Prayer Is and Should Be Trinitarian
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Like every other Catholic child growing up in the 1960s, I learned the sign of the cross as a standard way of beginning prayer. It involved both action and words. You made a simple motion, first touching your forehead (saying, “In the name of the Father”), then your chest (“. . . and of the Son”), and finally your left and right shoulders (“. . . and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”). I confess I hadn’t thought about this since I was a boy, but it came back to me recently as I was writing on Trinitarian prayer. If nothing else, I was trained very young to think that prayer involved the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This was a gracious gift of God, even though it made little impact at the time.
After decades of reading the Bible, following Jesus Christ, and participating in countless worship services, I am more convinced than ever that prayer is and should be Trinitarian. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every single prayer must reference the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But for prayer to be truly Christian, it must consistently bear witness to the three-in-one.
The Trinity in Creation and Redemption
The reason prayer is essentially Trinitarian is because, according to Scripture, everything is Trinitarian. Genesis 1 and John 1 bear witness to the activity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in creation.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:1–2)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1–3)
Praying in Public
Pat Quinn
Praying in Public by Pat Quinn is a comprehensive guidebook designed to help readers think about, prepare, and pray biblically rich, gospel-centered prayers as an act of corporate worship.
Second Thessalonians 2:13–14 and other passages similarly show Trinitarian cooperation in the work of salvation.1
But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thess. 2:13–14)
John Frame nicely summarizes the mutual deity and work of the Trinity in creation and salvation: “All three stand together as Creator and Savior. Scripture joins them together in contexts of praise and thanksgiving. They are the ultimate object of the believer’s trust and hope. What else can they possibly be, other than one, somehow threefold God?”2
The Trinity and Prayer
This Trinitarian mutuality impacts public prayer in two ways. First, each member of the Trinity is intimately involved in the very act of praying. As the old saying goes, we pray to the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Spirit. Paul Miller helpfully elaborates on the mysterious Trinitarian interplay in the act of praying:
Even now I often don’t realize that I am praying. Possibly, it isn’t even me praying, but the Spirit. Paul said, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). The Spirit is not assisting us to pray; he is the one who is actually praying. He is the pray-er. More specifically, it is the Spirit of his Son praying. The Spirit is bringing the childlike heart of Jesus into my heart and crying Abba, Father. Jesus’s longing for his Father becomes my longing. My spirit meshes with the Spirit, and I, too, begin to cry, Father.3
While Miller is talking about the Trinity moving us in personal prayer, the same is true in public prayer. The Holy Spirit moves leaders to prepare and pray Christlike prayers to the Father on behalf of his gathered children.
The Holy Spirit moves leaders to prepare and pray Christlike prayers to the Father on behalf of his gathered children.
Second, since the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equally divine and essential for our salvation, it makes perfect biblical, theological, and practical sense that we would refer to each of them in prayer. Notice how Paul does this in Ephesians 3:14–19. He prays to the Father that the Ephesians would be strengthened by the Spirit so that the Son would dwell in their hearts by faith. This kind of Trinitarian prayer is not simply a formula to follow; it is the natural movement of a mind instructed in gospel truth and a heart enflamed by gospel grace.
While the normal practice for Christians is to pray to the Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit, it is also biblical on occasion to address Jesus in prayer (John 14:13–14). Praying to the Holy Spirit (as opposed to “in” the Spirit—see Eph. 6:18; Jude 20) seems more problematic. There is no biblical precedent for praying directly to the Holy Spirit, and for good reason. He is the most self-effacing member of the Trinity who loves to point to Jesus and apply his work to our lives. But it is also true that he is equally God and worshiped with the Father and the Son. And as it can be said of the Father and Son, so also of the Spirit: without him we would still be dead in our sins and totally unable to pray at all. Therefore, it is appropriate to praise the Holy Spirit and to occasionally petition him in public prayer. Keith Getty’s hymn “Holy Spirit” begins, “Holy Spirit, living Breath of God, breathe new life into my willing soul.”4 Getty’s thoughts on the song are relevant to addressing the Holy Spirit in prayer: “‘Holy Spirit’ is the final hymn I wrote with Stuart Townend as part of the Apostle’s Creed album we created in 2005. In this particular song, we desired the hymn to function as a sung prayer about the Holy Spirit’s renewing power.”5
Matthew Henry’s prayer of adoration is a good example of Trinitarian prayer:
We pay our homage to three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: for these three are one. We adore thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth; and the eternal Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was God, by whom all things were made, and without whom was not anything made that was made. . . . We also worship the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, whom the Son has sent from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, and who is sent to teach us all things, and to bring all things to remembrance.6
Henry’s prayer concisely exalts the Father as the “Lord of heaven and earth,” Christ as “the eternal Word . . . by whom all things were made,” and the Holy Spirit as “the Comforter . . . sent to teach us all things.” The mind is enlightened and the heart enflamed in praise to the glorious three-in-one. This is the goal of good public prayer.
Notes:
- See also Rom. 1:1–6; Gal. 3:10–14; Eph. 1:3–14; Col. 1:3–8; 1 Thess. 1:1–5; Titus 3:4–7.
- John Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002), 643.
- Paul Miller, A Praying Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009), 64–65.
- Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, “Holy Spirit” (Getty Music Label, 2019).
- Keith Getty, quoted in Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters (blog), August 10, 2012, worshipmatters.com/2012/08/10/holy-spirit-breath-of-god-gettytownend-hymn/.
- Matthew Henry, A Method for Prayer, ed. J. Ligon Duncan (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1994), 24–25.
This article is adapted from Praying in Public: A Guidebook for Prayer in Corporate Worship by Pat Quinn.
Related Articles
Matthew Y. Emerson, Brandon D. Smith
The eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit is the grounds for our communion with him and one another. Our triune God, simple and perfect for all of eternity, has always been the one God.
Avoiding Heresy When Explaining the Trinity
There are better ways and worse ways to explain the Trinity. We can describe a pie chart where we split God up into parts, and this is one of the worst ways to explain the Trinity.
Prayers of Old Remind Us That We Are Not Alone
Looking at prayers that came from those before us was just an opportunity for me to personally dive into where the church has been and to understand that we’re not alone.
Podcast: A Guide for Weary Pray-ers (Doug O’Donnell)
Doug O’Donnell discusses the new Daily Liturgy Devotional, sharing how he really wrote the book for himself first and foremost, and how it has impacted his devotional life recently.
