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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Dr. Wes Bredenhof > Christ Jesus is the only Mediator to whom we must look | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Psalm 125:1,2 Psalm 89:1,2 Hymn 26 Hymn 1 Psalm 111:1,2 Scripture readings: Mark 10:25-45, 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Catechism lesson and text: Lord's Day 6 and 1 Timothy 2:5-6 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
There was this film back in the 1980s, back in the days of VHS and VCRs. My dad rented the movie My Bodyguard from a local video store. It was about Clifford Peache, a scrawny little kid who started attending a new high school. He was bullied by an intimidating gang of older and bigger students. He’d have to pay them so they wouldn’t beat on him. This little guy hires Ricky Linderman, another student who’s a really big guy, really muscular. Clifford hires Ricky to be his bodyguard. The bullies don’t dare to bother him anymore.
You can imagine how good it is to have someone stronger on your side when you’re faced with a problem bigger than you. It’s good to have someone who is willing to be on your side and look out for your interests. But imagine if that stronger person was a bigot. Going back to My Bodyguard, imagine if Ricky Linderman was white and Clifford was black or aboriginal. Ricky Linderman is willing to defend white people, but because Clifford isn’t white, he need not apply. We’d say that’s discriminatory, bigoted, unkind.
Well if you can imagine that, then you can grasp the context of 1 Timothy 2:5-6. Paul was writing to Timothy, pastor of the church at Ephesus. There were those in the early church, in Ephesus and elsewhere, who believed that Jesus was only for believing Jews. Non-Jews, Gentiles need not apply. Only Jewish Christians have someone on their side in dealing with the big problem of sin and its guilt and condemnation.
Paul addresses that bigoted way of thinking here in our passage this afternoon. He does it in relation to Christ as the Mediator. When it comes to our sin and its curse, we’re weak and helpless. But Christ is the stronger one who’s on our side. He comes to represent us before God, to act as our Mediator to deal with our evil doing and its consequences. This Mediator is indeed for everyone who believes, Jew or non-Jew, male or female, young or old. No matter who you are, Christ Jesus is the only Mediator to whom we all can and must look. That’s the theme for the sermon this afternoon and we’ll learn about:
- His qualifications as our Mediator
- His work as our Mediator
You only need a Mediator when there’s a problem. According to the Bible, our problem is our sin and how God looks at it. The Bible says that God is holy. That means God is separate from sin, he will have nothing to do with it. God’s holiness means he must and he does hate sin and condemn it, along with those who do it. As our Catechism says in Lord’s Day 6, payment for sin needs to be made. The burden of God’s wrath has to be borne. Righteousness and life need to be restored to us. The one who will do all this is our Mediator.
Verse 5 of our text begins by saying “there is one God.” In a Jewish context that’s not controversial. Still today the basic Jewish confession is found in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This is what’s called monotheism, belief in one God. That belief carries over from the Old Testament into the New. It’s a permanent reality. The Old Testament prophets repeatedly made clear that there aren’t a multitude of gods, with each nation having its own god. There is only Yahweh, the true and living God. Paul reaffirms that basic biblical truth in verse 5. As Christians we too are monotheists. We believe there is really only one God. There are other religions, of course, but the gods they believe in are only so-called gods, imaginary gods.
Verse 5 goes on. Just as there is only one God, so there is only one Mediator between God and humanity. This is another way of saying what Jesus himself said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s another way of saying what Peter said in Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Christ is the only Mediator. Jesus is the only way of salvation.
This is important to understand because there are those who say otherwise, even people who claim to be Christians. The Bible’s teaching is what we call exclusivism. Jesus is the exclusive way to God. All other possibilities are excluded. But there are those who hold to pluralism. Pluralists say there are many ways to God. What matters is that each person just follows their own way sincerely. So if a Muslim is sincere in his or her faith, God will accept that, and they will go to be with God when they die. If a Jewish person is sincere, God will accept that and they’ll go to heaven. And so on.
That might sound a bit hypothetical or extreme, but there are people who believe it. And sometimes this kind of pluralistic thinking can seep in among us too. We have a family member or friend who says they still believe in God, but they don’t follow Jesus Christ, don’t believe in him, don’t show the fruits of faith in him. And yet we may be tempted to think that because they still believe in God, they’ll still go to heaven. As if believing in God in a general way is sufficient for salvation. Listen to what James says in James 2:19, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder!” Note how in the first part, James sounds like Paul and Deuteronomy 6:4, “You believe that God is one.” You’re a monotheist, great! But so are the demons. So what if you believe in God? It’s not monotheism or a mere belief in God that saves you. You need that one Mediator between God and men. You need Christ. Everyone does.
