Prayer

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”

— 1 John 5:14

Prayer is the soul’s approach to God in petition and thanksgiving, addressed to him alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and offered through Christ’s mediation and the Spirit’s help.¹²³ It is not an attempt to alter God’s will but one of the very means, together with the ends themselves, that he has ordained for bringing about what he has already purposed.⁴

Confessional Witness

The Reformed confessional family agrees that prayer is owed to God alone and states, in near-identical language, what makes it acceptable, under a shared chapter title, “Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day”: the Westminster Confession (1646, chap. 21), the Savoy Declaration (1658, chap. 22), the Second London Baptist Confession (1677/1689, chap. 22), and the Philadelphia Confession (1742, chap. 22). Worship, prayer included, “is to be given to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to him alone; not to angels, saints, or any other creatures,” and, since the fall, not without a mediator, “nor in the mediation of any other but Christ alone.”⁵

The same chapter states what makes prayer itself acceptable: “Prayer, with thanksgiving, being one part of natural worship, is by God required of all men. But that it may be accepted, it is to be made in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to his will; with understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, and perseverance; and when with others, in a known tongue.”⁶ The Westminster Confession states the same requirement almost word for word, calling prayer “one special part of religious worship” rather than the Baptist and Savoy confessions’ own “natural worship,” a wording difference rather than a substantive one.⁷ Prayer, the same paragraph continues, “is to be made for things lawful, and for all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter; but not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned the sin unto death.”⁸

The Heidelberg Catechism states the same conviction catechetically, grounding prayer in gratitude as much as in need: prayer is necessary “because it is the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us: and also, because God will give his grace and Holy Spirit to those only, who with sincere desires continually ask them of him, and are thankful for them.”⁹

Biblical Basis

Scripture grounds prayer in Christ’s own mediation: believers ask “in my name,” so that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13-14; 16:23). The Spirit himself aids the believer’s weakness in prayer, interceding with “groanings too deep for words” when words fail (Rom. 8:26-27). Paul commands believers to “be anxious for nothing” but in “everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,” to let their requests be made known to God (Phil. 4:6-7). Petition and thanksgiving are the two kinds of prayer Scripture itself names.¹⁰ John grounds confidence in prayer’s answer on its conformity to God’s will: “if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14-15). James cites Elijah, whose prayer first stopped the rain and then, after further prayer, restored it, as proof “that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16-18).¹¹

Jesus commands his disciples simply to ask: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt. 7:7). Prayer presupposes the faith it expresses, since “how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?” (Rom. 10:14).¹² Paul directs that prayer be made not only for oneself but “for all men,” including “kings, and for all that are in authority” (1 Tim. 2:1-3).¹³

Doctrinal Significance

Reformed theologians have not agreed on whether prayer counts as a means of grace in the strict sense reserved for the Word and the sacraments. Hodge includes it directly: “the means of grace, according to the standards of our Church, are the word, sacraments, and prayer.”¹⁴ Bavinck and Berkhof, independently, define the term more narrowly. Bavinck writes: “Strictly speaking, the Word and the sacraments alone can be viewed as means of grace, that is, as external, humanly perceptible actions and signs that Christ has given his church and with which he has linked the communication of his grace.”¹⁵ Berkhof agrees: prayer is “first of all [a] fruit… of the grace of God” rather than an objective ordinance instituted to convey it, and “it is better not to follow Hodge when he includes prayer” among the means of grace proper.¹⁶ See Means of grace for the fuller question. Whichever classification is preferred, Hodge treats prayer as having real efficacy in God’s ordinary governance of the world, not merely subjective benefit to the one praying. He points to Elijah’s prayer for rain as evidence.¹¹

Opposing Views

Rome directs prayer not only to God but also to departed saints and to Mary as intercessors. The confession already excludes this: worship belongs “to him alone; not to angels, saints, or any other creatures.”⁵ Hodge examines the Roman rationale for invocation of saints and states the Reformed objections to it.¹⁷

Objections and Responses

If God has already decreed everything, prayer changes nothing and is pointless. Boettner answers this as an instance of a wider fallacy: “the ends are determined without reference to the means… If we engage in the Lord’s service and make diligent use of the means which He has prescribed, we have the great encouragement of knowing that it is by these very means that He has determined to accomplish His great work.”¹⁸ Ames makes the same point about prayer specifically: “the firmenesse and unchangeablenesse of Gods providence doth not take away, but establish the prayers of the faithfull, and the most sure apprehension of it by Faith doth not make the true believers slothfull, but doth more stir them up to pray.”¹⁹ Charnock grounds the same answer in God’s immutability: “Prayer doth not desire any change in God, but is offered to God that he would confer those things which he hath immutably willed to communicate; but he willed them not without prayer as the means of bestowing them.”⁴ As the light of the sun is ordered for man’s good, Charnock continues, a man must still open his eyes and plant his seed to receive its benefit; God’s unchanging purpose to bless does not make the appointed means unnecessary.⁴

Related Doctrines

References

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-46), book 3, chap. 20, sec. 2: “There is a kind of intercourse between God and men, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before him and appeal to his promises.” ↩
William Ames, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity (London, 1642), book 2, chap. 9, “Of Prayer,” thesis 1: “Prayer is a religious representing of our will before God, that God may be as it were affected with it.” ↩
Ames, book 2, chap. 9, thesis 3: “Hence it cannot be directed to any other beside God only, without manifest idolatry.” ↩
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, ed. William Symington, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853), vol. 1, “Discourse VI: On the Immutability of God,” 350. ↩ ↩² ↩³
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” para. 2. ↩ ↩²
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” para. 3. ↩
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 21, “Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day,” para. 3; Savoy Declaration (1658), chap. 22, same title, para. 3; Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742), chap. 22, same title, para. 3. All three state the requirement in wording nearly identical to the Second London Confession’s own paragraph. ↩
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” para. 4. ↩
Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Lord’s Day 45, Q. 116. ↩
Ames, book 2, chap. 9, thesis 56: “The kinds of prayer are two, Petition, and thanksgiving.” ↩
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), chap. 20, “The Means of Grace,” 707. ↩ ↩²
Ames, book 2, chap. 9, thesis 4. ↩
Ames, book 2, chap. 9, thesis 69. ↩
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), chap. 20, “The Means of Grace,” 463: “The means of grace, according to the standards of our Church, are the word, sacraments, and prayer.” ↩
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 22, “The Spirit’s Means of Grace.” ↩
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969), 589-90: “It is better not to follow Hodge when he includes prayer… Strictly speaking, only the Word and the sacraments can be regarded as means of grace.” ↩
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), chap. 19, “The Law,” 277-290. ↩
Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932), 186-87. ↩
Ames, book 2, chap. 9, thesis 21. ↩