79 - 1Jn 5:15
Καὶ ἐὰν οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀκούει ἡμῶν ὃ ἂν αἰτώμεθα, οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἔχομεν τὰ αἰτήματα ἃ ᾐτήκαμεν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ.
We must, however, consider more carefully the idea of God’s hearing. Are we to limit it to mere hearing, or to regard it as a hearing with approval and intent to answer, hearing and granting being one? The fifteenth verse seems to plead for the former; for there the hearing comes first, and afterwards the ἔχειν τὰ αἰτήματα [“to have the requests”], or the granting of the request. But, on the other hand, this general meaning of the ἀκούειν [“to hear”] has its difficulty: in this sense the God ὅςγινώσκειπάντα [“who knows all things”] (1Jn 3:21) hears all prayers, even those which are not according to His will; consequently this indefinite kind of hearing could never impart confidence in the petitioner. Moreover, it is remarkable that St. John, and he only, employs this very word ἀκούειν [“to hear”] in the sense of hearing favourably or granting; compare Joh 9:31; John 11:41-42. As to the fifteenth verse, we have only to interpret it rightly. It does not mean to indicate the unity of the hearing and the granting of petitions; but the unity of the being heard with acceptance and the reception of what is supplicated. Many petitions κατὰ τὸ θέληματοῦθεοῦ [“according to the will of God”] are outwardly granted, it may be, after a long season; so granted that their acceptance appears manifest. But—and this is the pith of the apostle’s declaration—faith has the thing asked, which probably will not be granted externally for a long time, already inwardly in possession at the moment of asking: in the consciousness that God hears, there is to this believing petitioner the actual ἔχειν τὰ αἰτήματα [“to have the requests”], the possession of the thing asked, though it may be for a season only in internal experience. As the Christian hope brings the Christian man immediately into possession of the thing hoped for,—so that by virtue of the very hope itself he may inwardly rejoice in the experience of the object hoped for as his own,—so the believing petitioner needs not to wait for the time to come when the fulfilment of his prayer will be an external reality: he has what he asks, he enjoys it already, before he actually sees it. To sum up all: the parrhesia which, within the limits of the present life, a Christian may have, is indeed primarily only a confidence in prayer and an alacrity for prayer (1Jn 3:20),—that is, it does not rest so much upon the having as upon the possibility of future having, upon the fact that the door is opened into all the treasures of heaven. Nevertheless there is, on the other hand, a present sense of having, though it be only in faith and not in sight; for there is a full assurance of the absolutely necessary attainment of the request, which is no other than an internal and spiritual possession of it already. Believing, we have already eternal life,—that is, fellowship with God (1Jn 3:13); in believing prayer we have—that is, more particularly, in believing intercession—already perfect fellowship with our brethren as members of the kingdom of God (1Jn 5:14 ff.).