Hitherto, you have not asked any thing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full.
εως αρτι ουκ ητησατε ουδεν εν τω ονοματι μου αιτειτε και ληψεσθε ινα η χαρα υμων η πεπληρωμενη
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
“Until now you have asked nothing.” By this He again shows that it is better for Him to depart. Until that time they had asked nothing, but then they will receive everything they ask.
Although I shall no longer be with you, do not think that you have been abandoned. My name will give you greater boldness.
“Until now you have asked nothing in My name,” but from now on “ask,” and without fail “you will receive.”
Therefore it is more profitable that I die, for from now on you will receive greater boldness before My Father.
Although I will be separated from you, do not think that you are abandoned by Me.
For My separation will give you greater boldness, and your joy will then be most complete, when you receive everything you ask.
Observe, then: the one who asks in the name of Christ receives.
But none of those who desire worldly and soul-destroying things asks in the name of Christ. Therefore he does not receive.
For the name of Christ is divine and saving. If someone asks for what is destructive to the soul, shall we say that he asks in the name of the Savior?
Therefore, encouraging the disciples to ask spiritual gifts for themselves, and at the same time giving confidence that their requests will not remain unfulfilled, He strengthens faith by adding the word “Amen.”
If they desire to approach with a request for anything, they will receive it from the Father. He Himself is clearly mediator and co-giver with the Father.
This is what the expression “in My name” means, for we approach God the Father in no other way than through the Son.
Through Him, as it is written, “we have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18).
Therefore He says, “I am the door,” and, “I am the way; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 10:7; 14:6).
Indeed, since He is Son and God, He grants good things to the saints together with the Father and proves to be co-giver of blessing upon us.
So also the divine Paul set forth for us the clearest faith concerning this when he wrote: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 1:7).
And since He is called mediator, high priest, and advocate, He offers prayers to the Father for us, for He is the boldness of us all toward the Father.
Therefore prayers must be offered in the name of our Savior Christ. In that case the Father will receive them favorably and grant good things to those who ask Him, so that we may rejoice upon receiving them.
Filled with spiritual gifts, and having received from Him the rich gift of understanding through the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we shall struggle, and very easily, against every impious and vile pleasure.
Practicing ourselves in good in this way, striving with worthy zeal toward every virtue, and exerting our strength toward everything that brings sanctification to completion, we greatly rejoice in the hope of recompense.
Having cast aside every despondency that comes from a bad conscience, we make our mind fat with joys in Christ.
This was not customary among the ancients, for they did not concern themselves with this kind of prayer because of ignorance.
Now it is established by Christ, and with complete justice, since the time of correction has shone forth and through Him the perfection of every good has been introduced.
For as the Law brought nothing to perfection (Heb 7:19), and the righteousness attained by it was imperfect, so too the form of prayer remained imperfect.
This is perfect joy for us, and there is nothing greater than it: to enjoy God the Trinity, in whose image we were made.
"Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." But what is this? Not nothing. What, then? That your joy may be full, that is, ask for what will suffice you. For sometimes you ask for nothing: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again" (Jn 4:13).
For he lets down into the well the bucket of greed, draws it up, and drinks, only to thirst again. Ask that your joy may be full, that is, that you may not be thirsty continually, and not merely have your thirst quenched for a time.
Ask for what will suffice you. Speak with the voice of Philip: "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us" (Jn 14:8). The Lord says to you: "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9).
Therefore give praise to Christ, who became man for you in your weakness. Prepare your throat, that you may quench your thirst with the divinity of Christ.
"Until now," He said, "you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." The joy He calls full is understood to be not carnal, but spiritual joy. When it becomes such that nothing can be added to it, then precisely it will be full.
Everything we ask that pertains to the attainment of this joy must be asked in Christ's name. This is so if we have some understanding of divine grace, and if we truly thirst for the blessed life.
To ask for anything else is to ask for nothing. Not because it does not exist at all, but because everything else we thirst for is nothing in comparison with what pertains to the attainment of perfect joy.
For man himself is certainly nothing, of whom the Apostle says: "If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing..." (Gal 6:3). In comparison with the spiritual man, who knows that by the grace of God he is what he is, everyone who is self-confident in his vanity is nothing.
Therefore the words, "Truly, truly, I say to you: if you ask anything of the Father in My name, He will give it to you" (Jn 16:23), may be rightly understood in this way. The phrase "if anything" should not be taken as "whatever at all," but as "something that is not nothing in comparison with the blessed life."
What follows, "Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full," may be understood in two ways. Either: "You have not asked in My name, because you have not known this name as it should be known." Or: "You have asked nothing, because in comparison with what you ought to have asked, what you asked must be counted as nothing."
Therefore, so that in His name we might ask not for "nothing," but for full joy, He urges us with the words: "Ask, and you will receive. That your joy may be full." That is: "Ask in My name that your joy may be full, and then you will receive." For divine mercy will never deceive His saints in the acquisition of this good.
We must give thanks to God, who gives good things and delays wrath.
If He granted us to be with Him, we would consider this better and, at the same time, most pleasant.
If He delayed this, we would meekly reflect on chastisement. For He governs our affairs in a way certainly better than we can even imagine.
The halcyon is a sea bird. It usually builds its nests on the very shore, laying eggs in the sand, and hatches its young in the middle of winter, when the sea crashes upon the land with great and powerful winds.
Yet all the winds grow calm and the sea wave becomes still when the halcyon hatches its chicks for seven days, for during these calm days they come forth.
