Our Great Mediator

I invite you tonight to turn in your copy of God’s Word to 1 Timothy chapter 2.  We’re going to be looking at verses 5 through 7, 1 Timothy 2:5-7.

If you’re joining us for the first time, perhaps, tonight, we’ve been working our way through Paul’s first pastoral letter to Timothy, and tonight we’re going to continue with just three verses we’re going to look at.

Pastor Tom, if you were here last week, challenged us with the first four verses of chapter 2, concluding that Paul is exhorting the Ephesian church under the leadership of Timothy, their pastor, to pray for those in authority over them, and to pray for those who are not believers to come to trust in Christ.

Certainly this applies to us today in our own context, in frequency we should be praying as Tom just did, it warmed my heart, and in the content, to make the same kind of prayers.  So perhaps tonight as you think about these prayers, you’ve asked the question, because I have asked this question of myself, are my prayers really making a difference?  That’s an important question to ask ourselves. 

Perhaps we can word it this way:  What confidence do we have to be assured of the effectiveness of our prayers for both kinds of people that Paul mentions to Timothy?  Those that are in authority over us and for the unbelieving person.

What about that most difficult person to reach with the Gospel, particularly the hardened person?  And you may know some, at work or in your neighborhood, or even it is a family member.  What about those unreached people groups in our world today around the globe?  What about those in authority over us?  Who don’t necessarily share our values as was the case in Timothy’s day?  Where should our confidence lie?

The answer that Paul is going to argue for from these verses is that there is one grand truth that is foundational and for our joy and our hope to be confident people of God, and that grand truth is, as he will say, the man Christ Jesus who is the only mediator between God and man.

Let’s read the passage.  Follow along with me.  After talking about exhorting the believers to pray, those in authority and those to be saved, all peoples, he says this. 

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.  For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”

So Paul reasons that the Christian message is one that unashamedly states that Jesus Christ is the only person who could stand between God and man.  That truth should give us our foundation and our confidence in praying boldly for those that are in authority over us and for the salvation of all peoples.  This is the center point, the foundation of the prayers we make, the Gospel message we proclaim, so that people we pray for are indeed saved and he will say this is the foundation for his call to ministry.

So when it is distilled down, Paul is reasoning that our praying, our message, and our ministry have their roots in the mediating work of Jesus Christ.  Paul’s already said in previous verses that that truth called him personally to faith in Christ.  That is the center point of the Gospel message that we preach and it is who called him to himself, to Christ, and it is who called him to be appointed to be a minister of the Gospel, as he will say a teacher, an apostle, and a preacher.

Notice this center point of Christ being the mediator.  It is one exclusive.  There is only one, he says, mediator, Jesus.  Paul clearly states that here.  Only one and He is Jesus.  It is comprehensive, its message that Christ is the only mediator between God and people is for all peoples at all times, as he states in verse 4.  And it is effective.  It is exclusive, comprehensive, and effective.  It will accomplish its purpose.  He can bring through the prayers of his people an environment in which the Church lives in such a way that believers can lead peaceful lives and quiet lives, godly and dignified.  It’s effective in that this mediator can save, Jesus Christ saves people.

Remember his own testimony given earlier, I believe Pastor Derek preached on this in chapter 1 verses 12 through 15, even as he called himself the chief of sinners, Christ saved him.

Then this mediator calls us, or appoints us, to ministry as he says in verse 7.  An apostle, a teacher, and a preacher.

So our confidence tonight as believers is not in the authorities we pray for, they change, they come and go, our standing before a holy God is not on our merits, tainted by sin.  It is faith in this gracious mediator and are calling to ministry is not self-appointed but it is appointed by Christ.

So the foundation of our prayers, our salvation, and message, and our appointment to Gospel ministry is rooted in the center point of the one person, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is a foundation, He is the foundation. 

I don’t know about your neighborhood, but I live in Lansdowne, which is right off of Sardis Road, so a lovely neighborhood.  We love our neighbors and many things about it, but houses are coming down.  I don’t know if that’s happening in your neighborhood, but they just tore one down behind us and then one in front of that one they’re going to tear down.  They have been tearing down homes all over the place.  These giant excavators will come in, and I don’t know if you’ve ever watched this, but they will literally tear the entire house down in a matter of hours.

This week I took two of my grandkids to watch and the youngest grandson, the granddaughter just wasn’t that interested, but the youngest grandson said, “Pops, what is that part there that he’s trying to scrape that he doesn’t seem to be able to break in the structure,” he didn’t say the structure of the house, “in the house?  What’s that part? What is that part?”

