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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
The problems surrounding intercessory prayer are manifold and well rehearsed; and few areas of religious observance undergo more of a metamorphosis during the life of a believer. Invocation of God to intervene so that the ‘divine will’ might be done more often than not gives way to a benign acceptance of the status quo and to the hallowing of time in which God is sought in all circumstances. And in this process many unhelpful notions of prayer are laid to rest. Images of God as cosmic messenger, interrupter of the natural order and manipulator of so-called human freedom prove incompatible with the canon of experience, to say nothing of a host of philosophical and theological objections. The resulting interpretations of intercession, however, are often far from convincing, especially when viewed in the light of scripture, which seems to bear witness to a God who, whilst independent from creation, remains intimately involved in its business and, especially, in that of humanity. For instance, there is the impression – stemming, perhaps, from the relative silence of many spiritual writers – that intercession is a ‘lesser’ form of prayer and one which must necessarily be jettisoned in the journey towards God as the soul is dispossessed of all insularity and self-centredness. Then there are the attempts to re-appropriate the language of intercession within a spirituality which is compatible with a modern world view.
1 Helpful discussions can be found in Brümmer, V., What Are We Doing When We Pray? (London: SCM, 1984)Google Scholar, and McDonald, H. D., The Cod who Responds (Cambridge: J. Clarke, 1986).Google Scholar
2 Jackson, E. N., Understanding Prayer (London: SCM, 1980) esp. 147–157Google Scholar; A., and Ulanov, B., Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer (London: SCM, 1982)Google Scholar; Watts, F. and Williams, M., The Psychology of Religious Knowing (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) 109–127.Google Scholar
3 Austin Farrer appears to be the champion of this approach; see also Lucas, J. R., Freedom and Grace (London: SPCK, 1976) 1–15Google Scholar, Wiles, M., God's Action in the World (London: SCM, 1986)Google Scholar, and the collection of essays edited by Hebblethwaite, B. and Henderson, E., Divine Action (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990).Google Scholar
4 Phillips, D. Z., The Concept of Prayer (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965).Google Scholar
5 Baelz, P., Prayer and Providence (London: SCM, 1968)Google Scholar, Corringe, T.J., God's Theatre (London: SCM, 1991) 88–103Google Scholar, and Polkinghorne, J., Science and Piovidence (London: SPCK, 1989) 69–76.Google Scholar
6 The effects of christological formulation upon liturgy are explored in detail by Jungmann, J. A., The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer (ET; Cambridge: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965).Google Scholar
7 Useful surveys can be found in Johnson, H., The Humanity of the Saviour (London: Epworth, 1962)Google Scholar, and Torrance, J. B., ‘The Vicarious Humanity of Christ’, Torrance, T. F. (ed.), The Incarnation (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1981) 127–147Google Scholar; see also a number of the articles in Hart, T. and Thimell, D. (eds), Christ in our Place (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989).Google Scholar
8 It is interesting to note that most recent treatments of christology have started ‘from below’ with the historical Jesus (e.g. Macquarrie, Moltmann, Pannenberg, Schillebeeckx, Sobrino); on the relationship between christology from ‘above’ and ‘below’, see Gunton, C. E., Yesterday and Today (London: DLT, 1983).Google Scholar
9 The resurrection assumes the existence of a community of faith brought into being by Jesus; had this not been the case, no post-crucifixion experiences of Jesus would have been possible (Marxsen, W., The Beginnings of Christology together with the Lord's Supper as a Christological Problem (ET; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 77–85Google Scholar, and Moule, C. F. D., The Origin of Christology (Cambridge: CUP, 1977) 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the existence and function of disciple groupings before Easter, Stanton, G. N., Jesus of Nazareth in New Testament Preaching (Cambridge: CUP, 1974) 13–27Google Scholar, and Schürmann, H., ‘Die vorösterlichen Anfänge der Logientradition’, Ristow, H. and Matthiae, K. (eds), Der historische Jesus und der Rerygmatische Christus (Berlin: Evangelische, 1962) 342–370.Google Scholar
10 A partial solution to this tension is to be found in the sphere of pneumatology and, in particular, the presence and function of the Holy Spirit both in the life of the incarnate Son and in those who find God by following his way. Here the Spirit who inspired Jesus in his ministry becomes God's personal gift in which the recipient participates in the reality of divine-human encounter made possible and given substance by Jesus. In this way, the Holy Spirit locates humanity within the humanity of the Son and transforms the former into the likeness of the latter. But this only begs the question of what we can know of human potential from the life of Jesus.
