You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. Welcome back to another episode of the VC Hour. I'm the Vice Chancellor, and we're working our way through this series on exactly who Christ is. I hope you've been able to join us for previous episodes. If you're catching us for the first time on the radio, Radio ABC 993 FM, we're so glad you're joining us, and I want you to know that I really enjoy being able to preach and to teach and hopefully to bring a little bit of light into the scriptures for you. If for some reason you've missed previous episodes and you really want to hear a bit more about what I'm talking about, you'll hear a lot of times I allude to previous episodes I've done, trying to tell you where you can find those. You can get it at vchour.buzzsprout.com or you just Google VC Hour. We're the first thing that pops up. Every single episode available to you for free. We're not trying to charge anything. We're not trying to make any money. We're just trying to share more about the truths of the scriptures. We want you to learn, we want you to know more, and we hope that you'll be blessed by it. We've been looking at Christ in this series, and we're ready to talk a little bit about something that maybe you've thought about before. I hope you have, but in case you haven't, we'll talk a little bit about Christ as our mediator. Is Christ our mediator? In what sense is Christ our mediator? We find this in 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 5 and 6. There's one God and there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. That's a beautiful passage of scripture describing one of the great truths of God's Word, which is that we have a mediator who is Christ Jesus, and he is between God and men. Now, that's exactly what mediator means. A mediator is a go-between, someone who is between. In fact, the word media literally means between, between the two things. Well, the question might be raised, of course, I think you know a mediator between whom, because the Bible makes it really, really clear, doesn't it? The scripture there in 1 Timothy 2 tells us that Jesus is a mediator between God and man, that there are two parties, if you will, who are represented there. You have the divine, that is God himself, and then you have man, and there is in fact a great gulf between the two. Now I have to hasten here to say I don't mean by that that God did not make us in his image, he absolutely did, nor do I mean that God does not reach out to us, he does. It is true that God reveals himself to us in nature and of course in his word as well, all of those things are true. Here we're speaking of the gulf between us that is there as a result of who we are and who God is. That there is a great gulf between humanity and deity in part because of the creator-creature distinction. That's something I've talked about in a previous episode, that God is God and no one and nothing else can be like God in the way that God is God, and humans are creation, a lofty creation. And God has bestowed a lot of honors on us, there's no doubt about that, and yet he is the creator and we are the creature. But beyond that also, because of our fallenness, the fact that we are a sinful people, and we'll talk about that in greater detail a little bit more as we discover some things about ourselves. But the thing is, if anyone was going to reach across this gulf, it really did have to be God who did it. And how could he do that? How could God breach this a reach across this great gulf? The answer is in Christ Jesus. Christ being fully God and fully man. That is, Christ has two distinct natures. He reaches across that gulf and is a meteor. Not only that, but as is alluded to previously, there are special works that Christ does that we'll talk a little bit about at the end of the episode. that are uniquely his work. So it's not just identity, but also the work of Christ as a savior for his people that is so closely attached to his mediatorial work. Notice here, it says he gave himself as a ransom for all. That is, of course, speaking of his redemptive work for God's people. So that's who he's a mediator between God and man, but the question I would like to ask next, which is a mediator of what? Not a mediator between whom, but a mediator of what? So obviously this passage, 1 Timothy chapter 2, speaks of Jesus as a mediator, but a mediator of what? When the scriptures use this term mediator of Christ, they speak of a mediator of a covenant. A mediator of a covenant. