Mark 11:22–24
Jesus called the disciples to faith in God through him for salvation, service, and the advancement of his kingdom rather than Judaism. He called them to lives of robust faith (Mark 11:22–24). They would especially need faith to serve Christ during and after the crucifixion, when he was no longer with them, and after the fall of Jerusalem to Rome in 70 AD, which would be a profoundly discouraging time to most Jews in the early church. In Jewish culture, having the holy temple in the holy city was inextricably bound to serving God. To see it destroyed meant they would need monumental direction and encouragement that they and the kingdom would continue to thrive, so he assured them that faith in God would be enough.
Then, in 135 A.D., Emperor Hadrian put down the Bar Kochba revolt and attempted to totally remove any vestige of Jewish existence from the land. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed, many were sold into slavery, and were banished from the land. For those who remained, he banned the Torah and public observance of the Sabbath.
He changed the names of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitalina, and of Israel and Judea to Syria-Palaestina, which became known as Palestine. This is where calling Israel and Judea Palestine originated. Hadrian was not only changing names but also seeking to erase the existence of Jews from the land. The name comes from applying the name of Israel’s ancient enemies, the Philistines, to the land, as Palestine. The Philistines were not Middle Eastern or Arabic; they were European.
To strengthen the disciples, “Jesus answered saying to them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him’” (Mark 11:22–23). I do not believe the mountain to be merely hyperbolic. I understand this to be a literal mountain with metaphorical applications. Moving an actual mountain by faith transforms an impossibility for man into a possibility because of his faith in God, who can do the impossible (Mark 10:24–27).
The point is that if his disciples or future followers need that mountain removed to do what God called them to do, then God can move it. Further, not only is the Creator capable of rearranging his creation, he is willing to do so if a literal mountain actually needs to be moved to advance the kingdom. He would move it in response to faith. Thus, the resources needed to serve God are not diminished by the absence of the temple, Jerusalem, or the whole nation of Israel when we have faith. Rather, it is a lack of faith that hinders our service to God (Heb 11:6).
However, to limit “mountain” to just moving physical mountains would impose far more limitations on the passage than I think is warranted. If there ever has been or will be a point at which God needs to move a physical mountain for the spread of the gospel, it would be so rare to make the promise have painfully little real-life application. Consequently, I think it has a metaphorical application; see Zech 4:7 for an example.[1]
To understand it literally, with the metaphorical application, would include physical mountains as well as a host of other needs, difficulties, and problems that believers face. Such that could prohibit, severely hinder, or even make it more difficult than God wants it to be for that person at that time in carrying out the objective and subjective will of God, even if they are humanly impossible to handle. These situations are impossible from a human perspective, but with God, even what seems impossible becomes possible.
This understanding is the contextual backdrop for verse 24, which begins with the word “Therefore.” Based on what Jesus had said and what they had seen, this means the following is the proper understanding and result. Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you” (Mark 11:24). This promise is generally approached in one of three ways.
One: Some Christians approach it as a promise that, when we believe, claim it, and act as though we already have what we ask for, God will grant anything and everything we ask for, often known as “name it and claim it.” They view it as a virtually unlimited promise. Because of the wording of the promise, one is within their right as a Christian to put God in a box, or some would say God put himself in the box, so to speak, which means that God must grant this type of request regardless of what the request is because we believe we have received it. They emphasize that he includes “all things” so long as one believes and claims he has them, as though he does. Anything other than what is overtly sinful would generally be included.
Commenting on this passage, Kenneth Hagin says, “Anything God has provided for you is a free gift you can receive right now. You don’t have to wait . . . Because healing is also a free gift from God, you can receive healing right now.”[2] Joel Osteen says, “At the start of each new day, remind yourself: ‘I am talented. I am creative. I am greatly favored by God. I am equipped. I am well able. I will see my dreams come to pass.”[3] This Scripture is often cited as biblical grounds for claiming we can create our own reality. I think this perspective errs.
