All of what we talk about, both conditional prayers, the condition (if you ask) and the consequence (I will do), along with events that are determined, are included in what is called praying in the will of God (Eph 1:11; 1 John 5:14–15; 3:22). In Pt I, I give two examples of conditional praying, and then in Pt II we will delve more deeply into what it means to pray in the subjective will of God and to pray conditional prayers.
I John 5:14-15 A Prayer Promise: “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him” (1 John 5:14–15).
Now let me mention the context of this promise.
Verses 1–5 of this chapter, John emphasizes that Christians are loved by God, love God, keep his commandments, love other believers, and overcome because we believe in Jesus.
Verses 6–13 give evidence that Jesus, in whom we have placed our faith, is the true Savior, the Son of God. A form of the word “testimony” appears nine times in verses 6–13; thus, verses 6–13 provide sufficient evidence that Christ is the one true Savior from God. The water (baptism), blood (cross), and the Holy Spirit speak in unison that Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Of this, we should have no doubt!
The concluding verse says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13; emphasis added). This verse tells us why John provided evidence that Christ is the true Son of God. So that we who put our trust in him can know we have eternal life. Through John, God emphasizes not only that Jesus is his Son and Savior of the world, but also that his people have eternal life. It is not an “I hope I do” type of salvation, but an “I know I do” salvation. The inward testimony of this salvation is that when we have the Son, we know and cannot deny we have him (in a way that is believable to ourselves if we are truly saved), and with him is eternal life (John 1:4). The inward witness of salvation cannot be proven to someone else, but neither can it be believably denied by the one who has the Son.
Verses 14-15 bring us to the promise regarding prayer (vs. 14-15). John assures believers that our prayers are answered, just as he gives confidence that we can know Jesus is the Savior and be secure in our salvation. Therefore, he can say, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him” (1 John 5:14–15). The promise he hears us (vs. 14) is not just hear in the sense of being aware of what we are saying, but it is the idea of answering favorably (John 9:31; 11:41–42).
Accordingly, in the way we can know with absolute assuredness we have eternal life (vs. 13), we also can know that he answers our prayers that are in his will (vs. 15). Of this, there is no doubt. On several occasions, Jesus indicates that he or the Father will do whatever we ask if we ask it in his “name” (John 14:13–14; 15:16; 16:24, 26), keep his commandments (1 John 3:22), ask in faith (Mark 11:24), and abide in him (John 15:7). We are also told that our prayers must be in the power of the Holy Spirit (Eph 6:18; Jude 20). The reason for these conditions for effective prayer is that prayer is believers’ relational communing with the Trinity, a holy experience reserved for those who are saved and seeking to walk with God.
Verse 16, God’s promise about prayer is followed immediately by John’s words concerning praying for an erring Christian brother or sister (vs. 16). God promises to bring a sinning brother or sister back into fellowship, so they do not die but live.
But also notice the limitation. It is limited by a sin that leads to death. This sin can be so destructive that God must protect the church in an extraordinary way, as he did with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11). It could refer to the unpardonable sin, which a person who has just heard the gospel or someone outwardly active in the church but not actually saved could commit. The unpardonable sin is the final rejection of Christ with full illumination and revelation of the Holy Spirit, after which there is no possibility of repentance and faith (Matt 12:30–32; 21:33–46; Heb 6:1–8; 10:26–27).
He does not forbid praying for someone who commits a sin unto death. He just says that is not the people he is talking about praying for. The ones he refers to are those who are sinning (present tense, which means continuous action). What we don’t want to miss is this. John just promised that God hears our requests and answers them (vs. 14–15), and now he provides a great example: if we ask God to give life or to bring a sinning brother into fellowship, he will work in his life. We can be assured of this. I do not always know the time, nor do I know if the sinning one is a brother or, as Paul mentions, “a so called-brother” (1 Cor 5:11). I do know that if I see a sinning brother, and he is not committing a sin worthy of immediate judgment (which only God can know), God desires to restore him to the abundant life and will work in his life if we pray.
This verse illustrates how we can pray for others and how God will work in their lives. Therefore, when we pray for the lost or for the restoration of a Christian, we can know we are praying in God’s will because God desires all to be saved (1 Pet 3:9), and this promise regarding the restoration of an estranged brother. But when we come to God in prayer, we must come in faith. Jesus says in Mark 11:24, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Believe is a present tense and imperative mood verb. He commands the disciples, and us by application, to believe what we pray, that God is able and will do what we ask. We ask in his will, believing that our requests will be answered before we see the evidence of it. As Alfred Plummer notes regarding 1 John 5:14–15, “Our petitions are granted at once: the results of the granting are perceived in the future.”[1]
Understanding this type of promise does not hinge merely on whether we pray according to his will to be answered, since, in light of what I mentioned above, that seems to be a given. Rather, as I understand it, why would we think that someone who did not desire to follow our Lord’s commands, pray in the name of Jesus, and pray according to God’s will should be granted an answer to his requests other than acceptance of his confession and repentance (1 John 1:9)? Instead, the question that must be asked to understand this promise is, what is the will of God? What is encompassed in God’s will that would cause us to expect him to grant our requests? We must answer that question to understand this type of prayer promise and the place of conditionals in our prayers. In this promise, God gives his assurance to answer our prayer with the same assurance that when we believe in Christ, we are eternally saved. The condition of whether he grants this promise is contingent upon our asking him to do so.
This is similar to other conditionals in Scripture; for example, James, when he says, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:5–6). A conditional promise from God implies that if we do not ask, God does not give us the promise. If we think that God gives us the promise regardless of whether we pray or not (that he gives the promise when we do not pray), then there is no point to a conditional. The verb ask in James is in the present tense, indicating that not only is it a conditional that we do not receive wisdom if we do not pray, but our prayer for wisdom is not a one-time prayer for wisdom but a repetitive act of asking for wisdom for each instance that we need wisdom; ask is also in the imperative mood, meaning that it is a command. My next post will continue this theme.
[1] Plummer, The Epistles of St. John, 121.
