Monday, July 4, 2022

Mark Jones (Reformed) on the Intercessory work of Christ, τετέλεσται (John 19:30), and Jesus' Sufferings in Gethsemane

  

As a priest called by God (Heb. 5:4), the ‘second’ duty of Christ’s priestly office involves intercession for the people of God. . . . In short, the end of Christ’s intercession is the salvation of the elect. Through his death he purchased a right to his people and the benefits of their salvation. However, this intercession remains necessary to actually bring us into possession of all spiritual blessings, and ultimately of heaven. In other words, the application of all Christ’s work for his people depends, in the final analysis, upon his intercession. Without it, there is no salvation. . . . In Hebrews 8:1 we are told that Jesus is a high priest ‘who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven’. In order for him to sit beside the majestic Father and fulfil such a priestly role, he could not remain on earth. He had to ascend into heaven (Ueb. 8:4) to enter heaven as a high priest for our good. That is to say, Christ’s famous saying ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30) refers to his priestly work on earth (i.e. his sacrifice) but those words actually provide the basics for him to continue his work in heaven. As John Owen well said: ‘It is generally acknowledged that sinners could not be saved without the death of Christ; but that believers could not be saved without the life of Christ following it, is not so much considered’ (Owen, Hebrews, 5:542). (Mark Jones, Knowing Christ [Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2015], 177, 178-)

 

The example of Stephen

 

In Acts 7:55-56 Steepen, ‘full of the Holy Spirit’, saw Jesus ‘standing at the right hand of God’. Before the Sanhedrin, Stephen held fast his ‘confession’, as all believers are exhorted to do (Heb. 10:23). The author of Hebrews encourages us to do so based on the fact that Jesus is a ‘great priest over the house of God’ (10:21). Fascinatingly, Jesus was not ‘sitting’ but ‘standing’ when Stephen saw him. Why was this language used? In dramatic fashion, Stephen stood up for Jesus; he held fast to his confession. As a result, Jesus ‘stood’ for Stephen. Here, Matthew 10:32-33 was fulfilled: ‘So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven . . .’

 

Jesus was able to acknowledge Stephen because of his faithfulness, which was the result of Christ’s intercession and supply of grace for him in time of need. As we know, Stephen died; but we must also remember that Christ’s high-priestly prayer in John 17 was thus fulfilled: ‘Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am’ (17:24). As our high priest, he received whatever he asks for. He asked for Stephen to be with him in heaven, and so Stephen was ushered home, not simply because of wicked men but rather because of a gracious Saviour. (Ibid., 182-83)

 

Christ as priest

 

Christ executed his office as priest by dying on the cross for the sins of his people and by making continued intercession for them (See Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. & A. 25). Theologians have typically spoken of two functions regarding Christ’s priesthood: sacrificial offering (oblation) and intercession, that is, his death and prayers. Each depends on the other. No death, no intercession. Indeed, we might even call Christ’s heavenly intercession a continued ‘oblation’, whereby he continually pleads the merits of his sacrifice to his Father so that the people of God may be saved to the uttermost. . . . we must remember that Christ’s death on the cross, or even the period of his so-called ‘passive obedience’(from Gethsemane to the cross), was not the beginning of his oblation. Christ’s whole life of humiliation on earth, whereby he was placed under God’s law (Gal. 4:4), was part of the sacrifice he offered as a priest. This is also true of his prophethood and kingship. Everything that Christ did for the salvation of the church he did as prophet, priest, and king. There are no parts of his work that are to be excluded from his threefold office.

 

Therefore, in his intercession, Jesus appeared in the Most Holy Place and applied the merits of his life, death, and resurrection to his father on behalf of his people. In a sense, though, his ‘intercession’ includes his resurrection, ascension, and enthronement, since they are all necessarily connected as an organic whole. Understanding the necessary relationship between all of Christ’s actions, Goodwin makes the point that full justification of the elect has a ‘special dependence’ on Christ’s intercession: ‘This all divines on all sides to attribute to it, whilst they put this difference between the influence of his death, and that of his intercession into our salvation: calling his death . . . the means of procurement of obtaining it for us; but his intercession . . . the means of applying all unto us’ (Goodwin, Works, 4:63)

 

In other words, the application of justification results not from his death or his resurrection, but his intercession (Heb. 5:8-10) necessarily continues the justification of believers so that once they are justified (i.e. when they first believe) they will always be justified. Indeed, according to Goodwin, ‘we owe out standing in grace every moment of his sitting in heaven and interceding every moment’ (Goodwin, Works, 4:64). . . . Finally, something needs to be said of Christ’s priestly order. Although appointed to the office of priest, he was not an Aaronic priest. He belonged to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:6, 10), the priest-king spoken of in Genesis 14:18-20 and Psalm !!):4. This order of Melchizedek is eternal and unchangeable, unlike the vanishing Aaronic order. Thus the effects of Christ’s death and intercession will have eternal value (Rev. 22:1-5). He is for ever the God-man between God and men. (Ibid. 223-24, 225)

 

The sixth saying: ‘It is finished’

 

Jesus uttered a precious word as recorded by John alone: tetelestai (‘It is finished’, John 19:30). John had earlier used that word (19:28) to explain that Christ’s work as the humbled Messiah was now complete, and Jesus clearly meant this by his final cry. He had finished the work the father gave him to do (John 17:4). Ancient Greek philosophers taught it an excellent thing to say much in a little. So what about this one word tetelestai?