What is it that qualifies him to be that one Mediator we all can and must look to? Our Catechism speaks of both his divinity and his humanity. He needed to be true God to bear the burden of divine wrath on the cross. Only God can take his own wrath against sin. But 1 Timothy 2:5 focusses on his other qualification: his humanity. He is “the man Christ Jesus.” Though it’s just four words in our Bible translation, it says a lot.
“The man Christ Jesus” speaks about how he came into this world and took on our human nature. It speaks to us of Christmas, of the incarnation. The Son of God existed eternally before being conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. But at that moment, true God became true man as well. He added a human nature to his divine nature. He became a true human being with a real human body and a real human soul. He didn’t just appear human, he actually became one of us and still is to this day.
“The man Christ Jesus” speaks about how he existed in this world as one of us. He experienced human life with all of its brokenness. He tasted tears. He felt frustration. He was tried by temptation. But he was also fully obedient as a human being. Where the first Adam failed, the Second Adam succeeded. He showed himself to be the true human being, what human beings were created and designed to be.
“The man Christ Jesus” speaks to us of the cross. A true human being hung on that accursed cross. God cannot suffer. But when the Son of God became a human being, he suffered horribly, he suffered infinitely. God cannot die. He is immortal. But when the Son of God became a human being, he took on a mortal human nature. He could and he did die on that cross.
Without his humanity, he would not have been able to be our Mediator. It was essential that he be one of us, to represent us before God in our redemption. As our Catechism puts it, the same human nature which had sinned had to pay for sin. God would never punish another creature for the sin which man committed. We needed a Mediator who was one of us and in his love and grace, God provided him for us. Loved ones, we ought to be so thankful, so filled with praise, awe, and wonder. God has been good and loving to us.
Our passage goes on in verse 6 to speak about our Mediator as the one “who gave himself as a ransom for all.” Here we’re looking at his work as our Mediator. I’ve already touched on it, but now we can go into it in more depth.
Let’s notice first of all that our Mediator “gave himself.” There are two things to draw out of that. They both have to do with the cross.
The language here is consistent with what Jesus said in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Notice how Jesus also spoke there of giving his life. Similarly in John 10:18, Christ said that no one takes his life from him, but he lays it down of his own accord. He was not a helpless victim. Jesus willingly died.
This is important to understand because there are those who make certain claims about what we call substitutionary atonement. Substitutionary refers to the fact that Christ as the true man is our substitute on the cross. Atonement refers to a sacrifice which brings about reconciliation, brings two fighting parties back together in peace. Some claim that substitutionary atonement makes Christ into a victim of child abuse. He is on the cross and he is being abused by his Father and he can do nothing but just take it. This is what we call a caricature – it’s a cartoonish and gross misrepresentation of substitutionary atonement.
Christ says he gave himself and Paul echoes that in 1 Timothy 2:6. This means Christ willingly went to the cross and did what he did there for us. He was actively in control of what happened. He didn’t have to be coerced or cajoled. It was in his heart to do what he did for us and in our place. His work as our Mediator was freely done by our Saviour and that should impress us.
It should impress us even more when we think about the second thing we can draw out of the fact that our Mediator gave himself. In the Bible, this kind of self-giving is a key indicator of love. Think of the well-known words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Or we could think of what Paul writes in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Love and self-giving are inextricably connected in the Bible. So when we read here in 1 Timothy 2:6 about Christ giving himself, we’re meant to think again about the love that’s portrayed here. The Son of God gave himself, gave us the most precious gift, and he did it because he loves us. He loves you. Now if that doesn’t grab your heart and impress you, I don’t know what will. It’s truly amazing that our Mediator would give us himself out of love, especially when we contemplate how we’re so unlovable. We’re rebels and traitors, we haven’t earned his love. Yet he showers us with it, he lavishes us with it. It’s not only love, but amazing grace.
When Christ gave himself with this incredible love, he did it as a ransom. That’s the next thing we need to see in 1 Timothy 2:6. Now when we hear about a ransom today, we often think of someone who has been kidnapped and then the kidnappers make a ransom demand. You pay the ransom and the person who’s been kidnapped gets released. When the Bible speaks about the ransom involved with our salvation, the focus isn’t on who makes the ransom demand and receives the ransom payment. Instead, we’re meant to focus on the fact that a payment is made which secures someone’s freedom. The focus is on the payment and the freedom that results.
Christ made the payment that results in our freedom. To use the words of our Catechism, the burden of God’s wrath is impossible for us to bear. It’s just too heavy. We’d be crushed by it. We can’t make the payment. Without that payment being made, our sins condemn us. We are destined to receive God’s infinite wrath. We’re in captivity to these horrible realities. But Christ went to the cross and he made the payment in our place. He took the burden of God’s wrath for us and now we’re free from guilt and condemnation, free from the prospect of God’s wrath against us. We’ve been liberated from captivity, redeemed from a horrible fate.
