Monday: Jesus Is Our Mediator
An interesting concept of the Old Testament theology is that the promised Davidic King would represent the nation before God.
Compare Exodus 4:22-23 with 2 Samuel 7:12-14; Deuteronomy 12:8-10 with 2 Samuel 7:9-11; and Deuteronomy 12:13-14 with Psalm 132:1-5, Psalm 132 11-14. What promises to Israel would be fulfilled through the promised Davidic King?
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Israel was God’s son, and God would give them a place where they would rest from their enemies. God would also choose a place among them where His name would dwell. These promises for Israel would now be fulfilled through the promised Davidic King. He would be adopted as God’s son, God would give him rest from his enemies, and he would build a temple for God in Zion where God’s name would dwell. This means that God would fulfill His promises to Israel through the promised Davidic king. The Davidic King would represent Israel before God.
The insertion of a representative in the relationship between God and Israel made the perpetuation of their covenantal relationship possible. The Mosaic covenant required the faithfulness of all Israel to receive God’s protection and blessings (see Joshua 7:1-13). The Davidic covenant, however, secured God’s covenantal blessings upon Israel through the faithfulness of one person, the Davidic King.
Unfortunately, for the most part the Davidic kings were not faithful, and God could not bless Israel as He wanted. The Old Testament is filled with accounts of just how unfaithful many of those kings actually were.
The good news is that God sent His Son to be born as the Son of David, and He has been perfectly faithful. Therefore, God is able to fulfill in Him all the promises He made to His people. When God blesses the king, all his people share in the benefits. This is why Jesus is the Mediator of God’s blessing to us. He is the Mediator in that He is the channel through whom God’s blessing flows. Our ultimate hope of salvation is found only in Jesus and what He has done for us.
| Think about how often you have been unfaithful to your end of the covenant. What does this teach us about how we must rely solely on Jesus for salvation? |
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Today's lesson introduces the topic of Christ, our mediator and while the author only touches on the topic today, I am sure it will come up in more detail later on in this series.
As usual, I try to think of life experiences that relate to the concept and in this case I am quite familiar with mediation as it applies to teachers and students. Usually, mediation comes after students receive the results of their final assessment and there is a discrepancy between their perception and mine about the outcome. For example, I had a student who handed in one assignment out of three, failed the midsemester progress test, skipped half the content-based classes and achieved 45% in the final examination. Overall, he failed. Yet in his mind, he had passed. Furthermore, he was a graduate student and had expected to graduate. His parents were coming to graduation, and this failure was an enormous loss of face. He pled with me to pass him. His argument was he had paid to do the course and it was my fault that he had not received a passing grade. So, we had an impasse and mediation was brought in. To cut the story a bit short, the mediator recognised he did not have a case and pled for me to offer an extension so that he could complete the subject. While he would not take part in the graduation ceremony this year. He could complete the program of work that I deemed would give him a passing grade. He would then receive his testamur and would be able to take part in the ceremonial graduation next year.
It needs to be pointed out that I bore the student no grudge but there are things called academic and professional standards and I have to maintain these to retain my integrity.
How does this relate to Jesus as our mediator. Well, I am sure that the theologically inclined can pick holes in the illustration but I don't want to you to think of it as the whole picture of spiritual mediation. The big idea from the illustration is the idea that mediation is about resolution, not punishment. I had no great desire to punish this student by failing him. I wanted a resolution that would maintain academic integrity and encourage the student to understand the importance of effort in studying for a professional qualification.
God wants a resolution that restores the relationship between him and us. And that is the work of Jesus as the mediator.
... and a little extension: Sometimes we view the mediatorial work of God in deep theological terms. While that may be highly satisfying to us, how can we relate that concept to those who have broken relationships with God and no longer regard him as relevant? Do we have a mediatorial responsibility as well?
Maurice gm, I am really fascinated with the beautiful analogy you used in today's lesson to illustrate in a covert way the mediation work of Christ. (I may disagree with you that one would think that your take was somehow farfetched, I was right on point).
