His Name, The Mediator
By Miles McKee

Heb 12:24 ‘Jesus the mediator of the new covenant’

Jesus is the only one exclusively qualified to be our mediator because He is both man and God. In fact if he was not both God and man he could not qualify as an effective and representative of both parties. If He was man only He could not represent God: If He was God only He could not represent Man.

So what is a mediator? In business, people often call upon the services of a mediator. A mediator is needed when there is a dispute. In a dispute, both parties feel hard done by. There are offenses on both sides and the mediator carefully guides the warring parties through the troubled waters till at last a settlement of peace is reached. Of course this picture breaks down when applied to the dispute between ourselves and God. We alone have caused the breach. We are the offending party. God is entirely innocent of any suggested crimes and utterly right in all His dealings with us. We are the offending party. Notice the immense wisdom and power of our mediator Christ Jesus. Although He restores sinful man to a relationship with God, man does not become sinless in himself. As Luther says,

“A Christian is beloved of God and a sinner. How can these two contradictions be harmonized: I am a sinner and deserve God's wrath and punishment, and yet the Father loves me? Christ alone can harmonize these contradictions. He is the Mediator.” Martin Luther; Commentary on Galatians

Christ is the only qualified mediator because He is both God and man. He fully represents us to God and fully represents God to us. He is the meeting place between the two. If man will not meet with God in Christ then he will never meet with God until that final and dreadful Day of Judgment. If a man will not meet with God through his mediator then he will have no advocate, no lawyer, to defend Him against the record of sin which was his life.

But what if Christ is not God? I would remind you that our hope of salvation rests in Christ alone (See Vol. 1 of the Gospel Truth Trilogy). If He does not save us then we will not be saved. If His blood has not paid the ransom for us then we are still sold under sin. The Gospel has inseparably bound us to Christ, our Lord and Savior. His destiny is our destiny. His future is ours. He is our only hope!

But what if He is not God? Then we are in serious trouble! What, after all, would happen if Jesus and God fell out? What if they argued and God banished Jesus from Heaven? That would be disastrous for us because if He gets banished then we get banished too! If that shocks you then perhaps you need to revisit your understanding of the Gospel. Listen to the truth of this scripture, “God has for Christ’s sake forgiven us” (Eph 4:32). We are not forgiven because we turned over a new leaf and became good. We are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Also, we were chosen in Christ (Eph 1:4)…..we were not chosen in ourselves or because of anything to do with us! It is ‘in Christ Jesus’ we have redemption (Eph 1:7) and we are accepted only in Christ the Beloved One (Eph 1:6). We must remember that we are saved only by His work which was done for us and apart from us. He represents us in Heaven and we are clothed in His righteousness alone. If His work for us is all wrong then we are all wrong! It is Christ and His doing and dying alone that qualify us to be in Glory……there is nothing in us which qualifies us! So if Jesus is really not God then none of us who have trusted Him are actually safe. We will only be safe as long as Jesus and God don’t fall out!

So, let’s face it, even in Heaven none of us will be secure if Jesus is not God. And before you say, “Oh well such a thing could not happen, Jesus and God could not fall out and disagree”, I would like to remind you that the highest created Prince in Heaven, Mr. Lucifer argued with God and was cast out of Heaven. So what’s to stop the same thing happening with Jesus? It is not actually beyond the realm of possibility if Jesus is merely a created being.

Furthermore, if Jesus is not God, and there is an actual risk, be it ever so slight, that God and Jesus will sometime in eternity not see eye to eye and we, as a result will be lost then we must face the fact that none of us have ever been actually and truly reconciled to God. Reconciliation with the Father is a mere imagination if we can at sometime potentially be thrown out of Heaven. So much about being reconciled to God by the death of Christ (Rom 5:10)! So much for preaching the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:20)! Reconciliation by Christ is an empty promise if Christ is not God.

And if Christ is not God, then we should all forget about ever coming to full assurance of faith (Heb 10:22) or having much assurance (1 Thess. 1:5) or gaining assurance for ever (Isa. 32:17). For after all, if He is not God then, there’s not much point in getting too excited about this salvation business as Christ’s work might actually turn out to be of no avail.

But Christ is God and since God can not fall out with Himself we are saved, secure, reconciled and safe. This is Good News! In fact there is no Gospel if Jesus is not God!

In scripture Jesus, as our mediator, is presented to us as the High priest over the house of God. He, as our mediating priest is,

Able to save us to the uttermost (Heb 7:25),
Able to present us faultless (Jude 1:24),
Able to keep us from falling (Jude 1:24) and
Able to help us when we are tempted (Heb 2:18).

How can a mere man do all that for us? If he was not God then he would be quite useless as a High Priest because we absolutely need a High Priest who can hear all our prayers at all times. We need a High Priest who is able to, at all times, save to the uttermost and to represent all His people at all times. He has to know us and be able to search our hearts. A mere man could not do all of this. Only the God/Man can be qualified to become our faithful, effective mediator and High Priest.

To know that Christ Jesus is God is to see something of the love of God. God’s love, if Christ is not God, must always remain a theoretical possibility. But the God who is love clothed Himself with humanity, undertook our cause and now intercedes for us. This is love! That God would become our mediator deserves no other response but worship. For God to become our mediator also displays His infinite wisdom. There is an old parable of the end time judgment with all the people who have ever lived being brought before God. Of course, being human, they all come with a complaint. God is not fair they claim. One group say they suffered persecution. They had died in gas chambers and concentration camps. They wanted to know by what right God could judge them. What would God know about suffering? Another group had suffered as refugees. They had no homes and no place to lie down to sleep. They had been poor and just had made enough to pay for their needs. There were others who had been sick most of their lives. How could God judge them? God lived in heaven where there is only goodness and happiness, no tears, no worries, no fears, no hungers, no mistreatments, no sorrows. So being that these folk were human they not only complained but also appointed a committee to draw up a case before God. They stated that before God could Judge them he must first endure what they went through. They said He would have to live on earth and be subject to all they had gone through. They cried out, “Let him be born a Jew! Let him become a refugee! Let Him be poor! Let him be rejected by his people! Let him have friends who betray him! Let him have false charges brought on him! Let him be tried before a kangaroo court! Let him be wrongly convicted by a judge! Let Him be abandoned by his friends! Let him be lonely! Let him be tortured! Let him die at the hands of enemies!” The crowd stood back and gave approval to each sentence. Then there was hush to be heard all over the room, for they then realized God already had served that sentence. For Jesus in His coming as a man identified with us, in his sufferings, in struggles and temptations, in his pain of body, mind and spirit. He felt it all completely, totally and personally just as we have. So we ask WHY? It was so we could know the depth of God’s wisdom and His love for us. So we could know how far God was willing to go to prove He loved us. So that in all that we go through we can turn to God and see one who has proven his love for us in that He came to earth Himself in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. 1 JN 4:10 “Herein is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

For Christ to be the mediator he must be fully God and fully man! No other mediator is suitable for both parties. If he understands one side but not the other he is inept and his judgement flawed. Therefore, only in Christ Jesus we have the provision of a qualified mediator. What comfort there is in knowing we have a mediator. The words of Donald Cargill the Scottish Covenanter Now for my own case, I bless the Lord that, for all that hath been said of me, my conscience doth not condemn me. I do not say I am free of sin, but I am at peace with God through a slain Mediator; and I believe that there is no salvation but only in Christ.

Donald Cargill