And I said to him, I said, “Grishy, that is the foundation and it’s really important for the house.  If that is weakened, cracked, or sinking, then the house will have ongoing problems.”  Which is the reason that many of the houses in our neighborhood, in my neighborhood, are going down.  Many of them are 60 years or older, which that’s not that young, no, that’s not that old, I should say that.  Actually, I would tell you that probably I almost told Grisham that the best thing to do would be for me to call some of the structural engineers that I know in this church.

You eventually are going to see uneven floors, cracks in the sheetrock, front porches.  I know this because it’s just happening to my house, which is 67 years old, which is my age.  Cracks.  Yikes.

Paul’s argument and confidence is that our prayers, our salvation, the salvation of others, including the appointment to ministry, foundationally rests on his statement there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all at the proper time.

So you may say, “Pastor, do you really want to place that much emphasis on Jesus being the lone mediator?  How can Paul lean so heavily on Jesus as a foundation of salvation, prayer, and ministry calling?”

Here would be Paul’s and our answer to someone who asks that question of us:  Because there is no other like Him.  There is no one like Him.  He is unrivaled, incomparable, and the One and only, as Paul would say, the man Christ Jesus.

So because of the nature of the God-man Jesus Christ, as Paul says, the man Christ Jesus, He is the only one who can bridge the divide between us and God.  This is Paul’s, and our, unashamedly exclusive claim.

I want to read to you from Herman Bavinck.  It is a little bit of a lengthy quote, but he’s talking about this Jesus who is exclusive and in his chapter on the mediator of the new covenant.  Listen to this as he talks about comparisons in our world today of Jesus.

“In the person of Christ all of these excellences or attributes immediately become plain.  It is true that belief in a mediator is not peculiar to Christendom.  All men and nations live with a sense not only of the fact that they do not share in salvation but they also have the conviction in their heart that this salvation must be pointed out and given to them in some way or other by specific persons.  The thought is generally widespread that man as he is cannot approach God, nor dwell in His presence.  He requires a go-between to disclose the way to deity for him.  In all religions, therefore, mediators are found who on the one hand make divine revelations known to men and on the other convey the prayers and the gifts of men to the deity.”

He goes on to say this:  “The religions of the nations are independent of the persons of the mediators.  This holds true even of religions founded by particular persons; Buddha and Confucius, Mohammed, are indeed the first confessors of the religion founded by each of them, but they are not themselves the content of such religion.  Their connection with it is in a sense accidental and external.  Their religion could remain the same even though their name should be forgotten or their persons be supplanted by others.  In Christianity, however, all of this is very different.  Christianity stands in a very different relationship to the person of Christ than the other religions do to the persons who founded them.  Jesus was not the first confessor of the religion named after His name.  He was not the first,” interestingly enough, he says, “the most important Christian.  He occupies a wholly unique place in Christianity.  He is not in the usual sense of it the founder, but He is the Christ, the One who was sent by the Father and who founded His kingdom on earth and now extends and preserves it to the end of the ages.  Christ is Himself Christianity.  He stands not outside but inside of it.  Without His name, person, and work, there is no such thing as Christianity.  In one word, Christ is not the One who points the way to Christianity, but the way itself.  He is the only true and perfect mediator before or between God and men, perfectly fulfilled in Christ.”

He is the only bridge to divide us between God and man, and this is Paul’s exclusive claim.  It was Jesus, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father but through me,” John 14:6.

People would say to me today, and say to us perhaps, that seems very elitist, exclusive.  In Paul’s day there were naysayers as well, that he had to contend with.  Today this is the water we swim in.  To quote from John Stott’s book, he makes mention of an old author, don’t even know if he’s alive today, John Hick, writing a book way back in the 80s, The Myth of Christian Uniqueness.  This is what Hick says:  It is acknowledged by pluralists, he writes, that Jews are being saved within and through the Jewish stream of religious life, Muslims within and through the Islamic stream, Hindus within and through the Hindu stream, etc., etc. 

How can we humbly affirm and proclaim with confidence that Jesus is the only mediator between us and the God who created the world?  Paul certainly had to do it in his day.  There were abundance of religions vying for the hearts and minds of people, talking about ways of salvation.  As he says in 1 Corinthians 8:5, many gods and many lords.  Despite what John Hick wrote hears ago, there is a uniqueness to Jesus unlike anyone who has ever lived.  There are no competitors and no successors.

So I want to take a few moments, just a few, to consider and explore the qualifying terms of this mediator and person who gave His live as a ransom for many.