Two: Some Christians approach it more deterministically, although the deterministic emphasis is often difficult to detect. This view cautions that it is not a universal promise encompassing every desire a person might have, and it presents a determined, static view of God’s will. You have to look closely to detect the determinism. Here are a couple of examples of this perspective.[4] R. Alan Cole comments, “We cannot pray in faith for anything that we like. In this matter, Jesus was ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him’ and willing his Father’s will. That sort of prayer, if asked in faith, will always be answered, for it is praying that God’s will may be done (as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane)”[5] (italics added). First, note the caveat that “all things” does not include anything we like, a limitation with which I agree.
But the caveat only tells us what is excluded; it fails to tell us what is included. It seems that we should be able to glean at least a few things that are included from such a stunning promise that God will grant “all things.” But his wording that “Jesus was ‘thinking God’s thoughts,’” and that the sort of prayer Jesus was talking about is the one that “is praying that God’s will may be done” can easily leave his comment without anything to pray for or request other than “Your will be done.” Requests beyond praying for God’s static or determined will to be done mean little or nothing. Such seems to reduce “all things” that we might request to one static, determined, valid request; “Your will be done.” I agree that we should pray in the will of God, but I do not believe that reduces our prayers to what I think his words reduce them to.
John D. Grassmick says, “Jesus made this promise on the recognized premise that petitions must be in harmony with God’s will (cf. 14:36; Matt. 6:9–10; John 14:13–14; 15:7; 16:23–24; 1 John 5:14–15). This enables faith to receive the answers God gives”[6](italics added). Here again, we find the warning not to take “all things” to mean all things without limits, and I certainly agree. But notice he contends that Jesus made the promise based on the petitions being in harmony with God’s will. The purpose of being in harmony is so that the petitioner will have the “faith to receive the answers God gives.”
In other words, we learn that “all things” does not mean all things, but we do not learn what other things it might include, other than enabling petitioners to “receive the answers God gives.” Please reread the promise because, to me, it seems to be saying much more than merely what is necessary to receive God’s determined will. Notice the determinative implication of his words. It seems to reduce our part to praying in preparation for being open to receiving what God has predetermined he will do; therefore, it seems equivalent to praying “Your will be done” without needing to make our requests known.
This deterministic implication raises the question of just what we are supposed to believe we have received before God grants it. It does not appear to be our requests, as the verse says, unless we request what is already God’s determined will. But if God’s will is a static singularity that is determined, it seems like we are going to accept and obtain that anyway. Grassmick seems to reduce praying and believing our requests to nothing more than a mechanism to mold us so that we will receive what we are going to inevitably accept anyway, since God works everything according to his will (Eph 1:11).
But if everything is determined, is God not going to do his will anyway, even if we are not prepared through praying and believing? In the end, it seems we are left with a command to believe we have received “Your will be done” as if we have already received this inevitable outcome. If we are determined, or in a deterministic system such as Calvinism, that actually takes little faith. At least within Calvinism, there seems to be a lack of a clear explanation of how there can be true conditionals (as this very verse demonstrates there are), wherein it is God’s will to grant some requests if we ask, but not to grant them if we do not ask, thereby changing outcomes.
Well-known Calvinist pastor and commentator John MacArthur said, “Prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide for your selfish desires, but that it is both an affirmation of His sovereignty, righteousness, and majesty and an exercise to conform your desires and purposes to His will and Glory.”[7] While I agree that prayer is not to provide for our selfish desires (Jas 4:3), and that prayer affirms God’s character, his explanation leaves no room for conditionals, which are clearly in Scripture and in this passage.
Further, his statement makes prayer only a determined vehicle to conform us to God’s determined will. But it is repeatedly confirmed throughout Scripture that praying the conditionals of Scripture is God’s will and does bring him glory (John 14:13). This emphasis on determinism is consistent with Calvinism, although Calvinists often speak inconsistently with Calvinism’s compatible moral freedom, as though prayer and choice can change some outcomes. That is to say, they frequently talk like man has libertarian freedom (conditionals really are conditionals), which Calvinism in doctrine utterly rejects.