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 24 says this, And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel." What's being discussed there? Well, he refers to it as a new covenant, a new covenant in Christ Jesus. And what is this except for the grace of God applied to us in Christ apart from our works of the law. I think we could go through this very quickly by demonstrating that human beings have been given the law by God, and we have failed that law. Do this and live. That was the law that was given to Adam and to Eve, and they failed to do that law, and therefore they merited death. And in that sense, you and I too. If we were to keep the law perfectly, if we had no sin nature, well, that would make us perfect, wouldn't it? And yet this idea of keeping the law being sinless, we have each one of us failed, haven't we? Every single one of us, including yours truly, have failed to keep the law perfectly. And because of that, we have merited the punishment, the wrath of God on our lives, death, and the pains of hell. And yet Christ, we find, is a mediator of a covenant by which we may be redeemed. That is, he is between God and man. And what are the terms of the covenant? Well, it's It's nothing less than the fact that Jesus promises to give the obedience that we are incapable of giving, to live the life that we are incapable of living, and to die a death and take upon him the wrath of God for our sake, and in so doing to be elevated in his resurrection, his ascension, and his return, his reign, and his judgment for the people of God. Well, that's the terms of the covenant, and we find that Christ fulfilled the terms of the covenant for his people. The Old Testament talks about an anticipation of this when it talks about its sacrifices, and the author of Hebrews takes up this very theme time and time again. You can listen more about that. I have two episodes. One's called What's That Word? Types and Shadows, and the other one is Christ of the Feast and Festivals. We go into great detail about both of those. We use general terms and then a specific application, so you can really see how it's fleshed out. But all of those things were meant to point us to the Christ who would be the greatest, the best example. You don't want the shadow, you want the reality, ultimately. Now why does this passage talk to us about Abel's blood? Have you ever thought about that? It tells us that he's the mediator of a new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Do you remember the Abel story? I certainly hope that you do. Abel and his brother Cain are found in very different situations. If you were to go to Genesis 4, verse 10, there you find the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel are found in a field, and God, of course, prefers the sacrifice of Abel over the sacrifice of Cain, due in no small part to the fact that Abel's is by faith. Again, I've done a whole episode on this. I think you can catch for yourself in my series, By Faith, and the episode is entitled, By Faith, Abel, and you can hear all about Abel. But one of the things that's interesting there is the connection that Abel has with other passages of Scripture that we find throughout the Bible. Abel, his story doesn't drop off there. Jesus points us to the fact that Abel was a type of martyr when he describes his death along with the death of prophets as being those who were persecuted by the people who were like the Pharisees. Not only that, But the author of Hebrews tells us that Abel's sacrifice was a sacrifice that was different than Cain's sacrifice. That is, Abel was giving right worship, whereas Cain's was giving wrong worship. And ultimately, we see in the book of Revelation that something is true of Abel that's also true of the martyrs. If you go to Revelation chapter 6, you see described there that there are martyrs whose voices cry out about their shed blood. And what's true of Abel is that Abel's blood, when it was shed, Genesis 4.10 tells us that his blood cried out from the ground. And so this is what the author of Hebrews is talking about in Hebrews chapter 12, when it says that Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant and the blood of the sprinkling, that's the sacrificial blood, that speaks better things than that of Abel. It raises the question, in what sense is Jesus' blood better than the blood of Abel. Well, what does Abel's blood cry out for? Well, just like the martyrs we find in Revelation chapter 6, his blood cries out for justice. And those martyrs are told to wait for a little while, wait for the fullness of time, as it were, to wait a little while. But what does Christ's blood cry out? Well, Abel's blood cries out justice, justice, justice, but Christ's blood cries out grace, grace, grace. That is, Christ's blood doesn't condemn us, but forgives us. Abel's blood condemns his brother, but Christ's blood makes us brothers and sisters. That's why it's a better blood. That's his mediatorial work, his work as a mediator. Now, there's a lot of people who would love for there to be a different type of mediator. They would love it. I know that sounds crazy because why in the world would you think that you can improve upon the work of God? But nevertheless, there it is. A lot of people are willing to slip someone else in that position or wonder why it can't be someone else. For instance, a lot of people think about ourselves. You know, I talk to somebody and they tell me that they hope they go to heaven. And I say, well, what hope do you have to get into heaven? They say, well, I do the best I can and I hope the Lord accepts it. Now, some people I might argue that they're trying to do it without a mediator, but I would say they're trying to be their own mediator. That is, they're trying to bridge the gap themselves with their good deeds. What hope do we have that that is a positive, a good, and a beneficial strategy moving forward. What kind of hope can we have that this is the best way? The answer is the Bible gives us absolutely no hope that we can attain this type of salvation