LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 353

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
So—why should I pray? What is the purpose of prayer? To summarize,
for Luther in The Large Catechism it is a four-fold answer. We should pray, first,
because God has commanded it. Like all of God’s commands, this command is
not to be taken lightly, since it is accompanied by serious warnings and threats
of punishment for those who disobey. But for the Christian—for the one who
knows this demanding God also as loving Father in Jesus Christ—there is also
reason to rejoice in this command. We know God really does want to hear our
prayer, and accepts it despite our unworthiness, and that He will use it to help
us in our ongoing efforts and struggle to live a life that is pleasing to Him and
beneficial to others.
We should pray, second, because God has promised to hear and answer
our prayers. God does not lie: not once has He broken even one of His many
promises. So we can be sure, with Christ as our guarantee, that He will keep
this promise as well, regardless of whether His answer to our prayers always
corresponds to our human desires or expectations.
We should pray, third, because God has put into our very mouths and
hearts the words we are to use: above all, the Lord’s Prayer, but along with
it and encompassed in it every other God-pleasing expression of praise and
thanksgiving, petition and intercession, confession of sin and profession of
faith.
And we should pray, finally, because of our many needs (and the needs
of others, which, through love, become our needs and burdens as well). In
the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer “are comprehended all the needs that
continually beset us, each one so great that it should impel us to keep praying
for it all our lives.”70 At the same time, they ought to remind us every day of
the tender mercy and abundant grace of our heavenly Father, who has promised to supply our every need “according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”
(Phil. 4:19).

Prayer and the paradox of influencing an immutable God
Even in light of the foregoing discussion, questions remain about the
purpose of prayer that stretch and even surpass the limits of human understanding. It is clear that prayer helps and benefits us for the reasons discussed
above: it drives us to God’s Word and promises in Christ, it reminds us of
our dependence on God and our constant need for His help, forgiveness, and
deliverance. It provides us with a powerful weapon to use against the devil,
the world, and our flesh. It prods us to reflect not only on our own needs but
on the needs and burdens of others in the church and in the world. It gives us
a means of exercising and expressing our faith in the One who has created,
redeemed and sanctified us. Prayer, when we use it properly and faithfully,
surely changes us. Does it, however, actually “do something” to influence
God’s divine will, plans, decrees, intentions, and actions?
70

LC 3, 34, KW, 445.

Discussions of God’s attributes invariably include reference to His
divine immutability, based on scriptural statements such as “I the Lord do
not change” (Mal 3:6) and “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of
man, that he should change his mind” (Num. 23:19; cf. 1 Sam. 15:29). “Jesus
Christ,” says the author of Hebrews, “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (13:8). And yet some of the most moving and memorable accounts of
“the power of prayer” in the Bible seem to suggest that God does, at times,
“change His mind” in response to the passionate and persistent pleas of the
people He loves. In Genesis 18, for example, God is portrayed as sincerely
open to the possibility of being dissuaded from destroying Sodom in response
to Abraham’s intercession on its behalf. Sodom is destroyed not because God
is unwilling to consider “changing His mind,” but because not even ten righteous persons could be found within its gates. In Exodus 32:7–10, after the
golden calf incident, God clearly reveals to Moses His intention to destroy the
nation of Israel. When Moses begs for mercy on Israel’s behalf, however, “the
Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people”
(Ex. 32:14).
The first part of Joel 2 describes in horrifying detail the destruction that
God has planned for Judah on the great and awful “day of the Lord.” But
the last half of the chapter suggests that sincere pleas for forgiveness may
bring about a change of God’s heart: “Who knows whether he will not turn
and relent, and leave a blessing behind him?” (Joel 2:14). The prophet Jonah
actually becomes “disgusted” with God (see Jonah 4) because of His failure
to make good on his threats of judgment against Nineveh. “When God saw
what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the
disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it” (Jonah
3:10). Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells King Hezekiah: “You are going to
die; you will not recover” (Is. 38:1). Hezekiah prays, and Isaiah returns with
this message from God: “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will
heal you. . . I will add fifteen years to your life” (2 Kings 20:5-6). The prophet
Jeremiah speaks repeatedly of Yahweh’s willingness to “relent of the disaster
that I intended” if only Israel will “return” to Him and “amend” its ways and
deeds (Jer. 18:9–11; cf. Jer. 22:1–5). In the New Testament, James summarizes
this biblical evidence with a strong assertion about the power of prayer, and
adds his own Old Testament example:
The prayer of a righteous person has great power in its effects.
Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves, and he prayed
fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six
months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and
the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.
(James 5:16–18, RSV)
In an intriguing and insightful article titled “Pastor, Does God Really
Respond to My Prayers?” Reed Lessing reminds us that when the Bible speaks
of God “changing His mind,” it is making use of metaphorical language to

