“The High Priest Prays for You” (Ch. 38); "Epilogue"

Created to Draw Near: Our Life as God’s Royal Priests

by Edward Welch

 

“The High Priest Prays for You” (Chapter 38)

“Jesus Christ continues in his priestly ways. Your high priest prays to the Father for you, and he is joined by the Spirit, who also intercedes for you right now (Rom. 8:26–27).” - Edward Welch

Hebrews 7:24–25 NIV

but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

“Jesus prayed for his disciples; then he prays for you. He prays that you would be united with both God and each other in love.” - Edward Welch

John 17:20–21 NIV

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

“God’s love gathers you into himself. God is one, you are called to live in him and participate in his love, and then you are sent out to express this in daily life through your unity with others.” - Edward Welch

“You believe in Jesus, which means you have life. Now remain in him by imitating and obeying his love, which takes a lower place and serves. In this way, love is reproduced and expands even more.” - Edward Welch

John 17:22–23 NIV

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Glory is holiness on full display. It is big, stunning. You cannot look away from it… One with the Father, Son, and Spirit, and, as a result, one with each other—this is glory.” - Edward Welch

“Your purpose is to be near to God, to live with him in his house and to experience his divine hospitality.” - Edward Welch

John 17:24 NIV

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

 

If we actually ask people to pray for us, and we stay alert to what God does:

• A meeting with a contentious person went better than we had hoped.
• We listened rather than reacted.
• We were able to get what we needed [though not always what we wanted].

“Yet there are times when no friend knows or prays, and hardships are kept private. We can know, then, that the Spirit and the Son know our spirit and speak on our behalf to the Father.” - Edward Welch

“Epilogue”

“The Christian church has not always known what to do with the priesthood of all believers.” - Edward Welch

• Slow growth and development of:
  • Church structure
  • Authority in a centralized group
  • Division between clergy and laity
  • And eventually the concept of a priesthood of the clergy separate from the laity.

• The priesthood of all believers was a scriptural doctrine recovered by Martin Luther and other Reformers.

“He wrote that those in church office should come from the church community and serve by community consent and election. Furthermore, those who serve are not unique mediators between God and believers. Rather, they equip the congregation for every-member ministry (Eph. 4:1–12).” - Edward Welch

“The resulting landscape generated everything from Catholics to Quakers, with every denomination and local church reckoning with how to describe the work of church officers and individual members.” - Edward Welch

“But we can be confident of this: the Spirit has been given to all followers of Jesus, and God is pleased to use ordinary, unassuming men and women to advance his kingdom into our hearts and the world. Scripture is unfamiliar with a passive laity that leaves the work of ministry to ordained professionals. As saints, together we enjoy God’s fellowship, we want to know him even better and love him more, and we want those who are further away to come near.” - Edward Welch

“The distance between heaven and earth has always been shorter than we expected. There were always ladders from which the Lord descended, mountains that we ascended, and temples where the throne room was separated by only a curtain. There was always the personal God who spoke to his people and listened to them. He came close and, with certain stipulations, invited us to come close to him.” - Edward Welch

“Then Jesus came to earth, and God was here to stay. Jesus was both of heaven and earth, which meant that the plan had always been to unite heaven and earth in him. In Jesus Christ, God executed his plan “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).” - Edward Welch

“Now we wait for the fullness of the Most Holy Place to appear—heaven itself, a perfect square, immense (Rev. 21:15–17). God’s earthly house was a miniature version of heaven. The heavenly house will come down and infuse earth in a way that the earth itself will shine, full of God’s light and overflowing with his life.” - Edward Welch

“What we now know in part, we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known (1 Cor. 13:12). We will see him face-to-face. The Spirit will bring us fully into the Father and the Son, and we will hear, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3).” - Edward Welch

1 Peter 2:9 NIV

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.