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)