Tractates (Lectures) on the Gospel of John — Tractate 73

St. Augustine of Hippo

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4

The Lord, by His promise, gave those whose hopes were resting on Himself a special ground of confidence, when He said, For I go to the Father; and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it. His proceeding, therefore, to the Father, was not with any view of abandoning the needy, but of hearing and answering their petitions. But what is to be made of the words, Whatsoever you shall ask, when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, You ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. [[James 4.3]] What one, therefore, wishes to receive, in order to turn to an improper use, God in His mercy rather refuses to bestow. Nay, more, if a man asks what would, if answered, only tend to his injury, there is surely greater cause to fear, lest what God could not withhold with kindness, He should give in His anger. Do we not see how the Israelites got to their own hurt what their guilty lusting craved? For while it was raining manna on them from heaven, they desired to have flesh to eat. [[Numbers 11.32]] They disdained what they had, and shamelessly sought what they had not: as if it were not better for them to have asked not to have their unbecoming desires gratified with the food that was wanting, but to have their own dislike removed, and be made themselves to receive aright the food that was provided. For when evil becomes our delight, and what is good the reverse, we ought to be entreating God rather to win us back to the love of the good, than to grant us the evil. Not that it is wrong to eat flesh, for the apostle, speaking of this very thing, says, Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused which is received with thanksgiving; [[1 Timothy 4.4]] but because, as he also says, It is evil for that man who eats with offense; [[Romans 14.20]] and if so, with offense to man, how much more so if to God, to whom it was no light offense, on the part of the Israelites, to reject what wisdom was supplying, and ask for that which lust was craving: although they would not actually make the request, but murmured because it was wanting. But to let us know that the wrong lies not with any creature of God, but with obstinate disobedience and inordinate desire, it was not in swine's flesh that the first man found death, but in an apple; [[Genesis 3.6]] and it was not for a fowl, but for a dish of pottage, that Esau lost his birthright. [[Genesis 25.34]]