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

Parts I, II, III, IV, and V can be found here, here, here, here, and here, respectively.

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 8:16-17; 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 Sixth Promise

By confessing our sins to God, we not only offer them up in humility to be forgiven in Christ, but also offer our very souls to be cleansed. This is a twofold reality, and is grounded in the verse in 1 John preceding, which states, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). In other words, the shed blood of Christ cleanses us from both the guilt and the stain of sin. Sin, which is an action, is also and more fundamentally like a progressive disease which inheres to and corrupts our souls unto death. In other words, sin is a spiritual sickness which produces sinful action. Just like how an infectious disease produces fever, so the infection of sin produces sinful action. Thus not only the symptom of sin's fever must be treated, but also the fundamental corruption of the disease of sin must be healed. And so the blood of Christ effects a double action: one which deals with the symptom, which is to say the fever of sin; and another which deals with the more fundamental cleansing, which is to say the underlying disease of sin. Both aspects are found through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The spilling of His righteous blood, which we receive in childlike faith as being given on our behalf, acts so as to objectively forgive the sin which we have committed. Not stopping there, it also works to restore us to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. This cleansing is the restoration of fellowship with God in Christ. What a mighty promise! And this is why confession is such a vital subject, and can never be treated flippantly as if it were optional, as if it were some superficial listing of mistakes, or as if it were simply a matter of regret for wrongs done. Confession must go all the way to the heart of the problem, the rupture of fellowship with God due to our hardened hearts and our stiff necks. Sin is such a corruption that God decided that the death of Christ on the Cross was the best way to deal with it. And so the forgiveness of sin and the cleansing of all unrighteousness came together at a great cost, and yet it is freely extended to all. Thus through confession not only does He promise to forgive and cleanse, but also to reestablish communion with Him as you walk in the Light that is Christ.

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

Parts I, II, III, and IV can be found here, here, here, and here, respectively.

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 8:16-17; 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 Fifth Promise

At its core, asking something in Jesus’ holy Name means being in harmony with His will, which is also to say His greater wisdom, authority, and power. It is founded upon the divine promise given by Christ. This, being a promise, means that it can be relied upon to be upheld by His unwavering faithfulness. This excludes the idea that it is the reduction of Christ to being a genie. The word genie comes from an old Arabic word, jinn, referring to a kind of supernatural being, a term which came into English usage through translations of the Arabian Nights where a jinn was being manipulated to grant selfish wishes. God is not anything like a jinn, for He is the Almighty Creator of all, the thrice Holy One who maintains all things by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). Moreover, as one who Covenants with His People, God does not promise to accomplish anything in His Name that is not also consistent with His holy nature and righteous character. We have to recall that the promise of Christ to do anything asked in His Name extends to those who are in and with Him. This occurs inexorably through the sacrament of holy Baptism, which is first and foremost a dying to self, a putting off of all worldly ways. Many people mistakenly think they can be a Christian and yet also at the same time a self-willed manmukh. An old Punjabi word, a manmukh is a person who follows their own mind and desires, without regard to God’s truth. This kind of person prizes their own thoughts, or the collective thoughts of their family or tribe, placing them above the revealed thoughts of God as given in His holy Word, the Bible, and as consistently maintained in the Church. This kind of person, when they encounter God’s promise to do something for His children when they pray in His Name, start to approach God as if He were simply there to guarantee that their selfish or tribal will is accomplished. When God resists their pride they end up blaming God for not obeying them, and so enter into all sorts of blasphemy. This precious promise of God is thus wholly for those who approach Him in faith as His obedient child. For in approaching God in Christ, it is not enough to simply be a socially “good” person, one must be His the Father's holy child by adoption into Christ Jesus His Son. But, if one approaches in humble faith, seeking God’s will and glory, then they can with all confidence ask in His Name, and He will do it. It may not be answered in an expected way, an obvious way, or an easy way, but it will be answered. For the most fundamental desire of a child of God is to be holy as He is holy, to seek to do His will in all things, and doing all for His glory.

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

Parts I, II, and III can be found here, here, and here, respectively.

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 8:16-17; 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 Fourth Promise

He who confesses from the heart that Jesus is the Son of God has God abiding in him. In other words, God abiding in a man makes this confession possible. True confession is the result of God’s holy operation in the soul. And the opposite is also true: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” (1 John 2:22-23). In other words, those who do not confess Jesus as the Son do not have God as their Father, and in fact are opposed to the truth. And for a confession to be an authentic confession, it is not simply a matter of moving the lips, but having the heart moved by the Gospel. The heart moved by the Gospel is the heart moved by the power of God, for "the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth" (Romans 1:16). In this way the Gospel is the way of being in right relationship with divine reality. The Gospel is therefore not merely a religious message, and Christianity is not merely one way among others. There aren’t multiple true religions. One is either with Christ and God, or against Christ and God. For the whole world labors under the condemnation of sin, willingly bound to hell. But into this great spiritual slavery to evil God the Father sent His Only-Begotten Son. Christ is in this way the mercy of God extended. He is not merely a wise teacher, nor merely a miracle worker, nor merely an enlightened being. He is Himself Salvation, and He entered into the world in order to deliver those who believe in His Name. That is why Scripture says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And so it is not simply that Christianity is a better system of ideas. It is the reality of God’s Personal in-breaking into the world to save man from a very real bondage to sin unto death and from a very real bondage to a very real Satan. Thus it cannot be said that there is no salvation in any other name as if God loves only Christians. That view of religion fails to touch the depth of the reality of the Incarnation. Christ is Himself the love of God, who is God, who came into the world to save sinners via their incorporation into Him through confessed faith, for that confession is a participation, an abiding, in Him. This promise is therefore most wonderful, for “this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life” (1 John 2:25).

