WWUTT 586 What is a Mediator?

1 Timothy 2:5 and the Meaning of a Mediator

1 Timothy 2 .5 says, There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. We're going to come back to that verse again today to know what a mediator is and why you need one when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God. For questions and comments send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. T 'was the week before Christmas. Are you aware of that? December 25th on Monday of next week. Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, we're going to continue our study of 1 Timothy. On Thursday, I'll jump back into 2 Chronicles.

I wasn't there this past Thursday because of the tribute that I made to Dr. Sproul. And then on Friday, Becky and I will still be doing our Q &A, so you can submit your questions via email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Prayer for All People and the Context of 1 Timothy 2

Now, as we come back into 1 Timothy 2 today, I have a confession to make. I really have no idea where I left off last week. I know that I finished up through verse 7, but I don't know how I concluded.

A lot has happened since Wednesday. Dr. Sproul went home to be with the Lord, and I pretty much spent all Thursday just reading tributes to him and praying for the family and mourning myself. Then on Friday, I took my daughter to see Star Wars, and then she went to go be with her Omi and Opa, our oldest daughter.

And then on Saturday, I was feeling under the weather. Becky did a garage sale. Sunday, of course, we had church. I think I took two naps in the afternoon. And so here we are Monday, and I feel like I've done a whole week's worth of stuff just since Wednesday.

So I don't remember how I concluded. I know that since I threw a bunch of verses there at the end on Wednesday, that I didn't properly flesh out verse 5, and I would really like to. So 1 Timothy 2, 5, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

And I'd like to talk a little bit more about what that means, that Christ is our mediator. First, to keep all these things in context, let's go back to verse 1. So Paul says, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 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 in truth. So we're reminded here that the context that we are talking about in this section that we've been reading, the context is prayer.

That's the instruction that Paul is giving. And that context hasn't changed because as we go into verse 8, Paul says, I desire them that in every place the men should pray. So we're continuing with this instruction regarding prayer.

Paul is giving instructions in godliness, godliness that flows from a sound teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the very first instruction he gives is to pray and not just pray for yourself, but most especially you are praying for other people.

Supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings for all people, kings and all who are in high position. So we must be thankful even for our elected officials. And remember who was emperor during this particular time?

Nero, a guy who put Christians to death. Now his persecution of the Christians to the point that he was putting them on posts and lighting them on fire and lighting the streets of Rome with them. That hadn't happened yet, but he was still nonetheless not a friendly guy.

And yet Paul is saying that even these kings, emperors, those in high positions are worthy of respect. Peter makes that point a little bit more emphatically in his letter that we that we need to give respect to all whom respect is owed and honor the emperor.

Even Paul says that Romans 13. Peter includes that in his letter in first Peter as well. So we need to be thankful even for those who are in high positions and pray for them with supplications, which is asking of God with a humble heart, a humble attitude, knowing that you are not deserving of anything.

And yet you would be praying for someone else and also in intercession that we are intervening on behalf of another, that we are lifting up their needs, their requests to God with our own voice, with our own heart, sharing in their sufferings in this world and lifting up their needs before our father who is in heaven.

And so this is the first instruction Paul gives regarding godliness, that we would pray for one another and all people. There is no one for whom we should not pray. There is no one from whom we should withhold the gospel.

So likewise, we should pray for everyone just the same. And so when it comes to this interaction with God in the act of prayer, there is one mediator that gets us to God, and that is Jesus Christ. Now, what is a mediator?

Well, very simply, this is the dictionary definition of mediator. It is a person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement. Another definition of this would be a go between.

Reconciliation, the Cross, and Access to God

So when we use that word reconcile, which means to accept that which was not previously desired, Jesus reconciles us back to God. God did not desire us in the state that we were in, in our fallen state, in the sinfulness and rebellion that we had committed against God.

Jesus covered over our sin with his righteousness, his shed blood on the cross. He took our sin upon himself. He gave us his righteousness. And now we before the father are presented to him as justified with that sacrifice, having been given, having been made on our behalf.

God now accepts us because we've been clothed in the righteousness of his son. That's reconciliation. And then to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians, Paul said, we've been given the ministry of reconciliation.

So we go out with the gospel of Christ. And as those here, the gospel are convicted of their sin and they turn from sin and worship Christ. They, through Christ, Jesus have also been reconciled to God.

So by our declaring of the gospel, we have been doing this ministry of reconciliation. So that's what it means to be reconciled. Therefore, Christ is the one who resolves that conflict between us and God because of the sin that we've committed against God, then we are at conflict.

We were in enmity with God in Romans 5, 10. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? So prior to the sacrifice of Christ, our repenting of our sin and worshiping Christ the Lord, we were enemies of God.

