John 15:16Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Whatsoever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. What did Jesus mean when he said, in my name?
Consider the model of the New Covenant as developed in the Christian Model page.
The context of John 15:16 is that you may bear fruit, fruit that will remain. The concept of fruit remaining is that, on judgment day, when works are tested by fire, they won’t go up in smoke.
Fruit is the fulfillment of the righteousness of the law in you. When there is no law, there can be no fulfillment. As Jesus could not love us with love he had not received from the Father, we cannot love one another with love that we have not received from him.
To bear fruit is to love one another as you have been loved. When you are asking in his name, you are asking for love that he has received from the Father. If you are asking for something else, like please heal my child, you are not asking in his name. If you ask for something that he has, he will give it to you. If you ask for something he does not have, he cannot give it to you. Here is an example of asking for something that is not his to give.
Mark 10:35And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. 36And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? 37They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. 38But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? 39And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: 40But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but [it shall be given to them] for whom it is prepared.
This is an example of someone asking Jesus for something that he did not have. No doubt James and John had heard Jesus say that he would give them whatever they asked, but their request was not granted because they did not ask in his name. There may be some question as to whether they asked or if it was their mother who asked, no matter. The answer to their request seemed worse than “no.” Asking in his name is not appending “in Jesus name” at the end of your prayer.
First of all, they asked Jesus for something that was not his to give; Jesus said it was not his to give.
James 4:1From whence [come] wars and fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your lusts that war in your members? 2Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume [it] upon your lusts.
Second of all, they asked amiss; their request was based on their own interests, not God’s interests. Their interest was to receive grace for their own consumption. God’s interest was that they bear fruit, loving one another as they had been loved. Even though Jesus’ reply sounded like a rebuke, he did give them something that was his to give, that they should drink of the cup from which he drank.
John 1:14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 16And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
Jesus was full of grace, and of his fullness we have received. What does it mean that he was full of grace? What does it mean that he was fully God, being fully man? He was fully human in form, but in action he was fully God because he never acted of his own volition. Everything that was done in him was done by the Spirit. Everything done in him was the work of the Spirit, which is grace. One-hundred percent of what he did was grace.
In addition one-hundred percent of the Father’s love flowed through Jesus.
He is not able to love you except how he had been loved.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Apostle Paul expressed God’s love in four dimensions.
Ephesians 3:18May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning eloquently described three dimensions of love. Was it her love she was describing, or God’s love? It seems she is describing God’s love as experienced by her. Her love extended to the three dimensions her soul could reach, the dimensions she could see, the ones that were in her reach. Beyond her reach, her love was to include ideal grace, the work of the Spirit. The last line promotes an understanding she had of the work of the Spirit, the work done in her after she is dead in Christ, a better work.
Search the scriptures and see how the Father loved his Son. That is the list of ways Jesus is able to love you. That is the nature of Jesus. He is the explicit image of the Father, not more, not less. When you see something on that list which fruit you would be pleased to bear fruit, just ask.
When you ask, be prepared to receive the love for which you are asking. The first step in obeying a commandment of the Son is to receive that love. That, too, is the work of the Spirit. You will receive the love the same way Jesus received the Father’s love, so it is best to understand how Jesus received that love from the Father. That means you need to see how the Father imparted that love to his Son, and how the Son received that love.
Here is an attempt to illustrate my point.
Sometimes you see a scripture that explicitly talks about the Father’s love for his Son. When the scripture talks of God’s only begotten Son, it speaks of the act of conception that brought Jesus to earth.
But sometimes, you only see the evidence of the Father’s love by the fruit Jesus bore. Take the power of healing, for example. Jesus was able to heal others. How was it that he received that ability? You want that power? That ability? Is that the fruit you would like to bear?
When was it that Jesus received that power? When was he healed by the Father? Could it have been after he spent forty days in the wilderness, when the angels ministered to him? Asking for the power to heal others requires that you first receive the love from Jesus. Are you willing to be lead into the wilderness by the Spirit, and, when you find yourself there, will you remember why you are there and stand up to the temptations put upon you? If you are to receive this love, that seed that would allow you to bear this fruit, are you able to receive the love the way he did?
Matthew 4:11Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
What brought him to that point where he received the love was his wilderness experience, where he was tempted beyond measure. What Israel could not do in forty years, Jesus did in forty days. He resisted temptation, and in the end, he was put back together by the angels.
Isaiah 50:7For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
If my desire is to bear fruit like that, am I willing to receive that love the way Jesus did? When I am in the middle of my wilderness experience, will I forget my purpose? Will I forget why I am in the middle of my trial? Be careful what you ask for, because if you ask for healing, he may bring you back from within an inch of your life. It is not for me to say how he will do that, but gifts like that do not come easy. They did not come easy for Jesus, do not expect them to come easy for you. And in the middle of your wilderness experience, do not forget what brought you there.
Yesterday morning, I heard one word, Forgot – just one word. It was not an audible word, but it was clear. I had no idea until now what that was about. As I write this, I am in the middle of my wilderness experience, and I had forgotten why I was there – I find myself discouraged, vulnerable to temptation. I needed to set my face like flint.
The point is that in his name is not something you tack on to the end of a prayer; it is not in addition to an Amen whose purpose it is to legitimatize your request, somehow attempting to hold Jesus to the promise he made, that if you ask anything in my name, you shall have it.
An example from personal experience:
Isaiah 50:4The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
I had read a manuscript on the early life of Jesus. Arnold Fruchtenbaum cited this verse as applying to Jesus as he was growing up. He had been instructed morning by morning as he was awakened. I asked that he would love me with that love that he would give me the tongue of the learned.
Subsequently, when I was awakened in the morning, I would harken to his voice. As he spoke to me in those early hours, I would get up and write down what was told me. As I write these words, it is early in the morning. He awaked me at 2:00AM this morning.
I have been attempting to love one another with the love I have received by sharing that which he has showed me. Little did I understand, until just this moment, the love that came bundled with this love. Read on with me, the verses that followed.
Isaiah 50:5The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. 6I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. 7For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. 8He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. 9Behold, the Lord God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up. 10Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. 11Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
For sharing the things that have been revealed to me, I have been excommunicated from Evangelical circles. Should I back down and renounce the things that have been revealed to me? Rather, I should set my face like a flint.
When you ask for something, it will cost you.
Romans 8:17And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him,] that we may be also glorified together. 18For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
But the cost is far exceeded by the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Matthew 18:20For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
When you read this verse, where do you picture Jesus? Is he another person in the middle of those who are gathered? If you are picturing Jesus, the Son, present in the room, you are mistaken. It is the Spirit that is present.
If you are picturing the Spirit in the room, “in the midst of them,” I believe you are also mistaken. The Spirit is in the midst of each individual in the room, doing his work in the midst of each individual.
First of all, when you are fulfilling his commandment, when you are loving one another as he has loved you, both are gathered in his name; you cannot love one another unless there is someone else there to be loved. You are gathered in his name because you are there to transact love on his behalf. You have been loved by Jesus with love that had previously been shared with you, writing his will on your heart, the law of love. When you love in his name, you are loving with the strength and power of the Spirit, commissioned by the Lord to share that love.
Philippians 2:13For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.
When you are fulfilling his commandment, when you are loving one another as he has loved you, God the Spirit is in the midst of each of you, working to do of his good pleasure in you fulfilling the commandment, and working to will of his good pleasure in the one(s) receiving the love.
New Wine 