Heaven And God's Hallowed Name
Another Look At The Lord's Prayer
In the Lord's Prayer, we speak to God as our Abba, our daddy. But note that this Father we address is our heavenly Father. In other words, God is perfect, unlike our earthly fathers. Even if our earthly fathers are very good, they are imperfect and sinful. God is holy.
In the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Hallowed be your name," we confess not only that God is holy; we also confess that God's name is holy. Martin Luther puts it this way in The Small Catechism:
God's name certainly is holy in itself, but we ask in this prayer that we may keep it holy.1