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"Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou
God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you . . . . ."
(verses 23, 24).
Instead of God's name being sanctified by the sanctified people serving the Lord and
keeping the Law, rather was it being blasphemed through them. Obedience to the voice
of the Lord and the keeping of His covenant with them, would have constituted them a
"kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Exod. 19: 5, 6), but this covenant they brake.
Under the terms of the New Covenant there will yet be the fulfillment of this promise in
Exodus, and during the Acts period it was anticipated:
"Peter . . . . . to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus . . . . . ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye should
shew forth the virtues of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light" (I Pet. 1: 1; 2: 9).
During the future Millennium the promise will find its fulfillment, and then will the
Lord God be sanctified in His people, and the prayer, `sanctified be Thy Name',
answered in its fullness.
"For in mine holy mountain . . . . . saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of
Israel . . . . . serve me in the land . . . . . and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the
nations . . . . ." (Ezek. 20: 40, 41 R.V.).
"When the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their way . . . . .
and I scattered them among the nations . . . . . and when they came unto the nations . . . . .
they profaned my holy name . . . . . I will sanctify My great name, which hath been
profaned among the nations . . . . . and the nations shall know that I am the Lord . . . . .
when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes . . . . ." (Ezek. 36: 17-23 R.V. See
also Ezek. 39: 25-27, etc.).
The close connection of the clause `sanctified be Thy Name' with `Thy kingdom
come' and `Thy will be done', suggests when the answer to this part of the prayer will be
fulfilled. The will or wishes of the Father being done on earth will be when this kingdom
(the subject of the Lord's Prayer) shall have come, and at that time will the Father's
Name be sanctified. Heavenly conditions will then prevail on earth, "the kingdom of the
heavens" having come, and it will then be true to say, "as in heaven so also upon earth".
The Lord's Prayer, set as it is in the period immediately preceding the Millennium, calls
upon the one who needs "daily bread" and seeks deliverance from `the evil' of that day,
to look to the near future, when the present necessity will have passed. It bids him to
seek earnestly that day when the Name of the Father will be reverenced by obedience to
His wishes, and when He will be sanctified in His people.
It should be noted that although the answer to `sanctified be Thy Name' awaited a
future day for those addressed in I Peter, yet could it have a partial answer in the life of
an individual believer then. Writing to those who were "elect . . . . . through
sanctification of the Spirit" (1: 2), were a "holy nation" (2: 9) called by One Who Himself
was "holy" (1: 15), Peter exhorts holiness "in all manner of conduct" (1: 15), and that in
the midst of suffering they should "sanctify the Lord God" in their hearts (3: 14, 15).
This sanctification of the Lord in the heart may be something of which He alone was
aware, but it had the manifestation of a readiness to state the hope within (3: 15) in the