11 If Acts is any guide, the fact that Jesus was a healer constituted part of early Christian preaching (e.g. Acts 2:22; 10:38); obviously, the canonical Gospels support this conviction. On early secular evidence that Jesus was a healer, van der Loos, H., The Miracles of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1968) 151—175CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Smith, M., Jesus the Magician (London: Gollancz, 1978) 45–67.Google Scholar
12 E.g. Matt 11:2–6 par.; Lk 4:14–21; cf. Isa 35:5f.; 61:lf.;Jer 30:17; Mal 4:2; 2 Bar 73:lf; 4 Ezra 7:123; 9:6;Jub 23:29f.; Test Zub 9:8. See Berger, K., ‘Die Königlichen Messiastraditionen des Neuen Testaments’, NTS20 (1973) 3–9Google Scholar, and Kee, H. C., Miracle in the Early Christian World (New Haven: Yale, 1983) 146–173.Google Scholar
13 E.g. Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 1.42ff.; Athanasius, De Incarnatione 15; 18; Eusebius, Hisloria Ecclesiastica 1.13; II.3; Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica 23; 34; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 11.32; Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone Judaeo 69; Apologiae 1.30ff.; Origen, Contra Celsum 1.38; 11.48; Tertullian, Apologeticum 23; cf. Ex 4:5, 8, 9, 31; 14:31; 19:9; Num 14:1. See Lampe, G. W. H., ‘Miracles in Early Christian Apologetic’, 205–218Google Scholar, and Wiles, M. F., ‘Miracles in the Early Church’, 221–234, both in Moule, C. F. D. (ed.). Miracles (London: Mowbray, 1965)Google Scholar; Brown, C., Miracles and the Critical Mind (Exeter: Paternoster, 1984) esp. 3–20.Google Scholar
14 The implication of the Matthean and Marcan versions is that Jesus was able to realise the healing because he possessed a faith which the disciples lacked; Achtemeier, P. J., ‘Miracles and the Historical Jesus: A Study of Mark 9:14–29’, CBQ 37 (1975) 471–491Google Scholar; and Wallis, I. G., The faith of Jesus Christ in early Christian traditions (Cambridge: CUP, 1995) 27–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 E.g. Acts 3.10; 5:16; 9:32–42; 13:9–12; 14:8–10, 16–18; 20:7–12; 28:7–9.
16 The place of healing in the Anti-Nicene Church is surveyed by Frost, E., Christian Healing (2nd edn; London: Mowbray, 1949).Google Scholar
17 Kee, H. C., Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times (Cambridge: CUP, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kelsey, M. T., Healing and Christianity (London: SCM, 1973) esp. 52–156Google Scholar. The precise nature of the ‘healing events’ is not crucial forour study; what is important is that these traditions – among others – reflect the conviction that the transforming presence of God was encountered in Jesus.
18 It could be objected that these are not the only options and that a further one was adopted by the early church, namely, that the resurrected and ascended Jesus continues to perform miracles through his disciples. In this case, both the disclosure and the realisation of God's will continue to be uniquely linked with Jesus (e.g. Jn 14:12f.; Acts 4:9–12; 16:18). But this in reality is only a permutation of the latter, for the question then becomes one of what can we learn from how Jesus prayed to God that will inform how we should currently pray to Jesus so that the divine will may continue to be wrought through him.
