The Cry of the Intercessor - Abba Father

The introduction of 'Abba, Father', into the passage ought to have alerted us to what was to come. It is a rare phrase in the New Testament, associated exclusively with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This association is very distinctive because it is peculiar to Jesus and the Spirit in two extremes of emotion in the experience of God. By the first cry the mind is carried back to that awful moment in Gethsemane when the Lord began to be sore amazed and very heavy, saying, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death'. With that statement He left His three apostles and went away to lie before His Father alone, wrestling with the problem of sin and the cup of wrath He must drink because of it. It was one of the most dreadful, if not the most dreadful of all decisions He ever had to make.

From that time onwards the cry 'Abba, Father' could not but be associated in the minds of the apostles with great wrestlings, agony, bloody sweat, darkness, heaviness and profound sorrow. Jesus the Son of God cried that cry when He was departing from this world, and the Holy Spirit cries it when He comes into the heart of a man to bear witness that he is a son of God. So the cry is placed at two extremes, the first one at departure, the second one at arrival; the first with sorrow and the second with joy, the first at death, the second at birth; both ending and beginning is in the cry; it is the cry of God.

Is intercession associated with Gethsemane?

Is it a garden of sorrows under the shade of olive trees, the place where fruit is gathered to be beaten and bruised and crushed, until at last the oil runs out? Is it the place where finally the will of the Father is agreed to and done with the heart first, before the body is yielded for its accomplishment? Abba, Father, lies at the heart of the relationship between Jesus and the Father. It is not strange then that intercession should be so powerful; it is firmly linked with both Gethsemane and Generation; what is more, by Paul's heart-wish, it is closely linked with Calvary also. It surely is a most dreadful cry that a man should wish almost to be cut off from Christ if only other people could be saved.

It is wonderful also, for that is precisely the place that the Lord Himself had to reach before He could save us. Intercession has to do with needs that cannot be met by anointed preaching or gifted touch; it has to do with destinies and destinations, heaven and hell; it hears the cries of the doomed and the damned, and of God. It enters into God's heart for the sake of the souls of men, wanting their salvation at whatever cost to itself. It is understanding of God to a degree not otherwise attainable, it is fellowship with Christ, union with the Spirit and oneness with the Father. The Spirit of intercession makes intercessors of sons who want nothing other or more than to be conformed to the image of the Son in the likeness of His present ministry.