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Luke 11:1-4:
1And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.
2And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
3Give us day by day our daily bread.
4And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
The being near of our soul unto God implies that with our inner sense we lift up ourselves from our every day surroundings into the sphere of God's Majesty. It is this that in Scriptural language has become the Sursum corda, the urge to lift up soul and senses to God and to appear in the audience chamber of His Holiness.
It is true, God the Lord in infinite compassion comes down to us to make tabernacle with us, and with His rod and staff to comfort us; but though this by itself brings God near unto us, it by no means always brings our soul near unto God. God's seeking love can for long times be near, around and in our heart, and our soul's perception fail to discover it with any clearness. An infant can be carried by God's nearness and have itself no clear perception whatever of God's Majesty. In conditions of sickness, which deprive us of our self-consciousness, God's nearness departs not from His child. And when in dying our consciousness fails us, the nearness of God continues to support the soul which he has called unto Himself.
You should always distinguish, therefore, between these two, however closely they may be allied. It is something different whether our God is close to us and whether we are close to our God. And not in behalf of the former, but of the latter, it is highly advantageous that our sense be not too greatly entangled with the world of visible things, and that we understand the sacred art of transposing our soul's perception from this world into that which is around God's Throne.
At first the soul learns this in prayer, and it is noteworthy how in the short form of the Our Father, again and again, Jesus leads our thoughts to the invisible world.
At once in the address: "Our Father who art in heaven." This means, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, that we should not think of God in an earthly way. This is correct, provided it is taken in the deeper sense. Not as a sound, a word, a term whereby to express something super-mundane, but as an effort of the soul, at the very beginning of the prayer, to loosen itself from the earthly imaginations which immesh it, and to enter into those high and holy spheres that surround the Throne of God.
This same result is effected by the prayer: "Thy Kingdom come," since that kingdom can not be anything else than the kingdom of heaven, and the prayer, for this reason, intends that the powers of this kingdom from heaven should enter ever more mightily into our life.
But sharpest and most clearly expressed is the communion with the life around God's Throne in the third prayer: "Thy will be done on earth among us, as in heaven among thy angels."
Here the reference to heaven is immediate. Here it is clearly and plainly expressed. Here are delineated simultaneously both the similarity and the dissimilarity of the life on earth and the life in heaven. Here Jesus Himself urges us, in the prayer which He gave us for our pilgrim journey, that in our prayer and in the seeking after God's nearness we acquaint ourselves with the world of angels and of the redeemed, and by our fellowship with their world strengthen our approach to God.
Yea, so strong is this urge on the part of Jesus, to bring our soul by prayer into touch with the invisible world, that in the last petition He conversely makes tangible to us the working that goes out upon us from the head of the fallen angels. "Deliver us from the Evil One" is the prayer that makes us mindful how the evil, how the sin that springs up in our heart, is fed and impelled by a higher power from the invisible world, and how our God alone can deliver us from this deadly influence.
Is it then too boldly spoken when we say that in this short prayer of six petitions Jesus causes us to go out every time from the earthly sphere of visible things; and that He unveils to the sense of our soul, clearly and mightily, the reality of the invisible world; and all this in order that by this very thing itself we should enjoy the being near unto God the more deeply and the more intimately.
This fellowship with the spirits of the invisible world appears in Scripture, more than once, to be inseparable from the being near unto God. Only think of the vision of Isaiah and of the Revelation on Patmos.
Isaiah saw not only the Lord upon His Throne, but also the Seraphim who surrounded His Throne, and he heard the: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts," that rang and reverberated with glorious harmony among the arches of heaven. And it was not otherwise on Patmos. There too the seer's eye does not penetrate to the Holy One without the simultaneous sight of the Cherubim that reveal God's Majesty, and he hears, what says still more, also from the elders, from the circles of the blessed, the anthem of praise: "Thou, Lord, art worthy to receive honor and glory and power."
And so runs through the whole of Scripture a golden line of heavenly light that brings the prayer and the anthem of praise on the part of God's people into fellowship with the anthem of praise on the part of the angels and of the blessed.
