I have
discussed how Christ’s resurrection and intercessory work refute the naïve Protestant
understanding of τετελεσται (“it is
finished” in John 19:30. For a fuller discussion, see:
30.—After his exaltation Christ exercises the
high-priestly office. In continuation of the intercession offered to the Father
in his immolation of himself, he appears before the Father as he who has consummated
the sacrifice for the guilt of the world; and in virtue of the satisfaction accepted
by the Father he mediates and effects the appropriation of his merit by the
elect, as a gift of grace to be lavished by the Father, he protects and
advances the faithful in the enjoyment of the salvation of grace, and he offers
their prayers to the Father: this is why the faithful may call upon the Father
only in the name of Christ.—LEIDEN SYNOPSIS (XXVI, 48): “Christ’s intercession
is the function by which, placing himself in the heavenly holy place, he
importunes from God the Father in our name both His mercy and the remission of
sins obtained by the merit of his expiatory sacrifice and its riches and the
gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which we are daily made readier and readier for
all the duties of obedience and ευχαριστια”.—MARESIUS (X, 53): “Intercession means that
by which after the expiatory oblation he stands before God the Father to
represent the efficacy of his oblation and to
obtain thereby the application of the redemption secured for us, the grace
of the Holy Spirit and the hearing of our prayers.—Relying upon this intercession
of the one Christ, true Christians ask nothing of the Father except in the Son’s
name.”—a DIEST (207): “The intercession is twofold, the one humble in the state
of exinanition, the other glorious, which is Christ’s compearance in heaven
before the Father in the state of exaltation”.—BEZA (I, 659): “He intercedes (1)
by the perpetual vigour of his integrity and obedience which appeases the
Father in our favour, (2) next, since we cannot duly approach the Father except
in his name, by always intervening between us and the Father as a midway
conciliator, whereby whatever we offer is pleasing to the Father. But as for
some who talk moonshine about Christ’s supplication and his casting Himself at
the Father’s knees, it is an empty lie of those fellows who cannot distinguish
Christ weak from Christ glorious, heavenly things from earthly” [sic]—TURRETIN (XIV, xv, 13): “This
intercession is made—rather in things than in words by the representation of his death in heaven.”
Essentially therefore Christ’s intercession is
the vigor of his redemptive work in
eternity, in virtue of the abiding “personal union” of the λογος with the assumed humanity, and
in virtue of the abiding validity of the “obedience” afforded by him, and, in
fact, so far as Christ’s mediation is considered in relation to the connection
between the individual elect person and the father . . . 31.—Further this
intercession of Christ can only hold for those who according to the Father’s
eternal counsel of grace are assumed into the eternal covenant of grace and for
whom therefore the Son has given his eternal sponsio.—HEIDEGGER (XIX, 95): “Therefore the intercession and interpellation
of Christ the high priest, who has entered heaven and compears before the
Father’s face with his own blood shed for us, accomplishes this for those for
whom he offered himself unto death to the Father and did die” . . . This intercession
or intervention consists moreover of three parts: (1) Christ brought his own propitiatory
offering into the very holy-place of heaven, to sanctify it for us, and there
he appears before the ace of God on our behalf Heb. 9.23-24 (It was necessary
that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but
the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Or Christ
entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but
into heaven itself, not to appear before the face of God for us); (2) by his
burning will and desire as he had done before on earth Jn. 17.11, 15, 24 (And I
am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to Thee . . .
Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be
one even as we are.—I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world,
but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one.—Father, that which thou
hast given me, I will that where I am, there they also may be with me; that
they may behold my Glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before
the foundation of the world), so also in heaven with the Father he demands the
application of the power and efficacy of his death to us for salvation, as may
be seen in Zech. 1.12 (O Lord of hosts, how long will thou not have mercy on
Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation
these three score and ten years?) Jn. 14.16 (And I will pray the Father, and he
shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever) also Ac.
2.33 (Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of
the Father the promise of the H. Ghost, he hath poured forth this which ye see
and hear). In short by his merit and longing he renders our prayers poured
forth in his name pleasing and acceptable to God the Father Jn. 14.6, 13 (I am
the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me—whatsoever
ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in
the Son) I Jn. 2.1-2 (My little children, these things write I unto you, that
ye may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate (Comforter) with the
father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins,
and not only for ours but also for the whole world.)”.
16.—Otherwise
[i.e. failing this intercession and demand] even the elect with their sins
would have had to become liable to eternal damnation. (Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Ernst Bizer
[trans. G.T. Thomson; London: The Wakeman Trust, 2000], 479-80, 481, 506-7,
emphasis added)