of our own and in our own strength. Romans chapter 3 verse 23 says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned. every single one of us. And falling short of the glory of God means there's no good reason why we should think that we can join Christ in glory. You know, one of the things that happens to Christ in his exaltation is it says that he comes into his glory. He's with the glory of God. Well, that's where he is. How can we hope to join him? Because you see, look at all of the things it says in his humanity that he did in order to be glorified, and yet we're incapable. We have already failed all of those things. There's no reason why we can hope to join him in the glory of God on our own, doing our own work. And that's a lot of people, that's what they think. They think they can be their own mediator. They think they can say, okay, Jesus did that, and in a manner of speaking, they're thinking, I'll just do the same thing. But the foolishness of that is you've already failed to do the same thing. It's not the kind of thing you get a do-over on. Like, you're either doing it, you already have done it, or you haven't. And brothers and sisters, the scriptures are clear. We've all failed to do it. For God has bound all men over to disobedience, that we may have mercy on them all. That is, that we have been bound up in our disobedience. It is for God to have mercy on us. We cannot get our just merits and hope that it's a good outcome, because what we deserve is bad. Instead, it's God who has to have mercy on us. Elsewhere it says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. The explicitness of that passage is just so clear. Of our own, we are not righteous people. I know we like to think of ourselves as righteous people. It feels good if we think, hey, you know what? I'm doing pretty good. I'm pretty all right. Look at me. Look at that other guy. That's usually how we do it, isn't it? Look at that other guy. Oh man, what a joke that guy is. Look at me. I'm doing it just right. Well, the Bible says not one of us actually is righteous, not even one of us. Not only that, we don't even understand. We don't even understand. We don't understand who God is. We don't really understand who we are. And if he didn't reveal it to us, we would be ignorant. And not only that, but you actually don't even naturally seek for God. Neither do I. In our own, we looked for all of the right things in all of the wrong places. And we also look for all of the wrong things as well. We get it wrong, I guess, in brief, what I'm trying to say. You don't even know where to look for God, and you don't want to, and neither do I. Not naturally. It's a work of the Holy Spirit. That is, God had to already reach out for us as we were the actual very enemies of God. I don't know how you feel about that. But boy, does it rob me of the idea that I can be the one who somehow goes ahead on my own behalf. You have to understand that naturally everything I do and everything you do in the flesh is an offense to a holy God because we have failed to do it in a way that He deserves. You cannot, of your own, do it right enough in order to even earn his presence. So, what makes you think that you can be, or I can be, the one who is the mediator? That even extends to the old saints of the faith, even people you find in the Bible. You know, it's not uncommon for people to tell me that, you know, maybe there's somebody else who will go ahead, maybe they'll pick a saint from the scriptures and say, that saint will be the one who will be in my place." And a lot of people like to pick Mary, the mother of Jesus. Some people refer to her as the Virgin Mary, although she definitely did not remain a virgin. She had other children. She had sons and daughters. In fact, two of her sons ended up being believers in their brother, Christ Jesus. and writing books of the Bible. James and Jude are both listed as brothers of Jesus, so it can't be that Mary remained a virgin. But some people think, well, maybe she was good enough, and she could be my mediator. And there's a couple reasons why they think that. They sometimes assume that her ministry on earth was pristine, that is, it never had any problems, and they think, well, Mary must have done everything right. Well, I think the Bible pretty clearly teaches that she didn't do everything right, did she? Do you remember where we might go for that? Well, the Bible teaches us that already all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and they don't exclude her from that. She's a fallen person, just as you and I are fallen people. Now, this is where I have to hasten to say that does not mean that Mary was not, in some sense, special. She really is. It is a great crime of many Protestants that because they want to be sure to not treat Mary as though she's God, which is the right thing to do, They go too far in the other direction and treat her as though nothing special has happened. But the angel who communicates is very clear that she actually is incredibly special. And she did bear an unbelievable burden, because her son was not her son in exactly the same way all other sons are. I don't mean by that he's not human. He is, in that sense he really is. But she did have to give him up. for a specific role that no