Campbell, J: New Light on the Old Prayer (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from New Light on the Old Prayer

The invocation of this beautiful prayer is, Our Father which art in heaven. It teaches the indi vidual and universal fatherhood of God to each be liever who prays, and to all humanity. Succeeding petitions indicate that the sphere of supplication and the scope of expectation is the whole world. The' solidarity of our race is found in its federal relation to Adam, its progenitor, and to Jesus Christ, who in a very real sense is the Saviour of all men, though specially of them that believe. Of Adam's one blood, St. Paul told the Athenians, God made all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and of that Adam St Luke has these words, Which was the son of God. Israel knew the father name and applied it in a restricted national sense. In Moses' wonderful song appears this question relative to the Lord Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? David blessed the Lord before all the congregation, saying: Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our father! And in Psalm ciii. We read the comforting words Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lordpitieth them that fear him. Isaiah breaks in upon a confession of great sin With the cry: But now, 0 Lord, thou art our father; and, to the same clear eyed prophet, the child born and the son given is one with the Everlasting Father. But he seems to give the Father name a wider range, when he represents men as protesting: Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. Yet these expressions are rare. The Israelite was slow to grasp the divine fatherhood even for himself, and slower to apply it to all nations of mankind.

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