“Use 4: Christ is at work for you in heaven. He makes intercession for you. ‘O,’ you say, ‘but I am afraid Christ does not intercede for me. I am a sinner.’
Question. For whom does Christ intercede?
Answer. ‘He made intercession for the transgressors’ (Isa. 53:12). Did Christ open His sides for you, and will He not open His mouth to plead for thee?
Question. But I have offended my high priest by distrusting His blood, abusing His love, grieving His Spirit. Will He ever pray for me?
Answer. Which of us may not say so? But, Christian, do you mourn for unbelief? Be not discouraged. You may have a part in Christ’s prayer.
‘The congregation murmured against Aaron,” yet, though they had sinned against their high priest, ‘Aaron ran in with his censer, and stood between the dead and the living’ (Num. 16:48).
If so much compassion was in Aaron, who was but a type of Christ, how much more compassion is in Christ, who will pray for them who have sinned against their high priest?
Did not He pray for them that crucified Him, ‘Father, forgive them’?
Question. But I am unworthy. What am I, that Christ should intercede for me?
Answer. The work of Christ’s intercession is a work of free grace. Christ’s praying for us is from His pitying of us. He looks not at our worthiness but at our wants.
Question. But I am followed with sad temptations.
Answer. Though Satan tempts, Christ prays, and Satan will be van-quished. Though you may lose a single battle, you will not lose the victory. Christ prays that your faith fail not.
Therefore, Christian, say, ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul?’ Christ intercedes. It is man who sins, and it is God who prays.
The Greek word for advocate signifies ‘comforter.’ This is a sovereign comfort: Christ makes intercession.”
–Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity, in The Works of Thomas Watson, Volume 2, Ed. J. Stephen Yuille and Jordan Stone (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2026), 2: 271.
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