In the equivalent passage in Matthew 7, “good
gifts” (v11) is substituted for the gift of the Holy Spirit: “If
therefore ye, being wicked, know [how] to give good gifts to your
children, how much rather shall your Father who is in the heavens
give good things to them that ask of him?” (v11). The setting in
Matthew is the so-called ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (see Matt. 5-7), and
the immediate context concludes with, “Therefore all things whatever
ye desire that men should do to you, thus do ye also do to them; for
this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7: 12). Those in view are
Jewish and the subject matter is the kingdom. While, as we know, the
King would be rejected, and the kingdom (in its political form)
postponed into the distant future, that crisis had not been reached
at this point in Matthew.
So why does Matthew
speak of “good gifts” instead of “Holy Spirit”? The gift of the
Spirit is not mentioned at all in Matthew, and the reason may be
because while the writer records the resurrection, he omits the
ascension. The Holy Spirit is given consequent to Christ’s
glorification (see John 7: 39), but in Matthew the Lord is presented
as remaining on earth with His own: “behold, I am with you all the
days, until the completion of the age” (Matt. 28: 20). The
expression “completion of the age” is unique to Matthew (see Matt.
13: 39, 40, 49; 24: 3) and the age referred to is concluded by the
return of the King to set up His kingdom. Hence Matthew is
distinctly Jewish in tone, and though the Assembly is mentioned (see
Matt. 16: 18; 18: 17), at the time, it would be
understood to mean no more than a called-out body within a wider
Jewish framework. To read our present knowledge of the Assembly into
Matthew ruins the coherence of his message.
Now the setting of
Luke 11: 13 is also Jewish. There the context is the
Lord teaching His disciples to pray (see v1), but the prayer He
gives them is not offered in the Lord’s name (as, following the
Lord’s glorification, it is now—comp. John 14: 12-14; 15: 16; 16:
23-26; Eph. 5: 20). Furthermore, the prayer is addressed to the
Father in heaven (a form of address never used in the
epistles), and requests forgiveness on the basis that we have
forgiven others (see v4). Hence, there is nothing in the prayer that
a Jew could not pray. It is the same heavenly Father who would “give
[the] Holy Spirit to them that ask him” (Luke 11: 13) and, with the
knowledge they had at the time, the disciples would see this as
being intimately connected with the ushering in of the Lord’s
kingdom. In Luke 24: 49, the Lord announces to them that “behold, I
send the promise of my Father upon you; but do ye remain in the city
till ye be clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24: 49). No doubt
the Lord’s words here would recall to the disciple’s minds what the
Lord had said concerning the Spirit in John 14-16, but Luke
leaves out what John records. Furthermore, since Luke 24: 49
only speaks of the Holy Spirit coming upon the
disciples (rather than being in them), the promise (as
recorded by Luke) remains in keeping with an expectation based on
Is. 44: 3; Luke 3: 16 etc. Of course, Luke’s Gospel should not be
read in isolation, for it has a sequel (the book of Acts). Perhaps
surprisingly, Luke’s Gospel mentions the kingdom almost as much as
Matthew, and this emphasis is continued into the book of Acts. Thus
while in Luke we get the kingdom presented and then rejected by the
Jew, in Acts the kingdom is re-offered (see Acts 1: 3;
3: 19-21 etc.)—in keeping with the parables of Luke 13: 6-9 (which
Matthew ignores) and Luke 19: 11-27. The references to the Holy
Spirit in Acts are quite in accord with this fresh presentation of
the kingdom—including Peter’s use of Joel 2: 28-31 in Acts 2: 16-21.
Now when the Lord
spoke in Luke 11: 13 of the Holy Spirit being available for the
asking, there is no reason to suppose that those who heard him
expected such a prayer to be granted immediately (any more than “thy
kingdom come” in v2 supposes an instant response). In the purpose of
God, the kingdom coming was a certainty, just as the Spirit being
poured out on Jacob’s seed (see Is. 44: 3) was also a certainty, but
the Lord also puts both as something to be desired and prayed for.
What were the disciples praying about when “they gave themselves all
with one accord to continual prayer” (Acts 1: 14), having been told
that “ye shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit after now not many
days” (v5)? I think they were praying for the kingdom and for the
Holy Spirit.
Now that the Spirit
has come, believers do not need to ask for Him to be given to them,
since, “because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son
into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4: 6), and we are “sons
by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 26). We have the Spirit because
we are sons, and we are sons because of our faith in Christ Jesus.
Nor can the Holy Spirit ever be lost to us, for the promise is,
“that he may be with you for ever” (John 14: 16).
