Title: A
Mediator is Not of One
Text: Gal 3: 19-20
Date: Dec 10, 2020
Place: SGBC, NJ
Galatians 3: 19: Wherefore then serveth the
law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom
the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a
mediator. 20: Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
Having declared that God saved Abraham by his
everlasting covenant of grace, 430 years before the law of Sinai was given, the
Spirit moved Paul to raise the question, Wherefore then serveth the law?
It was
added because of transgressions. God added the
ten commandments to show his people our transgressions in breaking that one law
in Adam and to show our own personal transgressions. God never intended for his child to be justified
and saved by our works under the law; it was only to give us a knowledge that
we are guilty sinners to shut every mouth and make us see our need of Christ.
But the law was only for a set time—till the
seed should come to whom the promise was made. That Seed is Christ. It was until Christ came and fulfilled the
law and took out of the way for his people.
Experimentally, it is until Christ comes into the heart, makes us hear the
law then reveals he fulfilled it for us and brings us under the covenant of
grace.
But notice,
even when God gave the law at Sinai, he foreshadowed Christ our Mediator
—and
it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a
mediator of one, but God is one.
I want to focus on this one
statement
—Now, a mediator is not a mediator of
one, but God is one. There are innumerable commentaries on
this; all disagreeing
. But I want
to look at this in light of Christ.
What is a mediator? A mediator goes between two
parties who are at odds, who have no communion, no peace. Moses in a limited sense typified Christ the
Mediator. At Sinai, the two parties
represent God and his true elect Israel.
The children of Israel sinned against God and God was against the
children of Israel. Moses acted as the mediator,
the go-between, the daysman. He
represented God to the children of Israel and he represented the children of
Israel to God. In a limited sense he
typified Christ.
Proposition: Christ Jesus
is the Mediator between God and his chosen people.
1 Timothy 2:5: For there is one God, and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
Hebrews 9:15: And for this cause he is the mediator of
the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the
transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might
receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 12:24: And to Jesus the mediator of the new
covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that
of Abel.
A MEDIATOR
IS NOT OF ONE
A mediator is
not a representative of only one of the parties. He represents both. But God is one of the offended parties. So first, it is amazing that God, who we
offended, provided a mediator to bring he and his people together.
God is the
offended party and we are the offenders.
God created us and gave us breath and one command in a perfect world. Yet, we sinned against him and cut ourselves
off from God. We do not perceive how
wickedly we transgressed against God, both, in the garden and personally
ourselves.
God has every right to be offended at us but we have
no right to be offended at God. We
transgressed against God, not he against us.
The carnal mind is enmity against God though we have no right to be
angry at God. He has every right to be
angry against the wicked but not we against him.
If someone steals a sinner’s property a sinner will hire
a prosecutor, hoping the robber will be convicted and have to make restitution. How much worse if the robber blames the one
he robbed and spews hatred toward him. Even
if a man is a third party, whose property has not been stolen, his response is
to side with victim and condemn the robber.
But a sinner who was robbed and hated and maligned providing a mediator for
the offender to bring him and the offender together, who ever heard of such?
A mediator is not of one but God is one—God is the
offended party that we offended yet the Offended party provided the Mediator to
reconcile his people to himself. God did
not send a lawyer to prosecute us, though we were guilty and worthy of the
death penalty. Instead, the very God we
offended provided the Mediator to bring he and his people together—and the
Mediator he provided is his only begotten Son.
Do you see God’s glory? He is not like us. As high as the heaven is above the earth so
are his thoughts above our thoughts. God
provided a mediator, not for those who loved him, but for a people who have
only provoked God to his face by our sins. That is the good news God uses to melt our
hard hearts. That humbles a believer. That makes God’s child want to be a mediator,
a peacemaker, rather than a fault finder.
1 John 4: 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11: Beloved,
if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
BUT GOD IS
ONE
Now, a mediator
is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
A mediator is not a mediator of only one of the parties but both. The parties are God and Man. So, secondly, consider that God sent his Son
to take flesh like those he came to save that he might be God and Man to represent
both.
Moses could not
be the perfect mediator between God and men because he was only a man. He was not God and man. Moses could not represent both. Even more amazing, not only did God the
Father as the offended party provide the Mediator, but he also sent his only
begotten Son to take flesh that he might be the GodMan, Mediator.
