3. III. Thing. How Christ doth manage this advocacy and intercession.
III. Thing. How Christ doth manage this advocacy and intercession.
I n general. Christ as God, essentially considered, doth not intercede in heaven. He that intercedes by way of petition, wants the blessing of that person he intercedes with, and in that respect is inferior to him. He no more intercedes in heaven as God, than he prayed on earth as God. His intercession as well as his passion belongs indeed to his person; and as his
Deity is in personal union with his humanity, so his prayers and intercessions may be called the intercessions of God, as well as his blood was called the blood of God. As the human nature suffered, and the divine nature made it valuable, so the human nature intercedes by way of motion, and the divine nature makes it prevalent. The person of the Son of God suffered, but only in the human nature, the divine not being passible; so may we not say the person of the Son of God intercedes, but the human nature only supplicates? He is our advocate, as he was our propitiation.
1. Christ is not an advocate in heaven in such a supplicating manner as he prayed in the world. This servile way of praying, as they call it, because it was performed by Christ in the form of a servant, is not agreeable to his
present glorious estate. It is as unsuitable to his state in heaven, as his prayers with strong cries were suitable to his condition on earth. Such
'prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears,' belong only to 'the days of his flesh,' Heb. 5:7, i.e. the state of humiliation, wherein he was encompassed with the infirmities of the flesh; but such a posture becomes him not in heaven, where he is stripped of all those natural infirmities and marks of indigence. Though such a kind of petitioning is not inconsistent with his humanity as joined to his divinity, and making one person (if it were, he could not then have supplicated in the world, as he did in the garden; for his humanity was joined to his divinity in that humbled, as well as in his exalted state. He was God in the days of his flesh when he lived amongst mortals, as well as now in the days of his glory); yet his praying with so deep a humiliation as he did in this lower region of the earth, is inconsistent with his glorified state in heaven; for if the glory of heaven wipes tears from the eyes of his members, it doth certainly from the eyes of the Head. Nor is it a supplication in the gesture of kneeling, for he is an advocate at the right hand of God, where he is always expressed as sitting, and but once (as I remember) as standing, and that was in the case of Stephen, Acts 7:55. This some of the fathers and others call a servile manner of praying, and say that it was not convenient for the Father to require it of Christ in his elevated state, nor for the Son to perform it.
2. Yet it may be a kind of petition, an expressing his desires in a supplicatory manner. Though he be a king upon his throne, yet being settled in that royal authority by his Father, as his delegate, he is in regard of that inferior to the Father, and likewise in the economy of mediator. And also as his human nature is a creature, he may be a petitioner without any debasement to himself, to that power, by whose authority he is settled in his
dignity, constituted in his mediatory office, and was both made and continues a creature. Though God 'hath put all things under him,' yet he did not put himself under him, but remains in his full authority, 1 Cor. 15:27.
His divine nature in union with his human, is no argument against it, for then he should not have petitioned on earth. He was then the same person in his disguise that he is now in glory. There are promises made to him which are not yet accomplished; enemies to be made his footstool, which are not yet brought into that lowest degree of subjection. Divine promises are to be turned into petitions; the heathen are promised to be his inheritance, but asking was ordered to precede the performance. Ps. 2:8, שאל signifies to desire and wish, as well as to ask. There are some things still of want, though not in Christ personal, yet in Christ mystical, till the church be fully completed. He is an high priest in heaven, and it is the office of a high priest to pray for those for whom he hath offered the sacrifice. Why should asking, by way of desire or petition, be more uncomely when there is yet something of indigence, than praising after supplies, which Christ doth in heaven; if we understand those words of Christ, Ps. 69:30, 'I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving,' after he should be set on high? And Ps. 22:25, 'My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation, and I will pay my vows before them that fear him.' Both which psalms, upon perusal, you will find prophetic of Christ. And himself expresseth, that what he was to do in heaven for the accomplishment of the promise of the Spirit which he had made to them, was to be by way of prayer: John 14:16, 'I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter.' He speaks of an asking or praying (for the word signifies both the one and the other), not in this life, but after his ascension, for the first and necessary fruit of his death, viz., the Comforter. He evidenceth hereby,
that his glory should not cloud his mercy, and the cares of their concerns; his love should be stronger than death or glory, and he would not rest till he had obtained of infinite goodness what was necessary for them. This he would do by way of asking, which inclines to a petitionary way when a boon is desired.
3. It is such a petition as is in the nature of a claim or demand. It is not a petition for that which is at the liberty of the petitioned person to grant or refuse, but for that which the petitioner hath a right to by way of purchase, and the person petitioned to cannot in justice deny. An advocate is an officer in a court of judicature, demanding audience and sentence in a judicial way.
