“Confess your faults one to another, that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much-James 5:16”
“Let
our last article touch once more the key of love wherein the article preceding
that of prayer was set. To speak of the Spirit’s work in our prayers, omitting the intercession of the saints, betrays
a lack of understanding concerning the Spirit of grace.
Prayer
for others is quite different from prayer for ourselves. The latter indeed is
lawful; God even commands us “in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving to make our requests known unto God.” Yet it may contain refined
egoism even though it be followed by thanksgiving; hence to prayer is added intercession, that in prayer the breath
of love may quench gently, yet effectually, remaining egoism, and leads us to
the still holier prayer for the heavenly King and His Kingdom.
Christ
prays for us, but the Bride must also pray for her heavenly Bridegroom. David’s
prayer for Solomon points beyond Solomon to the Messiah: “Give the King Thy
judgments, O God” (Ps. 72:1). In the twentieth and sixty-first Psalm s the same
thought is expressed. However, this is not a prayer for His Person (for as such
He is glorified already), but for the coming of His Kingdom, for the extending
of His Name to the ends of the earth, for the gathering in of the souls of His
elect.
In
the Lord’s Prayer, this most holy petition stands even in the foreground; for
when we pray, “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we
are inspired, not by love of self or for others, but by love for Him who is in
heaven. It is true, we realize that the fulfilling of that prayer is most
desirable for others and ourselves; still it is the love of God that stands here in the foreground. It is the summary
of prayer eminently fitting the
summary of the law: “Thou shalt love
the Lord Thy God.” This is the first and great commandment. Then, “Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself.” And
so in our prayer: first, for the cause of God, this is the first and great petition; then, prayer for the neighbor
as for ourselves. Our prayer is the
test of our relation to the first and great commandment.
And
what is the work of the Holy Spirit in the prayer of intercession?
It
is necessary here, for a clear understanding, to distinguish between a twofold intercession: (1) there is a prayer for the things that
pertain to the body of Christ; and (2) another for the things that do not
belong to that body, according to our impression and conception of the matter.
Prayer
for kings, and for all that are in authority, does not concern the things that
pertain to the body of Christ; neither does the prayer for our enemies, nor
that for the place of our habitation, for country, army, and navy, for a
bountiful harvest, for deliverance from pestilence, for trade and commerce,
etc. All these pertain to the natural
life, and to persons, whether saints or sinners, in their relation to the life
of creation, and not to the Kingdom of Grace. But our prayer does concern the
body of Christ, when we pray for the coming of the Lord, for a fresh anointing
of the priests of God, for their being clothed upon with salvation, for success
in the work of missions, for a baptism of the Holy Spirit, for strength in
conflict, for forgiveness of sins, for the salvation of our loved ones… The
first intercession has reference to the realm of nature, the second to the
Kingdom of Grace. Hence in each of these two we must look for the bond of
fellowship from which springs our prayer of intercession.
For
every prayer of intercession presupposes fellowship
with them for whom we pray; a fellowship which casts us into the same distress,
and from which we look for deliverance, and that in such a way that the sorrow
of one burdens us, and the joy of another causes us to give thanks. Where such
vital fellowship does not exist, nor the love which springs from it, or where
these are temporarily inactive, there may be formal intercession of words, but
real intercession from the heart there cannot be.
With
reference to the intercession in the realm of nature, the ground of this
fellowship is naturally found in the fact that we are created of one blood. Humanity is one. The nations
form an organic whole. It is a mighty truck with leafy crown; the nations and
peoples are the branches thereof, successive generations the boughs, and each
of us is a fluttering leaf. Belonging
together, living together upon the same root of our human nature, it is
one flesh and blood, which from Adam to the last-born child covers every
skeleton and runs through every man’s veins. Hence the desire for universal
philanthropy; the claim that nothing be alien to us that is human; the
necessity of loving our enemy and of praying for him, for he also is of our
flesh and of our bones.
If
we were like grains in a heap of sand, each grain might possibly send forth a
sigh, but the mutual prayer of intercession would be out of the question. Being
leaves, however, of the same tree of life, there is, apart from the groaning of
every leaf, also a prayer for one another, a mutual prayer of the entire human
life; “the whole creation groaneth.”
But
in the Kingdom of Grace the
fellowship of love is much stronger, firmer, and more intimate. There is here
also an organic whole, even the body of Christ under Him the Head. It is not
one converted person independent of another, and the two united by a mere
outward tie of sympathy; nay, but a multitude of branches all springing form
the root of Jesse; growing from the one vine; all organically one; saved and
redeemed by the same ransom of His blood; proceeding from the one act of
election; born again by the self-same regeneration; brought nigh by the same
faith; breaking one bread and drinking from one cup.
And
let us notice it well, this unity is doubly strong; for it is not independent
of the fellowship of nature, but added to it. They who become members of the
body of Christ are with us created from the one blood of Adam, and with us they
are redeemed by the one blood of Christ. Hence there is here double root of fellowship. Flesh of our
flesh, bones of our bones. Moreover, born from one decree; sealed by one
baptism; joined together in one body; included in one promise; by and by
sharers with us of the same inheritance.
In
this double fellowship of life is rooted the love which mutually unites the children of God, especially in their
prayers of intercession, a union which appears sometimes in their mutual
prayer. Vital fellowship does not spring from our love for the people of God,
but that love springs from the fellowship of the life of grace, common to all
His saints. That which grows not from one root, and, therefore, shares not the
same life, cannot attain to love in higher sense. Prayer for one another is
born of the love to one another; and the love which unites us ascends from the
one root of life upon which we are all grafted through grace, upon which by
virtue of our creation from Adam we all were set. And thus the work of the Holy
Spirit in the prayer of intercession will appear in clearest light.”
-From
Abraham Kuyper’s The Work Of The Holy Spirit Published by AMG Publishers Chattanooga, TN 1995
Originally Published in 1900
Pages 676-679
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