Calling on the Name of the Lord

A Biblical Theology of Prayer

Gary Millar, D. A. Carson, D.A. Carson, D. A. Carson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780830826391
• eBook ISBN: 9780830893980
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Preaching's 10 New Books Every Preacher Should Read

"At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD" (Genesis 4:26 ESV).

From this first mention of prayer in the Bible, right through to the end, when the church prays "Come, Lord Jesus!" (Revelation 22:20), prayer is intimately linked with the gospel—God's promised and provided solution to the problem of human rebellion against him and its consequences.

After defining prayer simply as "calling on the name of the Lord," Gary Millar follows the contours of the Bible's teaching on prayer. His conviction is that even careful readers can often overlook significant material because it is deeply embedded in narrative or poetic passages where the main emphases lie elsewhere.

Millar's initial focus is on how "calling on the name of the Lord" to deliver on his covenantal promises is the foundation for all that the Old Testament says about prayer. Moving to the New Testament, he shows how this is redefined by Jesus himself, and how, after his death and resurrection, the apostles understood "praying in the name of Jesus" to be the equivalent new covenant expression. Throughout the Bible, prayer is to be primarily understood as asking God to deliver on what he has already promised—as Calvin expressed it, "through the gospel our hearts are trained to call on God's name" (Institutes 3.20.1).

This New Studies in Biblical Theology volume concludes his valuable study with an afterword offering pointers to application to the life of the church today.

Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

Chapter One

The day prayer began: prayer in the Pentateuch

The day prayer began

The early chapters of Genesis are critical for any discussion of biblical theology. It is here – in creation, Eden and beyond – that the building blocks for understanding the storyline of the Bible are found. And it is here (not surprisingly) that prayer begins.

Where is the first prayer in the Bible? Sometimes it is suggested that the conversations between Adam, Eve and God in Eden are prayer. But the text does not present them in this way – they are described using the normal language of conversation.1 In the same way that the relationship with God is not explicitly described as a ‘covenant’ because ‘covenant’ categories in the Old Testament are generally pressed into service when God is initiating steps to restore a broken relationship, these pre-fall, natural conversations are not described as ‘prayer’.2 Nor are any of the interactions surrounding Cain and Abel’s sacrifices called prayer.3 It is only when we come to the end of Genesis 4 that we find anything that looks unambiguously like prayer.

Genesis 4:25–26 states:

And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.’ To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.4

This is the day that prayer began.

The key phrase is ‘at that time, [men] began to call upon the name of Yahweh’. The construction emphasizes that this moment saw the definite beginning of something new.5 However, in the flow of Genesis the most significant question is surely why this new beginning is sign-posted here. Why is the beginning of prayer triggered by the birth of Enosh? This is an intriguing question.

There seems to be no intrinsic significance attached to Enosh himself.6 He plays no part in the unfolding narrative, and after this is mentioned only in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1. So we must look elsewhere for a rationale. Commentators have often noted the apparently inexplicable inclusion of this note after Cain’s family tree in Genesis 4; so von Rad: ‘The notice about the beginning of the Yahweh cult is strange and cannot be rightly explained.’7 Those who have tried to explain the phrase have generally done so as a comment on the development of ancient religion (e.g. Wenham, Westermann et al.), although Calvin tried to trace it back to the godly parenting of Seth.8 On the whole, however, there has been little or no attempt to root this phrase in its theological context of the early chapters of Genesis.

In the immediate context I would argue that the focus of the unfolding narrative is fixed firmly on the importance of descendants – or, to be more exact, on which descendant would be the recipient of Yahweh’s blessing. This dynamic is clearly present in the Cain and Abel narrative. However, I would go further and suggest that as early as 3:15 the search is on for one particular ‘offspring’ (zera‘).9

Within the narrative world of Genesis 1 – 11 it is likely that the fulfilment of promise of 3:15 is to be sought, in the first instance at least, in one of Adam and Eve’s own children. The tension of the narrative at the beginning of chapter 4 is predicated on the fact that the reader wants to know if either Cain or Abel could be the ‘serpent crusher’ of 3:15. The shock factor, then, flows from the fact that Abel, the godly offspring, is terminated (thus instantly obviating any claim to be the offspring), while the murderous Cain remains. Given how the narrative unfolds in Genesis, it is conceivable that a murderer would be part of the line of promise – however, at this stage of the primeval history the emphasis is not on the universal sinfulness of humanity, but on the determination of God to keep his promise, which brings us back to 4:25–26.

After the Cainite genealogy ‘closes off ’ the significance of this part of the family for the unfolding plan of God (in exactly the same way as the genealogies of Ishmael and Esau do later in the book), the birth of Seth in 4:25 instantly eases the tension. It is, however, extremely surprising that Seth receives no more attention in the narrative. His sole contribution to the developing story is to father Enosh. This strange omission is barely discussed in the literature.

