We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
When God Needs an Intercessor
In the previous two posts, we have been exploring biblical narratives that point to how God’s knowledge is temporally conditioned and thus supports an open view of the future, or open theism as it is commonly called. The first addressed how God regrets and the second how God discovers. In this post, I want to briefly look at another example that demonstrates that God’s knowledge is temporally conditioned: the story of God searching for an intercessor.
The passage I want to explore is found in Ezekiel 22. Here the Lord declares his disappointment and righteous indignation with Israel. In a passage that emphasizes the urgency of prayer perhaps more emphatically than any other text in the Bible, the Lord says of his people:
The people … have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the alien without redress. And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them (vv. 29-31).
If we take this passage at face value, the fate of Israel depends upon whether or not the Lord finds anyone to “stand in the breach” before him as Moses had done earlier in Exodus 32. Unfortunately, this time there was no one like Moses to intercede and alter God’s declared intent.
There are many examples of intercessors offering prayers to the Lord and God responding to them in such a way that he “changed his mind” in the light of human input and changing circumstances.
Examples include:
- Moses prayed and the fire of God’s punishment died down (Num 11:1)
- After God told Moses that he would raise up a nation around Moses, Moses interceded for the Israelites and God relented (Num 14:11ff)
- Moses and Aaron interceded for the assembly (Num 16:20-48)
- Moses prayed after the golden calf incident (Deut 9:13-26)
- David prayed on behalf of the land that was being destroyed by an angel (2 Sam 24:17-25)
- King Ahab repents and humbles himself and God delays the judgment (1 Kings 21:27-29)
- The leaders of Israel repent and God changes his judgment (2 Chron 12:5-8)
- The Lord relented after Amos prayed (Amos 7:1-6)
The genuineness of the Lord’s search for a person to stand in the breach is compromised if in fact God knew all along that no one would be found. Unless the Lord genuinely hoped he could raise up someone, genuinely tried to find that person and was genuinely frustrated at finding no one, it’s not clear what this passage communicates.
If God’s hope, attempt and frustration were genuine, the question of whether someone would stand in the breach had to be an open issue when God began his search. One can’t hope and try to find something one is certain does not exist. The open view renders the urgency that Scripture attaches to intercessory prayer intelligible precisely because it accepts at face value Scripture’s teaching that things genuinely hang in the balance on whether or not people pray.
—Adapted from Satan and the Problem of Evil, pages 107-108
Photo credit: rachel sian via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC
Category: General
Tags: Divine Foreknowledge, Free Will, Intercession, Prayer
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Ezekiel 22
Related Reading
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to “the lamb that was slain.” For example, the TNIV translates this passage “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the…
Why You Have Free Will
God’s decision to create a cosmos that was capable of love and that was, therefore, populated with free agents (see previous post) was also a decision to create and govern a world he could not unilaterally control. These are two aspects of the same decision. What it means for God to give agents some degree…
Sinful Nature and Free Will
Q: If our sinful nature is what causes us to sin/reject God, can we be held responsible for our sins, when this nature resulted from Adam and Eve’s sin? Do we really have the freedom to either choose/reject God if our sinful nature compels us to reject God? On the other hand, if our sinful…
Free Will in the Bible
Scripture portrays humans as having minds and wills of their own. They are, in a real (though limited) sense, creators of their own behavior and determiners of their own destinies—whether this behavior and destiny is in line with God’s will or not. This fundamental assumption is demonstrated in a variety of ways throughout Scripture. It…
The Earth is a Spiritual Battlefield
The early Church Fathers uniformly believed that angels, like humans, were created free and given a sphere of influence and responsibility over creation. As with humans, angels could use this influence for good, as God intended, or they could choose to use it for evil. They understood that this is simply what it means for…
Hearing and Responding to God: Part 3
We decided to change the title of this series to better reflect it’s content. Hope that’s not confusing. Greg continues his thoughts here on hearing when God speaks to us and being willing to respond even when we’re not completely certain. You can view parts one and two here and here.