Come The God of Israel, the good Creator God, has promised the final establishment of his rule and reign at the end of this present age. The promise is in the shape of a cross and an empty tomb. Jesus is risen. Jesus is Yahweh s Messiah. Jesus is Lord. Yahweh will keep His promise and fully establish the Kingdom that has already been inaugurated in the work of the Crucified Messiah. And so the people of God wait and pray the eschatological Kingdom prayer that Jesus taught his own disciples almost 2000 years ago in anticipation of Yahweh s coming (and now 76 Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 106.