003. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERCESSORY PRAYER.
CHAPTER II. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERCESSORY PRAYER. THE distinguishing attribute of the Church of Christ should be love. The love of God is her source. The love of Christ is her law. The Holy Spirit of love is her strength. “ In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God (the Father) sent His Only -Begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:9.) “ Hereby perceive we the love of God (the Son), because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives Jvr thy brethren.” (1 John 3:16.) “Beloved Let us love one another, for (the Holy Spirit of) love is of God, (proceeding from the Father and the Son,) and every one that loveth is born of God, and Jehoweth God.” (1 John 4:7.) Our spiritual life, therefore, is entirely dependent upon our identification with the energy of Divine love. If this Divine love is not working within us, we must die. “ He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8.) This accordingly was evi dent to the very heathen in the days of the early Church. “ Behold, how these Christians love one another!” was the involuntary acknowledgment, of the world. What is it which weakens us in these latter days, if it is not the decay of love? There is much zeal for restoration.
There is much human energy on hehalf of divine things. There is much party- spirit. But it surely cannot be said that there is much love.
Love is one, and love is twofold.
It is one, for all love comes from one source, which is God, — operates by one energy, which is God, — and is directed to one end, which is God.
Love cannot come from any other source but God, for if any affection does not come from God it must come from self, and whatever motives are supplied by self, must have self in some manner for their end; and where self is, there love cannot be, for love is the sacrifice of self.
Self must lose itself in the consciousness of the Divine command, or it cannot fulfil the work of love. “ I come to do Thy icill, my God,” is the exclamation of love, which shows its source.
Again: Love cannot operate by any other power but God. Every created power wearies, dies. Love is stronger than death. “ Love never faileth.” (1 Corinthians 13:8.) Love has to be continually encountering difficulties, yet is never disappointed. The energies of the world cannot rise above the world, but love is not satisfied except by rising above the world. The objects of the world are the instruments of love, but have no power to satisfy the demands of love.
They who know no higher power than the power of the world cannot have love. The energy of love is a Divine Presence inworking. “ We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” (1 John 3:14.)
Again: Love is directed to one end, which is God. Nothing short of God can satisfy the yearnings of love, which is of God. Love cannot tolerate the distraction of conflicting objects.
It must have one object supreme, or it would vacillate; and that object must be equal to itself, or it would be unsatisfied. Love, therefore, which is of God, rests satisfied with no end short of the glory of God. But while love has this Divine oneness, it has also a twofold character; for the glory of God is twofold. The love of God for His own sake seeks its satisfaction in the intrinsic glory of the Divine Being. The love of man, for God’s sake, seeks its satisfaction in the extrinsic manifestation of that glory. Man redeemed in Christ is the highest object of creation, crowned with glory and worship, and therefore the love of the creature culminates in the love of man, and yet man is not the object of love for his own sake, but because he exhibits by the eminence of hisredeemed position the fulness of the Divine glory.
God has knit together in one His own glory and the salvation of man; and one act of love on our part comprehends in like manner both God and man. “ If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he thatlovethnot his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? “ (1 John 4:20.) If we love God, therefore we must love man also; and if we love man as redeemed in Christ, begotten anew unto a lively hope, and so manifesting extrinsically the glory of God, we must love the intrinsic glory of the Creator, Redjemer, and Sanctifier. “ Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God (in the love of His intrinsic perfection), or whether we be sober, it is for your cause (as manifesting His manifold wisdom and glory). For (in both cases) the love of Christ (is that which) constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, (in order) that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:13-15.) “ If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love isperfected in us.” (1 John 4:12.)
Christian life, therefore, which is a reproduction of Divine love in the heart of man, is a reproduction of that twofold love which God has towards himself: viz, that essential internal love which is the eternal law of His own Being, and that creative external love which moved Him to give being to all things for the manifestation of His glory, and especially to raise man, although he had fallen into sin, to the participation of His own holiness, and to behold His glory. Our love to God is the proper and all-including result of our renewal by the power of His love, but our love to the brethren is a necessary, though subor dinate, consequence of that renewal. “ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love o^ another.” (1 John 4:10-11.) Love to the brethren follows of necessity from participation in the life of Christ, and while the love of Christ, that love which He claims from us, is the constraining motive of this love to the brethren, the love of Christ, that love which He communicates to us, having exhibited it in Him self, is the principle which both gives power to love the brethren, and also furnishes the law by which this love to the brethren should operate.
We could not love one another but for this love of Christ to us. For the gift of the Spirit of love, which is our strength, is a result of His love to us. We can only love one another according to the law of Christ’s love to us. For “ He left us an example, that we should follow His steps. 1 ’ (1 Peter 2:21.) Now the love of Christ is manifested in these two ways.
