A Ask, and it will be given to you,
B Seek, and you will find,
C Knock, and it will be opened to you.
As we have seen these words connect back to their dealings with ‘what is holy' (Matthew 7:6). While His disciples are not to degrade what is holy by offering it to those not ready to receive it, they are to make the greatest of efforts to obtain it for themselves. The tense of the verbs indicates persistence. They are to ‘Ask and go on asking, seek and go on seeking, knock and go on knocking.' And in response they are to know that what they ask for will be given to them, that what they seek they will find, and that as they knock on their Father's door it will be opened to them. In other words they are to have an absolute assurance that He will give them what is holy, that is, will give them all that Jesus has been speaking about.
But the question must then be asked as to why we are given this threefold description. Certainly one reason is for emphasis and in order to indicate what should be the urgency of their requests. But we may probably also see it in terms of how a son comes to his father. When he has a need a son comes to his father and asks, and because his needs are continual it is a continual process day by day. He asks continually because of his confidence in his father's love and because he is dependent on his father. And if he is then aware at some stage of his father's absence he is not satisfied with just waiting for him to seek him out, but he himself seeks out his father until he finds him, for he loves his father and he cannot bear to go on too long without seeing him. Indeed he is not content until he finds him. And if he discovers that he is behind a door that he cannot open he knocks on that door until the door is opened to him. For he cannot be satisfied until he is actually with his father, and he knows that his father will be pleased to see him, because he knows that he loves him. Thus these words place great emphasis on God as their heavenly Father, One to Whom they may come as confidently and persistently as a child, something which Jesus has been building up to during the Sermon. And because they are seeking Him as their heavenly Father, it includes the persistence with which they will continue to seek both Him and His Kingly Rule, for they are personally involved in both. So Jesus says that like a child looking for his father they are to allow nothing to prevent them from coming into His presence, because, like the child looking for his father, they know how welcome they will be. Note how this indicates that such prayer is not to be just a matter of asking. It is also to be a matter of wanting to be with their Father.
We should note that the thought here is that they can, as it were, enter Heaven itself. Asking might be accomplished by a call from afar, but seeking, and especially knocking, indicate making an approach right into His presence. (Compare for the idea Luke 13:25; Revelation 3:20 in both of which the knocking is with the purpose of immediate entry). They are taking to heart the words of Isaiah 57:15, ‘For thus says the high and lofty One Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy, “I dwell in the high and holy place with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones”.' ‘So', says Jesus, ‘He is waiting for you. Go and ask, go and seek Him, go and knock until He responds, and go on doing it again and again.'
And as Jesus has previously given a pattern of prayer they are not left in any doubt as to what they are to ask for and what it is that they are to seek. They are to ask for and seek the hallowing of His Name, the coming of His Kingly Rule and the bringing about of His will on earth (Matthew 6:9-10; Matthew 6:33). These are the ‘good things' that they are to ‘seek first before anything else on earth' (Matthew 6:33), and in Luke we find this related to the Holy Spirit as at present available to the disciples (Luke 11:13), something which Matthew also assumes on the basis of Matthew 3:11. In other words they are to seek the successful establishment through themselves of the Messianic age by means of the Holy Spirit with Whom Jesus has drenched them (Matthew 3:11). And this is something which goes along with His giving to them the gift of His Kingly Rule present on earth as a gift for those who come to Him, along with the gift of His inworked righteousness as promised by Isaiah (for in Matthew we are at this stage in the middle of the Isaiah quotations, see introduction). And that is why they are greater than John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11). And along with these greater gifts we may also see the gifts promised in the beatitudes, and the ‘rewards' and ‘recompense' which are promised throughout the Sermon. God is no man's debtor. All God's true riches are theirs (Ephesians 2:6) if only they will pray and seek His face continually and walk as in His presence. These are the ‘good things' that He will give them.
The idea of knocking as indicating prayer is also found in Rabbinic teaching, but not in the same context as the thought of a son coming to his heavenly Father. It is, however, there also an indication of an awareness that God does wish us to be insistent in the right way. Thus in the Talmud we read of Mordecai as ‘knocking at the gates of mercy', indicating his sense of urgency and his confidence that God will hear him.
We can compare here also Luke 11:5-13. There the lesson is that they were to knock in order to receive the bread of the age to come, the Holy Spirit. The disciples are therefore left in no doubt as to what the source of their strength must be. But here the knocking is even more intimate, for it is knocking at the Father's easily opened door.
We should note here that the reason that we have to pray is not in order to persuade God to do what He is unwilling to do, but so that we might rather have a part in it, and so that we might come to know Him better as we work together with Him. It is so that we might have the privilege of having a share in the fulfilment of His eternal purposes, so that in the ages to come great glory might be brought to His Name because of what He has accomplished through His people. God intends to do it with or without us, but He also intends to do it through the loving and earnest participation of those who love Him. That has always been His way. That is the story of the Scriptures. He uses earthen vessels through the greatness of His power so that the glory might be His (2 Corinthians 4:7). Ours is the privilege to share in it with Him, and if we refuse to have our part in it, ours alone will be the loss.