The key thought from your illustration has to be as you have brought to our attention that "Mediation is about Resolution" not punishment. Seems to me that we have this thing backwards all this time.
Could be that we have been misguided all this time about the mediation process that all our focus weight on the wrong concepts?
I came across this statement recently:
What does this statement suggest about the nature of Christ's mediation? How does this statement fit with Hebrews 4:14 - 5:2? How does it fit with the picture provided in today's lesson?*
Also, if you consider the principles within this statement, is Christ's mediation limited to our existence only while our world is in a fallen state, or does it perhaps describe an eternal (past, present and future) aspect of His (and God's) nature and character in relation to all created beings - that Jesus/God/Holy Spirit live to initiate and ongoingly mediate true life to all creation?
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* I am in no way criticising the choice of the picture for today's lesson as this picture does represent the typical view of mediation that many people hold for various reasons.
The NET translation note on Hebrews 9:15 aligns with your thought:
Jesus is not plea bargaining with the Father. He is the vine through which every blessing the Father desires to give us flows. It is no wonder that through eternity we “follow the Lamb wherever He goes.” (Revelation 14:4.) The head (Christ) and the body (his church) can never be separated or life ceases.
Our Father has always been on our side, loving us with a perfect love! I have always been hurt for our Father for anyone to think our Father has to be appeased in some way to view us as His children! Think again of John 3:16; think also of 2 Corinthians 5:18-21. And let us remember what Christ said in John 16:26, 27: "...I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No! The Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God."
The author today has said it correctly IMO: "He is the Mediator in that He is the channel through whom God's blessing flows." Friends, we may pray to our Father, calling Him "Abba"!
Today's Study Guide stated: This is why Jesus is the Mediator of God’s blessing to us. He is the Mediator in that He is the channel through whom God’s blessing flows. Our ultimate hope of salvation is found only in Jesus and what He has done for us.
Jesus took our sins on himself to save us from the wages of sin. Not only did his blood blot out the record of our sins, He sent the Holy Spirit to work on our hearts to transform us into His Image.
Excerpts from Articles by EG White on Justification by Faith
Signs of the Times, Mar 6, 1893
Signs of the Times, Mar 13, 1893
Signs of the Times, Mar 20, 1893
As Christians we often think that we ourselves are engaged in solo combat with Satan. When we read Ephesians 6:10–18, we see that, yes, we are in combat with the devil. But God is our champion, and He goes to battle before us. We are part of His army; that is why we have to use His armor. Also, we do not fight alone. The “you” in Ephesians 6 is plural. We as Christians take the armor and fight together behind our champion, who is God Himself.
"As usual, I try to think of life experiences that relate to the concept and in this case I am quite familiar with mediation as it applies to teachers and students."
I had a similar experience seven decades ago. I was teaching English in a foreign country. One of my students was a lazy individual who was failing my subject and was facing the possibility of having to repeat the course the following year. He was the son of a highly respected military man. The dean asked me to grant him a passing grade, since English was not an essential subject. I stood my ground and refused to compromise. The young man needed some discipline and breaking the rule would do him more harm than good. In my view, the dean's mediatorial effort was misplaced.
The word ‘Mediator’ is applicable in so many ways. I like to look at His work as being a channel, a bridge, a friend, a spiritual brother here and in the life to come, and as the Gift of God to bring us back to Himself from hence we came.
If the Father and the Son are one in spirit, the believer being one with them, it is easy to see that They brought the living soul – man - back to Themselves.
This was not done to only give us life here on earth, but with this life to receive the opportunity to obtain life eternal. If someone, after accepting the Faith of Christ, still only concerns him/herselve with this life, does not care for what Salvation actually merits, I am not sure if that person knows the true promise and reason for their faith.
