Why Do People End Prayers with "In Jesus Name, Amen"?

In Jesus' Name, Amen

The following is a transcription of the video above in which Don Whitney discusses the reason for saying "in Jesus' Name, Amen" after we pray:

Well, we're told in John 14:16 Jesus says, "Whatever you ask in my name that will I do that the father may be glorified in the son." So, from that we realize that there's an explicit passage about praying in Jesus' name. But more importantly, the truth it points to is the larger truth found in the New Testament that we have access to God the father through Jesus. When Jesus was crucified, the veil of the temple was split in two from top to bottom. And Hebrews tells us that we then have access to God through the veil that is his flesh. So that veil, that several inches thick of material that separated the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God was manifest there over the arc of the covenant, only the high priest could go in. Only he once a year after a week's preparation, that now through the death of Jesus, anybody has access to God, but they must come through the veil of the flesh of Jesus, through the death of Jesus Christ.

So, our access to God is in coming through Christ and his righteousness. Hebrews says that we come in his blood. So, it is through the death of Jesus who we have access to God, and praying in Jesus name is a theological shorthand for expressing that. That we have no righteousness of our own, that God will receive us as it were covered in the blood of Christ. God will receive us having been United with Christ. And so.

To pray a prayer in Jesus' name is to recognize that we're coming in the righteousness of Christ, not our own. We don't deserve to be heard by God, but Jesus does. And we come in his name, we come presenting him and all that he is. It also means I think that we are coming and asking what we believe Jesus would ask if he were in our situation. So, that's true, that's a lesser truth to the greater truth, that we come in and through the righteousness of Christ, God hears us because of Jesus. So we'd come, "Father, would you hear this prayer? It's not because I deserve it, but I come in Jesus' name."

Photo Credit: Thinkstock/digitalskillet