The simplest explanation of the passing reference to Seth is that he is of limited significance to the flow of Genesis because (whether or not he is godly) he shows no sign of doing anything resembling crushing the head of the serpent. He comes, and he goes – however, he does produce a son, Enosh. And Enosh’s contribution to the narrative? It is a case of like father like son, as he too simply comes and goes.

This means that, theologically speaking, the context of the innovation of 4:26 is one of salvation-historical anticlimax. There is a growing sense that the promise of 3:15 may not be fulfilled immediately. The expected offspring is clearly neither Cain, nor Abel, nor Seth, nor Enosh. It seems that at this point the realization begins to dawn on the Adamic community that the fulfilment of promise may take some time. In context this is the most natural explanation of the fact that Enosh’s birth leads to people ‘calling on the name of Yahweh’.

Calling on the name of Yahweh

At this point we do need to spend a little time teasing out the precise nuance of the phrase ‘calling on the name of Yahweh’. One key lexicon suggests that this denotes ‘entering into an intensive relationship as someone who calls’.10 However, this seems to be overreaching slightly. On the other hand, Clowney reduces the significance of the phrase to ‘calling his name aloud’.11 This seems reductionist. So what is the import of this phrase?

The simple answer seems to be that it refers to crying out to God in prayer. The beginning of the post-Eden ‘conversation’ between humanity and God begins with ‘crying out to God’ (or ‘calling on the name of Yahweh’). This, then, I would argue, provides us with a biblical-theological definition of prayer. This is supported by the other Old Testament occurrences of the phrase.12

There is substantial discussion on the significance of the slightly circumlocutory expression ‘the name of Yahweh’. Essentially, ‘the “name of the LORD” (yhwh) is metonymical for the nature of the Lord’.13 However, the precise nuance of the use of this phrase has to be determined by biblical usage, rather than general Hebraic (or ANE) usage.

When this phrase is used in the Old Testament, it is asking God to intervene specifically to do one thing – to come through on his promises.14 In Genesis 12:8 and 13:4 Abram ‘calls on the name of Yahweh’ at key moments in the narrative – modelling a ‘faith response’ to God’s promises and showing that as he moves into the land he does so relying on Yahweh himself to do what he has said. Similarly in 21:33, at the climax of the agreement with Abimelech the Philistine (which leads both to Abraham’s receiving the title to the well at Beersheba and the neutralizing of the Philistine threat to his ‘occupation’ of the land), Abraham plants a tamarisk tree and ‘calls on the name of Yahweh’. In the only other occurrence in Genesis Isaac responds to Yahweh’s reiteration of the covenant promises in 26:24 by building an altar at Beersheba and ‘calling on the name of Yahweh’. To call on the name of Yahweh in Genesis, then, is to respond to God’s promise-making initiative by asking him to act to fulfil his promises.

This is also the case in the rest of the Old Testament. Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:24 (‘And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God’) fits neatly into this pattern. It is also clear that (1) Elijah understands this phrase as describing prayer, and (2) the prayer he prays revolves around God’s promises to the patriarchs:

And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, ‘O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ (1 Kgs 18:36–37)15

In the prophetic literature it is equally clear that ‘calling on the name of Yahweh’ is not a vague term to cover all kinds of interaction with the divine – it is intimately connected with Yahweh’s declared plans to rescue his people and to act in judgment and salvation. Isaiah 12:3 sets the tone:

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day:

‘Give thanks to the LORD,

call upon his name,

make known his deeds among the peoples,

proclaim that his name is exalted.’

In fact ‘calling on the name of Yahweh’ is the definitive mark of the people of God. This can work negatively (see Jer. 10:25) or more positively:

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (Joel 2:32)

For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech,

that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord.

(Zeph. 3:9)

They will call upon my name,

a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Short Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Series preface
• Author’s preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: prayer and the gospel
• 1 The day prayer began: prayer in the Pentateuch
• 2 Big prayers and the movements of history: prayer in the Former Prophets
• 3 Praying in the light of the future: prayer in the Latter Prophets
• 4 Praying for a new covenant: prayer in the Writings
• 5 The psalms, the Messiah and the church
• 6 Jesus and prayer: prayer in the Gospels
• 7 The church at prayer: prayer in the book of Acts
• 8 Church planting and prayer: prayer in Paul’s letters
• 9 The end of prayer: prayer in the later New Testament
• Afterword: why this matters – (re)learning to pray big prayers
• Bibliography
• Index of authors
• Index of Scripture references
• Titles in this series
• Notes
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright Page