Moses was a
sinful man, one of the offenders. But
the Mediator God provided for his people is holy God and sinless Man in one. Christ can Mediate for his sinful people
because he is a holy Man, without sin. Christ
can Mediate for God because he is the holy Son of God, the second person in the
trinity.
Luke 1:35: And the angel answered and said unto her,
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God.
A mediator has
the interests of both parties at heart. God
is one party. But Christ did not come to
seek the interests of God only or his people only. He came not to condemn his people but to put
away all reason for blame; to bring us together in peace, while declaring God
just and the Justifier. When Christ
said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” we immediately think of Christ who
is the Preeminent Peacemaker!
Nor did Christ
come for his own self-interests. The
glory of Christ is that he made himself of no reputation. He was NOT interested in his reputation. He
was interested in the reputation of the two parties he mediated for. His interest was God’s glory and his people’s
perfection in him. The glory of Christ
is that to mediate he took the form of a servant. He did not come as Judge and Jury and
Executioner. He served to bring about peace. The glory of Christ
is that he obeyed the Father by denying himself unto the death of the cross. So Christ Mediated with both parties’ interests at
heart.
For God: God’s law
must be upheld, his justice must be poured out on the offenders, his offending
people must die in order for God to be holy.
For his brethren: we must be justified before God, our sins must
be put away and we must be made righteous before God.
How did our
Mediator serve the interest of both parties? By one great act he served both.
For his
brethren: Christ took the place of his offending brethren, took
our sins and offenses against God and bore them on our behalf—even the unyielding
justice of God. Thus our Substitute bore
our burdens away. He blotted out our
sins. He robed us in his righteousness.
For God: Christ served
God’s interest by magnifying and honoring God’s holy law. He declared God just and the Justifier of his
people. He highly exalted God’s holy and
just character by bearing the justice his brethren deserved.
All that
Christ did for God and his brethren is what Paul calls in this epistle to the
Galatians “the law of Christ.” It is the
law of love. This is the spirit Christ
gives us when he produces love in our hearts in the new birth. He makes us desire mediation and peace rather
than blame and division.
UNITED IN
PEACE
Christ is the Mediator who brought God and his people
together in peace. His brethren are not
willing to be reconciled until his grace changes our hearts. So what does Christ use to do it? This message of his Mediatorial work. He makes his brethren know our sin—not by
coming to us in judgment and condemnation in the letter—but in grace and
truth in spirit. He shows us our
sins in light of how he put our sin away and covered our sins in his
righteousness and God remembers them no more. He makes us know that God who
we offended sent him and reconciled us to himself by his own blood.
2 Corinthians 5: 18: And all things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the
ministry of reconciliation; 19: To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation. 20: Now then we are ambassadors for Christ,
as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye
reconciled to God. 21: For he [the very one we offended] hath made him [his own
Son] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him.
The Spirit of
God melts the heart with that word of sovereign, unchangeable love. And for the rest of the life of faith,
anytime our flesh rises up, that is the message with which he subdues it using
our brethren to remind us of his grace and love and mercy and forgiveness in
Christ our Mediator.
Romans 5: 6: For when we were yet without strength, in
due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7: For scarcely for a righteous man will
one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8: But God
commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. 9: Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through him. 10: For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to
God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by
his life.
By that good
news, he makes us be reconciled to him in the first hour and every hour of need. The gospel of Christ is always the word in
season.
But a Mediator
pleads not with one party only. While he
mediates bringing us to confess our sins, promising us God is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrightoeusness, Christ
also mediates with God, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what
they do.” Thus he brings us both together
in peace in him by his blood and righteousness and free forgiveness.
So what is Paul’s point. False brethren were agitating the Galatians
to be lawyers. They were encouraging brethren
to take each other to the letter of the law and condemn. Paul calls is “biting and devouring one
another.” So Paul speaks the one remedy. He declares the law came by Moses but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
The new covenant is a better covenant, with a better minister, established
on better promises. Paul said all of this
to encourage the spirit of Christ’s mediation amongst the Galatians; he
describes it when he says to them,
Galatians 5: 26: Let us not be desirous of vain glory,
provoking one another, envying one another. 6: 1: Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit
of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2: Bear ye one
another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
That is how
our Mediator served the interest of God his Father and you and me his sinful
brethren! That is how Christ makes his people
serve the interests of one another.
Amen!