This was the conflict that existed between us and God. And Christ, as one who has reconciled us to God, is our mediator. He has resolved this conflict between us and God. That's how he is our mediator.

Now, why do we need a mediator? I mean, why is that even necessary? Why can't you just pray to God? And that would be enough. Why do we need a go-between between us and God? Well, perhaps you've seen this illustration done before in explaining the gospel.

You've got a chasm that separates us and God. So like if you were to draw this out on a piece of paper, you draw on the left side one cliff. And on that cliff is a man. There's a man standing there. And then there is a chasm between that man and another cliff.

And on the other side of that chasm is God. So the chasm that separates us from God is sin. Sin is the divide that has broken our relationship with God. Sin is the reason why we don't have a relationship with God.

God has a dispute with us because of our sin. So there is this impassable chasm. You can't get across it. If you were to stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and you look from one side to the other, you would see that as an impossible gap.

You can't leap over that gap. You would leap to your death. There's no way that you can jump across that divide and get to the other side. By your physical limitations, you can't do it. Well, the gap that separates us from God is even wider than that.

It's even more impossible to cross than it is to cross the Grand Canyon. It is God who is holy and righteous on one side and us who are sinful and depraved on the other side. And all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And the wages of sin is death, as it says in Romans 6, 23. Through the prophet Habakkuk, we are told that God's eyes are so holy that he cannot even look at us in our sinfulness. He turns his eyes away from us.

That's Habakkuk 1, 13. So if God is so holy that he can't even look at us in our sin, then who are we to think that we could say something to God and he would even be listening for what it is that we say?

As it stands, we cannot offer any right thing to God that would be acceptable to him, even if we kept the law. Because as it says in Isaiah 64, 6, even our best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy God.

So how can we be sure that what we are offering up to the Lord is actually received by him if he is so holy and so pure and so glorious that our our very words are unworthy to be heard by him, our very deeds are unworthy to be looked at by him?

How can we know that God would receive what it is that we offer when what it is that we have when what it is that we are offering is being done in the righteousness of Christ? That is the only assurance that we have that God would receive what it is that we give to him, that the prayers that we lift up to God would be heard by him, that we actually are able to access the holy of holies in order to talk to God.

Because remember, in Israel, when you're going back to the whole sacrificial system in the Old Testament, not anybody could talk to God. It was the person who was in the holy of holies who was the mediator on behalf of the people.

You had the high priest on Yom Kippur one day a year that he would go into the holy of holies and atone for the sins of all of the people. This was to show to symbolize to God's people how holy he was and how sinful and fallen we are and how in need of a savior we are.

All of this was types and shadows that was foreshadowing the coming of Christ, who would be the one who would walk into the holy of holies on our behalf. Who could do that? Zechariah had a vision of a prophet named Joshua or a priest named Joshua, which is the same name as Jesus, by the way.

Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus, all the same name who entered into the holy of holies. And as he was going into that place, he was he was covered in soiled garments. And Zechariah even cried out, don't let him do it.

Don't let him go into the holy of holies. He'll die. He'll be struck dead because he's filthy. He's unholy. He's not been cleaned. And yet the voice of God is heard saying, take those robes off of him and put these pure white robes on him.

And that's what it is that Christ does for us. He takes his he takes our sin upon himself. But because the sacrifice that Christ offers to God is pure and holy because Christ was sinless, then God receives that sacrifice as having washed our sins clean.

And then the white, perfect robes that Jesus is adorned in, he clothes us with and we're righteous. And then God receives anything that we would lift up to him because the righteousness of Christ is upon us.

So Jesus is the one that stepped into the holy of holies on our behalf, atoning for our sins. And now we know that when we speak to God, our voice is heard across that chasm. There is a cross that has bridged that gap.

It is the cross of Christ. It is our way across, if you'll pardon the pun. But that is that's the addition to that illustration. So you got the cliff with the man on one side, you got the cliff with God on the other side.

And what is it that bridges that gap that has separated us from God because of our sin? The chasm that separates us is sin. The cross is the bridge that bridges that gap. So now we have access to God through the cross of Jesus Christ.

As Paul put it in Colossians chapter one, Jesus made peace by the blood of his cross. So we have peace with God, formerly enemies of God. Now it's through Christ that we have peace with God. We have this assurance that we can enter into the presence of God.

Our prayers will be heard by God because of Christ. So he's our mediator and we need a mediator. And Christ is the only one. And the fact that he came to earth this this season, we are remembering the incarnation of Christ.

Jesus was with the father throughout eternity past, and he left his rightful place on the throne of God to come to earth and take on the form of a servant, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He took on human flesh and he obeyed the will of his father to the glory of God. And God gave him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father.

And so Christ, who is God and became man, as it says in Hebrews, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never ceased to be God, but he also became man. He was very God, very man, that hypostatic union, the the humanity that God himself stepped into on our behalf.

