The Intercession of Christ
By T. T. ShieldsThere are many other passages, of course, than those we have just read, relating to the high priestly intercession of our Lord in the heavens. That is the subject I want to discuss with you for a little while this evening, that Christ is a Priest for ever; and that while the atonement, as a fact, was completed when Jesus bowed His head and gave up the ghost, saying, “It is finished,” yet the application of that atonement endures for ever; and Jesus Christ lives for ever that He may plead the merits of his own blood, and the imputation of His righteousness to such as believe. “But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
I I remind you, first of all, that THE INCARNATION IS A PERPETUAL FACT, an abiding reality. Jesus Christ did take on Him our nature. Before the worlds were made He dwelt with the Father, and in His high priestly prayer He prayed that He might be glorified “with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” He is the eternal Word, the eternal Logos. Then He appeared among men, clothed with human flesh, for “he took not on him the nature of angels,” as we have read, “but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” So, as we observed last week, by his union with our humanity, He rendered Himself a fit and suitable Substitute for sinful men, for He “was made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
I fear that sometimes believers think of the incarnation as a mere parenthesis in the life of our Lord, as something which began at Jerusalem, and which terminated at the ascension. Russellism denies the real resurrection of Christ. It admits the emptiness of his grave, but is not quite sure whether the body of Christ was dissolved into gases or whether it was surreptitiously taken away and concealed, and perhaps miraculously preserved for some future exhibition; but it insists that the body of Jesus Christ did not rise. If you would know the anti-Christian character of that cult you have only to touch it at a few points, and you will find that every fundamental of the Christian religion is explicitly repudiated, the resurrection of Christ among them.
Jesus Christ took on Him our nature. There can be no question whatever as to the reality of His humanity, for He was “made of a woman, made under the law.” He was bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and during the days of His flesh He ate and drank with His disciples. He was wearied with His journey. He slept on a hard bench in a fisherman’s boat. He gave every evidence of the genuineness of His human nature. He was one of us, and only because He was one of us could He die in our room and stead.
Thus, He went to the cross, and thus, He was laid in the grave. Then, He came out of the grave. It is important that we should be sure of the doctrine of the resurrection. We shall have more to say about that on Sunday, but I am calling your attention to that incidentally this evening to show you how indispensable that fact is to the whole course of redemption, that Jesus Christ became part of us for ever. He went into the grave for us and was raised again.
You will remember the proofs of the resurrection recorded in the Gospels, particularly His challenge to Thomas; the testimony that His disciples saw the wounds, and the marks of the nails in His hands, His feet, and His side, showing that it was the same crucified body which had been nailed to the cross that rose again. That it was changed in some way is quite probable. He was able to come through the shut door, whether because of the peculiar nature of His resurrection body, or by some other miracle, I do not know. The point I am insisting upon is that His resurrection body was identical with the body that was crucified. Even after His resurrection we read of His eating a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honey-comb, surely designed to establish the fact of the physical nature of His post-resurrection body.
He consorted with His disciples, and appeared to them again and again. Luke, in his second record---the first being his Gospel, and the second the Acts of the Apostles, for you remember he was the human writer of the Acts---said, “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: to whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
In that same chapter we read of His being with His disciples at the mount called Olivet; and there, when He had given them His great commission, He was taken up from them into Heaven. Whatever its nature, that body of His was carried up into the presence of God for us. He is described as the “forerunner”. “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” I say, the Incarnation is a perpetual fact. Jesus Christ, in His own person, has united Deity and humanity, and He has carried a redeemed and a glorified body with Him to the throne of Heaven. There He appears in the divine Presence for us.
It is well for us to always keep that clearly in mind, because He came to be the Head of a new race. “As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” We were all in Adam, and sinned in him, and have inherited the taint and tendency of original sin. But, the second Adam came to be the Head of a new creation, and that redeemed human nature is already in the presence of God in the person of our Federal Head: “He gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body.”
You have in that a pledge of the redemption of the material world; a bit of this physical universe has actually been carried into the presence of God. I know we are a bad lot. I know that “in our flesh dwelleth no good thing,” but some day Christ will come again, and these bodies of ours will be made like unto His glorious body, and our physical natures will be perfected. I do not know what they will be like. They will be “fashioned like unto the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
And further, it is said that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” This whole earth in God’s good time, and by the exercise of His sovereign power, is yet to be completely redeemed, so that “instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off”; “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.”
