Access to the Father
Access to the Father
The privilege and profundity of prayer
“For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” (Ephesians 2:18)
One of the great themes running through the whole Old Testament is that of man’s separation from God. Beginning in Genesis 3, Adam and his wife are exiled from the garden on account of their sin and rebellion. The way back to the garden, and thus the way back to the very presence of God, is guarded by an angel with a flaming sword, sending the clear and unmistakable message that God and man are now firmly estranged from one another.
Moving forward in the story, we are met with more such instances of separation. The tabernacle, to name one, though functioning in some ways as a means of drawing near to God, also highlights the vast gulf that exists between Israel and Yahweh. Yes, Yahweh, in some manner, has come to dwell with His people, but His presence in the tabernacle is a far cry from the paradise of Eden. Where once there was free and open fellowship between God and His people, there are now layers of priestly ordinances, sacrifices, and sacred spaces. The people are invited to draw near to God, but at the same time reminded of their distance from Him. They can come, but only through the laborious and sin-revealing ministry of the old covenant system.
Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah, in other words, all preach the same sermon: because of the pervasive and polluting influence of sin, access to God is a dangerous and severely limited thing.
Arriving in the New Testament, however, we find that things have taken a glorious and astonishing turn. No longer are we bidden to stay back — we are now invited to draw near. And this because God Himself has come for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Christ, the New Testament proclaims, has opened for us a “new and living way” through the curtain by the sacrifice of His own body (Heb. 10:20). He has atoned for our sins by a single offering, once for all, and now ever lives to intercede for all who draw near to God through Him.
Thus, when we come to God through this High Priest — that is, when we come by faith, humbly claiming Christ as our Saviour — we find, to our amazement, that we have something no sinner since Adam has fully experienced: access through Christ in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18). The chasm, in other words, that Adam’s rebellion opened up has now been crossed by the life, death, and resurrection of the second Adam, the man Christ Jesus. As Paul puts it in Colossians 1:19–20: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” To Him be glory forevermore, and amen.
There are a number of implications that can be sketched from such glorious truths, but one simple and important takeaway is that we need to pray. Prayerlessness, if experience is any indicator, seems to be a pervasive problem for many evangelicals. Certainly, in my own life, I can testify to the frequent difficulty of trying to discipline myself to pray. But the apostle’s words here breathe fresh life into our beleaguered attempts. Because Christ has died for us, we can approach God with a freedom and a boldness we did not have before. Indeed, we can approach Him with an objectivity that many of us find difficult to believe.
After all, Christ has not just opened for us a kind of access to the Father that exists in some imaginary or sentimental sense; He has opened for us a new and living way (Heb. 10:20), a way into the presence of God that is as real as the ground beneath your feet. What this means is that when you pray, you are actually entering into the heavenly places by means of Christ’s ministry. You are actually being heard before the throne of God (Rev. 5:8; 8:4). You are actually experiencing fellowship with the eternal Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, and thus your prayers have real and profound implications for events in the world.
So rejoice today in Christ Jesus, the great High Priest of the Church of God. Exult in the access He has purchased for you by means of His own blood. And begin, if you aren’t already, to pray audacious prayers for the glory of God’s name and the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world.
Our culture is doing its best to outrun itself to the brink of oblivion, but God is more than able to take our self-made desert and turn it into springs of water (Ps. 107:35). He is able, through the riches of grace that are in Christ Jesus, to save us from our folly and turn us back to Himself.
Let’s humble ourselves before Him today and pray that He would.