A conditional statement is a statement or command with a stated or implied corresponding dependent outcome. In the case we are studying, it pertains to prayer. God says, “If you ask, I will answer.” Further, conditionals commonly portray people as being able to act or refrain. Concerning prayer, this means that his people can ask or not ask, and their choice determines the outcome. Therefore, some present or future results will be different because we pray than if we do not. None of this reflects the true micro-determinism of Calvinism; they use the same words but mean a very different thing. Prayer may be part of the determined process to reach the predetermined outcome, but no one can actually choose to ask or not ask unless they are determined to do so; therefore, their actions do not and cannot change the predetermined outcome.
The thing determinism promises to be given (God’s will) if we pray and believe is precisely the same thing we are going to receive if we do not pray and believe. I do believe God works all according to his will (Eph 1:11), but I do not believe that the absolutely static, predetermined presentation of his will is thoroughly biblical, because such a view reduces conditionals, like the one in this verse, to non-conditionals. As previously stated, a conditional is a statement or command with a stated or implied corresponding dependent outcome. The outcome depends on whether the person meets the condition, which they can choose to do or not. If you ask (condition), I will give this to you (action). The outcome is certain if we meet the condition; if the condition is unmet, God withholds the promise. That is the will of God.
In the verse we are considering, the condition is “All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them,” and the outcome or promise is, “and they will be granted you” (vserse 24). Therefore, if you meet God’s condition, he will grant your request, but if you do not, he will not, which does not seem to be true if our request is reduced to “Your will be done.” I am not suggesting that we are to pray outside the will of God or that God is doing something outside of his will, but, instead, that God’s will includes real conditionals. As such, if we ask believing, he will grant them because that is his will, or if we do not ask believing, it is equally his will not to grant them. Expanding “all things” so broadly that we can create our own reality seems to make God’s will conform to our will, whereas the determinist’s language seems to reduce the conditional promise to grant “all things” to a non-conditional “Your will be done.”
Three: Other Christians approach it from the perspective of what I might call cautiously expansive. There is more emphasis on the place of faith and the true nature of conditionals in prayer without the recognizable determinism. James A. Brooks comments on verses 23–24, saying, “The faith Mark seems to have had in mind is not that which is needed to work spectacular miracles but to accomplish the Christian mission . . . The statement is not to be universalized and applied without exception, but neither is it to be localized and confined to the original disciples or ignored as having no practical value. Faith is an indispensable element in answer to prayer.”[8]
He includes the needed caveat against overstating the promise, but he also gives a broad practical purpose for the promise “to accomplish the Christian mission.” He further clarifies that the promise is not limited to the apostles but extends to all of us who endeavor to follow Christ faithfully. I agree with what Brooks has presented, but I would like to expand on his insight so we can begin to see the full weight and application of the promise, given the nature of conditionals.[9]
Conditionals are commands or statements that promise an action if a condition is met. This verse fits that definition. Christ conditions it generally on praying and asking, but specifically on our belief that we have received what we ask for before we receive it. Of course, this conditional promise would need to be in God’s will. The real question is not whether we are to pray according to the will of God, but what has God comprehended in his will? What do we mean by the will of God? Is God’s will static and determined, or does the will of God include conditionals within his permissive will? It seems to include both determined events and conditionals, as is seen throughout Scripture. We see God’s permissive will, in which we find conditionals, when he permits people to do what is undeniably against his best for them, or when he grants something because they asked.[10]
Conditionals in Scripture tell us that it is insufficient only to pray “Your will be done” because how does believing we received it for God to grant it have any real meaning if we only pray “Your will be done?” In accordance with the nature of conditionals, we are to pray about all things (Phil 4:6), believing we received them, which meets the condition of the promise given. All things seem to include all things in Scripture (God’s objective will for all) and his specific will for each individual that is not explicitly mentioned in Scripture (God’s subjective will for the individual). His personal or subjective will would include such things as personal ministries, jobs, health, marriages, dating, education, childrearing, where to live and go to church, and personal planning about one’s day. God’s subjective will for the individual is not in contradiction to his objective will or in place of it, but, instead, it is in addition to it. It is personal. For example, God commands everyone to pray (objective will), but he does not lead everyone to live in the same neighborhood or go to the same mission field (subjective will).