The whole material universe is to be purged of sin’s corruption. It is waiting for the time when our bodies shall be transformed at the coming of Christ and made like unto the body of His glory.
II WHAT RELATION HAS THIS FACT OF THE INCARNATION TO THE INTERCESSORY WORK OF OUR LORD? Well, His presence itself in Heaven constitutes a prayer for us. That is why He is there. Having taken upon Him the seed of Abraham, He is distinct and separate, as to His natural form, from all other denizens of that upper world. He is the Forerunner, the first Arrival of a new race; and, He is there in the presence of God for us.
A case is called in court, and there are several parties to the dispute upon which the court is to adjudicate. A man arises and says, “I represent Mr. So-and-So.” Another lawyer rises and says that he represents so-and-so. He resumes his seat and says nothing further for the time being; but, the mere fact that he is there is evidence that the interests of that person whom he represents are to be looked after. He is there to appear in behalf of his client. So, the very presence of Christ means a prayer in our behalf.
We are disposed to confine prayer to a particular time and act, as though believers pray only when they say so many words, when they formally assume an attitude of prayer. In my view, and I think there is abundant scriptural warrant for it, prayer is much less an act than an attitude. It is an attitude of soul, an attitude of abiding trust which a man assumes as he goes about his business, as he does a hundred things when the formal bowing of the knee, or the utterance of words, may be an impossibility; but, he has taken up an attitude of trust toward God. He is counting upon Him. He is depending upon Him, and his whole attitude is one of prayer.
Of course, we ought to have our stated seasons for prayer beside, as there are times when children come to father or mother with ecific requests; but if you see a boy doing the best he can to wear out his shoes---and stockings too---and clothes generally, and apparently without any concern as to where or how he is to obtain new ones, his attitude is an expression of confidence that he will be provided for. If he were questioned he would say, “Oh, never mind that. Dad will get me some more.” He knows that hitherto his needs have been supplied, and that they will be in the future. His attitude is one of trust that somebody who loves him will provide for him. So, it is with the believer, and so it is, if I may without irreverence say so, with our Lord. The very fact of His being there in an attitude of prayer means that He is our Representative; and, so long as He appears in the presence of God for us, God cannot forget us if He would. He is there appearing in our behalf.
There is another thing of which I would remind you: no promises are made in the Word of God directly to you or to me. The promise was made to Abraham and to his Seed: “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” Every promise that God made, He made to Christ, and to us only as we are in Christ. The promises of grace abounding in the covenant of grace were made to Him Who is the Mediator of the new covenant, and “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.” God has pledged Himself to Christ, and so the very Person to Whom all the promises were made is actually now in the presence of God for us.
Is not that an inspiration? I would point out further that the presence of Jesus Christ in Heaven is itself a fulfillment of the promise that was made to Him. Why? Because “he was made sin for us.” He took our place, and He Who was made sin is now on the right hand of God. Every farthing of the world’s indebtedness is paid. Every obligation to the holy law of God is fulfilled. Every requirement of the divine holiness itself is supplied in Him. He has entered into Heaven itself, and has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Are you troubled with doubts sometimes, my dear friends? Do you look to the cross and say, “Oh yes, He hung there as my Substitute. He died in my room and stead. I believe all that.” That is but a partial view of things. He is not now on the cross. I hear some people sing about “The Old Rugged Cross.” It is poor theology. We do not need an old rugged cross. A cross of wood is nothing to glory in. It was used as an instrument of death, and was significant of the curse; but, that is not our hope. What is our hope? That He Who died on the cross as my Representative is on the cross no longer; but, He is in the glory.
Do you not see that? He is actually in the presence of God. The One Who died as a sinner under the wrath of God so completely satisfied all the requirements of divine justice that the gates were flung open, and He was welcomed into the divine Presence as one against Whom even the divine holiness could lay no charge. Just as we are to see ourselves in Christ on the cross, and as we have professed in baptism that we see ourselves in Him in His grave, and then in the resurrection, so we are to see ourselves in the person of Him Who is in session on the right hand of God. For Jesus Christ is just as much my Representative in Heaven as He was when He was upon the cross. So then the promise that was made to Abraham and his Seed has already been fulfilled in the person of Him to Whom the promise was made, and Who is even now in the presence of God, the Forerunner, the Firstfruits, the Promise and the Pledge that as God has done for the Head so will He do for the whole body of His elect people.
