00A.09 CHAPTER VI.—Christ Our Mediator
CHAPTER VI CHRIST OUR MEDIATOR
Again we must lift our grateful praises to our heavenly Father for the blessings of this, another service in this series. This splendid audience tonight encourages us to do our best in these efforts and I am sure that all who are participating share with me this feeling of appreciation of the interest manifested by your presence. The subject for the sermon tonight is, “Christ Our Mediator ” You see we are still studying Christ. Christ and him crucified is my theme always. The Scripture reading for this sermon is 1 Timothy 2:1-8. Hear it:
I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving, be made for all men; for Icings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all; the testimony to be borne in its own times; whereunto I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I speak the truth, I lie not), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-8) A mediator is one who stands between somebody. Literally the word means some one who stands in the middle—equi-distant from two sides. In the fifth verse of the passage just read we learn that there is one God and one mediator between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus. Thus from this text we learn who the Mediator is—Christ—between whom he stands—God on the one side and man on the other—and that he is himself Man. We learn also that there is but one Mediator. One God and one Mediator. It would be just as unscriptural to try to have a plurality of mediators between God and men as it would Ire to try to have a plurality of Gods. There is one God and one humanity. For God had “made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:1-34; Acts 26:1-32). There is but owe approach for this one humanity unto the one God. Jesus said; “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Hence there is One God and One Humanity and One Mediator through whom the One Human race can approach the One God. The fact that there is but one Mediator is emphasized here because some one has sent me a marked copy of a paper in which I find an article that insists that the people who are strict and sincere Confudanists or Buddhists or Zoroastrians will be saved just the same as Christians, and that they should be considered equal with Christians now: therefore recognized and fellowshiped. If that tvere true we would have men coming unto God by others than Christ, and his Mediatorship would be useless. Those religions were here before Christ came to the earth. If there was salvation in them why did Christ die? There is but one way unto God, beloved. “And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The Roman Catholic Church seems to have a number of mediators between God and men also. The Catholics recognize Christ, of course, but they put the Virgin Mary almost, if not quite, on an equality with Christ and pray to her. Then a little lower than the Virgin they have saints in great numbers. The Bible teaches that all Christians are saints, and in the New Testament the disciples are called saints many times more than they are called Christians. But with the Catholics no one living in the flesh is a saint. A Christian must first die and go to purgatory, and after passing through purgatorial expurgations, he may then be “sainted” or canonized by the Church, according to Rome’s theology. When a soul is exalted to sainthood by the authority of the church, that soul may then act as an intercessor for living human beings, and good Catholics pray to these saints. They have in their church calendar what is known as “All Saints Day,” and upon that day the priest reads off the names of the saints and the people respond, “Oh, Saint So and So, pray for me.” Hospitals and schools are named for some saints, like Saint Paul’s at Dallas, and Saint Vincent’s at Sherman, and the saint for whom the institution is named is the patron saint of that institution and his image will be found somewhere in the building. But in addition to this great number of intercessors the Catholic has the whole church machinery between him and God. He depends upon the church for his salvation: from her he draws his instruction, his permission or license for any line of action, and his remission of sins. The priest must be seen and satisfied before a guilty man can be absolved.
All this, in spite of the fact that the Book of God plainly declares that there is One Mediator between God and man. As a reaction from these errors of the Church of Rome, some people have gone to the extreme of saying that the church means nothing—that one may be saved outside of the church as well as inside of it. But such people fail to distinguish between the church of Christ —a divine institution with a Divine and Infallible Head —Christ—and with divine laws—and human denomina-tions with man-made laws and fallible men as ruling officials. Certainly, no one needs to approach God through any human organization, or to place himself under the control of any human government, to be saved. God alone can save and he will save all who come unto him through Christ. But to become a Christian, or to come into Christ, is equal to becoming a member of the church of Christ, as we shall see in another sermon. One would as well try to distinguish between the sunshine and the sunlight as to try to separate Christ from the church, or to distinguish between the Christian religion and the Christian Church—they are all the same But the church is not a man-made or man-governed institu-tion, beloved. There is no salvation in any human organization, call it a church or what you please. As another reaction from this priestly usurpation and intermeddling, we sometimes hear the quibble that to teach that baptism as a condition of salvation is to put the preacher between the sinner and God, hence to vitiate Paul’s statement that there is One Mediator. But this is only a quibble and hardly deserves notice here. Baptism as a condition of salvation no more makes the preacher a mediator than faith as a condition of salvation does. For “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). This clearly makes faith depend upon the preacher. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Many other passages could be cited upon this point, but this is sufficient. The preacher who preaches the gospel which begets faith in the sinner’s heart and then upon his confession of that faith baptizes him into Christ, does not in any way or by any official authority or act absolve the sinner or propitiate God. There is no merit in the preacher— no reconciling value or commending grace or divine unction. -"What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed: and each as the Lord gave him” (1 Corinthians 3:5).
“Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:13). But with those points out of the way we are ready to consider other passages that speak of Christ as our Mediator. In Hebrews 9:15, Paul says And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the re-demption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it. For a testament is of force where there hath been death: for it doth never avail while he that made it liveth. From this reference we learn two facts: First, Christ is the Mediator of the New Covenant or Testament, and second, he had to die—a death had to take place—before he could act in this capacity.
Then in Hebrews 12:18-26 we read: For ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched and that burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that no word mere should be spoken unto them; for they could not endure that whieh was enjoined. If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: but ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them, on earth, much more shall no\ we escape who turn away from him that wameth from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
Here the apostle draws a contrast between that to which we are not come and that unto which we are come. That, to which he says we are not come, is clearly a description of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. Moses was the mediator of that covenant or law. He went up into the mountain and received the law from God and brought it down to the people. He stood between God and the people. Paul says “the law was ordained by angels in the hands of a mediator” (Galatians 3:19). And Stephen said Moses “was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in Mount Sinai” (Acts 7:38).
Therefore Moses was the mediator into whose hands the angel in Mount Sinai committed the law—the Old Covenant. Paul says we are not come to that. But we are come unto “Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh [vis.,
Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant and Moses was the mediator of the old. We are now under Christ and the new covenant and not under Moses and the Old Covenant. We are not come unto Mount Sinai, but we are come unto Mount Zion—unto Jerusalem. God spoke to the Israelites through Moses, but “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1). Christ is a manifestation of the Father’s love and mercy and in him the Father’s will concerning us is revealed. He is our only and all-sufficient Savior, Header and Law-giver. We do not go back to Moses or to the old covenant—Old Testament—to learn how to become and be Christians. We learn that from Christ and the New Covenant. But this lesson on the two covenants is only incidental to our chief purpose tonight which is a study of Christ our Mediator.
We have learned that a mediator is one who stands between persons or nations, etc. But there is another idea involved in the meaning of this word. It means one who stands between persons who are estranged from each other with a view to reconciling them. One who stands between persons who have had a misunderstanding or a difficulty. There would be no need for a mediator between boon companions. Between persons who are friends and between whom there are bonds of peace and good will.
Then, since Christ is the Mediator between God and men, this question arises, Were God and men estranged from each other? Was there a misunderstanding between them? Were they not on terms of peace and amity? That man was estranged from God and needed to be reconciled to God and to be washed from his sins and thus fitted for God’s society is the teaching of the entire Bible. Man sinned against God, disobeyed him and hearkened unto the voice of Satan and thereby transferred his allegiance from God to Satan. That brought the curse—brought ruin upon the earth. Christianity came in as a remedy for this ruin. Christianity is a remedial system. Man was lost and Christ came to save him.
“For God commanded his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . . For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:8; Romans 5:10). Not only were men sinners and enemies against God, but Paul says they hated God and shut him out of their knowledge. (Romans 1:28-30.) Men then were exactly like unbelieving men now. They did then and they do now, try to explain the whole universe by a system of naturalism that leaves out all supernaturalism—knowing God they glorify him not as God, but turn him out of his creation—even now.
Yes, men are estranged from God, and where can there be found a mediator who can effect a reconciliation ?
Since a mediator serves as a peace-maker between persons estranged, of course he must be a disinterested, dispassionate, unbiased person. If we were going to select a man to serve as a peace-maker between two men in a church or in a town, we would get an unbiased man. One who was a friend to both sides and who could appreciate the viewpoint and feelings of each. In our civil courts when we go to select a jury to try a man for a crime, we want men who are unbiased and fair. One of the questions that the court will ask a prospective juror is, Are you related to the defendant? If he says he is, he is excused. He is not eligible for jury service in that case. Another question is, Have you formed or expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant? Again if he answers in the affirmative he is considered ineligible and excused. There is no principle that is better established or better understood than that a mediator or peace-maker must be disinterested, and unbiased.