The question we leave to God is whether he has made what we are asking for conditional. Mark 11:24 is definitely conditional; if we ask believing as though we have already received it, God grants it. If we ask without believing as though we have received it, he does not grant it. But the uncertainty lies in whether what we specifically ask for (within his subjective will for us) is conditional or determined. Our humility in prayer stems from the fact that we do not know everything God may have determined or made conditional. Thus, praying as though we have received it is not something that grants us demand status, cornering of God, or a magical formula. It is the confidence that we will receive what we ask for if we believe we have received it, provided God designed what we are praying about to be conditional. Conversely, given the nature of biblical conditionals, we know that if we fail to ask for something he has made a conditional, it is his will to withhold from us what he would have granted if we had asked.
Another requirement God places on receiving our prayer requests is “whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:22). One of his commandments found in this context is to forgive (Mark 11:25–26), without which we cannot receive his answer to our prayers (Matt 6:14). God grants requests of those who love him as evidenced by keeping his commandments (John 14:15) and freely choose to do things that are pleasing in his sight, such as spontaneous acts of worship, praise, thanksgiving, serving, and a heart to glorify him in even the most mundane things (1 Cor 10:31).[11] This interpretation highlights the relational nature of salvation and prayer.
Consequently, I believe when we combine praying in light of conditionals, believing we have received what we ask before God grants it, and praying within his will, which includes his permissive will, we can pray believing God will answer our prayer, provided the event we are praying about was established by him to be conditional. While I can know the conditionals recorded in Scripture, I cannot know with the same assurance all the others that may exist. In other words, I can know all the conditionals of his objective will (Scripture for all people all the time), but I cannot know what they are according to his subjective will (what he desires to do in an individual’s life). Therefore, I can know that this verse (Mark 11:24) is conditional, but I cannot know whether the specific request I am making in applying this promise is conditional unless it is delineated in Scripture.
The believing prayer of a devoted follower of Christ, as commanded in our verse, would at least include a heart reflective of these ideas and might sound something like this. Lord, without any doubt, I believe right now, before I see the result of my prayer, that if you have made the event I am praying about conditional, you will grant my request. I believe I receive that answer before I can see or demonstrate it. But God, I know that only you know whether you have made the event on my heart and lips a conditional. Therefore, I close my prayer of believing requests with “Your will be done.”
Notice that kind of heart and prayer includes all the components of God’s plan for praying. We pray as one who desires to honor him with our heart and life (1 John 3:22), and we make all our requests known (Mark 11:24; Phil 4:6), believing we have received what we ask for before we receive it (Mark 11:24), leaving whether our request is a conditional or not with God (1 John 5:14), and rightly closing with “Your will be done” (Matt 26:42).
Observe the place of “Your will be done.” If it comes first in our prayers, we will be more likely to ignore the other components God taught and commanded, as mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. But coming last means that if God made and included in his will that our request is conditional, he will grant our request because we asked. But, if we pray “Your will be done” first, without making our requests known, we may very well be asking him not to grant our heartfelt but unspoken request because while, with conditionals, his will is to grant our believing request, it is also his will to withhold things he knows we want but did not believingly request.