Ancient Witness: The Authenticity of the Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of Mark

Multiple and perhaps even most modern translations of the New Testament, such as the ASV, RSV, NASB (77 and 95), NIV, ESV, NET, and CSB, in some way indicate that Mark 16:9-20 are not original to Mark's Gospel. They do this in different ways, whether by placing these verses within square brackets and adding a footnote explaining their doubtful character, placing them in all italics, or perhaps inserting a note directly between verses 8 and 9 that says they "may" not be original. 

In this way they cast doubt on their trustworthiness, and as a consequence cast doubt on whether these verses are authentically God's Word. They do this further by stating that "some" early manuscripts do not contain them, or that there are no early witnesses to them, or they baldly say they were "added" or "inserted" at some later date. Thankfully, we can know that they are incorrect.

We can know because St. Irenaeus, providentially, referred to this section of Scripture directly and explicitly. A faithful Christian theologian and apologist, St. Irenaeus lived in the Second Century, was born and raised in Asia Minor, and became a bishop of Lyon, in Gaul. Thus he had deep experience in both the Eastern and Western geographical territories of the Roman empire, and so was in an extremely good position to be cognizant of what constituted the authentic ending of the text of Mark's Gospel. He wrote:

[T]owards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: "So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God;" (Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 10, para. 5; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, eds. Roberts and Donaldson, Revised by Coxe, (Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885), pg 426 )

That is a direct quotation of Mark 16:19, which in the Authorized Version is translated:

So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. (Mark 16:19)

Notice that St. Irenaeus does not simply quote this verse, but specifically describes its source as being from the conclusion of Mark's Gospel. For those who are interested in the Latin (the original Greek of St. Irenaeus' text is lost), it reads:

In fine autem Evangelii ait Marcus: "Et quidem Dominus Jesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in cælos , et sedet ad dexteram Dei;" (Patrologia Graeca, vol. 7, Irenaeus, paragraph 188)

Interestingly, the foregoing Latin reads differently than the Vulgate (late 4th Century) rendering of that same Markan verse, indicating that this was not a later insertion into the text of Irenaeus: 

et Dominus quidem postquam locutus est eis adsumptus est in caelum et sedit a dextris Dei (Mark 16:19)

The resulting conclusion is necessary: Providentially, we have a definitive early witness from the Second Century that explicitly identifies Mark's Gospel as ending ("in fine") well beyond verse 8. Not only this, the verse being quoted by St. Irenaeus indicates Jesus' prior speech to the Eleven Disciples, which is also providentially to affirm the intervening verses between 8 and 19. This shows that the place (not the "insertion") of those verses into Mark's Gospel are certain and necessary, and that to cast doubt on their presence is problematic, to say the least. 

As a common logical fallacy is popularly summarized, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and so the fact that "some early manuscripts" may not contain those verses is not conclusive evidence that they were never there. And, as shown above, St. Irenaeus' witness to their positive presence at such an early date defeats the argument that they were a later insertion. 

Moreover, the translation into English of St. Irenaeus given above is from the year 1885, post-dating the doubt cast upon those verses by the famous textual scholars, Westcott and Hort, in their 1881 Revised Text (which is the grandfather of the eclectic Greek texts from which most modern translations are taken). This not only vindicates the Majority and the Received Texts on this point, but also means that the affirmation of the integrity of the last twelve verses of Mark has been available for over a century. And yet still the (false) claim persists that there is not a definite, reliable witness to their presence. 

Therefore, the modern translations which cast doubt on those verses would do well to remove any indication that they may not be original, or at the very least notate that they do indeed have some of the earliest and best Patristic witnesses to their genuineness (since the earliest extant copies of Mark's Gospel are well over a century after St. Irenaeus).

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

Parts I and II can be found here and here, respectively.

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. 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)

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

On the Third Promise

Belief in Jesus as the Christ requires a supernatural act of God vivifying the soul to this truth. It is the necessary second birth, without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. As Jesus teaches: “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:7). For, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). This rebirth is so important, but what does it entail? It entails the recognition of Jesus as your life. Not that He is merely important to your life, a central part of your life, or even that He is the purpose of your life, but that He Himself is your life. As He declares: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25). Notice three elements in that verse: (1) Jesus is the life, (2) those who believe in Him, (3) will live. In other words, since belief receives Jesus, and Jesus is the life, to receive Jesus is to receive the life. He is and becomes in experience the substance of the Christian’s life. One is thus born again, regenerated by the life that is Jesus Christ; one is born of God, what He also declares is being “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). This is the context and substance of that most famous of bible verses: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). That is why St. John the Forerunner can say: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). Notice how wrath is said to remain or abide on those who do not believe. It is thus not that God punishes those who do not believe in Christ by depriving them of life; it is that (1) Christ Himself is eternal life, (2) believing in Him is receiving He who is Himself eternal life, (3) not believing in Christ means not having Him, which means (4) those do not believe do not have eternal life. What is rather the case is that divine wrath remains on those who do not believe. Christ is the instrument of deliverance from wrath, as St. Paul teaches: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9), “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). This is why the promise is so especially precious and incomparable, for it is the divine promise of the eternal life we hope for from the bottom of our hearts. This life is Jesus Himself, and is received by faith in such a way that one is a new creation, for “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).