God’s Mediator
“For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” I Timothy 2:5-6
In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, the leader of the church in Ephesus, he had urged Timothy to be aware of those who would infiltrate the church with false doctrine and reminded the young preacher why God instituted the law many years before. He also spoke of his own conversion to Christ and how that Timothy should stand firm in the battle against evil, hold onto his faith, and the importance of instructing men and women to pray continually.
Prayer is such an important part of Christian life. Paul urged Timothy to pray for all people everywhere, asking God to bring favor upon them, and to pray for himself in order to thank God for the privilege of prayer. If you think about it, when we pray for others, we might be the only person praying for some of them. What a tremendous responsibility. There is no one who does not need prayer. Kings, rulers, and people in places of authority need prayer for the policies that they make can affect us all. If we desire better government, then we should pray that God puts a burden upon leaders to do what’s right and to convict them when they do wrong. The unbelieving world is not going to pray for God to intervene because they have no concern for their own souls, much less for the souls of others.
God desires for everyone to hear the truth, know the truth, and understand the truth for that is the only way to know God in a personal and intimate way. Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life. No one can come to God except by way of Christ. Scripture is very clear about this, yet millions of people are either clueless or just don’t want to believe the truth of salvation. God’s way of salvation is completely logical. Since God sent Jesus to suffer and die in order to make the way of forgiveness and salvation possible in order to reconcile with a holy God from whom mankind was separated because of sin, there can be no other way to be accepted by God. God made man; God set the standard by which man should live; man violated that standard by way of his sin; and God provided the way back to Him in Christ. God took the initiative at every step of the way. Man did nothing and was never able to do anything to save himself. “This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).
God is the only God, and Christ is the only Mediator, the only One who can represent man before the Father. No one, no angel, no devil, no demon, or any other creature including man himself can stand before God as the go-between, the defense attorney, or the substitute to give God, the righteous Judge, the reason to acquit the repentant sinner. God can’t see the sins of a man or woman through the blood of Christ which has been applied to the heart of one who has been born again through repentance and belief in Christ by God’s grace. It is the blood of Christ which was shed on the cross that covers the sins of the repentant man or woman. Without the blood, there is no remission of sin, that is, there is no cancelling of man’s sin debt that was due to the God of glory (Hebrews 9:22b).
We’ve all seen television shows or movies wherein a person is kidnapped and a ransom, an amount of money or other demand is made in order for the one held to be released. If the ransom was not paid or provided, the person would be killed by the kidnappers. In the case of sin, a person, being born with a sin nature, is held captive to sin. It doesn’t matter how “good” he or she believes himself or herself to be, he or she is still a sinner and separated from God. In order for the sinner to be redeemed or brought back into the acceptance and the forgiveness of God, a ransom had to be paid. Otherwise, the captive sinner would experience eternal death in the possession of his or her sin captor, Satan. The ransom was paid by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on the cross for all people because all people are captured and held by their sin. Jesus, as this Ransom, was prophesied thousands of years prior to the time of His birth, ministry, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Because, as Moses stated, blood contains the life of the person or animal (Deuteronomy 12:23), no one can live without blood coursing through his or her body. Jesus had to sacrifice His blood, His life, in order to make a complete atonement, that is, a covering over of sin, to reconcile God and man. No amount of “good works” done by a human being can ever cover his or her sin.