19 To object that such an approach is fundamentally flawed on the grounds that the early church was not interested in Jesus as a paradigm, begs the question of why so much material relating to the ministry of Jesus was preserved by those cominitted to following his example; also 1 Cor 11:1; Phil 2:lff.; 1 Thess 1:6; Heb 12:lff.; 1 Pet 3:21ff.; Rev 1:5. On this: Braun, H., ‘The Meaning of New Testament Christology’, ET in Journal for Theology and Church 5 (1968) 89–127Google Scholar; Cook, M. L., ‘The Call to Faith of the Historical Jesus: Questions for the Christian Understanding of Faith,’ Theological Studies 39 (1978) 679–7001CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mackey, J. P., ‘The Faith of the Historical Jesus’, Horizons?, (1976) 155–174CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Burridge, R. A., what are the Gospels? (Cambridge: CUP, 1992).Google Scholar
20 As we shall see, the language of περιχώρησις (mutual indwelling or penetration) is helpful here. It was used by the Cappadocian Fathers to describe the relation between the divine and human natures of Christ: both fully present, yet each prescribed within the other; see Dearborn, T. A., ‘God, Grace and Salvation’, Christ in our Place, 265–293.Google Scholar
21 A useful survey of messianic expectation can be found in de Jonge's, M. article ‘Messiah’ in Freedman, D. N. (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) Volume IV, 777–788Google Scholar; for fuller treatments see: Charlesworth, J. H. (ed.), The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992)Google Scholar, and Neusner, J., Green, W. S. and Frerichs, E. S. (eds). Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge: CUP, 1987).Google Scholar
22 This is, no doubt, the significance of the Triumphal Entry (Mk 11:1–11 par.) and, perhaps, the challenges to Jesus on the cross (Mk 15:21–32 par.); see also Matt 12:38–42 par. and Mk 8:11–12 par.
23 This is not to undermine the objective nature of the resurrection, but to emphasise the essentially participatory and relational nature of this phenomenon.
24 lt appears that Jesus expected a cataclysmic consummation to the world order with the coming of the son of man, although it is questionable whether he saw himself in those terms (e.g. Mk 8:38 par.; Mk 13:24–27 par.; cf Matt 3:1–12 par.). Expectation of judgement and restoration of Israel are also evident in the teaching of Jesus (eg Mk 10:17–31 par.;Mk 10:35–45 par.; Matt 24:31–46) and elsewhere (e.g. Acts 1:6; 1 Cor 6:2), especially, in the Book of Revelation.
25 On the following observations: Goppelt, L., Theology of the New Testament – Volume 1 (ET; Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1981) 43–158Google Scholar; Moltmann, J., The Way of Jesus Christ (ET; London: SCM, 1990) esp. 73–150Google Scholar; Perrin, N.Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (London: SCM, 1976)Google Scholar; Schillebeeckx, E., Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (ET; London: Collins, 1979) esp. 105–271.Google Scholar
26 Jesus' contribution to understanding faith was not so much in relation to faith's object as to its practice. For example Jesus' faith logia recorded in the Synoptics rarely define the object of belief (cf. Jesus: Mk 9:42 par.; Mk 15:32 par.; the Gospel: Mkl:15; the Baptist: Mk 11:22). Whilst this may indicate that he was thought to conceive of faith as an autonomous and independent source of power, it more likely betrays the recognition that Jesus accepted the Jewish understanding of faith as belief in the one holy, righteous and almighty God, whose essential love and mercy are discernible in acts of creation, salvation and convenantal faithfulness.
27 Some of the issues raised here are discussed by Harvey, A. E., Jesus and the Constraints of History (London: Duckworth, 1982)Google Scholar, Sobrino, J., Christology at the Crossroads (ET; London: SCM, 1978) esp. 41ffGoogle Scholar., and Theissen, G., The First Followers of Jesus (ET; London: SCM, 1978).Google Scholar
28 Hengel, M., The Charismatic Leader and his Followers (ET, Edinburgh: T. & T.Clark, 1981) 38–88Google Scholar, and Riesner, R.. Jesus als Lehrer, (2nd edn; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1984) 408–498.Google Scholar
29 Charlesworth, J. H., Jesus within Judaism (London: SPCK, 1989) 131–164Google Scholar, and Dunn, J. D. C., Jesus and the Spirit (London: SCM, 1975) 11–40.Google Scholar
30 This section of the Lord's Prayer probably reflects the influence of the Jewish Kaddish prayer; see Jeremias, J., The Prayers of Jesus (ET; London: SCM, 1967) 98ff.Google Scholar
31 Macquarrie, J., Jesus Christ in Modem Thought (London: SCM, 1990) 362ff.Google Scholar; see also Conn, W., Christian Conversion (New York: Paulist, 1986).Google Scholar
32 Cf. praxis-based theologies which attempt to root God's presence in the reality of human experience; see, for example, Gutierrez, G., A Theology of Liberation (ET; London: SCM, 1974) esp. 3–19Google Scholar, and Ruether, R. R., Sexism and God-Talk (London: SCM, 1983) 12–46.Google Scholar
33 Cf. ‘For in the diseased body some vigour of life yet remains; although the soul, plunged into this deadly abyss, is not only burdened with vices, but utterly devoid of all good.’ (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 11.3.2).