other mother on planet Earth has had to give their child up for, and that, no doubt, is a great type of suffering to watch her son suffer on behalf of all people. But yet, she still can't be our mediator. Why? Well, because the Bible tells us that redemption is through the shedding of blood. And it would need to be innocent blood. And yet her blood, as we've seen in the Scriptures, was definitely not innocent. And in fact, she had need for redemption, as we all do. That she needed a Savior. She needed her baby to be the Christ to live and to die on her behalf, just as you and I do as well. It's necessary for her. And you might say, well, how do you know that? Well, I can give you one very specific example. and that is Mary was very confused by Jesus' ministry. I may have recounted this story to you before, and if I have, well, hopefully it bears repeating. There was an old guy named Charles Cheneke who lived about almost 200 years ago now. And he was a Christian, and he was one of those who did think that Mary was a good mediator for us. In fact, he preached a sermon about Mary as mediator. He went so far as to tell his congregation that they could just ask Mary for anything, And if they asked that Mary was a good mother and Jesus was a good son, and if Mary advocated to us for her son, well, Jesus being a good son would have to do whatever Mary said. That's what Charles preached. He was on the fast track. He was thought of as a really good preacher and teacher and church administrator, and they really loved the guy. But something happened. He read God's Word. And in there, he read a story. I've talked about this one before. I'm going to recount it to you from the book of Mark. He actually read it, I believe, from the book of Matthew. But Jesus, we find in Mark 3, verse 35, is doing early aspects of his ministry. His family believes that he's crazy, and they come to talk to him. In fact, they want him to come out and to go home with them. And the people go inside the house where Jesus is, his family's outside, and they say, hey, your mother, your brother, your sister are outside. And he says, whoever does God's will is my brother and my sister and my mother. There we see two things. Number one, that she definitely did not have a pristine ministry on earth. That is, Mary made a huge mistake by going to Jesus and asking him to come out. That's a massive mistake. Why? He was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. She should have been right there along with everybody else. doing her best to learn as well. But not only that, we see that she's not a very good mediator because while she's supposed to be between Jesus and others, Jesus rejects her desires. He says no. He tells he's not coming out. Why? Because his true mother is one who wants him to do the Father's will. See, Mary needs redemption just like we need redemption. She needs that baby who grows up to be the young man who grows up to be the one who gives himself as a sacrifice. She needs all of those things just like you and I need them as well. And that's since she's in exactly the same position that we're in. Some people assume that they don't have to believe in the God of the Bible because some other gods will be the ones who will do the work for them. You know, back in the old day, as the missionaries went out, I'm even thinking about when they originally went out across Europe and Asia back in the early days, they often countered people who believed in their own gods. And a very common response would have been, well, you can believe in your God and I'll trust in my God for the afterlife. Maybe that's something that we encounter even today. People who don't want to trust in the one true God because they want to believe in their own gods. But you see, there's a number of problems with that. I hope they're obvious to you. The first is there actually is only one God. There's not more than one God. There's only one God. And in fact, all the gods of the nations are either the one true god or they're false gods. There are no other options. You may think of yourself as having a god for your own people, but I have to tell you, God says otherwise. Our God is, in fact, the God of all nations. Romans 3, verses 29 and 30 says this. Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. There it talks about two different categories in two different ways. It talks about the Jew and the Gentile. It talks about the circumcised and the uncircumcised. And what does it teach us there? Well, it tells us that there are Jews and not Jews. That's what Gentile means. Gentile means not a Jew. So you have the Jews, and you have not Jews, and he's the God of all of them. It has the uncircumcised and the circumcised, and God is the God of all of them. In fact, all of them, if they are to be justified, are justified by faith. What this teaches me is that whatever you think is your God, if it's not the one true God, then this cannot be your mediator between the one true God and you. That is, you can't hope for salvation in any other. There's none other that you can trust for your salvation besides our God. He is the only one. Not only that, of course, a mediator needs to be in the likeness of the thing he's doing the mediation for, and other gods wouldn't work. Another god can't be you, can't