What do the words “heaven” and “earth” signify in this expression (Matt. 6:10)?

Heaven and earth bear symbolic meanings, among which are the following:

First: angels and humans. St. Augustine says, “as the Angels serve You in heaven, so we may serve You in earth. For His holy Angels obey Him; they do not offend Him; they do His commands through the love of Him. This we pray for then, that we too may do the commands of God in love.”²⁰⁰

Abba Isaac says, “There can now be no grander prayer than to wish that earthly things may be made equal with things heavenly: for what else is it to say ‘Your will be done as in heaven so on earth,’ than to ask that men may be like angels and that as God's will is ever fulfilled by them in heaven, so also all those who are on earth may do not their own but His will?”²⁰¹

St. Jerome says, “As in heaven the angels obey You, and creation serves You, so even may man serve you.”²⁰²

Origen says, “Let us ask that on earth, that is to say, among those who are of the lower kind, as in heaven, the will of God may be accomplished, in order that the earth may, so to speak, be made into heaven, and thus one day there will be no more earth but everything will have become heaven … if the will of God is done on earth as it is done in heaven , we shall all be heaven. Flesh which profits nothing , and blood which is akin to flesh, cannot possess the kingdom of God (cf. John 6:64; 1 Cor. 6:9f; 15:50). But if they be changed from flesh and earth and dust and blood to heavenly substance, it may perhaps be said that they will inherit it.”²⁰³

Second: the spirit (or mind) and the flesh. St. Augustine says, “But when the flesh shall be in harmony with the mind, and death shall be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54), so that no carnal desires shall remain for the mind to be in conflict with, when strife in the earth shall have passed away, the war of the heart be over, and that be gone by which is spoken, ‘the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would’ (Gal. 5:17); when this war, I say, shall be over, and all concupiscence shall have been changed into charity, nothing shall remain in the body to oppose the spirit, nothing to be tamed, nothing to be bridled, nothing to be trodden down; but the whole shall go on through concord unto

199 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 19.7 (NPNF I/10:132) amended.

200 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 9.5 (NPNF I/6:289).

201 St. John Cassian, The Conferences 9.20 (NPNF II/11:394) amended.

202 St. Jerome, The Homilies of Saint Jerome, Volume 1 58 (FOTC 48:419–420).

203 Origen, On Prayer 26.6 (ACW 19:91–92).

righteousness, and the will of God will be done in heaven and in earth. We wish for perfection, when we pray for this.”²⁰⁴

“That as Your command is well-pleasing to our mind, so may our flesh consent thereto; and so that strife be ended which is described by the Apostle … be then the contest now, that there may be victory hereafter.”²⁰⁵

St. Cyprian says, “For since we possess the body from the earth and the spirit from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven; and in both—that is, both in body and spirit—we pray that God’s will may be done. For between the flesh and spirit there is a struggle; and there is a daily strife as they disagree one with the other, so that we cannot do those very things that we would, in that the spirit seeks heavenly and divine things, while the flesh lusts after earthly and temporal things; and therefore we ask (Gal. 5:17–22) that, by the help and assistance of God, agreement may be made between these two natures, so that while the will of God is done both in the spirit and in the flesh, the soul which is new-born by Him may be preserved.”²⁰⁶

Third: the spiritual man and the carnal man. St. Augustine says, “In the Church the spiritual are heaven, the carnal are earth. So then, ‘Your will be done as in heaven so in earth’; that as the spiritual do serve You, so the carnal being reformed may serve You also.”²⁰⁷

“All the holy Patriarchs, all the Prophets, all the Apostles, all the spiritual are as it were God's heaven; and we in comparison of them are earth. Your will be done, as in heaven, so in earth; as in them, so in us also.”²⁰⁸

Origen says, “if the will of God is done on earth as it is done in heaven , we shall all be heaven. Flesh which profits nothing , and blood which is akin to flesh, cannot possess the kingdom of God (cf. John 6:64; 1 Cor. 6:9f; 15:50). But if they be changed from flesh and earth and dust and blood to heavenly substance, it may perhaps be said that they will inherit it.”²⁰⁹

Fourth: believers and nonbelievers. St. Augustine says, “The Church of God is heaven, His enemies are earth. So we wish well for our enemies, that they too may believe and become Christians, and so the will of God be done, as in heaven, so also in earth. Again, “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.”²¹⁰

204 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 6.8 (NPNF I/6:276) amended.

205 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 8.4 (NPNF I/6:285) amended.

206 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 4: On the Lord’s Prayer 16 (ANF 5:451).

207 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 6.8 (NPNF I/6:276).

208 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 7.6 (NPNF I/6:281).

209 Origen, On Prayer 26.6 (ACW 19:92).

210 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 7.6 (NPNF I/6:281).

St. Cyprian says, “we should ask, moreover, for those who are still earth, and have not yet begun to be heavenly, that even in respect of these God’s will should be done … that as in heaven—that is, in us by our faith—the will of God has been done, so that we might be of heaven; so also in the earth—that is, in those who believe not—God’s will may be done, that they who as yet are by their first birth of earth, may being born of water and of the Spirit, begin to be of heaven.”²¹¹