“Usque modo non petistis quidquam in nomine meo : petite, et accipietis, ut gaudium vestrum sit plenum.”
“Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
“Until now you have not asked for anything in My name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”
“Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.”
“Hitherto 2193, 737 have ye asked 154, 3756 nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made full.”
Hitherto you have not asked any thing in my name: by the merits of me, your Mediator and Redeemer. They were not yet acquainted, says St. Cyril, with this manner of praying and petitioning, as they were afterwards. (Witham)
2. Here is an invitation for them to petition. It is thought sufficient if great men permit addresses, but Christ calls upon us to petition, v. 24.
Verses 23-27 Asking of the Father shows a sense of spiritual wants, and a desire of spiritual blessings, with conviction that they are to be had from God only. Asking in Christ's name, is acknowledging our unworthiness to receive any favours from God, and shows full dependence upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness. Our Lord had hitherto spoken in short and weighty sentences, or in parables, the import of which the disciples did not fully understand, but after his resurrection he intended plainly to teach them such things as related to the Father and the way to him, through his intercession. And the frequency with which our Lord enforces offering up petitions in his name, shows that the great end of the mediation of Christ is to impress us with a deep sense of our sinfulness, and of the merit and power of his death, whereby we have access to God. And let us ever remember, that to address the Father in the name of Christ, or to address the Son as God dwelling in human nature, and reconciling the world to himself, are the same, as the Father and Son are one.