So that this intercession of Christ is not a bare precarious intercession;* for as when he was in the world he taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes, Mat. 7:29, so in heaven he intercedes as one having authority by virtue of his mediatory power, and not as an ordinary supplicant. He hath a right to demand. On earth, indeed, he had only promises of assistance to put in suit; but in heaven he pleads the conditions performed on his part, upon which the promises made to Christ become due to him. It is now, 'Father, I have glorified thee upon the earth; now glorify me with thy own self,' John
17:4, 5. He pleads for his people as they are the gift of his Father, and as they have received his words, ver. 8. He pleads his own commission as one sent, ver. 23. He minds the Father of the covenant between them both, as God gave him a command what he should do in the world, which was no other but an injunction to perform those conditions which had been agreed upon, and that will of God expressed in the covenant of redemption, which is called the will of God, Heb. 10:7. Christ, having done this will, mediates for the performance of the conditions God was bound to by this covenant, and claims the performance of them jure pacti, as a debt due to his
meritorious obedience on the cross; so that it is not a desire only in a way of charity, but a claim in a way of justice, by virtue of meriting, and a demand of the performance of the promise. There were promises made by God to Christ as our head and representative 'before the world began,' Tit. 1:1, 2, and 2 Tim. 1:9, when he was fore-ordained to suffering, 1 Pet. 1:20. Eternal life was 'promised before the world began.' To whom could this promise of so long a date be made? Not to any creature, since it was before any creature had a being. Therefore to Christ; not for himself, who was the eternal Son of God. This promise and this grace, given us in Christ, he sues out by his intercession as a feoffee in trust for us; and it being added, 'which God, that cannot lie, promised,' gives us an intimation of the manner of Christ's pleading, in calling the truth of God to witness the validity of the promise which he pleads. It seems to be in an expostulatory manner, as we find it before his incarnation: Zech. 1:12, 'How long, Lord?' which was upon the account of his future incarnation; for which reason he that is called the angel, ver. 12, who was the angel of the covenant, is called 'the man,' ver. 10. So the expostulation of Elias with God is called particularly intercession, Rom. 11:2; and Rev. 3:5 intimates it by way of claim, 'He that overcomes, I will confess (ἐξομολογήσομαι) his name before my Father;' I will confess him plainly and clearly, and claim him as one that belongs to me. His advocacy for us is a confession of our interest in him, our owning of him, by virtue of which confession or claim we are set right in the court of God, as those for whom he hath shed his blood.
4. This intercessory demand or asking is accompanied with a presenting the memorials of his death. It is a commemoration of the sacrifice which he offered on earth for our expiation; and the whole power of intercession, with the prevalency of it, is wholly upon this foundation. It is a presenting
the efficacy of his death, the virtue of his blood, the pleasure of God in the sacrifice offered by him. It is by the displaying the whole merit of his passion that he doth solicit for us. Intercession is not properly a sacerdotal act, without respect to the sacrifice. It was with the blood of the sacrifice that the high priest was to enter into the holy of holies, and sprinkle it there.
The same blood that had been shed without on the day of expiation was to be carried within the veil. What was done typically, Christ doth really: first give himself a sacrifice, and then present himself as the sacrifice for us. The apostle shews us the manner of it, Heb. 12:24. The blood of Christ is a speaking blood, as well as the blood of Abel; it speaks in the same manner as Abel's blood did, though not for the same end.* As the blood of Abel, presenting itself before the eyes of God, was as powerful to draw down the vengeance of God as if it had uttered a cry as loud as to reach to heaven; so the blood of Christ, being presented before the throne of God, powerfully excites the favour of God by the loudness of its cry. He speaks by his blood, and his blood speaks by its merit. The petitions of his lips had done us no good without the voice of his blood. He stands as a lamb slain when he presents the prayers of the saints, Rev. 5:6, 8, with his bleeding wounds open, as so many mouths full of pleas for us; and every one of them is the memorial and mark of the things which he suffered, and for what end he suffered them, as the wounds of a soldier received in the defence, and for the honour of his country, displayed to persons sensible of them, are the loudest and best pleas for the grant of his request. If the party-coloured rainbow, being looked upon by God, minds him of his covenant not to destroy the world again by a deluge, Gen. 9:14–16, much more are the wounds which Christ bears, both in his hands, feet, and side, remembrancers to him of the covenant of grace made with repenting and
believing sinners. The look of God upon those wounds, whereby so great an oblation is remembered, doth as efficaciously move him to look kindly upon us, as the look upon the rainbow disposeth him to the continuance of the world. If our Saviour had not a mouth to speak, he had blood to plead; and his blood cries louder in heaven for us than his voice did in any of the prayers he uttered upon earth; for by this his performance of the articles on his part is manifested, and the performance of the promises on God's part solicited. When he sees what the Redeemer hath done, he reflects upon what himself is to do. The blood of Christ speaks the tenor of the covenant of redemption made with Christ on the behalf of sinners.
5. It is a presenting our persons to God, together with his blood, in an affectionate manner; as the high priest, when he went into the holy of holies, was to bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, Exod. 28:29, to which the church alludes in her desire that she might be 'set as a seal upon the heart' of her beloved, Cant.
8:6; and perhaps an allusion may be also in Rev. 3:5, confessing the names of the victorious sufferers before his Father, bearing their names visibly before him. The persons of believers are his jewels, locked up in the cabinet of his own breast, and shewed to his Father in the exercise of his priestly office.