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help us understand the true nature of God.71 Metaphors convey essential
truths about God in the Bible, but “all metaphors have inherent in them continuity with the subject depicted, as well as discontinuity. Thus every metaphor
speaks both of a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’—an ‘is’ and an ‘is not.’”72 The key is to recognize both the “yes” and the “no” of the metaphor in question.
These texts from Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, 1 Samuel,
Jeremiah, Joel, and Jonah affirm two complementary aspects in
the Old Testament portrait of Yahweh. First, the unchangeable
nature of Yahweh assures us that we are not in the hands
of an unstable force. His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob form the backbone of the Biblical narrative. This is an
“everlasting covenant” (Gen. 17:7). No one and nothing will
separate Yahweh’s people from His love. This is the “no” of
the metaphor. Yahweh’s faithfulness to His people and to His
ultimate purposes knows no change. He is “God and not a
man.”73
On the other hand:
The “yes” of the metaphor indicates that we are not in the
hands of an unfeeling ironclad deity. Yahweh is a person and as
such enters into a real relationship with His creation in which
His love compels Him to be responsive to people. Although
He must punish those who do not believe, we may rest in the
knowledge that we are in a relationship with a compassionate
God who is ready and willing to change prior decisions in
order to demonstrate His perfect love. This is particularly clear
within texts where Yahweh’s change is rooted in His attributes
of deep compassion. The “yes” is that Yahweh is a relational
God.74
Lessing points to Luther’s catechisms as evidence that “the Reformer
rejects both extremes” in approaching the question of whether and/or how we
can speak of prayer as having the potential to “change God’s mind.” Writing
with deep pastoral concern, Luther “is careful not to raise doubts in the minds
of those being catechized regarding the goodness of God and His revealed
promises that he does hear and answer prayer.” Luther insists that “‘the
prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective’ (James 5:16) not because
71
Reed Lessing, “Pastor, Does God Really Respond to My Prayers?” (Concordia Journal 32:3
[July 2006]), 271. Note also Lessing’s excursus, “When Yahweh Changes a Prior Verdict,”
in Jonah (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007), 324–341; and Walter A. Maier, Jr. in
Concordia Theological Quarterly, vol. 68:2 (April 2004) titled “Does God ‘Repent’ or Change His
Mind?” (127–144); and Paul R. Raabe, “When Yahweh Repents,” Logia 16 (2007), 31–34.
72

Lessing, 262.

73

Ibid., 268.

74

Ibid.

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it is logically compatible with the doctrines of foreknowledge, predestination,
and the like, but because this is what the Scriptures teach.” Key to Luther’s
understanding of this apparent paradox, says Lessing, is “his understanding
of Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus.”
Luther teaches that God’s foreknowledge is utterly certain and
His will absolutely immutable. He places this understanding
of God under the title Deus absconditus—the hidden God. From
this perspective God is beyond dealing with; He is hidden in
his majesty. But in grace and mercy this same God comes to
us as Deus revelatus—the revealed God through Scripture and,
climactically, through His Son Jesus.75
For Luther—as for us!—this was no mere “theoretical” issue. Lessing
refers to the occasion when Luther prayed fervently that his dear friend Philip
Melanchthon’s life would be spared.76 In this case, Melanchthon was healed.
This moving personal story shows that Luther was himself fully convinced
that God hears and answers the prayers of His people.
God does not, however, always answer affirmatively, for God’s immutable will is “good and gracious.”77 He knows our need better than we, so He
often does not give what we are longing and asking to receive. This does not
mean He is unresponsive or that He does not hear our prayers. God is always
responsive to His people’s prayer and all of His responses flow from His love. In a
well-known biblical example, Paul prayed for God to relieve a condition that
plagued him—”a thorn in my flesh”—and God answered, not with changing his condition, but with the gracious Word, “my power is made perfect in
weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7-10). In such a way God does His good and gracious will
in answer to our prayers also.
Thus, we return to the kinds of questions pastors often hear: “Pastor,
should I pray for my daughter to be healed, for this drought to end, and for my
employer to increase my salary?” Lessing’s suggested answer is a good one:
Dear parishioner, our God loves us so much that we can
confidently believe any number of Biblical promises and
narratives that prompt us to ask the Father, for the sake of His
Son Jesus, to reverse a prior decision (cf. 2 Cor. 12:7–10). And,
who knows, perhaps for the sake of Jesus He may reverse a
sickness, an infertile womb, a fractured relationship. But if not,

75

Ibid., 270.

76
Letter 290 to Mrs. Luther from Weimar, 2 July 1540, AE 50: 206–210 (WA Br 9.168); AE 4:266;
cf. Lessing 272, fn. 51.
77
“The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer, but we pray in this
petition that it may be done among us also” (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation [St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1991], 20).

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2013 Convention Workbook