Two final thoughts: first, these components are not legalistic steps, but rather they are relational. They flow from the new life Christ has given us and, therefore, are not a legalistic burden but rather a way to experience God more consistently and powerfully (1 John 5:3). Prayer is, at its core, a relational practice between God and his followers. Second, it seems that one sure implication of this promise is that we should not worry about what we prayed about once we have prayed believing.
We may be led by God to continue praying about it in accordance with the biblical emphasis upon persisting in prayer (Matt 7:7; Luke 11:5–10; 18:1–18), but that is quite different from worrying about what we have prayed for in faith, because if it is designed by God to be conditional, he will answer. However, God may impress us not to continue praying because we are to believe we have received it; we do not normally continue to ask for what someone has already given us, and the same applies to this kind of praying.
[1] “A mountain is sometimes a symbol of difficulty. The fall of Jerusalem was a difficulty for the church as well as the synagogue,” James A. Brooks, Mark in The New American Commentary 23 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1991), 183.
[2] Kenneth Hagin, “Faith Brings Results!,” https://www.rhema.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1026:faith-brings-results&catid=46&Itemid=141. See also The Agony of Deceit edited by Michael Horton and Christianity in Crisis by Hank Hanegraaff for more on misdirected creative faith.
[3] Joel Osteen, Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day (New York: Howard, 2007), 22–23.
[4] My intention is not to superimpose determinism on Cole and Grassmick’s comments, but simply to explain how they are reflective of and consistent with determinism. Both are Calvinist commentaries.
[5] R. Alan Cole, “Mark,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, edited by D.A. Carson, et al., 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity, 1994), Logos electronic edition, 968.
[6] John F. Grassmick, “Mark,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, edited by J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, 2:158–59. See also William Hendriksen’s comment; “The dramatic figure, in the light of its context, which speaks of faith and prayer, must mean, therefore, that no task in harmony with God’s will is impossible to be performed by those who believe and do not doubt . . . . We should not try in any way whatever to minimize the force of this saying and to subtract from its meaning.” I appreciate his acknowledgment that “no task in harmony with God’s will is impossible” if we believe and do not doubt, but I think he still fails to clearly indicate that some things are conditional so that our prayers change some outcomes from what they would be if we did not pray. Hendriksen continues, “It should be borne in mind that such praying and asking must, of course, be in harmony with the characteristics of true prayer which Jesus reveals elsewhere; in fact, it must be in line with all of scriptural teaching.” William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Gospel According to Mark, New Testament Commentary, vol 10 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1975), 459–61. He then provides the essentials of praying in the will of God; however, his words, again, give the caveat, with which I agree, but seem to lack a clear indication that “anything” refers to conditionals, or if there are true conditionals; more precisely, if we pray, it is the will of God to answer, and if we do not, it is his will to withhold. Therefore, his will is not static.
[7] John MacArthur, @MastersSeminary, “Prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide for your selfish desires,” Twitter post, November 21, 2020, 12:04 PM, https://twitter.com/MastersSeminary/status/1330210615785365504?s=20.
[8] James A. Brooks, Mark in The New American Commentary 23 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1991), 182–83.
[9] My expansion on his comments is not to imply my take would be his, but only to say his language suggests an even broader application than we might first think.
[10] While Calvinism speaks of God’s permissive will, it lacks any essential difference from his decretive will, which includes man being endowed with compatible moral freedom; consequently, God’s permissive will is no less determined than everything else in man’s world. Whereas, true conditionals actually result in a different outcome if we pray than if we do not pray, and since man is endowed with libertarian moral freedom, he can actually choose to pray or not to pray.
[11] Other things mentioned with regard to answered prayer include a humble and sincere heart and mind (Matt 6:5–6), not doubting (Jas 1:6), perseverance (Matt 7:7; Luke 18:1–18), desiring the will of God (Mark 14:36; 1 John 5:14), walking according to his Word (1 John 5:1–3), asking in Christ’s name (John 16:23), and married men treating our wives as joint heirs (1 Pet 3:7).
