Who Art In Heaven. Part 2 of a Bible Study on the Lord's Prayer

(These are notes for a Bible Study on the Lord's Prayer, used at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Orlando FL)

Last week we started our study of the Lord's Prayer with "Our Father."

This week, let's look at the very next line -"Our Father, who (or which) art in heaven."

Perhaps the first thing that might jump out to us in this is the word, "Art."  

Art is something we hang on the wall, but we don't use that word in this manner much any longer.  As it appears here in the English Translation of the prayer, "art" is the “archaic present second person singular” of “to be.” 

The Lord’s Prayer with it's phrase “Our Father, who art in heaven,” can be a powerful reminder that God is a present tense God.

Some people put God in the future.  "Someday, when I'm old, I will turn to God, but for now I'm young and I'm having fun."

Or they put God in the past tense, "God spoke to Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Paul, but haven't heard from the Lord in a few centuries.  

Some think of God as outdated. 

For such as these, the God of the Bible is a past-tense God.

But the very name of God is present tense.  

Remember when Moses asked God about his name.  What was the answer?

God replied, “I AM WHO I AM … This is my name forever” (Ex. 3:14-15). 

Jesus told the Jews “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58), and their response was to pick up stones to stone him, for they correctly understood that Jesus had identified himself as the God who calls himself “I AM.”

And in Revelation 1:8 God declares “I am the Alpha and the Omega … who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

When we pray to “Our Father, who art in heaven,” we confess what Christians have always believed: God eternally exists. 

The God to whom we pray is present with us at every moment of our existence, wherever we are, whatever we are doing. Theologians speak of this attribute as God’s “omnipresence.”

Just as the God whose name is “I AM” transcends our understanding of what it means “to be,” so his attributes of presence, knowledge and power immeasurably exceed our finite grasp of those concepts. What we can know, with absolute assurance, is that the One to whom we pray has always been, will always be, and is at this moment present to his people.

When we pray to ‘Our Father, who art in heaven,’ we confess what Christians have always believed: God eternally exists.

Now what does it mean when we pray, "Our Father, who art IN HEAVEN?"

Yuri Gargarin was the first man in space.  He was a Russian, He beat Alan Shepherd, John Glenn and all the Americans - and he was a propaganda tool for the Soviet Union.  Remember that was in the Cold War, and the Americans and the Soviets were enemies AND rivals at everything.  So when the Russian cosmonaut was first in space, it was reported that he said he had looked for God in the heavens and did not see him.

Interestingly, it has been reported by friends of the cosmonaut that Gargarin never said that. Krucheif said it, not the cosmonaut, but it was a propaganda tool and it made its way all around the world.  The cosmonaut, it turns out, was a devout Christian, who rarely spoke about his faith until much later.

I look at the stars through my telescope and I can tell you, God is not there to be seen.  God being heaven does not mean, God is in space.

Where is God now?

Everywhere.  

To address God as "in heaven" is to acknowledge that God seems far away and distant.  It is to acknowledge that we cannot see God,  but it is also an affirmation of the closeness of God that he can hear our prayers.