23. Chapter Five
Chapter Five T he Power of Christ's Intercession and Its Significant Influence on Our
Salvation, Demonstrated First from the Greatness of Christ and His Favor with God.
2. We have already discussed the support that Christ's intercession provides for our faith. Now, let's consider the further assurance that arises from the influence that Christ's intercession must necessarily have in effecting and carrying on our salvation to a certain outcome. The work of intercession is to effectively secure our salvation, to maintain the forgiveness of our sins, and to keep us in favor with God. Therefore, the influence and energy it has in this regard must necessarily lie in the potency and prevalence of Christ's intercession with God, to obtain anything from Him for us, and thus to continue His favor towards us. To understand how potent and prevalent Christ's intercession must be, let's consider both the Person interceding, namely Christ, and the Person with whom Christ
intercedes for this favor, which is God. The one is the Son, the other the Father. Therefore, the greatness of Christ with God, and the graciousness of God to Christ, along with the unity of wills and affections in them both, ensure that Christ will ask nothing that his Father will deny, and his Father will not deny anything that he asks.
(1.) First, let's consider the greatness of Christ the Intercessor, that is his greatness with God the Father. This is often emphasized in the Epistle to the Hebrews to encourage our confidence in this very matter; as in Hebrews
4:14, 16, "Since we have a great high priest, let us approach with confidence." The greater Christ is, the more comfort and confidence we can have, for as a priest, he intercedes with God for our forgiveness. The greater the person who uses his influence in this matter, the better, the sooner he will prevail. And he is described as great because he is great with God in prevailing with Him; indeed, so great that it is impossible for him not to prevail. It was the greatness of his person that gave such power to his death that it was more than sufficient to satisfy justice. Therefore, "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died." And the greatness of his person must necessarily have as much influence to make intercession prevalent. In matters of intercession, the person who intercedes often prevails more than any other consideration. We see how often great friends can obtain with just a word what money or anything else could not have achieved. Now, Christ must necessarily be great with God in many respects.
[1.] First, in terms of the closeness of his relationship to Him. He is the natural Son of God, God of God, and therefore certain to prevail with Him.
This is consistently emphasized in almost all places where his priesthood
(his intercession) is mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews. So in Hebrews 4:14, "Since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,
Jesus the Son of God." So in Hebrews 7:25, 28 compared, the apostle having said in Hebrews 7:25, that "he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them," he attributes this ability of his to save (ultimately) to his being the Son.
Thus in Hebrews 7:28, at the end of that discourse, this is made as the basis of all: "For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever." He mentions his sonship primarily in relation to his intercession, which he had been discussing. Intercession is a continuation of our salvation in a way of grace and favor, as his death was by way of satisfaction.
And correspondingly, it may be observed in Scripture, that as the allsufficiency of the satisfaction of his death is always attributed to his being
God, and so to the greatness of his person considered in respect of his nature or essence, namely his Godhead; so similarly, the prevalence of his intercession is founded on the closeness of his relationship to God, his alliance with Him and his being His Son. Thus, when redemption is spoken of, the sufficiency of the price is prominently attributed to his Godhead,
"the blood of God." Thus also in Hebrews 9, where when he had (Hebrews 9:12) shown how Christ had purchased and obtained a "perfect redemption," he then argues the sufficiency of it from his Godhead in Hebrews 9:13-14, "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God?" The eternal Spirit is his Godhead.
Thus correspondingly, when he speaks of the prevailing of his intercession in heaven, he attributes it to his sonship, "Jesus the Son." He mentions the closeness of the relationship of his person to God, as being that which draws with it that great respect, and favor, and grace, he being by this great with God, as great in himself. All matters of intercession are carried, we know, by way of favor. And therefore, just as his being God makes his death prevalent in a way of merit, so his being the Son of God makes his intercession prevalent in its kind, namely in a way of obtaining grace and mercy; yes, so prevalent of itself it is that we might rely on it alone, even as much as on his death.
And indeed, Christ intercedes not only in the virtue and strength of his satisfaction, though in that also, and of his obedience to his Father but also in the strength of his relationship as a Son who pleads his own grace and interest in God, as he is his Son, which is a consideration that always actually exists and remains.
Whereas his obedience, though perfect, was offered up only once and its existence is but virtual; but he continues a Son forever, not virtually only, but actually. And therefore it is added in Hebrews 7:28, that the "gospel ordained the Son, perfected forever." The meaning of which is that he is not only a priest, perfected in the past by that perfect offering once made, but in that he is the Son, he remains a perfect priest forever, for the future; whom therefore no imperfection in his office, no failing or missing of his requests can befall. So as if it could be supposed that his obedience, because it was so long ago, might be forgotten; yet never this, that he is a Son. That forever remains and of itself were enough to prevail.
And how effective must the intercession of such a Son be, who is such a great Son of such a great Father, equal with Him and the exact representation of His nature? Never was any Son so like, and in such a uniquely transcendent manner a Son, as the relationship of sonship among men is but a shadow of it! Christ is one with his Father, as he often says; and therefore, if his Father should deny him anything, he would then cease to be one with him, he would then "deny himself," which God can never do.
He is in this respect "the Beloved," as he is called in Ephesians 1:6, as on whom (originally and primarily) all the rays of God's love fall. Solomon
(the type of Christ) was "the beloved of God," 2 Samuel 12:24, and had his name from thence (namely) Jedidiah, that is "beloved of the Lord." And to show how beloved he was, God, when he first came to his kingdom, asked him "ask what I shall give you," 1 Kings 3:5.
Now the same God says to Christ, when he first came to his kingdom also in Psalm 2:8, "Ask of me, and I will give you," namely, when "he had set him as King on his holy hill," Psalm 2:6. And of him he says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, listen to him." God commands us therefore and for that reason to listen to him; and that speech was but the echo of his own heart, in that he himself is so well pleased with him for this that he is his Son, as he himself will listen to him in everything.
Yes, and is so pleased with him, as that even if Christ had never died nor obeyed the law, yet simply because he is his Son, he has such a full satisfaction of all desires in him, and delight of pleasures, that he could deny him nothing. How prevalent then must Christ's intercession be, even if there were nothing else to consider!
And that God indeed had this as one main consideration upon which he made him a priest to intercede, those words testify in Hebrews 5:5-6, "So
also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You.' Just as He says also in another passage, 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'"