From: The Lord’s Prayer by Adolph Saphir. (Aaron Adolph Saphir (26 September 1831 – 4 April 1891) was a Hungarian Jew who converted to Christianity and became a Jewish Presbyterian missionary).
What is meant by praying in Christ’s name? It cannot mean to simply mention the Name of Christ at the end of our prayer, or appearing before God with faith in the mediation of the Saviour. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He gave them no rules about prayer but He supplied them with petitions. And afterwards Jesus said to them, “Until now you have asked nothing in My Name.” Until the Spirit came, the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer laid as it were dormant within them. When by the Holy Spirit Christ descended into their hearts, they desired the very blessings which Christ as our High Priest obtains for us by His prayer from the Father. And such petitions are always answered. The Father is always willing to give what Christ asks. The Spirit of Christ always teaches and influences us to offer the petitions which Christ approves of and presents to the Father. To pray in Christ’s Name is therefore to be identified with Christ for our righteousness, and to be identified with Christ in our desires through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. To pray in the Spirit, to pray according to the will of the Father, to pray in Christ’s Name, are identical expressions. The Father Himself loves us, and is willing to hear us.
Our two intercessors, Christ the Advocate above, and the Holy Spirit, the Advocate within, are the gifts of His love.
This view may appear at first less consoling than the more frequently used one, which refers to prayer in Christ’s Name chiefly to our trust in Christ’s worth and accomplishments. The defect of this opinion is, that it does not combine the intercession of the Saviour with the will of the Father, and the indwelling Spirit’s aid in prayer. Nor does it fully apprehend the mediation of Christ; for the mediation consists not merely in the fact that, for Christ’s sake, the Holy Father is able to regard me and my prayer; but also, in the fact that Christ Himself presents my petitions as His petitions, desired by Him for me, even as all blessings are purchased for me by His precious blood.
In all prayer, the one essential condition is that we are able to offer it in the name of Jesus, as according to His desire for us, according to the Father’s will, according to the Spirit’s teaching. And thus praying in Christ’s name is impossible without self-examination, without reflection, without self-denial; in short, without the aid of the Spirit.