So what is a mediator?  By definition in our dictionary, it is a negotiator who acts as a link between parties.  In particular, one who intervenes between two disputing parties.  In biblical times, one commentator writes a mediator is an intermediator, the person who’s in the middle who effects a reconciliation between two rival parties, a go-between, if you will. 

There is yet a richer meaning to consider to appreciate the word mediator.  More than just an arbitrator or someone who settles a conflict before warring parties.  In our Westminster Confession, we quoted from it just a few moments ago, opens for us the fuller meaning of what qualifies a mediator.  Let me focus on a couple of thoughts there, three in particular, from this chapter 8 of Christ, the Mediator.

So in the verse we are focused on, Paul says Jesus qualifies as the only one mediator.  One God, one mediator.  How can he say this?  The Confession points out this, and here’s where we dive in to what a mediator is, it points out that Jesus first is fully pleasing to God, the Father, and He has been chosen and ordained to be this exclusive person, no one else could qualify.

We read it a moment ago.  God was pleased in His eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus.  It goes on – fulfilling the role of prophet, priest, and king, and even further to be designated head and Savior of the church, heir of all things, and judge of the world.  It was to Him only, the Confession writes, who was given the gift of the Church, His bride whom He redeemed with His own blood.

As Paul would say in this section of his letter to Timothy, this mediator gave His life as a ransom for many.  Our sins are paid for in complete as the perfect mediator gave His own life as a substitute in the place where we should have been.  There is no other one like him.

Secondly, the Confession dives even further into the beauty and depth of this nature, the nature of the mediator.  A mediator, it says, must be able to relate to both parties who are at odds with one another, an intermediary must be able to present both sides equally.

This was Job’s longing in chapter 9, verse 33.  He said there is no arbitrator between us who might lay his hand on us both.  Paul states it rather strikingly in this passage to make sure we get it.  This mediator is between the one God who is holy and just, loving and gracious, and fallen humanity who was sinful and condemned, to this dilemma he say here stands the man, in full humanity and full divinity, Christ Jesus.

He is both God and man and therefore the only one able to mediate between God and man.  As our own Dr. Van Dixhoorn writes in his commentary to Westminster Confession, the Bible consistently refers to two whole perfect and distinct natures of Jesus Christ.  These two natures were inseparably joined together in one person.  Here is this one mediator, is the Godhead or deity, and here is this man, humanity.  Paul brings the truth to light when he writes to the Romans.  He talks about this.  Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets and the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was humanity, descended from David according to the flesh, divinity was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead.  Jesus Christ our Lord. 

A true mediator must be able to represent both parties, and Paul is standing on this solid rock that Jesus is and always will be this for a Christian to stand upon as well.  There is no one like Him.

Not only chosen by God, a nature that is fully God and fully man, but third section of the Confession says He was full of the Holy Spirit.  Anointed with the Holy Spirit, the Confession says, beyond measure.  It goes on to say being holy, blameless, undefiled, full of grace and truth.  Why?  It is so that He might be completely equipped to fulfill the office of a mediator and guarantor.

John the Baptist said of Jesus He had a measure of the Spirit that was without limit.  By implication therefore he perfectly displayed in life the fruits of the Spirit.  God was pleased for all His fullness to dwell in Him as Colossians 1:19 says.  All this was so that Jesus could be an effective mediator, to truly accomplish peace and justice and righteousness.

The Confession mentions a guarantor and by definition it is an individuals who agrees to pay a borrower’s debt if the borrower defaults on their obligation.  This is exactly what Christ did as our mediator.  He knew the cost.  He knew that we were covenant breakers and are covenant breakers.  We default all the time.  Yet He undertook the obligations of being the mediator of the new covenant as the writer of Hebrews explains in chapter 7 – this makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.

The Confession goes into greater explanation and detail of which we don’t have time to consider, but I want to commend to your reading.  It will lead to worship and hope and joy to understand more deeply how Christ is the one mediator.  But I’ll just mention some here in rapid fire that the Confession dives into.

The fact that Jesus was a willing sacrifice.  A willing sacrifice.  That He suffered, died, rose again, and ascended to the Father’s right hand.  That He will as King return again.

The Confession mentions that Christ as mediator satisfied justice.  It teaches us that it is Christ Himself acting according to both natures that His saving work is accomplished.  He is our Savior and our deliverer.

