Jesus Bridges the Gulf

 

In today’s world, conflict often requires an unbiased third party to settle disputes. Regarding our lives before God, all have sinned that cuts us off from Him because He is holy and will not tolerate evil in His presence. This puts us in a position of being unable to put matters right. This can only be done by God himself.

By sending the Son to become a man, the Father established the necessary link between Him and us. As a man, the Son remained sinless and therefore able to stand in the Father’s presence without guilt. Though He was tempted as we are, He resisted all temptation and instead took our sins on Himself. In other words, He stood in the place of sinners without being guilty of sin and took the necessary punishment on our behalf. He became our MEDIATOR, “one who stands in between.”

In the OT, Moses stood between God and the people, sometimes bringing God’s message to the Israelites, sometimes bringing Israel’s complaints or sins before God. But there is no word in Hebrew for either “mediate” or “mediator.”

God’s people were given laws to show them how to live while they trusted in a promised Savior and mediator to come. Galatians 3:19–20 asks, “Why then the law?” then answers, “It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.”

Moses pleaded for the people and pleaded to the people for God, but as 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Jesus came as a ransom for all, the only one properly qualified to mediate between God and humanity because he is both fully human and fully divine. The Bible says Jesus is the mediator and guarantor of a new covenant, which is “better” than the Mosaic covenant because it is founded upon His own blood. By His atoning death He became both high priest and sacrifice, once and for all — opening the way into God’s presence. After His death and resurrection, He ascended into heaven, now sitting at the right hand of his Father and interceding on our behalf.

1 John 2:1. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

This means I can stand in the presence of God united to and dependent on Jesus and His work of mediation which lasts forever. This relationship with God would be impossible apart from my union with Jesus Christ. Not only that, while He is absent physically, the Holy Spirit mediates His presence and adds His own intercession!

This is why the NT says, “Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). No one can come to the Father except through Him. He is “the mediator of a new covenant” who guarantees my salvation by His sacrifice.

Hebrews 9:14–15. how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 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.

Hebrews 12:18–24. For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. “Mediator” is in my translation only four times, yet the richness of this description of the Lord Jesus Christ is awesome and worthy of glorifying Him. It also deepens my desire to pray for others, bringing them to God and asking Him to draw them to Himself.