Then, where can such a mediator be found to act between God and men? Where is there a person who can understand the holy, infinite God and his attitude toward men and toward sin and at the same time understand poor, ignorant, weak, sinful and short-sighted man and his sufferings and trials? Who could devise terms of reconciliation that would meet God’s approval and man’s possibilities?
Surely, you can see, my friends, that such men not only disbelieve the plain statements of the New Testament and deny the claims made by Christ and for which he died, but they also disqualify Christ as a Mediator and ruin the most beautiful and appealing feature of the whole gospel picture—God in love sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, that for sin he might atone. But the fact is, beloved, that these men do not believe in the reality of sin; do not believe in the fall; do not believe that man and God were or are estranged and need to be reconciled. Is this not a horribly mutilated, emasculated and devitalized Christianity? This Modernism? But the Book of God continues to teach that there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus. “Himself man”—that is the way the apostle tells us that our Mediator is qualified to represent us and to sympathize with us in our weaknesses and temptations, Christ lived in heaven, with God and with him created all things. He shared the Father’s glory before the worlds were made. He, therefore, knew God and understood his love for poor fallen man. He knew his attitude toward sin and exactly what it would take to bring man into favor with God and prepare man to dwell in God’s presence forever. Hence he was qualified to represent God on the earth and to reveal him to men.
Then Christ came to the earth; was made flesh, was born of a woman, and lived among men as a man, with all the emotions, impulses and propensities of a man. He knew the touch of temptation and the power of sin; he knew the sordidness and perversity of men; he knew the weaknesses and infirmities of the flesh; he knew the sorrow and suffering of human experience, and finally he knew the terrors and pangs of death. Then raised, triumphant, he was qualified to go back to heaven and to repre-sent men before the Throne of the universe. Indeed, he sat down with the Father upon his throne. What should a Christian fear, when the Power and Ruler upon the Throne of Eternity—the Throne of the universe, high up on the burning rim of glory—is his Friend and Mediator, Representative and Redeemer? Should this not assure our hearts in the midst of an orgy of unbelief, materialism and immorality? The point is already clear, I am sure, but there is an incident in the history of England that will illustrate our point beautifully and will so fasten it on the minds of all of us that we will never forget it:
We have all heard of the Prince of Wales, of course. The present Prince of Wales is a very popular young man. Fie has been to our country several times and he has created several new styles in men’s dress, etc. Now, who is this Prince of Wales? (Old gentleman near the front: “Why, he is the son of the King of England”) (Brewer — That is correct, thank you.) Everybody knows that he is the son of the King and Queen of England- He is an heir to the throne of Great Britain and if he lives he will be the next to occupy the throne—he will be the next king. But how does it happen that the heir to the throne of all the British dominions is called the Prince of Wales?
Wales is only a small part—a small province or principality in the empire of Great Britain. It is only one of many dependencies. How does it happen, then, that the Prince, is of or from or at least named for that part of the country over which he is to reign?
Here is the explanation: England has often had difficulty in keeping all her dominions satisfied and harmonious. Some of those under her suzerainity have been constantly clamoring for something—Ireland, for example., Back in the thirteenth century when King Edward of England made Wales a principality of Great Britain—• having suppressed the independence of the Welsh people —the people of that little country were disappointed and dissatisfied. They felt that they would not receive proper consideration from the government; that they would not be properly represented at the throne. In order to pla-cate these people King Edward had his wife, Queen Eleanor, who was expecting an heir, to leave the palace and the throne of England and to journey down into Wales that the prince might be bom there. .Accordingly Prince Edward was born in the newly-built castle of Carnarvon and presented by his royal father to the Welsh people as the Prince of Wales. Then these people could rejoice in the fact that the heir to the throne—and later the king on the throne—was a native of their country—- hence one of their citizens and brethren.
Just so, in order to placate and reconcile men of earth, God caused his Son to leave heaven and the throne of Light unapproachable, to journey down into the earth and to be born of a woman, born under the law, and then presented him to the people of earth as a Prince and a Savior. And now we can rejoice in the overwhelming thought that the King on the throne of the universe is a native of earth—one of our citizens and our brethren! “Himself man, Christ Jesus!”