34 Cf. ‘What are we to say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?’ (Rom 6:1); ‘All things are lawful for me…’ (1 Cor 6:12).
35 Perrin, N., Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (London: SCM, 1967) 54–153Google Scholar, and Sobrino, J., Christology, esp. 41–78, 146–178.Google Scholar
36 E.g. ‘What does it mean, to have a fever in fine style? It means not blaming God, or any human, not being depressed by what's happening to you, and awaiting death in a fine way…’ (Epictetus, Diss, III.x.13), and ‘God has not merely given us these abilities of ours so we may put up with whatever happens without being humiliated or broken by it; as a good king and most truly a Father to us, he's given us these abilities without external constraints, unhampered. He's put them entirely into our hands, without reserving even for himself any power to hinder or restrain.’ (Epictelus, Diss I.vi.40); also Epictetus, Didd III.xxii.95; IV.x.8; Seneca, Epistulae Morales XA & XXXI.5; XIII.10. All these references are taken from Downing, F. G., Christ and the Cynics (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988).Google Scholar
37 E.g. Gen 18:22–33 (Abraham); Ex 32:7–14 & 30–35; Num 14:13–23 (Moses); 1 Kings 8:22–53 (Solomon); Isaiah 38:10–20 (Hezekiah); Neh 1:4–11 (Nehemiah).
38 This is one of the profound themes of the Book of Job. After Job has prayed to God in the midst of despair (Job 7), he is not prepared to accept superficial or false explanations for God's absence. He remains resolute to the end and although his final prayer is one of submission and confession (Job 42:1–6), he has been found by God.
39 Vanstone, W. H., The Stature of Wailing (London: DLT, 1982) 69–115.Google Scholar
40 Moltmann, J., The Crurified God (ET; London: SCM, 1974) 200–290, and Way, 170–181.Google Scholar
41 Ebeling, G., Word and Faith (ET, London: SCM, 1963) 201–246Google Scholar, and Theunissen, M., ‘οαιτ
ν λαμβ⋯νει: Der Getebsglaube Jesu und die Zeitlichkeit des Christseins’, Casper, B. (ed.), Jesus Ort der Erfahrung Gottes (2nd edn; Freiburg: Herder, 1976) esp. 18–32.Google Scholar
42 The intercessory nature of faith is underlined in certain cases by the inclusion of specific petitions on the part of the suppliant (e.g. Mk 1:40 par.; Mk 7:26 par.; Mk 9:17ff. par.; Mk 10:47f. par.; Matt 8:6, 8 par.; Matl 9:27; Mk 7:32, 8:22; Lk 17:13).
43 The link between believing and seeing in the Gospels reflects a similar understanding: it is the eyes of faith that discern the presence of God in Jesus (e.g. Mk 10:46–52;Jn9:lff.;cfMk4:llf. par.).
44 Cf. Mk 6:41 par.; Mk 7:34; Lk 24:34. See the observations of Theissen, G., Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (ET; T. & T. Clark: Edinburgh, 1983) 62ff.Google Scholar
45 Certain healing traditions emphasise this point (e.g. Mk 5:24fT. par.; Lk 17:11–19; cf. Mk 1:32 par.; Mk 3:7ff. par.), although there is little evidence that many of those who were healed by Jesus became followers: cf. Mk 10:46ff., ‘And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.’
46 Guelich, R. A., Mark 1–8:26 (Dallas: Word, 1989) 72ff.Google Scholar
47 A relational approach to personhood is central to the understanding of intercession developed here. The reason why intercession can make a real difference is because being-in-relation to God makes us different people. There is not space here to discuss this conception of ‘human being’ in detail, but see the important recent studies of Brümmer, V., The Model of Love (Cambridge: CUP, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, McFadyen, A. I., The Call to Personhood (Cambridge: CUP, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Schwöbel, C. and Gunton, C. E. (eds), Persons, Divine and Human (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991)Google Scholar and Zizioulas, J. D., Being as Communion (London: DLT, 1985).Google Scholar
48 It is not without significance that Jesus had little time for the notion of miracle; by definition, miracles are phenomena which don't ‘fit in’ and are thus largely meaningless.
