Our Wonderful “Middle” Man
“For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” I Timothy 2:5
John Donne, the 17th century English poet and cleric wrote, “No man is an island”. No one can get through life completely alone, that is, I suppose it would be possible, but very difficult and lonely. Imagine being the only person on earth. That would be weird. God designed men and women for relationships. He didn’t leave Adam alone in the garden of Eden; He gave him a woman, a companion, so that he wouldn’t be the only human on earth. Of course, through deception, she fell for the lie of hell’s low-down, rotten, and vile accuser, the devil, hook, line, and sinker, and Adam and Eve lost their perfect environment. But that’s a blog for another day.
Many things that we deal with in this life makes it necessary to go through a third party, or a “middle man” or “middle woman” as the case may be. We usually don’t buy food directly from farmers. There is a line of folks through which our food travels before it comes to our dinner table. The farmer is the one who plants the seed and depends on God’s blessing for harvest, and then there is the processor, the shipper, the market, and then we get to enjoy the farmer’s bounty, that is, if we can afford it in these days of high inflation. In order to be able to afford health care, we need a third party, the health insurance company, of whom we purchase a policy and hopefully they will pay a good portion of our medical bills. When we buy stocks, we go through a stockbroker who deals in buying and selling on the stock market. Buying a home requires a real estate agent, banks, mortgage companies, surveyors, inspectors, and lawyers. And in court cases, we also need the help of an attorney to represent us before the judge. A common denominator among all of these middle men is that they all get a cut of the profit. That is fair. If they work, they should be paid. If we tried doing any of these things on our own without assistance, we wouldn’t get very far.
In spiritual matters we also have One who stands between us and the Father, who is the Judge of the Universe. We cannot come to God on our own. Jesus made that clear when He told His disciples that He, Jesus, was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). I don’t know why so many folks can’t seem to get that through their thick skulls. I thank God that He helped me to understand that a long time ago. My only answer to why there are so many lost people is because a person has to understand that he or she is a sinner, and that God can accept no sin in any way, shape, or form. Folks don’t want to admit that they are sinners. But, when they finally come to that realization made known by the Holy Spirit, the next step would be to recognize that no one can save himself or herself, and that God didn’t leave us without a remedy. This is not rocket science. If we are smart, we wouldn’t be a defendant in a courtroom without a lawyer to fight for us.
Jesus Christ is our Mediator, our Defense Attorney, who represents us before God in all matters of our lives. He does it solely for our benefit. He knows us better than anyone. While we can have others intercede for us through prayer, we have the privilege of praying and/or confessing directly to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son. We don’t have to go to a human priest, preacher, or counselor to get forgiveness of our sins. These folks are trained to help us, but they cannot do what Jesus can do. If they are attune with the Holy Spirit, they can point us in the right direction, but they have no closer access than we do with our heavenly Father through Christ. There is not man or woman, ordinary citizen or one of position, who is more highly favored to bring petitions before God than any born again believer. We all have equal access to God by Jesus. I am grateful that I don’t have to depend on another human being to bring my cares before the Lord.
Even if I was the only person on earth, and thank God that I am not, Jesus would still have gone to the cross and made the required sacrifice so that I could be reconciled and have access to my heavenly Father. Hallelujah, what a Savior!