And he lived the sinless life that we could not live so that he would become that perfect sacrifice there on the cross. You know, it's also in the Christmas story that we remember that Mary was with child conceived of the Holy Spirit.

She was a virgin. Why is that necessary to understand about the Christmas story, about the very incarnation of Christ? Because he was not conceived by the seed of sinful man. He did not inherit Adam's sin.

Adam is not his federal head. God is. And so, therefore, though he stepped into human flesh, it was not human flesh that was conceived of by Adam, by a man. And so, therefore, he's spotless and clean from his very conception.

He is without sin and affirm that sinlessness through his sinless life and became that perfect high priest who can enter into the presence of God on our behalf. This is Hebrews 2, 17. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people, just as the high priest did for Israel, whether it was in the tabernacle or in the temple.

So Christ has become our great high priest to make atonement for the for our sins, for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. That's Hebrews 2, 18.

So this is a mediator who not only mediates for us to God, but is also able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses. It is said in Hebrews 6, 19, we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.

That's a mediator. And Jesus being very God and very man is the one that bridges the gap between God and man. So Christ is the one who is able to be our mediator, and he's the only one. And this is why I do remember making this point last week.

This is why you cannot pray to the saints and have your prayers heard by God. Cannot be done. Which is the Catholic teaching. And in some ways, the Orthodox teaching as well. You can't pray to dead saints, and they're not carrying your prayers before God.

They're not worthy to be our mediator. They're not very God and very man. Only Christ is. And I'm sure the Catholic would argue, well, right. But we're praying to the saint. Well, they wouldn't even say it's prayer, which is ridiculous.

But anyway, we're praying to the saint to take our prayer before Jesus Christ himself. Why? Why would you do that? There's nothing in the Bible that tells you to do that. And you have access to God himself through Jesus Christ.

He's our only mediator. I mean, not only are you sinning by praying to a saint instead of God, but why would you settle for less? Why would you go to a lesser person who cannot actually give you the thing that you're asking for and not Christ himself, God himself in Jesus Christ?

You know, it is actually arrogant of you to not pray to God. That's a point that Peter makes in 1 Peter 5, 6. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

So we have this assurance that God cares for us. But there's also a warning issued by Peter there that if you do not cast your anxieties on the Lord, if you do not pray or you cast your anxieties on someone else other than God, it's as though you are saying that God can't take care of your problem and that you need to go through another way, other means in order to take care of your difficulties, your struggles, your anxieties, your sins, your transgressions, your temptations.

All of these things are supposed to be brought before God. This is part of humbling yourself. That supplication instruction that we have here in 1 Timothy 2, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

Remember John 15, 16, Jesus said to his disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

We are to ask in no other name but the name of Christ. There is one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. Jesus wasn't just a man in his earthly ministry. He's still very God and very man as he is seated at the right hand of the Father and interceding for us, a mediator on our behalf.

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10, what I tell you in the dark, say in the light and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell are not two Sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore you are of more value than many Sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven.

But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who is in heaven. Jesus said in Revelation chapter three to the church at Sardis, the one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.

I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. So Christ is our mediator is basically this on the day of judgment. When we come before God, we come before the judgment seat, which on which is seated Christ himself.

We will have to give an account for every idle word we've spoken. As Jesus said in the book of Matthew, every sin that we have committed, all that we have done will be laid bare before God. It says in the book of Revelation that everyone will stand before God in judgment and great books will be open and what will be read are all the deeds that we have done.

And as the question is presented in Revelation six, then who can stand? And Revelation seven answers that question with those who have thus been clothed in white garments in the righteousness of Christ.

So Christ himself stands not only as our judge, but also our defense attorney and is able to say, well, this man is innocent. This woman is innocent. Their debt has been paid and I paid it. I paid it in my blood.

I purchased this person's soul with my blood and all who belong to Christ will not perish in judgment, but will become fellow heirs of the eternal promise that the father has given to the son in that beautiful and that gorgeous.

Does that help you to understand mediation now? Why we have this one mediator between God and man, as it says in Hebrews chapter nine, therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

And remember what we read when we were going through first and second Thessalonians, as the apostle Paul said to them, this is the prayer that he gave to the Thessalonians. Now may our God and father himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we do for you.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another. Verse 13, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all of his saints.

This is what Jesus does for us, grows us in holiness, establishes our hearts blameless and in holiness before God, the father, because he is our one mediator between God and man. The man, the perfect man, Jesus Christ to the glory of God.

Amen.

Closing Announcements

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of several short books on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Topics include the deity of Christ, original sin, resurrection, Christ's incarnation, and many more.

Find these books in our bookstore when you visit www .wutt .com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word when we understand the text.