The Lord's Prayer
by
Bishop Hugo Lj. Odhner

    All prayer is prophetic—looking into the future. As to the Lord's prayer, it is revealed that "from beginning to end ... (it has reference) to the time when God the Father will be worshipped in the Human Form," and that "this appears when this prayer is rightly explained" (Inv. 37). All that we ask therein will in mercy be fulfilled in the life of the New Church wherein the Lord is approached immediately. "Our Father who art in the heavens." Thus are we to address the Lord. We come to Him not only as to a Judge or a King, but we speak to Him as to a Father—the Father of us all. "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?" (Mal. 2:10). "Thou art our Father," saith the prophet; "though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, Thy name is from everlasting" (Isa. 63:16) It is not for justice only that we pray; but for mercy. In prayer, love cries out to love, as a child cries out for a father's comforting hand. "A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in the habitation of His holiness" (Ps. 68:5) We have no claim for justice. Our only claim is that of helplessness—the same claim to love as has the newborn babe upon the love and aid of his parents. In the endeavor to regenerate, our awakened spirit finds itself naked and in need, newborn into a world not yet comprehended. We are in need of all things—of strength, of shelter, of food; yet we know not what we need most. Our prayer is inarticulate. We can pray only for life—spiritual life, whatever that may mean. But it must be the cry of Innocence, of a sincerity that stems from those states of infantile love and trust which the Lord implanted as "remains" in our minds early in the spring of our life.

    Who is this Father in the heavens? Alas for the darkness that rules in Christian lands! The heavenly Father is imagined as a God among gods—an invisible Deity among a triumvirate of Divine "Persons." The angels, on perceiving this folly, are sorrowful; for they know that a prayer addressed to such a god cannot be heard in heaven (TCR 108). Those who are innocent in heart inmostly cherish no such idea of three Divinities. And in the other world the angels instruct newcomers that in addressing the Father who is in the heavens, they do not think of God the Father or of the invisible Divine, but of Him in His Divine Human, in which He is visible; thus of Him who by men is called Christ but by angels is called "the Lord" (TCR 113).

    The angels know the Lord as the Father in the heavens. They have always known that God is one and indivisible; that He is by His very essence Human, and that man was created in His image. They knew that because Jehovah God was from eternity infinitely Human, He could and, in case of need, would descend to assume the ultimate human form of earth-born man and glorify this form by His presence and operation therein until that which was merely finite was put off. And when this took place at the Resurrection, they hailed Him their God and Father now made visible even before the natural minds of men in the glorified aspect and Person of Jesus Christ in whom now dwelleth the fulness of the Deity bodily, and who manifests the power and glory of the Infinite and makes this approachable as the goal of our worship.

    This simple and fundamental truth, known to the angels, dawned but slowly upon the apostles themselves. When the Lord taught them to pray to the Heavenly Father, it did not seem to impress them that it was their Master who was to become the object and recipient of their prayer. His Divinity was at first so securely veiled that their attitude to Him could scarcely be characterized except as a holy fear, a loving reverence, and an awe of the impenetrable mystery that constantly covered His words and His acts, His powers and His Person. It was not until after the Resurrection that their eyes were opened, and that even Thomas, the doubter, worshipped Him as "his Lord and his God." Not until then had they understood the meaning of their Master's former teachings that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. "No man," He had said, "cometh unto the Father, but by Me." "I am the door of the sheepfold; he that climbeth in some other way is a thief and a robber." "No one has known the Father at any time nor seen His shape; the only-begotten Son.... He hath manifested Him." "If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also; and from henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him." "Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father: and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" "I and the Father are one."

    This simple truth was the corner-stone of the Christian Church—a stone which (alas!) the builders rejected. From apostolic times heresies entered into the Church of Christ, by the confusing of the Lord's teachings with earthly philosophies and the sensual thinking of polytheistic paganism; until, at the time of the second advent of the Lord, Swedenborg was commissioned to reveal that there were "no other than false churches" left in the Christian world. The power of the prayer which the Lord taught men to say was annulled in the minds of Christians, so far as it was directed to a divided Godhead or to an invisible God (TCR 108).

    Yet—was there not a distinction made by the Lord Himself between Him and the Father? Did not Jesus, as the only-begotten Son of God, pray unto the Father, as if mediating between the Father and the human race, and thus interceding? This appearance however was unavoidable, since the human assumed by the Divine through birth in the world could appear no otherwise than as the Son of God; but it was also an intentional appearance without which men could not be introduced into the interior truth itself. For the Lord as the Son was the Divine Mediator and Intercessor.