It is not only the angels and blessed in unapproachable light, and we who on earth in our twilight sing praises unto the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; but between angel-voice and human tongue there is a connection. Sometimes it seems as though we give but an echo to what is jubilantly sung around God's Throne, and our heart finds rest only when there is holy accord, when there is blissful harmony between created spirits above and the creature that on earth thirsts after the nearness of his God.
But this of itself presses the question upon us, whether this necessary fellowship with God's angels and with the saints before God's Throne has not passed too greatly into disuse among our circles.
That we must be on our guard against abuse is clear as sunlight. Not improbably even idolatry has sprung from this seeking after fellowship with the world of spirits. And even within the boundaries of Christ's Church the search after this fellowship has all too frequently drawn souls away from the nearness of God, instead of leading them into His holy Presence.
The soul's concern, if we may so express ourselves, with angels and with saints, has but too often tempted it in its anxious carefulness to create middle agencies between itself and God, whose help rendered recourse to the help of our God needless.
It is plain, therefore, that in order to correct this abuse safety was sought in sobriety, and that from a holy impulse the endeavor was made not to allow oneself in one's prayer to be diverted by anything, not even by angels, from God Himself and from His immediate fellowship. But can it be denied that this carefulness, by exaggeration, has led to the other extreme: and is it not true, that in prayer at public worship, in prayer at the family altar, and in personal supplication, the spirit world was almost altogether lost from view, and that thereby all such prayer came into conflict with the note which Jesus himself struck in the Our Father!
In the Our Father Jesus brings our soul, again and again, in touch with this higher spirit world, while from our prayer this fellowship has almost altogether vanished.
So, in order to avoid the abuse of one extreme, one can unconsciously and naturally, fall into the other, and it can not be otherwise but that this must work injury to the life of the soul.
He who dies knows that he will not find his God and Savior singly and alone, but surrounded by a world of saints. There awaits him not alone a Father, but also a Father-house, and in that Father-house the many mansions, and in those mansions, with God's angels, the saints that have gone before.
And though we now speak of that world of glory as of the world above because we cannot think of it otherwise than as being far above this guilty earth, we know equally well, that this distinction is no separation, and that already, here on earth, we can enter into communion with that world. When the Psalmist would praise God, he calls upon the angels to extol His praise (Psalm 103:20). There is a host of the Lord that encampeth round about them that fear God. Not alone Satan, the head of the fallen angels, but the good angels also stand in communication with our soul. In moments of blessed exaltation of spirit it has been to your soul, too, as though it actually felt the nearness of God's good spirits, and as though they made you feel more tenderly and blessedly the nearness of God.
From people we undergo the same influence for good or for evil.
Sometimes one wicked person in your environment can draw your whole soul away from God, estrange in you every utterance of soul from God, and throw you back into your earthly, sinful shallowness.
On the other hand, one devoted child of God among your associates can effect the result that every unholy thing drops out from your conversation, that your soul responds to holy thoughts, and that association with him brings you nearer to God.
And so too it is here.
He who accustoms himself to have part in the holy world of God's angels, and already, here on earth, admits the company of the saints into the world of his inner life, will thereby not alone banish what is evil, but will himself attain a holier mood. In his devotions of praise and prayer he will feel himself upborne, and will find it less difficult to lift himself up from his earthly life into the nearness of God.
We have not been created for solitariness. The moment in which, deserted of all, you discover that you have to fight your battle alone, you feel that something unnatural has come upon you.
Not alone, but "with all saints" we shall come to the knowledge of God.
And if in eternity it will be the wonderful exaltation of your life, that with all the angels and saints you will eternally glorify your God, why, then should you forsake and neglect this glorious power, which already here on earth can unfold itself in your prayer, if already here by anticipation you live in the blessed fellowship which awaits you above ?
We are with all God's saints one Body in Christ as our Head, but on earth we taste so little of this fellowship with the whole Body of the Lord.
On the other hand, fellowship with saints and with God's angels is always open to you.
Blessed, then, is he who revels herein not alone in behalf of his own soul, but who also understands how to deepen thereby his delight in the nearness of God.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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