First, “ He suffered for us, leaving us an example “ herein. “ He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (John 3:16.) The first act of love is self-sacrifice in union with Christ. “ But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby know we that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” (1 John 3:17-20.) If our heart is conscious that we have made no sacrifice in love to the brethren, we have not taken that first step of love which is necessary to our Christian life. But the second act of Christ’s love to ns is the continual act of His intercession for us. “ He ever liveth to make intercession for those who come unto God through Him” (Hebrews 7:25.) And if we have joined with Him in the first act, we may claim to join with Him in this also.
“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, That we should believe in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.” (1 John 3:21-23.) The commandment of self-sacrificing love leads on, then, to the commandment of intercessory love, with assurance of being heard. “If any man see his brother sin a fin which is not unto death, he shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.” (1 John 5:16.) The work of intercession is the special work of Christian love. It is the work of Christ — the consummation of His work of sacrifice. In this work of intercession He calls upon us to join Him, and assures us of the sufficiency of Hia sacrifice to make our intercessions efficacious.
We ought, therefore, to reflect much upon the necessity of intercessory prayer, as Christian life cannot exist in energy without it; and upon its transcendant dignity, as we thereby participate in the very work of Christ upon His mediatorial throne. By virtue of this participation it ie ft work full of power. If the power of intercession were more fully realized it would not be so little attended to. How could we weary in intercession, if we had faith? How could we ever feel that too much time was given to it, if we reflected that it is the one work in which Christ is unceas ingly occupied? “ Car, ye not watch with Me one hour?’ 1 Though man could not do so in the weakness of the night of agony, he ought to be able to do so now in the day of triumph.
How vast a change would be wrought in the Christian world, if there we*e a more earnest practice of intercession!
Nothing can work so great a change in the persons who use it, for it is the true exercise of Christian love, and our perfection consists in the development of Christian love. Our new life is given us, not for ourselves alone, but to use as members of the Body of Christ, joining in the work of Christ, the Head of the Body. All spiritual advancement, without increased earnestness in intercession, is likely to degenerate into mere spiritual pride. Love, which works through the consciousness and sympathy of others, is the corrective to pride, which works through the consciousness and isolation of self. Efforts of self-denying philanthropy, without increased earnestness in intercession, become in like manner only a new form of spiritual pride. In them the mind is apt to rest upon the thought of self as the doer of them, but intercession carries the mind onwards from the thought of the sufficiency of all our own efforts to the intercession of Christ, which alone makes our efforts effectual, while it is itself the moving principle of our intercessions.
If intercession is the voice of love within us, it must be the voice of a greater power than our own, for love truly unites man with God. It is the voice of the love of Christ speaking within us. The use which we make of worldly things in the work of Christ is apt sometimes to blind us to our dependence upon Christ, by the worldly result seeming to follow so naturally upon our endea vours. Intercession, while it joins us more closely to Christ, must also fill us with the deeper humility by reason of that union; for in it we handle supernatural powers, which we cannot touch but by the mediation of Christ, and the result which follows -is a result in no visible manner associated with our endeavour.
It is a simple work of dependent faith. It is a work in which God is the more glorified, because Belf is lost to sight. By nothing can the soul be so much transformed into the Divine likeness, as by that work which at once teaches it the dependence of its own position, brings it into union with God through Christ, and exercises the powers of Christ in love to the brethren.
Also, there is nothing which we can do to work so great a change in others as is produced by intercessory prayer. It applies to individuals the power of the work of Christ. We may learn the importance which S. Paul attached to it by his continual admonitions. He bids the Ephesians “Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for ill saints; and,” he says, “For me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel.” (Ephesians 6:18-19.) This text shows us how he felt his own dependence upon the prayers of others. Indeed, the more any pray for others, the more they feel their dependence upon the prayers of others. All the works of the Church of Christ, from the labours of the Apostolate downwards, are dependent upon the united prayers of the faithful. The Church of Christ is a body of individuals.
“We are members one of another;” without corporate life and unity there cannot be indi vidual life and strength. The effort of each individual Christian is an individual effort; but though of the individual, yet in the body of Christ. The life of each individual Christian is an individual life, but in the body of Christ.
While we use every natural means which lies within our reach for advancing each other’s wellbeing, we must, above all things, endeavour to affect one another by that «>ct of mutual intercession which causes the energy of Christ the Head to thrill through the whole Body. It is thus that we must stir up the supernatural life of the Church. We must not limit the power of God in answer to prayer. He can give more than we ask or think; and when we pray for His Church to be strengthened in any way, we know that it is a prayer “ which is according to His Will,” and great shall be the personal blessedness of having by prayer hastened the perfection or lessened the sorrow of the Church of God.