“Thanks be to God, for his unspeakable Gift.”
We see from the facts already presented that Christ was not ready to fill the office of Mediator until he had completed his earthly sojourn. He could not present man as a fit subject for the company of God or the society of heaven until he had provided a means for man’s purification from sin. He could not know the extent of man’s suffering until he had suffered to the extreme limit. He could not deliver man from the bondage of fear and from the shadow of the tomb until he had abolished death. To illustrate: If you wanted to practice medicine you would have to go to a medical college and finish a course of study and then you would have to stand an examination and procure a license to practice medicine. Or if you wanted to practice law you would have to attend a law school and finish a prescribed course of study and then stand an examination and be admitted to the bar—or be given license to practice in the courts. Likewise if you wanted to bje a captain in the United States Army you would have to take a course in military training and then receive a commission from the government.
Now, Christ wanted to be our Mediator, our High Priest, and the Captain of our salvation. In order to fill this office he had first to go to school—I speak it reverently, and to complete a course and then stand an examination and receive authority and license. He went to school in the flesh; took a thirty-three-year course in human suffering. He stood the examination in Geth- semane, and his trials in Jerusalem and in his death on the cross and his burial in the tomb. Then when he was raised triumphant he said: “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth”—and then he sent the disciples out with the message of salvation.
Bearing upon the point of Christ’s being made perfect through suffering, hear these scriptures: But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings," (Hebrews 2:9-10.)
Again: Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salvation: named of God a high priest after the order of Melehizedek. (Hebrews 5:7-10.) And again:
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessaioniea, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging that it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom, said he I proclaim unto you, is the Christ. (Acts 17:1-3.) And again: And he said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? (Luke 24:25.) And one other:
Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures; and he said unto them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:45-49.)
These citations certainly make plain the fact that Christ had first to Suffer, Die and Rise from the Dead before he became the Author of our salvation: before he was made perfect and before he could enter into his glory. And you will remember that we quoted to you in the first part of this sermon what Paul said about a covenant being of no effect until after the death of him that made it (Hebrews 9:15-17). That Christ died for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant and then became the Mediator of the new or second covenant.
How foolish it would be, then, in the light of these plain statements of God’s Word, for us to go back of the cross—back of the death of Christ to find the terms or conditions of salvation: back to the thief on the cross to find an example of salvation under the new covenant when the thief died under the old covenant.
Christ said he must first suffer, die and be raised from the dead and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. As a thing can not begin before its beginning, we know salvation did not begin to be preached in Christ’s name until after his death and resurrection. Then it was to begin in Jerusalem and the disciples were to wait in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high—or until the promise of the Father came upon them (Luke 24:45-49; Acts 11:4). This power—this promise--the Holy Spirit—came upon these witnesses on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-47). That day they preached Christ crucified, raised from the dead by the power of God, ascended into heaven and made Lord and Christ; there to appear before the face of God for us (Hebrews 9:24), hence to act as our Mediator. Being thus exalted, he had received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and had sent him upon the apostles according to his promise. That day Christ began to reign, and that day salvation began to be offered in his name; repentance and remission of sins began to be preached in his name. When men who were pricked in their hearts or convicted of sin, and cried out to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” There is repentance and remission of sins proclaimed on that memorable day in the name of Christ because of the fact, and by virtue of the fact, that he was now exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour. That he had now become the perfected Mediator. The one and only Mediator between God and men. Through him we all now have our access unto God. The vilest sinner may come unto God by him and be saved. All his sins will be removed and his soul will be washed and made whiter than the snow. He will be made complete in him and presented unto the Father as one purchased and prepared for glory. He is bringing many sons unto glory, will you be among that number? O, why not come unto him and be saved tonight? Are not the terms plain and simple, and is not the arrangement—the divine provision—marvelous and appealing? Is not the reward sufficient? Eternal life? Life in a sinless summer land where the flowers never fade and where death never comes. Where no heart ever aches or bleeds or breaks. Do you wish to go there? Christ is the way. May God help you to start tonight...
What do you hope, dear brother, To gain by a further delay?
There’s no one to save you but Jesus, There’s no other way but his way.