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).

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