The Jesus Prayer and Six Promises of God: The Second Promise

(The present article follows upon the previous, which speaks to the first promise listed below.)

The full form of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” incorporates at least six biblical promises. These are:

1. Romans 10:9 — If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (cf. John 6:40; Romans 10:10-13)

2. 1 Corinthians 12:3 — No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. (cf. John 15:26)

3. 1 John 5:1 — Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. (cf. Matthew 16:16-17)

4. 1 John 4:15 — Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (cf. Romans 8:16017; 1 John 2:23, 5:10)

5. John 14:14 — If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. (cf. John 14:13, 15:16, 16:23-24)

6. 1 John 1:9 — If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (cf. Luke 18:14)

On the Second Promise

To truly say that Jesus is Lord is to enliven to and recognize the reality of His Lordship. This recognition is a state of soul awakened by the Holy Spirit through the implanted word via the preaching of the Gospel, as St. Peter teaches, "since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God... And this word is the good news that was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:23, 25). For if one is outside of the Holy Spirit they cannot recognize Christ’s Lordship, because it is precisely the action of the Holy Spirit to awaken the soul to Christ, as Christ Himself teaches: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26). In other words, when a person submissively recognizes the Lordship of Christ, it means that the Holy Spirit is present and active. This is of the essence of salvation, and is why St. Paul can speak so boldly when he declares: “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9). What this means is that for you to recognize the Lordship of Jesus Christ is for you also to be in the Holy Spirit, and likewise to be in the Holy Spirit is to have the Holy Spirit in you, and to thus have the Holy Spirit is to belong to Christ. This mutual indwelling hearkens to Jesus’ astounding high priestly prayer, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:21-23). Notice how Christ speaks of the Father being in Him, and how He is in the Father. This points to the fundamental holy unity of Father and Son, of God and Word, and yet points further to the nature of our union with God in Christ, for Christ prays that we will be in the Father and in Him, and He in us and therefore the Father in us. This is the breadth and length and height and depth of our salvation! For we are not merely delivered from sin, even though that is a truly awesome deliverance. And we are not merely written into the Book of Life, although that is truly an awesome inscription. We are, rather, made to have complete union with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to share in the eternal bond of their light, their life, and their love. This is the reality pointed to and participated in through our praying of the Jesus Prayer. Therefore, when you call upon Jesus as Lord, submitting to His Lordship, trust in God’s promise and know that through the strength of God’s promise that the Holy Spirit is in you, and you are in Him.

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

The Jesus Prayer and Six Promises of God: The First Promise

The full form of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” incorporates at least six biblical promises. These are:

1. Romans 10:9 — If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (cf. John 6:40; Romans 10:10-13)

2. 1 Corinthians 12:3 — No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. (cf. John 15:26)

3. 1 John 5:1 — Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. (cf. Matthew 16:16-17)

4. 1 John 4:15 — Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (cf. 1 John 2:23; Romans 8:16-17)

5. John 14:14 — If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. (cf. John 14:13, 15:16, 16:23-24)

6. 1 John 1:9 — If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (cf. Luke 18:14)

 On The First Promise

Calling on the Name of the Lord is of the essence of Christian faith, because it is fundamentally a looking away from self and a looking towards God. And God’s promise to save those who call on Him in faith and truth, being irrevocable, make calling on the Name of God perhaps the most fundamental religious act of Christianity. Christ also promises: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). In other words, the inward drawing towards Christ that the faithful experience in their heart is in truth caused by, is the result of, Jesus’ drawing of them to Himself. To be more pointed, faith itself is a gift of God’s drawing, as received through the preaching of the Gospel, as St. Paul indicates: “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). In other words, faith itself is a gift of God divinely worked into the human heart, as St. John Chrysostom affirms, commenting on the just-quoted passage: “Neither is faith, he means, ‘of ourselves.’ Because had He not come, had He not called us, how had we been able to believe? For ‘how,’ saith he, ‘shall they believe, unless they hear?’ (Romans 10:14) So that the work of faith is not our own.” Blessed Theophylact likewise teaches on this verse, that “not even our faith originates from us,” and that “even the faith itself which we have shown is a gift from God.” This is made possible because the Gospel is itself “God's power for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Moreover, “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9). But saved from what? The wrath of God which is to be revealed on the Last Day, as St. Paul teaches of “Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Faith in the risen Christ therefore delivers us from the wrath of God against sin: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). In this light, calling faithfully on the Name of the Lord is a wonderful and precious promise. It is no trifle, for God’s promises are irrevocable. Therefore, call upon God ceaselessly as His gift of faith is worked into your heart. Let this faithful calling be a constant attitude of your soul, so that you might live the New Life in Christ more and more fully until the coming Day, “that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:16). And that you be found among the saints “together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2).

-Fr. Joshua Schooping