49 The following discussions are helpful here: Beasley-Murray, G. R., Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Exeter: Paternoster, 1986)Google Scholar; Breech, J., The Silnce of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983)Google Scholar; N. Perrin, Language, Scott, B. B., Hear Then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989).Google Scholar
50 Davies, W. D., The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: CUP, 1963) esp. 425ff.Google Scholar
51 These concerns are discussed, in part, by: Fierro, A., The Militant Gospel (ET; London: SCM, 1977) esp. 363ff.Google Scholar; Hebblethwaite, P., The Christian-Marxist Dialogue and Beyond (London: DLT, 1977)Google Scholar; Heine, S., Women and Early Christianity (ET; London: SCM, 1987)Google Scholar, and Christianity and the Goddesses (ET; London: SCM, 1988).
52 There is clearly a tendency for both Jesus and his disciples to be framed in such terms, as ‘divine men’, in certain early Christian writings; see Achtemeier, P. J., ‘Jesus and the Disciples as Miracle Workers in the Apocryphal New Testament’, Fiorenza, E. S. (ed.), Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity (Notre Dame: UP, 1976) 149–186.Google Scholar
53 This idealised state is portrayed through the transfiguration accounts (Mk 9:2ff.) and characterises the heavenly Jerusalem in Rev 21 (cf. Isa 3O:18ff.; 35:lff.).
54 Alongside these convictions, however, stands the belief that Christ continues to make intercession in the heavenly places (e.g. Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; cf.Jn 17); and if his eternal intercession is informed by the manner of his earthly intercession (as presumably it must be), his heavenly being must be constituted by a being-in-relation to God which embraces self-giving love, vulnerability and suffering. This is one of the implications of seeing the cross as a trinitarian event, that is to say, as an event within the being of God. If, on the cross, the on tology of God is disclosed within the sacrificial and passionate love between Father and Son, then what is disclosed must relate to God's being eternally. On this whole area, see the important studies of Fiddes, P. S., The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988)Google Scholar, and Jüngel, E., God as the Mystery of the World (ET; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983).Google Scholar
55 See J. Moltmann's more recent and modified exploration of this topic (Way, 151 ff). As many New Testament authors emphasise (e.g. Mk 14:36; Phil 2:8; Heb 5:8), it is obedience to the will of God in the face of death and separation, not rebelliousness, which is the defining characteristic of Jesus' passion. That is to say, the passion is not about self-giving to change the ontology or will of God, but about self-sacrifice which discloses or, perhaps more accurately, is God.
56 In the light of this, one wonders whether heaven might not be a more creative and dynamic mode of being than is often thought; something of this is reflected in conceptions of Purgatory and Paradise; see McDannell, C. and Lang, B., Heaven: A History (New Haven: Yale, 1990)Google Scholar. and Ombres, R., The Theobgy of Purgatory (Dublin: Merrier, 1978).Google Scholar
57 On how theological interpretations of Jesus developed from consideration of the historical person, see Casey, P. M., From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God (Cambridge: J. Clarke, 1991)Google Scholar, Dunn, J.D.G., Christology in the Making(London: SCM, 1980) esp. 251ff.Google Scholar, Mackey, J. P., Jesus: the Man and the Myth (London: SCM, 1979)Google Scholar, Macquarrie, J., Christ, Jesus, and Pannenberg, W.. Jesus: God and Man (ET; London: SCM, 1968) esp. 283ff.Google Scholar
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59 Dunn, J. D. G., Jesus, and The Doctrine Commission of the Church of England, We Believe in the Holy Spirit (London: CHP, 1991) esp. 17–36, 56–74.Google Scholar
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61 Matt 25:31-46; Mk 13:24ff. par.; 1 Cor 15:20-28; 1 Thess 4:13-5:11; Jas 5:7f.; 2 Peter 3:lff.; Rev 19-21.