John Calvin, having written about the content, rules, and purpose of prayer, as well as the incitements to prayer and the importance of praying in the name of Jesus, along with the parts and goal of prayer, turns to an exposition of the Lord's Prayer, both as a set prayer in and of itself and as a model for all other prayer.

"Now, moreover, we must learn not only the way of praying but the method and model which our heavenly Father has given us by His most dear Son our Lord Jesus Christ."

"The first three petitions are particularly destined to seek God's glory, which alone we ought to consider in these petitions without any regard for ourselves. The other three petitions contain particularly the things which we ought to ask for our needs."

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition, translated by Elsie Anne McKee (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 477, 478, emphasis added.

Calvin then enters upon a line by line exposition of the Lord's prayer, which I highly commend to you, but from which I can now share with you only a sentence or two about each line.

Our Father who is in heaven (pp. 479-482)

"All our prayers must be presented and addressed to God in the name of Jesus Christ, as none can be pleasing to Him by any other name. For in the fact that we call God our Father we are addressing Him in the name of Jesus Christ, since we could not call God our Father and it would be arrogance and rashness to usurp the name of His children if we were not made children of His grace in Jesus Christ. Christ, being His true, natural, and proper Son, has been given to us by Him as Brother so that what Christ has by nature may be ours by gift and adoption, if we accept this great benefit with sure faith." (p. 479)

The First Petition: Your name be sanctified (pp. 482-483)

"Thus thanksgiving is contained in this petition. For since we ask that God's name may be hallowed we are ascribing to Him the praise of all good things, affirming that all is from Him, and recognizing His graces and benefits toward us by which He deserves to be considered holy." (p. 483)

The Second Petition: Your kingdom come (pp. 483-484)

"So we pray that . . . more and more every day our Lord may increase the number of His subjects and the faithful by whom He is glorified in every way, and that in those whom He has already called into His kingdom He may distribute and multiply ever more abundantly his graces." (p. 484)

The Third Petition: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (pp. 484-485)

"Praying in this way we renounce all our wicked desires, leaving and abandoning to God all our feelings, and asking Him not to make things happen according to our desire but according to what He sees and knows to be good, and thus what pleases Him." (p. 484)

The Fourth Petition: Give us today our daily bread (pp. 485-487)

"By this petition we put ourselves in His charge and set ourselves in His providence to be nourished, maintained, and preserved by Him. For this very good Father does not disdain to take even our bodies under His protection and safeguard in order to exercise our faith in these lowly and little things, when we expect from Him all that we need, down to a crumb of bread and a drop of water." (p. 485)

"The fact that it says "Give us" is to signify that from whatever place or by whatever means we have this bread, it is always the pure and free gift of God, even if it has come to us by the work of our hands, whether by our ability and activity or whatever it may be." (p. 487)

The Fifth Petition: Forgive us our debts as also we forgive our debtors (pp. 487-488)

"We must willingly take away from our heart all wrath, hatred, and desire for vengeance, and forget every harm and offense which has been done to us, keeping no ill will against anyone." (p. 488)

The Sixth Petition: Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil (pp. 488-490)

"God tempts in one way and the devil in another. For the devil tempts in order to destroy, damn, confound, and wipe out. God, on the contrary, tempts in order [to] test the sincerity of His servants by testing them, and to increase their spiritual strength, and to put to death, purify, and burn away their flesh by exercising it." (p. 489)

For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory to the ages of ages. Amen. (pp. 490-491)

"We see that all that we ought and also all that we are wholly able to ask of God, is described and contained in this prayer, rule, and method of praying, which is offered to us by our good master Jesus Christ, who was ordained by the Father as our Teacher and whom alone He wants us to hear and obey. . . . This prayer is so perfect and complete that every other thing which one may add, which is not related to it, is against God and will never be granted to us by Him." (p. 491)

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