As I see it, Jesus did the core-mediation-work here on earth during His Life in the body of a man – He was the builder that became the bridge, the channel which now connects heaven with earth. This completed work enables the believer to have His spirit to dwell within his heart; the same spirit that spoke Truth of the Father to guide His Son during His lifetime with man.
In my opinion, this is the true mediation work our Lord and Savior accomplished - to give the faithful His spirit by which the living soul is guided into all Truth. He explained that all who believe and choose to live in the heavenly kingdom here on earth, are guided by the Father’s Will, can now pray using the Son’s name because we are hid in Him – Heb.10:19-23; John16:22-28 Wehmouth New Testament. “At that time(day) …” is now – speaking to the Father directly by having our existence in His Son.
It appears to me that Heaven completed the work to overcome that which separated earth from heaven - has build the bridge by His Son which became the bridge for us; the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior - “the channel through which the mercy, love and righteousness might flow from the heart of God to the heart of the sinner.” (thank you Phil for sharing Ellen White’s quote).
His Spirit is promised to always reside with man, ready to be invited into the heart of man! This, to me, appears to be the mediational work of the Plan of Salvation of man. We, still in the body, are offered now to come to our Savior with all our needs and concerns; He is forever faithful and attentive to hear about that which burdens His children.
Jesus is the new Head of the human race and so in that sense it makes full sense for God's blessings to flow through Him to us. But there's something about the Davidic analogy that troubles me. What does it say about God if we say that God's blessings are dependent on an earthly king? God didn't want Israel to have a king in the first place. And every "good" king, from David on, was flawed. So they don't seem to be the best mediators. And pity the poor Israelites who happened to be born during the reign of a bad king! I guess in a corporate sense, I can understand this, but something about it bothers me.
Hi Christina – I also felt ‘troubled’ by the lesson writer’s interpretation of the “fulfillment of promises through the ‘promised’ Davidic King.” This highlights the problem confounding the Hebrews until the very end as a nation; they thought their troubles would end if they just had an earthly king as the other nations around them – 1Sam.8:5-7; 1Sam.8:20.
Instead, their troubles just intensified when they received their kings. The additional layer of authority between God and man confused their expectations which were spiritual at their core. An earthly authority cannot take the place of the spiritual authority needed to connect heaven and earth.
I agree with you that the interpretation of an earthly king being a ‘mediator’ is incorrect. In Sunday’s lesson ‘Jesus is our King’, I noted that 2Sam.7:8-16 clearly refers to King Salomon, the son of David. This passage is about Salomon, but God assures King David that his house will be greatly blessed in that the Messiah will eventually be born as a man from the roots of Jesse, the Father of David.
Hi Christina, I think it helps to realize that God dealt with the Israelites as a corporate entity*, and the lesson author is explaining how Christ fulfilled the covenant (kept the Law) in place of all the human heads of the nation who failed.
God (Christ in His pre-incarnate form) made His covenant with the nation. The nation was blessed as the kings (whom they had originally chosen) followed God's direction. Just as in our individual lives, so the nation as a whole reaped the benefits of faithfulness. Following God's directions always leads to better results, because He intends only good for us.
Yes, the Israelites who lived during the reign of bad kings suffered - just as we suffer now under bad governments. But the *individual* people always had direct access to God - from the gates of Eden to our modern world. See, for instance Isa. 57:15. The relationship between God and each soul was and is as unique and distinct as though there were no other person on whom to bestow His interest and love. And yet, we live in a world of sin, and our external circumstances are affected by our surroundings, including our government. Still, just as Christ had peace in the storm and even before Pilate, so we may have peace in uncertain situations because we take refuge in Him.
The great Good News is that all the promises made to corporate Israel, which they did not receive because of unfaithfulness, will be fulfilled to all the faithful - from Adam on to the last person on earth who decides for Christ!
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*Individualism - thinking of everything in terms of the *individual* - is very much a western way of thinking. In the times of ancient Israel, people saw themselves as part of a corporate identity. It is still a lot like that in Eastern nations, as I understand it.