It will leave us with this truth that John Stott summarizes so well from a pastoral side.  Here then, this is in his commentary on 1 Timothy, here then is the double uniqueness of Jesus Christ, which qualifies Him to be the only mediator.  First, there is the uniqueness of His divine human person, and secondly, the uniqueness of His substitutionary redeeming death.  The one mediator is the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom.  We must keep these three nouns together – the man, the ransom, the mediator. 

Historically, Stott goes on to say, they refer to three major events in the saving career of Jesus.  His birth, in which He became a man; His death, in which He gave Himself as a ransom; and His exaltation by resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand, where He acts as our mediator or advocate today.

Theologically, they refer to three great doctrines of salvation – the incarnation, the atonement, and the heavenly mediation.  And since, he goes on to say, in no other person but Jesus of Nazareth has God first become man, taking on our humanity to Himself, and then given Himself as a ransom, taking our sin and guilt upon Himself.  Therefore He is the only mediator.  There is no other.  No one else possesses or even ever has possessed the necessary qualifications to mediate between God and sinners.

So this leaves us considering this truth, perhaps for someone here tonight, this man, this mediator, and this ransom is utterly competent and can be called upon in faith and trust to save someone who doesn’t trust in his or her own righteousness, good works, or religious observance, but will place their faith in the perfect mediator.

Hebrews 7:25 puts an exclamation point on this – Consequently He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them, for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, believers and those who have yet to believe there truly is no other.  There truly is no other.

Now let’s remember where we are in the letter.  I started by saying that this center role of Jesus’ mediator should instill confidence in us and in our Christian lives.  I hope by hearing from the Confession the qualities of this one mediator grows our confidence.  This is our foundation from which we pray for authorities, the foundation from which we proclaim our message, that there is only one mediator.

And finally, he says, this is the foundation of our appointment to ministry.  It was Paul’s and it is ours.  Verse 7.  Look at it.  For this I was appointed a preacher or a herald and an apostle, which there are no more of those today.  I am telling the truth.  I am not lying.  Apparently some did not trust Paul.  And a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

In Paul’s case, it was threefold – an apostle, a teacher, and a preacher.  One can see that these gifts appointed by God compliment the proclaiming of this message, this God-man, this mediator, whose perfect life and death served as a ransom for sin.  It is good news to be heralded all over the world.

If this is not true, friends, then our very salvation is in jeopardy.  Our appointment to ministry is a farce because we don’t have a true message to proclaim and teach and our prayers for the salvation of people and for those in authority over us are simply in vain.

But we believe this to be true, and I hope you are holding fast to this mediator, who is the foundation for all that we are and all that we do.  The topic of Christ’s mediatorial role is vast as it is beautiful and comforting as it is confronting.  It leaves us with a decision to make – either we take Jesus for what and who He is, the exclusive God-man, the only mediator between God and fallen humanity, and we bow the knee to Him, or we include others, other so-called roads to God to heaven, rejecting Jesus and His exclusive claim, and therefore rejecting Him.

I hope and pray you’re in the former group.  If you’re not, today is a great day to place your trust and faith in Christ.  God’s desire and Christ’s death concern all people so it is the Church’s privilege to concern itself with all people, too, extending our prayers and proclamation to all people all over the world.

There is a hymn that Thomas Aquinas wrote many, many years ago and I want to read it before we sign another hymn that I asked Joseph to put to music tonight for us and he graciously did that and worked very hard on that.  It’s a Charles Wesley tune that we’re going to sing in just a moment.  But listen to what Thomas á Kempis, I said Aquinas, Thomas á Kempis said a long time ago:  O love how deep, how broad, how high ,

how passing thought and fantasy, that God, the Son of God, should take our mortal form for mortals’ sake!  For us baptized, for us He bore His holy fast, and hungered sore; for us temptations sharp He knew, for us the tempter overthrew.  For us to wicked men betrayed, scourged, mocked, in crown of thorns arrayed, for us He bore the cross and death for us at length gave up His breath.  For us He rose from death again, for us He went on high to reign, for us He sent His Spirit here to guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All honor, laud, and glory be, O Jesus, virgin born to thee, whom with the Father we adore, the Holy Ghost forevermore.    

Let’s pray together.  Heavenly Father, we Your people worship tonight more deeply in greater appreciation for this one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who is the foundation of all of our prayers, for the salvation of people around the world and for those in authority over us, and all of the proclaiming that we do that this is the only Messiah, the only mediator between God and man, and for all the appointments in our call to ministry, for the work that we do, the Gospel work we do here and around the world, may we here at Christ Covenant be truly concerned for all peoples everywhere in the state of their souls.  We pray these things in Jesus’ name.  Amen.