When a person prays to God, it is a conversation between that person and the Heavenly Father, just as a child might approach a parent. It can involve listening as well as speaking. It can be a prayer of thankfulness, or of asking for some particular thing, be it provision of an earthly need, or of wisdom, knowledge or understanding, within a heartfelt expression of love of God, trust, faith, praise and worship. But many prayers are based on a personal need.

There is a difference between intercession and other aspects of prayer. Intercession is not prompted by one’s own personal need but by the need of others.

A Priestly Calling

The ministry of intercession is illustrated by the ministry of the Levitical priests of the Old Covenant. Their ministry centred on the Tabernacle. They received the tithes and offerings and they took the requests of the people to God. This was, in particular, the daily ministry of the High Priest.

It was a calling to come close to God, with true reverence and fear: “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified” (Lev 10:3). For such a calling the Priests were to be properly prepared: “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink…when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die…that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (Lev 10:9-10).

The entire Book of Leviticus helps us to understand our priestly ministry through the call of the priests of the Old Covenant and the preparation required of them by God. Leviticus 21, for example, is an entire chapter on the call to holiness.

The Book of Exodus includes other teaching about the ministry of the priesthood. For example, in Exodus 28, there is a description of the garments of the High Priest. The High Priest’s ephod was woven with threads of gold, blue, purple and scarlet. These colours speak of royalty and the ministry of intercession: blue for the heavens, red for the earth and the purple being a blend of blue and red which symbolically show how intercession merges things of earth with things of Heaven.

On this ephod were two onyx stones engraved with names of the 12 tribes of Israel, so that the High Priest would carry the remembrance of Israel’s tribes before the Lord: “And you shall put the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. So Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders as a memorial” (Ex 28:12). This illustrates the calling of the priests as intercessors for the people – coming before God to carry the needs of the people to him.

Priests of the New Covenant

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, all believers are now called into a new priestly ministry within the New Covenant: “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people…” (1 Pet 2:9).

No longer is there one tribe called to minister in the Tabernacle, but all are called to minister to one another in the various gifts and ministries that God has apportioned according to His own purposes (1 Cor 12).

Among those ministries is the ministry of intercessory prayer. We are all called to prayer. Occasionally some are called specifically to the deeper aspects of the ministry of intercession, especially at times of crisis.

An example of this was the call on a group at the Bible College of Wales to intercession for the nation through the Second World War. They recognised in particular the need to pray for the Jews in the death camps and for the restoration of Israel to their Land after the war (see Rees Howells: Intercessor, Lutterworth Press, 2003).

The Greatest Intercessor

The Lord Jesus is the High Priest of the New Covenant (Heb 8). His sacrifice on the Cross fulfilled the types and shadows of the Old Covenant and transformed them into the ministry of the New Covenant of the Melchizedek ‘priesthood of all believers’.

His cry from the Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34) was the deepest of intercessory prayers and now “He lives at the right hand of the Father to continue to intercede for us” (Heb 7:25).

Those called to the intercessory ministry in our day share in the continuing intercessions of Jesus, which Paul expressed in this way: “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the Church” (Col 1:24).

Standing in the Gap

When we fulfil our calling to minister to one another and to God in intercession, it is for people who have, themselves, become separate from God. There is a gap between them and God and they cannot pray for themselves. So we stand in the gap on their behalf.

With no-one to stand in the gap, there is the risk of God not withholding his judgment: “So I sought a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but found no-one. Therefore, I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and have recompensed their deeds on their own heads, says the Lord God” (Ezek 32:30-31).

The Lord Jesus fulfilled the call of the intercessor to the uttermost: “Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore, His own arm brought salvation for Him” (Isa 59:16).

Identification

Intercession involves identification – understanding the needs of others, seeing their helplessness, often having experienced the same pains as those for whom we pray. Intercessors stand in the gap on behalf of others bearing their need and pain to God as if it were theirs.

This was seen in the baptism of the Lord Jesus, when he went into the midst of repentant sinners who could not achieve their own salvation and immersed himself fully in baptism in the River Jordan. This stands symbolically for the immersion in his ministry on their behalf, which was completed on the Cross.

Identification with the needs of others is a deep call to ministry. It is not as deep as the Lord himself went when he suffered for us, but it cannot be taken lightly by those who are called to prepare for their part in the ministry of intercession.

A Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Just as with all ministries, a call to the ministry of intercession can be all-consuming. It requires preparation and dedication. Above all it is not achieved by the will of the flesh but by the call of God. The ministry is fulfilled through workings of the Holy Spirit in and through us. As Paul said in Romans 12:1, we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, and as he said in 1 Corinthians 6:19, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

This is why, at times our intercessory prayers are groans that cannot be uttered in words: “…the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered” (Rom 8:26).

For Such a Time as This

Just as when Esther went into the presence of the King of Persia to intercede for her people, so many of God’s people are being called into the ministry of intercession today. We are not called into the presence of an earthly king but into the presence of God to intercede for the Church and the Nation. Just as Esther was prepared, so we must be prepared for this privileged and holy task.

First produced for the 2018 Day of Prayer for the Nation

Issachar Ministries Trust, Office 5, Shannon Court, Sandy, Beds SG19 1AG