Ask and You Shall Receive: What Does John 16:24 Mean?

John 16:24, “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” (King James Version)

Also see the meaning of Love the Lord Your God to learn more.

Ask and You Shall Receive: Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

16:23-27 Asking of the Father shows a sense of spiritual wants, and a desire of spiritual blessings, with conviction that they are to be had from God only.

Asking in Christ’s name, is acknowledging our unworthiness to receive any favours from God, and shows full dependence upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness.

Our Lord had hitherto spoken in short and weighty sentences, or in parables, the import of which the disciples did not fully understand, but after his resurrection he intended plainly to teach them such things as related to the Father and the way to him, through his intercession.

Also see the meaning of If God Is For Us to learn more.

And the frequency with which our Lord enforces offering up petitions in his name, shows that the great end of the mediation of Christ is to impress us with a deep sense of our sinfulness, and of the merit and power of his death, whereby we have access to God.

And let us ever remember, that to address the Father in the name of Christ, or to address the Son as God dwelling in human nature, and reconciling the world to himself, are the same, as the Father and Son are one.

John 16:24 | Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name—for “prayer in the name of Christ, and prayer to Christ, presuppose His glorification” [Olshausen].

ask—when I am gone, “in My name.”

Also see the meaning of With God All Things Are Possible to learn more.