    But it is necessary to know that the Lord's office of mediation was performed in a different manner while He was in the world from the manner in which He now performs it. The apostolic teaching was that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." (2 Cor. 5:19) The Divine was in the Human of the Lord as the Soul in its body; was the Soul and Source of every word and work. "Believest thou not," the Lord asked Philip, "that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." (John 14:10) Yet before its full glorification, the Human of the Lord was not identical with the Divine. It was rather the truth Divine that "came forth from God." And this distinction was conveyed by the relation of Father and Son, a natural symbolism which suggests a personal distinction when applied to men, but which in the case of the Lord could not be so interpreted, since the infinite God dwelt in Him as a Soul, and was separate in no other sense than as the soul of man is distinct from his self-conscious personality. The Lord's Human is therefore identified with the Divine Truth proceeding from the infinite Divine Good, which latter is called the Father, since with every man, the "soul" is derived from his father. The Human of the Lord was the Word becoming flesh, i.e., the embodiment or incarnation of the Divine laws of mercy and salvation.

    The Divine Good—the infinite mercy, compassion, and love of God—cannot be received by men except as truth, or except by the life according to the Divine laws. In His incarnate life, the Lord reconciled the laws of the physical world with the laws of Divine Mercy—laws which are all Divine though they seem to men to conflict. He became the Divine Truth in Human form; and at last this Truth, in Him, became infinitely identical with the Divine Good.

    This was the reconciliation. But before this union was completed, the Divine Truth mediated with the Divine Good as if the two were separate and apart. The Lord prayed to the Father as to another. He Prayed for His disciples. He prayed that the Father should send "another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth," which should abide with them forever. But this was to be but another form of His presence: "I will not leave you comfortless," He added, "I will come to you." (John 14:18)

    This prayer of the Lord's Human to the infinite Father was the intercession of Divine Truth with Divine Good. For Divine Good can be approached only through Divine Truth, and can inflow only into what is of Divine order, thus into Divine Truth. For this reason the Lord also said, "If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it..." He did not here say, "the Father will do it," for He and the Father are one.

    The Holy Spirit was then not yet, for that Jesus was not yet glorified. But when the Spirit of Truth would come, "at that day," He promised, "ye shall know that I am in My Father..." "The time cometh when...I shall shew you plainly of the Father." "At that day ye shall ask in My name; and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved Me..." There would be no need of intercession as by another. Divine Truth and Divine Good would be seen as One. The lord would Himself be worshipped as the Heavenly Father.

    Therefore it is nowhere enjoined in Scripture—neither in the apostolic writings—that Christians should pray the Father "for the sake" of the Son; nor is it ever said that God forgives the sins of believers "for Christ's sake." Such common Christian phrases stem from false doctrine perpetuated by erroneous translations. It is said in the Epistle that we should forgive one another "even as God in Christ hath forgiven..." (Eph. 4:32) And the Lord did say, "Ask of the Father in My name" (John 15:16); for the name of the heavenly Father is Jesus Christ.

    The name is that by which a man's quality is known. And the quality of God's mercy and compassion is revealed in the Divine Human. After His glorification, the Lord may be called Mediator only because no one can think of the Divine itself unless he has before him the idea of a Divine Man; and no one can be conjoined to God by love except by such an idea (AC 8705). There can be no love for an invisible God; for such a nondescript Deity becomes confused with the interior powers of nature—with a blind and unfeeling mechanical force, or with a bleak and indeterminate infinity to which we can attach no living qualities, no mercy, no wisdom, no providence, no consideration for the needs of man. Even the devils in hell, who altogether deny the Divine Human, are sometimes not averse to hear of an invisible and unknowable God whom they call Creator. (Ath. Cr. 201)

    The Father in heaven whom we worship, is the Lord in His Divine Human. He is the infinite Divine Love which appears to us through Divine Truth. Jesus Christ, glorified, is the name of our God, the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We do not worship the invisible "Father"—the Divine Esse which was related to the "Son" as Soul is to Body. We are not to separate the Divine Trine, for the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Jesus Christ. And it is He whom we invoke as our heavenly Father (TCR 113:6).

    As our Father; not as my Father. There is no worship of God from a spirit of selfishness. What we desire for ourselves we pray that all men may receive so far as it may be a blessing for them. [Scanner unable to insert word], reads the prayer in Greek: "Father of us." Love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor are both fundamental to the kingdom of God, and from these two spring all the uses and delights of heaven.

    "Our Father who art in the heavens." Even in thought we cannot ascend above the heavens. But in the heavens—in the inmost sphere to which human and angelic thought can rise—the Lord is present and meets with man. Each man seeks God in his own heavens—in the temple of his spirit. If the kingdom of heaven is within us, and we raise our thoughts above the realm of worldly things, our prayer may rise as fragrant incense. If not, it will turn back upon ourselves as the storm-driven smoke of our smouldering lusts. Such prayers as proceed from evil are also answered—by evoking their powerful echoes in the hells or in the imaginary heavens of our own making.

    He does not know that his spirit—in the putting away of worldly thoughts—had Every man thus prays to his Father in his heavens: opening his heart to the source of his life, to the influx of his ruling love whatever this may be. He prays either to the finite and futile god which he has himself set up in his own frail image, or to the true God who has revealed the Divine pattern of human life and who taught us to pray in His name, for the fulfilment of His will.