A Kingdom of Priests (9)

 

Intercession (4)

 

“On the next day Moses said to the people, You yourselves have sinned a great sin; and now I am going up to Yahweh, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

 

“Then Moses, returned to Yahweh, and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves. But now, if You will, forgive their sin – and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” (Exodus 32:30 – 31).

 

Our Intercessory Life in Jesus Christ, the call of the holy and royal Priesthood which has been placed upon us in Christ, is that which impels us to offer ourselves in Jesus Christ in place of others, it causes us to cry out with Moses, “…and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written.”

 

Who can bring about such things other than the Holy Trinity living within us…living within us as individuals and within us as the Body of Jesus Christ?

 

This Intercessory Life is to be manifested in both our prayers and our daily living – it is to be heard in our words and witnessed in our actions; the heavens and the earth are to kiss each other in unity, harmony, and expression.

 

Consider and compare Paul with Moses:

 

“I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could pray that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of mf brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh…Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.” (Romans 9:1 – 3; 10:1).

 

Do you think that if we loved others as Moses and Paul that we would be reluctant to tell others the Good News of Jesus Christ? Do you think that if we loved others as Paul and Moses that we’d be an introverted people, obsessed with our own happiness and temporal desires, intent on self-preservation? Or would we be a people living Christ’s Intercessory Life?

 

Jesus said, “Take my Life for their life.” Moses said, “Take my life for their life.” Paul said, “Take my life for their life.” What are we saying? How are we living?

 

Now let me make what may seem at first a quite outrageous statement, we are making a grave error if when we read what Moses said, “…perhaps I can make atonement for your sin,” and think, “Well, that isn’t for me to do, only Jesus can do that.” This is an error and it is a repudiation of the holy and royal Priesthood that we are in Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, for He calls us to participate in His Priesthood, and this means, in some Way, participating in His Atonement not only as those who are the recipients of the Atonement, but also as those who participate as priests and offerings – we mediate the Atonement, in Christ, to others as we serve as priests and sacrifices.

 

Consider Colossians 1:24, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”

 

Now I think that to get a glimpse of what Paul is saying is akin to hearing words which it is not lawful to utter (2 Cor. 12:4). To attempt to speak of what Paul is saying and experiencing is akin to the Levites uncovering the holy things of the Tabernacle while in transit and therein profaning them. What I mean is that we really can’t explain everything in our life in Christ; we can’t explain or define the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or the Atonement, or the Eucharist; nor can we explain or define Colossians 1:24.

 

However, this does not mean that they cannot touch us and that we cannot touch them, for we are called to Life in the Trinity, and this Life is ineffable, numinous, and majestically transcendent. When we speak of these things we speak in awe, acknowledging both their transcendent glory and the limitations of our speech and vision.  

 

We are called to experience the “koinonia of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). This means that we drink His cup of sufferings, that we are “conformed to His death” as we are also “conformed to His image” (Phil. 3:10; Rom. 8:29). Paul writes of our “suffering with Him” and of our being “glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17).

 

In one of the Grand Paradigms of Scripture, 2 Cor. 1:3 – 11, we see our call to intercessory living, “But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer…”

 

Perhaps there is a sense in which we can measure the faithfulness of the professing church, or conversely its apostasy, by our measure of intercessory living in Jesus Christ.

 

What do you think?