This ransom payment, according to 1 Timothy 2:6, was made for “all.” We don’t want to read too much into that word “all,” but we also don’t want to read too little. Reading too much into it would mean concluding that everyone’s ransom payment has been made. Some argue that. Some argue the ransom payment has been made for everyone, so everyone is going to heaven. You don’t even have to believe in Jesus as your Saviour. He made the ransom payment for you regardless of whether you believe in him or not. This is called universalism. Christ’s ransom pays for everyone, universally. Others argue that the ransom payment has been made in principle for everyone, but in order to have it applied to you, you have to use your free will to believe. This is the Arminian understanding of Christ’s ransom. Both the Arminian understanding and the universalistic understanding read too much into the word “all.”
We need to always let Scripture interpret Scripture. In the Bible, the word “all” doesn’t always mean “all without exception.” A classic example is Luke 2:1, “…a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Does that literally mean “all the world”? Did the decree from Caesar Augustus include the aboriginal nations living in Australia at the time? Of course not. We understand that it’s referring to the Roman world, the Roman empire. “All” doesn’t always literally mean “all.”
When it comes to Christ’s ransom payment, we need to look at what he says in Mark 10:45. There he says the ransom is not for all, but for many. Interesting. Or we look at John 10 where Jesus speaks about laying down his life, giving himself sacrificially. The word ransom isn’t used, but the general idea is there. And Jesus says in John 10:14 that he lays down his life for the sheep. Again, interesting. He limits the atonement to the sheep, which means the elect, those who were given by the Father to the Son. And there are more such passages which tell us that Christ’s ransom payment was not intended for absolutely every human being without exception.
Now if we look closer at the context of 1 Timothy 2:6, we see a clue that “all” shouldn’t be understood to be literally “all.” At the beginning of the chapter, Paul encourages Timothy to pray for all types of people. Why? Because God’s salvation is meant for all types of people, but it’s a salvation that only comes through Christ.
You see, the word “all” here addresses the human tendency to want to restrict God’s work of salvation through Christ. Some may want to restrict it to the ethnic Jews. Others may want to cut it off from “kings and all who are in high positions.” But Christ is the Mediator, the one who made the ransom payment, for all kinds of people. Ethnicity doesn’t matter, social status doesn’t matter, gender doesn’t matter, age doesn’t matter. The hymn Come, Ye Sinners Poor and Wretched says it well: “All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.” Every human being is called to look to this Mediator for the ransom payment they need. Loved ones, that includes you. Totally lean into Christ and him alone for what you need before God.
At the end of verse 6, we’re told that Christ’s work on the cross is “the testimony given at the proper time.” It’s the testimony or the witness that God’s plan of salvation includes far more than the Jews. God announced that in a powerful way on Good Friday – that was the proper time, just the right moment. Do you remember what happened at the temple when Jesus died on the cross? The massive curtain sealing off the holy place was torn down the middle. That was a supernatural act. No human being could have torn this really high and thick curtain the way it was torn, from top to bottom. It symbolized how the way of access is now open to God through Christ. The sacrificial system is obsolete and unnecessary. But the tearing of the temple curtain also symbolized the end of the temple and its central place in redemptive history. God was about to move in a powerful way beyond the Jews. In the book of Acts, a short time later, that’s exactly what happens. The gospel goes out to the nations and before long you have Paul writing a letter to Timothy, pastoring a congregation in Ephesus in Asia Minor. Eventually you have us, this congregation of Gentile believers. God has included us too, as he planned to all along. For that too, we can be so grateful.
In Christ Jesus, we have someone who willingly took our side. We were weak and helpless, but he stepped in and agreed to be our Mediator. Because he did, because he was qualified and because he did what had to be done, we are fully reconciled to God. Our sins can no longer condemn us. Our guilt need no longer burden us. Loved ones, keep on looking to the only Mediator Christ Jesus. He’s the only way. AMEN.
PRAYER
Loving and merciful Father,
We acknowledge you as the one only true God. We’re so thankful that in your love you sent your only Son to be our Mediator. Lord Jesus, thank you for loving us so much that you were willing to take on our human nature, even though there would be such a cost. We praise you for living a human existence on this earth and suffering and dying on the cross in our place. Thank you for paying the ransom so we can be free from our sins and their consequences. Lord, please help us with your Holy Spirit to place our trust entirely in you. We do pray for those we love who don’t yet believe in you as their Saviour and Lord. Please work in their hearts with your Holy Spirit. Please work in our lives so we have opportunities to speak with them. Use us as instruments in your hand to bring them to yourself. LORD God, thank you for the gospel of Christ our only Mediator. Please continue to encourage us and bless us with the knowledge of that good news each day.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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