I was looking at the Lord’s Prayer in the original Greek this morning and noticed a misconception that the English translation may encourage, which was certainly compounded by a theological misunderstanding from the 1960s and 1970s.
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. Matthew 6:9b-13
The Lord’s prayer, King James Version.
I remember being told in sermons and reading in various commentaries that the Lord’s prayer is intended to change us, so that we do God’s will; in effect when we pray “Thy will be done” we are praying for God’s will to be done through us, so that we can build the kingdom of heaven on earth. This was actually a misconception of 1960s and 70s social justice theology, which was still being preached in Anglican and Episcopalian churches even as late as the 1990s.
Social justice theology preached that we were the agents of God’s will being accomplished here on earth - in a sense they were saying that our job was to accomplish God’s kingdom on earth. In many ways they pushed the supernatural dimension out, and replaced it with such things can be accomplished here by human hands and human will.
However when I was looking at the Greek today I noticed something about the original Greek of “Thy will be done”: the word ‘done’ in that phrase is not ἐποίησεν epoiésen made/done from ποιέω poiew to make/to do (from which we actually get the English word ‘poem’, meaning something that is made); ποιέω would be the Greek word that is the New Testament word more usually behind the word ‘done’ in English, but γενηθήτω genéthétw become/come-to-be/happen from γίνομαι (or γίγνομαι in Homeric Greek) meaning happen/come to be/come into existence.
And γενηθήτω is in the 3rd person singular aorist passive imperative form.
γίνομαι carries the sense of something being created, or something born, something that comes into existence, something that arises or develops or arrives. It is a different emphasis from ποιέω poiew which has a much more definite element of effort/doing/making something.
This means emphatically that we ourselves are not the agent: because γενηθήτω genéthétw is in the passive form, what we are asking is for the Father’s will to come-to-be/happen/come-into-existence on earth as it is in heaven, and the implication is that it is God alone who can make this happen, not us.
It is interesting to look at the eight occurrences of γενηθήτω genéthétw in the New Testament; I have listed them below. I think it is pretty clear in some of the examples that the recipient of the action is not the one who does the action.
It is God who does the action, and the recipient of the action is completely passive.
This is very important: when we are praying the Lord’s prayer, we are praying for God to do His will on earth as in heaven, for His kingdom to come.
We will not be the ones doing this, God will be the one doing this.
I don’t know about you, but I find this completely liberating, because it doesn’t depend upon us. Through the obedience of faith in Jesus we will be in the Father’s kingdom, and we will be participating by walking in the good deeds God planned for us already: sowing God’s word or bringing in the harvest of the gospel, or blessing others, but we are not in any way the ones who make it happen.
It is God alone who can bring His kingdom into being on earth, as it is in heaven.
Now of course we mustn’t forget there is a sense in which we can be Jesus’ hands and feet, visiting the sick, preaching the gospel, suffering persecution, carrying our crosses, loving others, doing God’s will, but even in these things, God’s presence is not something we can will into existence. God’s presence is something God alone can accomplish, something He pours out in His Spirit. It is not something we can accomplish by any good works or effort, and in the Lord’s prayer, we are not praying this way: we are praying for a miracle, a divine intervention, really, that God Himself will bring His will and His kingdom into being.
γενηθήτω (genēthētō) — 8 Occurrences
Matthew 8:13 V-AMP-3S
GRK: ὡς ἐπίστευσας γενηθήτω σοι καὶ
As you have believed, so will it be done for you.
CONTEXT
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came and pleaded with Him, “Lord, my servantc lies at home, paralyzed and in terrible agony.”
“I will go and heal him,” Jesus replied.
The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell one to go, and he goes; and another to come, and he comes. I tell my servant to do something, and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those following Him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! As you have believed, so will it be done for you.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.
Matthew 9:29 V-AMP-3S
GRK: πίστιν ὑμῶν γενηθήτω ὑμῖν
According to your faith will it be done to you
CONTEXT
As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
After Jesus had entered the house, the blind men came to Him. “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” He asked.
“Yes, Lord,” they answered.
Then He touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” And their eyes were opened. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one finds out about this!” But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout the land.
The others are much the same; you can look the references up if you wish.
Matthew 15:28 V-AMP-3S
GRK: ἡ πίστις γενηθήτω σοι ὡς
NAS: is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.
Matthew 26:42 V-AMP-3S
GRK: αὐτὸ πίω γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά
NAS: I drink it, Your will be done.
Luke 11:2 V-AOM-3S
GRK: βασιλεία σου γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά
KJV: will be done, as
These two examples are examples of judgement; again God is the agent, not human will.
Acts 1:20 V-AMP-3S
GRK: Βίβλῳ Ψαλμῶν Γενηθήτω ἡ ἔπαυλις
NAS: let his homestead be made desolate,
Romans 11:9 V-AMP-3S
GRK: Δαυὶδ λέγει Γενηθήτω ἡ τράπεζα
NAS: let their table become a snare
I kinda always said it like "THY will be done.(ie. not MY will".)...which to me indicated that God is in control of all things, and I need to stop thinking and doing what I think he wants or what I myself want...
Does that correlate at all?