I do want you to see that the redemption that is in Christ Jesus is not an experiment. It is not something which we may question and say, “After all, it is a problem; and it is somewhat doubtful whether we shall get there.” In the person of Jesus Christ, our Federal Head, we have already arrived. We are in the glory. He “gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” That is the climax of that masterly argument in the first of Ephesians where Paul argues that the power that was released at the resurrection of Jesus, and which was adequate to subdue all principalities and powers and every name that is named not only in this world but in that which is to come, that that power is ours. We may be partakers of it, and share in the complete and glorious victory of our Lord Jesus Christ “We are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.”
That is a great salvation, is it not? Are you glad of it? (“Amen!” “Hallelujah!”). It is not taking a book and learning something and reciting it and saying, “I subscribe to this, and I think God will have compassion on me for that.” What a paltry view of salvation that is! Salvation is the person of Jesus Christ, and wherever He is you are.
No matter how defective we are, no matter how inadequately we witness for Christ, no matter what poor samples of redeemed souls we may be, if we are actual believers, quickened by the Divine Spirit, and made partakers of His nature, wherever He is, we are. He is on the right hand of the Majesty on high, and potentially we are there already.
He is there to secure the fulfillment of the promise of God in all its completeness in respect to all His elect people. There are some people who apply rule and compass to the Bible. They read a verse, then look down at the bottom where there is a footnote, and say, “Now I know what it means.” Do you? When you have been a million years in glory you will say, “On earth, after a lifetime of study I got a glimpse into that great promise, but I had no idea of the height, or length, or breadth, or depth of it.”
There is more in the gospel than we have ever dreamed of yet. Salvation is a bigger thing, not only than we have ever experienced, but than we have ever imagined. When we speak of the glories of divine grace we enter a realm where exaggeration is impossible. You cannot touch the Infinite with all your finite reasonings or imaginings. “Exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think” is the measure of His grace, which He is able to do “according to His power that worketh in us.” It is a great thing to be a Christian? Talk about your millionaires---poor men they are! Or multimillionaires! What have we?
He is there to see that we get our inheritance. “I will go before; I will go and prepare a place for you.” What does that mean? “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
Would you like to own the whole earth? It did not take Him long to make it. He said, “Let there be light” --- and there was light. It was the Logos, it was the Word, in His pre-incarnate state, it was through Jesus Christ that God uttered Himself when the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the water; and the wisdom of men has been making microscopes and telescopes, and all the rest of it, ever since, trying to find out what God has done. But He says, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself.” While I am absent, may know that I am very busy, and that I am occupied in your interests. He ever liveth to make intercession for us.
What has He to do? Not only to prepare a place for us, but He has to prepare us for that place---and that is a still bigger talk. I have said that Jesus Christ is an Intercessor, that His very presence before God is an intercession, a prayer, in our behalf; and that His intercessory ministry is, in a large measure, however an attitude; it is an act beside, for “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” If you and I should stumble into sin, and need forgiveness, He is there to plead our cause.
Then, me remind you of those verses which I read that tell us that He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. We have been studying in the School recently the story of Joseph. You remember how Joseph said to the butler, “Think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me and make mention of me unto Pharaoh and bring me out of this house.” When the butler got out of prison and delivered again Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, he forgot all about the prisoner in prison: “Yet did not the chief butler, remember Joseph, but forgat him.” It was a good while after that that Pharaoh dreamed a dream which the wise men and the magicians of Egypt could not interpret. Then, the butler remembered the Hebrew he had met in prison.
At the place called Calvary there was one who saw in the Sufferer on the central cross the One Whom God had appointed to be heir of all things, and he said, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” He has not forgotten anyone since. He is yonder in Heaven now, and He never forgets us; He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”
Some years ago I knew a certain motherly soul in a western city who, I believe, was God’s gift to a great many weak Christians. She had, before her conversion, occupied a position of some prominence socially. She was a finely cultured and keenly intellectual woman, but a simple believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. She was a woman who was mature, perhaps, about sixty years of age, and one of the most gracious souls I have ever met. There was a young man who was a member of the same church as she. This young man’s mother and sisters were also members of the church, but they were only nominal Christians, very superficial in their religious life. They went to church on Sundays, they lived respectably, but were manifestly of that order which Paul described as “carnal”. They don’t have much to be proud of, except that they had a fair position in life---they were almost as proud as Lucifer.