 

Jesus had fulfilled all righteousness (Matt. 3:15) and had done all that was commanded of him according to the precepts of the law (moral, civil, and ceremonial). In finishing the work the Father gave him to do, the Son brought him honour. He also brought honour to the Spirit who enabled him to fulfill all righteousness. Finally, Christ brought honour to himself. The saying ‘It is finished’ was something over which the whole Trinity rejoiced. . . . He finished the work that only he could finish.  (Ibid., 149)

 

 

Gethsemane

 

Regarding Gethsemane, Scottish theologian Thomas Crawford (1812-1875) rightly observed: ‘there is something deeply mysterious in this passage of our Lord’s history. IT seems scarcely a fit or becoming thing to pry into it. Nor can we speak of it without feeling that we speak inadequately, and fearing that we may speak amiss’ (Thomas Crawford, The Doctrine of Holy Scripture Respecting the Atonement [Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1871], p. 127). So with the greater caution and reverence for the situation described by the Evangelists we enter the ‘Most Holy Place’ concerning Christ’s prayer life:

 

And he withdraw from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22:41-44)

 

When Christ’s enemies arrived in the garden (Matt. 26:36), Christ was praying, He knew his hour had come; but this ‘hour’ would be hist most difficult hour and he would need strength from God to undergo the massive trial that was yet before him. And he was away from his disciples, the only hearers of the prayer were the Father, the Spirit, and an angel who strengthened him.

 

Jesus’ presence in the Garden of Gethsemane was no accident. Adam’s fall occurred in the Garden of Eden. Satan overcame him there. Adam was led away from the garden in captivity and under the sentence of death. Here Jesus, like Adam, was taken from Gethsemane as a captive headed for death. The great German Reformed preacher F. W. Krummacher (1796-1868), in his profound The Suffering Saviour, noted:

 

The voice which resounded through the Garden of Eden cried, ‘Adam where are you?’ But Adam hid himself trembling, behind the trees of the garden. The same voice, and with a similar intention, is heard in the Garden of Gethsemane. The second Adam, however, does not withdraw from it, but proceeds to meet the High and Lofty One, who summons him before him, resolutely exclaiming, ‘Here am I!’ (F. W. Krummacher, The Suffering Saviour [1856; repr. Banner of Truth, 2004], p. 100)

 

Before his opponents seized him, however, he fought his own ‘battle’ with himself and his Father. Luke the doctor vividly describes the agony of Christ. Form him came roars so loud that his natural strength was sapped. Like the psalmist, Jesus was ‘feeble and crushed’. He could say: ‘I groan because of the tumult of my heart’ (Psa. 38:8).

 

He did not sin once by asking even three times for the cup to be removed (Matt. 26:44). After all, he was about to drink the cup of God’s wrath: ‘Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup’ (Psa. 11:6). Indeed, he would soon drink this blistering cup of fury as he prepared to hang on a tree as a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). Little wonder that he asked that, if it were possible, God remove the cup from him. This was not an absolute request in the form of a demand with no thought for an alternative. Rather, it came forth as a conditional and submissive prayer with this qualification: ‘Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done’ (Luke 22:42).

 

Why, then, did Jesus ask for the cup’s elimination? Warfield answers well:

 

His deep agitation was clearly, therefore, not due to mere recoil from the physical experience of death, though even such a record might be the expression not so much of a terror of dying as of repugnance to the idea of death. Behind death, he saw him who was the power of death, and that sin which constitutes the sting of death. His whole being revolted from that final and deepest humiliation, in which the powers of evil were to inflict upon him the precise penalty of human sin. To bow his head beneath the stroke was the last indignity, the hardest act of that obedience which it was his to render in his servant for. (Warfield, ‘ON the Emotional Life of Our Lord’)

 

However, we must not miss this or quickly pass over it, but must linger on the fact that he prayed ‘more earnestly’ in the midst of his agony. How intense the first request for removal must have been we cannot fathom in this life. How earnest the third request must have been we may never understand even in eternity. English hymn-writer Isaac Watts (1674-1748) surely captures something of this in his hymn ‘How Rich Are Thy Provisions, Lord!’:

 

And all the unknown joys he gives,
Were brought with agonies unknown.

 

Or, as Spurgeon said: ‘Should we profess to understand all the sources of our Lord’s agony, wisdom, would rebuke us with the question “Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in search of the depths?” (Spurgeon, ‘Gethsemane’, MTP, Vol. 9 [1863], No. 493)

 

We do not—indeed cannot—know how Jesus felt. But we can stand amazed that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood. This description probably does not indicate the rare condition of hematohidrosis, which refers to blood oozing from the skin through haemorrhaged sweat glands when sufferers are under extreme emotional stress. Rather, it simply denotes a comparison of sweat to blood in order to express the intensity of his experience. We can stand amazed that the Lord of glory ‘offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence’ (Heb. 5:7).

 

The Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608-80) eloquently described this scene:

 

Oh, what a sight was here! His head and members are all on a bloody sweat, and this sweat trickles down, and bedecks his garments, which stood like a new firmament, studded with stars, portending an approaching storm; nor stays it there, but it falls down to the ground. Oh, happy garden that was watered with such tears of blood! Oh, how much better are these rivers than the rivers of Damascus, yes, than all the waters of Israel; yea, than all those rivers that water the Garden of Eden! (Brooks, Works, 5:87)

 

Those drops of sweat like blood were as necessary to our salvation as the nails that pierced his hands and feet. (Ibid., 95-98, emphasis in bold added)

 

 

Blog Archive