When they then need food, the abundantly generous God gives this small creature another seven days for the growth of its chicks.
All sailors know this and call those days “halcyon days.”
Thus it has been established by the providence of God concerning irrational creatures, in order to move you to ask God for what is necessary for salvation.
For what wondrous thing will not happen for your sake, you who were created according to the image of God?
If even for the sake of so small a bird the great and fearful sea is restrained, and in the midst of winter it is commanded to keep still, how much more will God give to those who cry to Him with all their heart?
“Until now you have asked nothing in My name.” It is true that the disciples acted in the name of Jesus Christ when He sent them and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal every disease and every infirmity (Mt 10:1).
But at that time they did not ask God the Father for this in the name of Jesus Christ.
“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full,” so that, knowing what power My name possesses, you may have perfect joy, that is, great and strong joy.
If they ask for what does not pertain to salvation, then they do not ask the Father in the name of Jesus. Therefore the Lord says to the same Apostles, who were still weak: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name.”
It is as if He had said clearly: “You have not asked in the name of the Savior, because you do not yet know how to seek eternal salvation.”
And on that day, when you see Me again, you will no longer ask Me to explain your perplexities. Then you will understand what I am now saying.
And then whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing, but then ask and you will receive what you ask, and your joy will be perfect.
“Until now you have asked nothing in My name.” “Until now” corresponds to the expression “in that day.”
Before the day of Pentecost, the Apostles and believers in Christ asked nothing in the name of Christ.
For the work of redemption had not yet been accomplished by Him, He had not yet fully entered into His glory, and He had not yet sent them another Comforter.
When all this was accomplished and the Holy Spirit was poured out upon believers, petition in the name of the Lord Jesus became possible.
They could ask in the name of the Redeemer of the world, to whom all authority in heaven and on earth had been given.
“Ask,” that is, in My name, “and you will receive.” This omnipotence, so to speak, of their prayer will cause their joy to be perfect and full.
We have already explained what it means to pray to the Father in the name of Christ Jesus (Jn 14:13-14).
Until then the Apostles had not offered prayers to the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus, because they saw in Him a great Teacher and a great Messenger of God.
Only rarely, and far too unclearly, did they see in Him the Mediator in whose name and in whose spirit they had to pray.
As the Advocate of God and men, He was revealed to the world by His sufferings, death, and Resurrection.
But they did not wish to believe that He would die an undeserved and shameful death.
Having foretold that His disciples would receive everything through prayer in His name, the Savior says to them, “Ask, and you will receive.”
Prayer in His name is His commandment. Why is this so?
Faith in His name is so necessary for the Christian soul that without this faith it cannot live, because it cannot live without the Savior of the world.
One must pray in His name because without His name the salvation of the soul is not accomplished.
“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” The purpose of the commanded prayer and of the fulfillment of prayer is this: “that your joy may be full.”
Ask in order to have full, pure, and perfect joy.
Prayer in the name of the Son not only grants what is desired, but also purifies the very joy over receiving what is desired.
In other words, it does not permit one to ask for anything that would not serve the soul’s pure and better joy.
What does it mean to ask in the name of the Lord Jesus? For simple, sincere, and humble hearts this is simple even without investigative explanation. It is either intelligible to them or perceptible.
“Your name is ointment poured forth” (Song 1:2), O Lord Jesus!
When ointment is poured forth, its fragrance spreads, and a sense of smell not dulled or suppressed receives, without artifice or effort, a sensation that delights and strengthens.
When the name of the Lord Jesus is poured forth in prayer, the fragrance of the Holy Spirit spreads from it.
Then the heart not weighed down by earthly attachments, and the inner sense not deafened by passions, easily and simply receives the sensation of grace, which delights and uplifts.
Thus the believing soul, in the name of the Lord Jesus and thereby in the grace of the Holy Spirit, draws near to the Heavenly Father.
With boldness it cries to Him, “Abba, Father,” and with childlike simplicity tells Him its petitions.
He graciously receives its petitions, accompanied by the intercession of His Only-begotten Son and of the consubstantial Spirit.
For the beginning of verse 23, see the interpretation under verse 22.
We see one example of the solemn fulfillment of this promise of the Lord in the ancient Church, for instance in Acts 4:24-31, or Acts 12:5 and following.
Yet this same fulfillment of prayers sent up to the Father in the name of the Son is the whole life of Christ’s Church together, and of its individual members in particular, even to this day.
This great promise, compare Jn 14:13, is still and forever the foundation of all our prayers.
It acts and will act in the Church of Christ wherever prayers do not cease and faith does not grow poor, for prayer signifies faith as well.
The Lord Himself teaches believers through the Spirit of God what they should pray for.
As the Apostle says, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings” (Rom 8:26).
The Lord says all this to the disciples in order to assure them that His departure and ascent to the Father are necessary for their happiness and joy.
“It is better for you that I go,” as He said above in verse 7 of this chapter.
The Lord not only offers the great Sacrifice. He also wishes to lighten for His disciples and witnesses the grief that falls to their lot, and He gives them the authority and right to commune with Him in prayer.
Some Western commentators note that the word “ask,” αἰτεῖτε, here, as in Mt 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you,” does not mean an occasional prayer.
It means one unceasing and constant prayer, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).
It passes through the whole of human life, serves as the bond between man and the Godhead, and expresses man’s striving to fulfill the will of God.
This prayer is sanctified by the Spirit of God and fulfilled according to the Lord’s word: “If you ask anything of the Father in My name, He will give it to you.”
“And your joy will be full.”
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 18 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS