Why we need Jesus

“The soul who sins shall die. . . . But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? 
But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die. 
“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 
Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” And you, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, (Ezekiel 18:21–19:1)

If salvation depended on doing good things, then everyone is doomed. No unsaved sinner can claim eternal life on a few good deeds. No believing Christian can claim eternal security for a life of many good deeds yet with the occasional sin. 

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:22–28)

Being created in His image does not do it. Doing one’s best to follow His laws does not do it. Continually offering sacrifices and confessing sin doesn’t work either. In a sense, having a new heart doesn’t make us sinless. We still fall short. We need Jesus to be our substitute and God to put us ‘in Him’ and see us ‘in Him’ and that happens as we trust Him to have done what we could never do — take our punishment for sin, give us the ability and willingness to obey Him, and intercede for us when we fall short, even when we don’t notice or will not admit that we have.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44)

We cannot even come to Christ without being drawn there by God, and we cannot respond and come to Him any other way but through Jesus. And we cannot be forgiven, cleansed, made new, and live forever without Jesus. Saying NO to Jesus is saying YES to depending on ourselves, an impossible task and folly.

Jesus, this is why I love and worship You. My life is not perfect. My obedience is iffy at times. I forget You or neglect You at times. But You never fail me. I need You all the time and for all of life… and worship You for being there, always, with me.

Our Advocate and Mediator…

Oddly, some people close to our granddaughter and involved in the legal profession have told her she needs an advocate to stand up for her and make sure she gets all that is her right to have. I understand their concern, yet also know that our prayers for her are received by a Mediator who stands for her far above any power or negative force in the universe. Our God is not only sovereign over the medical systems and government agencies here, He also rules the healing of her bones and the well-being of her attitude. To see her with casts or braces on all four limbs, unable to get out of bed, bruised and bleeding, and given morphine and other painkillers every few hours, yet joyful and laughing brings only one response: Only God!

This echos a tiny bit of what Jesus experienced in Gethsemane: 

And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:43–46)

The disciples didn’t realize the fullness of His angst, nor do I. But He had already yielded to His fate by saying, “Thy will be done” after asking if there was another way. Is that not the big key to comfort in great trials? They stop hurting me if I refuse to fight with them or with the God who allows them. I’m not aware of what is going on in her heart, but this grandchild of ours has peace on her face and acceptance in her words. I can almost see those strengthening angels who are ministering to her.

As for the attitudes, only Jesus can deal with the finger-pointing and anger that we so easily feel when life hands us a painful trial. He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do…” even as they cast lots to divide his garments. (Luke 23:34)

This passage, plus some of what I see in her attitude, gives an example of what it means to have a mediator. No thoughts of punishment or retaliation or suing the medical people who messed up in their attempts to fix things. I looked it up. A mediator stands between two parties to reconcile their differences or to establish a relationship between them. In our world, this covers a broad array of roles. However, in the Bible, it is about relationships between deity and humanity. Scripture says mediation presupposes that we have been alienated from God by sin but that He desires to bridge the gulf separating us and restore harmonious relations (Isaiah 59:1–2). This is why Jesus came:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus... (1 Timothy 2:5)

But as it is, 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)

Mediation can be directed towards God, as in intercessory prayer, or towards humans, but Scripture primarily represents it as God’s initiative in reaching down to us through revelation and redemption. He sent His sinless Son — qualified because he is both fully human and fully divine — to fill three mediatorial offices of prophet, priest, and king. By his atoning death, in which he became both high priest and sacrifice, Jesus once and for all opened the way into God’s presence and now rules in believers’ hearts and is also seated at the Father’s right hand where He intercedes for us, as does the Holy Spirit. This is mainly about sin and forgiveness, but also covers all our needs.

PRAY: Every time a prayer is answered, I know that it was prayed in harmony with Your will and Your role to mediate our human needs, both for forgiveness and to supply those things we request that fit with Your will. If my prayer goes up with any kinks in it, it reaches the Father’s ears properly — for You are my Advocate, the One who makes sure I receive what the Father wants for me. My thoughts are hard to put into words. Given the events over the past little while, Your love and goodness is exceedingly overwhelming again, so I thank You, again and again. 

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.