Luke 11:2 “So He said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
The context of the above quoted passage of scripture is that the Lord’s disciples had asked Him to teach them how to pray. And so in response to their request we have recorded in scripture the passage that is very often referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. In this prayer our Lord gave us some insight into the will of God; for in this passage we see that the Lord’s instruction to His church is that we should pray that our Father’s will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven. And so clearly our Lord is implying that God’s will that is done on the earth is different to God’s will that is done in heaven, for if that were not the case then our Lord would never have instructed us to pray in this manner. So what is the difference between the implementation of God’s will in heaven and the implementation of His will on the earth? Simply put, God’s perfect will is done in heaven whereas God’s permissible will is done on the earth. The reason that God’s perfect will is done in heaven is because there is no opposition to His will, for all of creation in heaven as an act of their free wills, are fully submissive to His will. Clearly that is not the case on the earth however, for most of mankind rebel against God’s perfect will being done in their lives. And so it is for this reason that the Lord has encouraged us to pray that heaven’s standard would also be applied on the earth, i.e. that men would submit themselves to God’s will. As an aside, the reason I have entitled this section “God’s will in eternity” and not “God’s will in heaven”, is because in a similar manner to God’s perfect will being done in heaven, His perfect will is also applied to His creation under the earth, with a bit of a twist. So what do I mean by that statement? Under the earth men are held in Hades in torment against theirs wills, nevertheless because God no longer permits them to exercise their free wills, the resulting outcome is that under the earth God’s perfect will is being done by default. And so we see that the reason our Lord instructed us to pray that God’s will would be done on the earth as it is in heaven, is because it is the Lord’s desire that men on the earth willingly submit to God’s will as in heaven, and not be forced to do so as under the earth.
Michael E.B. Maher
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