<p>6:10&nbsp;<em>Your Kingdom come-&nbsp;</em>Greek scholars have pointed out that some phrases in the Lord's prayer show a remarkable lack of etiquette and the usual language of petition to a superior; literally, the text reads: &quot;Come Your Kingdom, done Your will&rdquo;. Is this part of the &quot;boldness&quot; in approaching God which the NT speaks of? That God should encourage us in this (although He also encourages us in reverential fear of Him) reflects something of His humility. The Kingdom of God refers to that over which God reigns. We are &ldquo;a colony of Heaven&rdquo; in our response to His principles (Phil. 3:20 Moffat). We are to pray for His Kingdom to come, so that His will may be done on earth (Mt. 6:10). The Kingdom and the doing of His will are therefore paralleled. His Kingdom reigns over all in Heaven, for there, all the Angels are obedient to Him (Ps. 103:19-21). By praying for the Kingdom to come on earth we are not only praying for the Lord&rsquo;s second coming, but for the progress of the Gospel world-wide right now. Not only that more men and women will hear it and respond, but that those who have accepted it might work God&rsquo;s will rather than their own to an ever greater extent. Whether or not we can physically spread the Gospel is in this sense irrelevant; our prayer should be, first and foremost if the pattern of the Lord&rsquo;s prayer is to be taken exactly, for the triumph of the Gospel world-wide. It has been pointed out by Philip Yancey that &quot;Thy Kingdom come!&quot; was violently in conflict with the Roman view that the lives of a subject people like Israel belonged to Caesar's kingdom.</p>
<p>&quot;'Your kingdom come!' is therefore a word of defiance; to pray it is a subversive activity. This is also how the authorities understand the ministry of Jesus: it is subversive and not to be tolerated&quot; (Philip Yancey,&nbsp;<em>The Jesus I Never Knew</em>&nbsp;(Harper Collins, 1998). The word&nbsp;<em>basileia&nbsp;</em>translated &ldquo;Kingdom&rdquo; definitely brought to mind the imperial reign or empire of Rome. Thus Hal Taussig comments: &ldquo;Whenever anyone in Jesus&rsquo; time used the term &ldquo;basileia&rdquo;, the first thing people thought of was the Roman &ldquo;kingdom&rdquo; or &ldquo;empire&rdquo;. That is, &ldquo;basileia&rdquo; really meant &ldquo;Roman empire&rdquo; to most people who heard it&hellip; It was to many ears a direct insult to the Roman empire. Uttered in the presence of Roman soldiers, such a prayer could have gotten [a person] in immediate trouble&rdquo; (Hal Taussig,&nbsp;<em>op cit</em>&nbsp;pp. 21,96). And so with us, the seeking of the future Kingdom is a radical denial of the spirit of our age, which seeks its Kingdom now; it demands a separation from the world around us. The well-known description of the Kingdom in Is. 2:1-4 is in the context of appealing to Israel to change their ways. Because they would&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;walk in the ways of the Lord, therefore &quot;O house of Israel [therefore] Come ye [now] and walk in the ways of the Lord&quot; (2:5). The hope of Israel ought to motivate Israel to live the Kingdom life here and now.</p>
<p><em>Your will be done- A</em>gain using an aorist which demands a one-time fulfilment- in the sense of 'May Your will come about...'. The will of God is often associated with His ultimate plan of salvation (e.g. Eph. 1:5-12; Col. 1:20). It has been pointed out that &quot;Hallowed be Your Name&quot; is (grammatically) a request for action, rather than simply an expression of praise. Jesus prayed this in Gethsemane and it cost Him His life. We know from the Old Testament that God in fact &quot;hallows&quot; His own Name (Ez. 20:41; 28:25; 36:22,23; 38:16; 39:27). By asking God to &quot;hallow&quot; or sanctify / realize that Name in our lives, we are definitely praying in accordance with His will. He wishes to do this- and so He will surely do this in our lives if we ask Him. All the principles connected with His Name will be articulated in our lives and experience for sure if we pray for this- for we will be praying according to His revealed will in His word. And the ultimate fulfilment of all this will be in final coming of the Kingdom. But see on 7:21.<br />
In interpreting the Sermon on the Mount, we need to look for similar phrases within the Sermon in order to grasp the sense the Lord was seeking to develop. And we have just such a connection of though here when we observe that the Sermon concludes with an appeal to 'do the will of My Father' (7:21; and the theme continues in the Lord's teaching, e.g. Mt. 12:50; 21:31; Lk. 12:47). We are praying therefore not only for Christ's return when the literal coming of the Kingdom on earth will mean that God's will shall be done on earth. We are asking for the principles of God's rulership / Kingdom over men (as outlined in the Lord's parables of the Kingdom) to be manifested in our lives; and for strength to do God's will on earth here and now. In probing deeper how the Lord understood the Father's will, we find the term&nbsp;specifically and repeatedly linked with the salvation of persons, supremely enabled through the Lord's death (Mt. 18:14; Jn. 6:39,40; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:5). We would therefore be justified in seeing this request for the Kingdom to come and [in parallel] God's will to be done as a request for the successful spreading of the Gospel worldwide (see note on &quot;in earth&quot; below). The coming of the Kingdom and the doing of God's will are in parallel- the coming of the Kingship of God in human life means that humans do God's will as taught by the Lord in the Sermon. Of course, the final physical coming of the Kingdom is also in view, but that is the final manifestation of the process which is now ongoing in human hearts. This more internal, spiritual interpretation of the coming of the Kingdom would be in line with the rest of the Sermon, which emphasizes the rule of Divine principles in the deepest parts of the human heart.</p>
<p>This phrase occurs verbatim on the Lord's lips when He Himself prayed in Gethsemane &quot;Your will be done&quot; (Mt. 26:42). So often we find the Lord Himself being the embodiment of His own teaching in the Sermon. The difficulty with which the Lord said those words shows how hard it is to really pray 'the Lord's prayer'. The way it can be rattled off so quickly is tragic.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>On earth as it is in Heaven</em>- Gk.&nbsp;<em>epi</em>&nbsp;the earth, as the will of God is now done in (Gk.&nbsp;<em>en</em>) Heaven.&nbsp;<em>Epi</em>&nbsp;in this context has the sense of being spread throughout; whereas&nbsp;<em>en</em>&nbsp;more simply and directly means &quot;in&quot;. Is there a hint here that we are to be praying for the success of the geographical spreading of the Gospel of the Kingdom throughout the earth? Not just knowledge of that Gospel, but people actually submitting to God's Kingship and living by Kingdom principles; not just baptisms but transformed lives. By doing God's will as it is now done in Heaven, we are developing outposts of God's Heavenly Kingdom here on earth, and this will come to term in the return of Christ and the more physical establishment of the Kingdom on the planet, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, in every fibre of earthly existence.</p>