马太福音 6:9

“May Your Name be set apart as holy.”

This and the following petition closely parallel, but in a far more succint form, the words of an ancient synagogue prayer, “Exalted and hallowed be His great name in the world which He created according to his will. May He rule his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon. And to this, say, ‘Amen’.” This too is seeking to ‘hallow’ God’s Name, and is seeking for God to intervene in order to establish His Kingly Rule. But we must remember in making the comparison that Jesus saw things very differently from His contemporaries. Jesus possibly took over the pattern but not necessarily the ideas. They looked to a remote future. He saw God’s Kingly Rule as already breaking in upon men.

So in order that we might consider carefully the fact that although He is our Father we must not be presumptious, our attention is now drawn to His holiness, that is, to the fact that He is distinct from us and ‘set apart’ from all things by what He is, so that to approach Him is a great and exalted privilege which can only be ours when our hearts are right. He is ‘the high and exalted One Who inhabits eternity, Whose Name is holy, Who dwells in the high and holy place, with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart on the contrite one’ (Isaiah 57:15).

And our first concern and prayer is therefore to be that both in Heaven and earth His holiness be recognised. It is to long that all creation should know Who and What He is, and honour Him accordingly.

This idea of God’s Name being made holy is found in the Old Testament, from which no doubt Jesus was taking it. The purpose of God’s deliverance of His people was so that they might hallow His Name by obeying His commandments (Leviticus 22:32), and He ‘proclaimed His Name’ before Moses in order to hallow it (Exodus 33:19; compare Deuteronomy 32:3). His holiness was further revealed by His judgment on Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:3); and the whole purpose of the Tabernacle ritual was in order to keep holy His Name (Leviticus 22:2; Leviticus 22:32). Indeed their failure to maintain the holiness of God was the cause of the downfall of Moses and Aaron (Numbers 20:12; Numbers 27:14; Deuteronomy 32:51).

In Isaiah 29:23 we are told that Israel will ‘sanctify His Name’ and will thus ‘stand in awe’ of Him when He brings about His deliverance of them, and the result will be that they will come to understanding and will listen to His Instruction. So the prayer ‘may your Name be made holy’ includes this desire that God’s Name might be held in awe, and honoured and worshipped because His people are in awe of Him as a result of what He has done for them. For as we have seen the Name of a person indicates what he essentially is. Thus to ‘set God’s Name apart as holy’ (hallow Him) means to honour what He is fully and without reserve.

It is, however, in Ezekiel that the ‘sanctifying’ (setting apart as holy) of God’s Name by His own action receives a major emphasis (Ezekiel 20:41; Ezekiel 28:22; Ezekiel 28:25; Ezekiel 36:23; Ezekiel 39:27). In Ezekiel the idea is again that God will be ‘sanctified’ (totally justified in all eyes and seen to be unique in the goodness, mercy and power), by the deliverance of His people. But this is then especially connected with Him as acting to sanctify His Name. In Ezekiel 36:23 God is seen as declaring, “And I will sanctify (make holy) My great Name which has been profaned among the nations, --- and the nations will know that I am YHWH , says the Lord YHWH, when I will be sanctified (made holy) in you before their eyes --- and I will take you from among the nations --- and I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean -- a new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezekiel 36:23-27). So God is to be ‘made holy’ in the eyes of men by what He accomplishes in salvation and deliverance, in the bringing of righteousness to His people This confirms therefore that ‘hallowed be your Name’ is partly to be seen as a prayer for the pouring out of the Spirit (Ezekiel 36:27; Isaiah 44:1-5; Joel 2:28-29) and the renewing of the new covenant (Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 31:33) so that God’s unique holiness might be made known. It will be praying that the work that has taken place in the disciples will spread more widely and will take in many more people so that through it God’s Name, as He acts in gracious sovereignty, might be seen to be holy. It is praying that Matthew 3:11 might be fulfilled for many.

And finally His name will be hallowed at the final judgment when all sin is done away and the perfect everlasting Kingdom is established. Then God will be fully known for what He is. Men may see God’s day of judgment as a time of terror and horror. But that is because of what they are. To Heaven it is the time when all will be set right, when wickedness and selfishness will be done away, and when God will become all in all. And that is why His people pray for it and look forward to it (2 Peter 3:12; Revelation 6:10). So by praying ‘may your Name be made holy’ we have these three things in mind, a desire that men may be in awe of Him and give Him the praise due to His Name, a cry that God will act to bring honour to His Name by pouring forth His Holy Spirit in the cleansing and transformation of a people for Himself, and a longing for that day when God will bring about His judgment and will set all to rights (compare Revelation 6:10).