Among the many practices of the Christian life (such as gathering for worship, meditating on God’s Word, serving the needy, forgiving, and seeking forgiveness) There are two very basic practices in the Christian life; receiving God’s Word, and then speaking with God. Receiving God’s Word of course comes through reading, or hearing the scriptures. And speaking with God occurs in prayer. As soon as the topic of prayer comes up, questions are not far behind. Questions like “If God already knows, why pray?” or “What are the outcomes of prayer?”. It is appropriate to ask questions about prayer as we learn from Jesus’ example in answering the first disciples about how to pray (Matthew 6:5-13). In today’s piece, we examine how prayer is linked to the work of Christ, and the role of the prophet.

What is Intercessory Prayer?

The Greek word is ὑπερεντυγχάνω and is a compound word. “Huper” means “on behalf of” and “entungchano”, which means, “to entreat or pray, plead” combined we get, “to entreat or pray/plead on behalf of someone else”

More often than not when we talk about intercessory prayer we think of the office of the priest. In many religions today, people come to confess their sins to a priest and he in turn prays or “intercedes” on their behalf to God (or at least he is supposed to entreat God on their behalf). However, what is striking is that in the scriptures the most wonderful intercessory prayers are found on the lips of God’s prophets, e.g. Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and our Savior and God’s ultimate Prophet, Jesus Christ. Looking further at the above examples, we see a pattern regarding intercessory prayer in each of these passages. Abraham intercedes for King Abimelech who had taken Sarai to be his wife because Abraham lied and said she was his sister. God graciously intervenes and reveals Sarai’s true identity in a dream to the king and tells him that Abraham is a prophet and will intercede on his behalf if he safely returns her to Abraham. (Genesis 20:7)

Moses twice makes intercession for the idolatrous people in Exodus 32. He prays for forgiveness and for God to remember His covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Through Moses’ humble prayer on behalf of the people, God graciously and mercifully forgives. We will look a little closer below of Moses’ intercession. Samuel in 1 Samuel 7, intercedes like Moses did for the idolatry of Israel, do you recognize a pattern? In Isaiah 63:7-64:12, Isaiah the prophet intercedes for exiled Israel for their idolatry. Similarly in Jeremiah 15:15-21, Jeremiah’s intercessory prayer is graciously heard by the LORD. Daniel, an exile, remembers Jeremiah’s prophecy and in contrite intercessory prayer to the LORD pleads for the exiles in Daniel 9.

From these texts, we see that “intercession” in regard to prayer is someone advocating or pleading on behalf of another before God. Intercession is a legal term for a witness taking the stand to plead the cause of the accused. Job 16:19,21 is helpful for us to consider at this point. The text reads, “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, And my advocate is on high.” In verse 21 we read, “O that a man might plead with God…”. In the context of the passage, Job has been accused in heaven by satan of having advantage and privilege and the blessing of God, and that was the reason he was committed to the LORD. Satan was permitted to persecute Job physically and materially. Materially speaking, Job lost everything, yet his faith in God’s righteous and gracious care remained steadfast despite the devastation inflicted upon him. The reason for Job’s steadfast faith is that it is in the Man in heaven pleading his cause on his behalf (vs.21). Job knows he can plead his (a man) case before God because the God/Man is interceding for him, more of this in a moment.

In the NT. we see the theme of intercession continue in the Great Prophet Jesus Christ. 1 John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.