“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” — Matthew 6:13
The doxology of the Lord’s Prayer is absent from several early witnesses, including Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. It stands in the Textus Receptus and the broad Greek church tradition, though copies vary in its exact length. Most modern critical editions move it to a note.
Luke’s shorter form of the prayer has no doxology. Early Christian worship naturally adds praise to prayer, and liturgical endings can enter copied texts. The Didache gives a related but shorter ending, showing how early Christians used doxological language around the prayer.
Those facts explain addition well. They do not prove that every doxology in Matthew began at a worship lectern rather than in the Gospel.
The prayer’s own answer
The petitions move from God’s name, kingdom, and will to bread, pardon, and rescue. The received close returns everything to God: thine is the kingdom answers “thy kingdom come”; the power grounds every request; the glory answers “hallowed be thy name.” “For” gives the reason the disciples can pray at all.
The wording also echoes David’s praise in 1 Chronicles 29:11. Matthew’s Jewish-Christian setting makes that scriptural cadence natural. A doxology can be used in worship because it is Scripture; liturgical usefulness is not proof of liturgical origin.
Variation in form deserves notice. Some copies omit one member, add “of the Father,” or shift the Amen. Such variation can surround an original line as worship expands it. A stable threefold core across the broad tradition is more significant than the existence of embellishments at its edges.
Prayer ending in possession
The doxology does not inform God that the kingdom is his. It returns the petitioner from need to praise. Bread is asked from the King; pardon from the One with power; deliverance for his glory.
The early omission is serious and should never be concealed. The full reading nevertheless has ancient attestation, scriptural form, structural fit, and continuous public use across the Greek church. The received ending belongs. The prayer that begins “Our Father” ends by confessing that the kingdom, power, and glory were his before we asked and will remain his for ever.
The doxology’s variation is often used as a decisive sign of liturgical growth. It does show that worshippers handled the ending freely in some streams. Yet a stable text can attract expansions because it is loved. Added “of the Father and of the Son,” shortened members, or extra Amens may grow around an original core rather than create the core from nothing.
The Old Testament echo also bears weight beyond style. David’s praise in 1 Chronicles places greatness, power, glory, victory, majesty, kingdom, and exaltation in God. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray inside that scriptural world. The closing is not a generic church formula that could attach anywhere.
Public recitation has preserved the words in memory across languages and centuries. Liturgical use cannot prove originality, but neither is it a contaminant by definition. God appointed Scripture to be read and prayed in the church. The task is to distinguish faithful use from later embellishment without treating use itself as suspicion.
Sources and further reading
- 1 Chronicles 29:10–13; Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:1–4.
- Didache 8.2.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 6:13.
- John William Burgon, The Revision Revised.