be human, because he's, you know, he's a false god. You need the one true God come in the flesh, and that's Jesus Christ. There's help and there's hope. in none other. What about saints and angels? Maybe those people can be mediators for us. This, of course, this idea is founded in part at least on what's called the communion of saints. That's a passage we find in the Apostles' Creed. Others also think about it in terms of being surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses that we find in Hebrews chapter 12. There are people who think, wrongly, that the saints reign, co-reign with Christ, and that they're the ones who actually offer up prayers for us. Other people may say it a bit differently and think that the saints or the angels are able to make our prayers more effective. Kind of interesting because the Bible, when it talks about those who have gone into glory, never speak positively of those dead saints mediating for us. That is, it never demonstrates a time where those who are dead in Christ are the ones who are doing the praying for us. It also relies upon a belief and what's referred to as the ubiquity of the dead. Now this may be hard to wrap your mind around, but if you go back to what it means that Christ was a man, We have this idea that human bodies are, we would say, spatially located. You're in a specific place. You're where you are and not somewhere else. I come from the United States, got a lot of family back there, some friends back there, things I like doing back there. But I live in Uganda. I've lived in Uganda more than two years at this point. and my body is here in Uganda. I guess in some ways it might be very helpful if my body could be in more places than one at a time, but because I'm a human being, it's in one place at one time, and so is yours. And by the way, the dead are in one place. They're not everywhere. Not just your body, but your spirit, your soul are also in one place. It's not everywhere. And the dead, though they don't have bodies, have souls and spirits that are in one place. They can't be everywhere. They don't see everything. They don't experience everything. They certainly don't know everything. They're limited. Only God is everywhere, can do everything, and knows everything. Only he has those abilities. The saints don't. So what that means is a lot of things that people say wrongly about God are actually true about the saints, even if the saints could hear you. I'm not convinced they can. If you and a child in, say, Ecuador prayed to the same saint at the same time, there's no reason to believe they could hear both of you at the same time. because they are not able to be or to see in both places at the same time. More importantly than that, though, it diminishes the access that we actually have in Christ and by the Spirit. I was talking to one of my theology classes about this very aspect recently, and if you imagine with me a football team, and let's say you were able to put on that team the number one player in the world for every position. So every position, number one player in the world. That's pretty good, right? That's top shelf. But what if we added to that, that someone said, well, I can give you the number five player in the world. to replace your number one, or number 10, or number 50, or number 100, or 1,000. Who would be so foolish as to replace the number one player in the world with the number 100 player in the world? There's no need for them. And not only that, but it would be greatly diminished. It would not be as good. And yet it seems to me that's exactly what happens when we talk about trying to have the saints as a mediator between us and God. That is, not only is it not true and not possible, but also it wouldn't be a help. It's like saying that we need something more than the work of Christ and the Spirit. But in fact, the work of Christ precisely is access to God, and it's not as though Christ can't hear us or can't act on our behalf, nor is it like Christ is not disposed towards us. All those limitations that the saints have in death, Christ has none of them. All of the work that we need done on our behalf, Christ and by the Spirit, is being accomplished. Even our prayers are being perfected by Christ and by the Spirit. So what need do I have? Not only do I have no theological reason, but I have no need of the saints either. It seems like in our vanity we're trying to put human beings back where they don't belong. What about the angels? Well, Jesus is better than the angels too, isn't he? I mean, that's precisely what Hebrews tells us. The book of Hebrews tells us he has a better name than the angels. The scriptures teach us that actually the angels worship Jesus, not the other way around. That angels are built for his service. They're called ministering spirits. And in fact, Christ is enthroned in a place where the angels are there to serve and to worship him. He is a king, and they are his ministers. That is, they work for him as servants. Not only that, but some of the angels actually have fallen, and they're missing a savior. And what's more, in Ephesians 1, verse 10, it says, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. That means even the angels are dependent, in some respect, on that work of Christ. The unity of all things