This young man was very weak. He had a taste for alcohol, which he had inherited. Occasionally the poor fellow would get drunk; and when he “came to himself,” he did as other people had learned to do when in trouble, he gravitated to this motherly soul, ---and she would take him in. She told me the story how he would get down on his knees and, sometimes actually with his face in the dust, weep and plead with God to have mercy upon him. She said, “That boy gave such evidence of being a Christian that I could not doubt that he was, notwithstanding this physical weakness of his.”
For a while he would straighten up and go on for six months or a year; then, stumble again. Then, he would come back again to his spiritual mother. She would pray for him, and help him as best she could. Sometimes he would be washing dishes in a hotel kitchen. Of course, his mother and sisters were much ashamed of him, but he would find his comfort in this saintly woman. Her husband had occupied an important official position in political life. One day she said to me, “Mr. Shields, I sometimes think that God has some very weak children who, in this life, may always be weak; but I cannot doubt that that poor boy is really one of the Lord’s own.”
I have referred to this only to say that that boy went to this dear motherly saint because he felt she understood and sympathized with him. He knew his mother did not, he knew his sisters did not. He knew if he went to them they would turn him out and shut the door; but he knew if he went to this other home the doors of that beautiful house would be thrown open, and that together they would bow at the mercy-seat and seek forgiveness for his sin.
Do you not wish you had a friend like that? Have you not, as a Christian, been ashamed of yourself? Have you not sometimes said, “I seem to be making no progress at all?” Have you not wished somebody could understand you? You have just such a Friend! He carried your human nature with Him to the throne: “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” He is still touched with the feeling of our infirmities, though Himself without sin. As we pray, we pray into the sympathetic ear of our great Mediator, our Representative in Heaven, Who is still truly human as well as truly divine.
Often people come to me and say, “I wish you would pray for So-and-So.” And I try to do it. Sometimes they write me letters and say, Í wish you would pray for Mr. So-and-So.” People send Brother Greenway letters too, saying, “Please have the people pray at prayer-meeting for my boy,” or “for my girl!” All that is very good; united prayer is effectual. But I wish we could all realize more clearly than we do that there is Somebody Who is always ready to pray for us. I wish we could remember that no prayer sent heavenward in the name of Jesus Christ fails to reach the throne, nor does it ever fail of an answer. “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Are you not glad we have a living Saviour, One who is alive for ever more?
When the multitude came together on the day of Pentecost, asking questions about that manifest ation of supernaturalism, Peter explained it on this ground, that Jesus had ascended to the right hand of God, “and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” He said that the presence of the Holy Ghost in the midst of His church on earth, in the midst of assembled believers, is itself a proof that Jesus Christ is on the right hand of God, for He has sent the Holy Ghost to convince men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and to indict their petitions, to teach them how to pray. Just as Jesus Christ prays for us before the Father, so He has sent the Holy Ghost to pray in us to Him: “For the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
It comes, then, to this, that He Who knows what the atonement involved, and what it procured for us, the immeasurable inheritance which is ours, Himself being in Heaven, sends the Holy Ghost to dwell in our hearts, and to teach us what to ask for, “for we know not what to pray for as we ought”, but the Spirit helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us according to the will of God. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us and to teach us how to pray; and, as we thus pray the prayer divinely inspired, the mediator takes that prayer and brings it to the Father in His own name, as though it were His own.
That is what praying in the name of Jesus Christ is. It means that I have no right in myself to pray. I have no place to stand for myself. I have forfeited it all; but, I am in Christ. I was in Him at the cross, and in the grave, in resurrection, and ascension, and as I present my prayer He takes it and presents it to the Father as His own. Because the promises were made to Him they come through Him to me. We are not heard for our much speaking; we are not heard for long prayers---or for short ones; we are heard in the measure in which we feel our own nothingness, and depend on the fullness of grace that is in Christ. Then, for His sake we shall be made rich: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
That is an inadequate treatment, but I trust it may help you to think about it and study the scriptures which relate to the intercession of Christ, never forgett ing that there is a perpetual prayer-meeting in Heaven, where we have an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
=================== [From Christopher Cockrell, Editor, The Berea Baptist Banner, January 5, 2008, pp. 257-260. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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