underneath him came as his work. That means they depend on him, not the other way around. And then once again, just as we saw with the saints, this reliance upon angels, not only is it theologically not possible, but it also diminishes the work of Christ. That is, I already have the best doing this. A Christ who knows everything, who never gets tired, who sympathizes with me. Why in the world would I want to rely on an angel when I have Christ himself? I have the best. Don't give me anyone else. What qualifies Christ as a mediator? Well, it's his unique work. Christ also suffered once for sins, 1 Peter 3, 18. Who else has suffered for your sins? The answer is no one. Why? Because every other human is suffering for their own sins, not your sins or suffering for their own. Hebrews chapter 13, 12 says this, Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. That is, you and I are made holy by Christ's blood. We can enter into the holy of holies because Christ has made a way for us, and the way he made is by his blood. Romans 3.25, God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. That is, the peace, the reconciliation we have between man and God is made because Christ was sent by the Father as a sacrifice for us. We have that passage in John 1, where John the Baptist, seeing Christ, despite John the Baptist's immense popularity, John goes on to say, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That is, John the Baptist knew his job was to point people to Jesus, because Jesus, as awesome as John the Baptist was, right? Greatest man born of woman. That's Jesus's estimation of John the Baptist. John the Baptist didn't point people to John the Baptist. John the Baptist pointed people to Jesus. He in a way says, you don't need me, you need him. Notice how he directs Andrew and one other disciple of Jesus, probably John, to the ministry of Jesus, away from his own ministry and to the ministry of Jesus instead. Why? Because it's better to have Christ than to have John the Baptist, even though Jesus loves John the Baptist. John the Baptist is a relative of Jesus, and yet John the Baptist knows you have to have Jesus. He's the one, not me, him. He must increase, I must decrease. 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19, knowing that you were ransomed from your futile ways, inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." Man, every time it talks about inherited feudal ways from our forefathers, I do think about how silly and ridiculous many of our human traditions are, and how great is what the teachings are that we receive from God and His Word. But even better than that, is the fact that our inheritance we get from God is not perishable, but is imperishable, because it's been purchased with the blood of Christ. He is that great lamb without blemish or spot. Not literally lamb, he was a man who laid down his life for you and for me and raised incorruptible. Those are the reasons why he can be our mediator, because he purchased us with his blood. God came in the flesh as a man purchased us with his blood. For those reasons, now we can say we have to reject all reliance upon ourselves. I am not an apt, I'm not a good, I'm not a helpful mediator. I need someone outside of me. In this case, I need Christ to be our mediator, to be my mediator. And I can reject any reliance upon other people, past, present, future. I think we heard just recently in another episode that It is God alone who is our salvation. There's not hope in any man. And angels, other gods, I can reject any type of method of getting me to think about salvation in any other way. This is what I'm gonna say to you, brothers and sisters. The devil doesn't have to get you to become a Satanist to win. He doesn't. It's enough for him to get you to believe that there's any other way of salvation. That's sufficient. And it doesn't matter who's put in the place, whether they want to put Mary in its place, or one of the other saints, whether it's an angel, whether it's a false god, or whether it's just you, Satan, in a sense, we would say, has won. He's accomplished what he sets out to accomplish if he just gets you to not trust Jesus as your mediator. But if you rely on Christ, His Word is sure, and you will have salvation because you see Christ has secured it. Thanks be to God. It's His one role. There's no other who does that role besides Him. Now, in our coming up episode, we're going to talk about what does the Bible say about that? What does it look like? that Jesus is our mediator. Well, he does it in three prominent ways, and we'll talk a little bit about that on our next episode. You've been listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. We hope this has been beneficial to your Christian walk and understanding. If it has, you can support the ministry of Radio ABC by going to AfricanBibleColleges.com and clicking on the donate button. Don't forget to let them know it's going to the Uganda station. If you have questions about this or any other episode, please feel free to contact us at vchourofficial at gmail.com. We're also available through Instagram and Twitter as vchourofficial. We may answer your question on a future episode. Until next time, may the peace of God and the fellowship of God's people encourage your hearts.