Spir Dynamics 823,838-862 6/13/96; 10/17/74

DOCTRINE OF MEDIATORSHIP

A. Etymology.

1. MESITES (Greek noun).

a. This word is not known in Attic Greek.

b. It is an old Hellenistic word used by Philo, Josephus, Polybius, Lucian, and Diodorus.

c. It means to represent two conflicting sides by a neutral person, an arbiter.

d. It only occurs in the LXX in Job 9:33, “There is no arbitrator between us who can lay his hand upon us both.” The Hebrew JAKACH means “to be in front.”

e. This Greek equivalent means to argue, show, prove anything, to argue down anyone, to confute, to convict, to correct, to judge, to decide, to dispute, or to altercate with anyone.

f. Therefore, the word came to mean an arbitrator, judge, or umpire. It refers to a person who has the power to judge a dispute between two parties. He must be objective and have the facts.

g. Therefore, he is a neutral negotiator of peace, whom both sides can trust. He is a person who establishes a relationship between two previously unrelated parties.

h. This word became one of the most varied technical terms in the vocabulary of hellenistic law.

2. MESITEUO (Greek verb not found in the Koine).

a. It was used in a technical way meaning to act as an umpire or peacemaker.

b. It means to occupy the middle place.

c. It means to establish a relation between two hitherto unrelated entities in order to mediate their coming together.

B. The Concept of Mediatorship.

1. Our Lord’s salvation work required that He be true humanity. He could not be a high priest unless He had become true humanity. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David that he would have a son that would rule forever. Our Lord had to become true humanity to have equivalency with Adam as man was created to be our mediator. Jesus Christ is equivalent to Adam as Adam was created perfect before he sinned. Our Lord is not equivalent to sinful mankind.

2. A mediator has to be equal with both parties. The first party here is God; the second party is man. The only qualified mediator has to be God and has to be true humanity. The mediator has to be equal with man as he was created perfect from the hand of God, not equal with sinful man. The problem is how to bring these two antithetical parties together. All unconditional covenants require a mediator at some point, but there was no mediator in the Old Testament only the anticipation of one.

3. The concept is derived from “the umpire” of Job 9:30-33. The Hebrew word MOKIACH is the hiphil participle of JAKACH which means to judge, decide, to make a decision between two parties, to umpire, to arbitrate. Job 9:30-33, “If I should wash myself with snow and clean my hands with lye, yet You would plunge me into the pit [a sewage pit], even my own clothes would hate me. For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him, that we may go to court together. There is no mediator [umpire] between us, Who may lay his hand upon us both.”

4. Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus Christ to become a man, minus the old sin nature, Adam’s original sin, or any personal sin.

5. Jesus Christ must have equal integrity toward both parties. He had to live a human life of perfect integrity to be qualified to be our mediator. He had to have the best human integrity in all of human history in a man to be qualified as a mediator for mankind. With these qualifications, the humanity of Jesus Christ provided the basis for mediation by His efficacious, substitutionary sacrifice on the Cross.

6. Jesus Christ in hypostatic union is the only qualified mediator between God and mankind because He is perfect, eternal God, and He has perfect integrity as a human being in hypostatic union. Salvation came after mediatorship. Mediatorship had to come first before Christ could provide our salvation.

7. Christ is the mediator. He accomplished mediatorship through the uniqueness of His person and the uniqueness of His work: redemption, propitiation and reconciliation. His work removes the estrangement between both parties and brings them to a common goal. The estrangement was the old sin nature and spiritual death in man. We are born hostile to God.

C. Definition of Mediatorship.

1. A mediator is a person whom both sides of an argument can trust. A mediator is an arbiter between two parties in conflict. A mediator removes disagreement and estrangement between two parties. Both parties are antagonistic to each other and the mediator brings them to a common goal or unity. A mediator establishes a relationship between two unrelated parties. The two unrelated parties are mankind born spiritually dead and God who condemns God at birth in his spiritual death. We are born in conflict with God at birth.

a. A covenant is defined as God’s gracious promises and provisions for the Church. A covenant is a contract with a favorable disposition. The favorable disposition is our salvation, our unique spiritual life, and our resurrection.

b. There are two parties in this covenant to the Church and one mediator. God the Father is one party. All Church believers are the other party.

2. The mediator must be agreed to by both parties, for he interposes between two parties as the equal of each. By so doing, reconciliation is established and a contract is made.

3. To accomplish this, God the Father must be propitiated and man must be reconciled to God. Therefore the mediator must redeem man to accomplish this.

D. Relationship to the Mosaic Law, Gal 3:19-20.

1. All unconditional covenants in the Old Testament were given to one man: Adam, Noah, Abraham, David. Being given to one person, it was not necessary for the Mediator to come in Old Testament times. You do not have a mediator for a divine covenant given to one person, but you do have a mediator mentioned in connection with the Mosaic Law. The mediator of the Mosaic Law was not our Lord Jesus Christ, but Moses.

2. The Mosaic Law was a conditional covenant and given to all Israel. It was a temporary contract until the mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, went to the cross. In the meantime, the Mosaic Law, under the supervision of Moses, was taught by angels to Israel.

3. Gal 3:19, “What then was the purpose of the Law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed [Jesus Christ] to whom the promise referred has come, having been put into effect through angels by agency of a mediator [Moses].” The Mosaic Law was mediated by Moses and taught by angels. The details of the Law were given by angels speaking to Moses.

a. Deut 33:2 declares that angels participated in giving the Law to Moses.

b. Acts 7:53, “you received the Law as ordained by angels.”

c. Heb 2:2, “For if the word spoken by angels was unalterable [and it was], and every violator and disobedience received its just punishment [and it did],...”.

4. Gal 3:20, “A mediator however does not represent just one party; but God is one.” Jesus Christ was the only party qualified to be a mediator for God.

E. The Mediator of the New Covenant to the Church and the New Covenant to Israel.

1. In the study of the doctrine of the priesthood in Hebrews there are two new covenants: the new covenant to Israel and the new covenant to the Church. A covenant is a contract between two parties. Party of the first part is God. Party of the second part is certain categories of mankind. Heb 12:24, “To Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, ...”

2. In biblical covenants, party of the first part (God) makes a favorable disposition to party of the second part (mankind), and that is the covenant. In the book of Hebrews there are unconditional covenants to individuals and a new covenant to born again Israel in the millennium and a new covenant to the Church.

3. You cannot have a new covenant without a mediator. In the Church Age we have both a mediator and a new covenant. The new covenant to the Church is operational now. You cannot have a new covenant to the Church or a new covenant to Israel without a mediator. The first time Israel will ever have a true mediator will be the new covenant to Israel. The new covenant to Israel is the only time that Israel as a whole receives a promise from God, and that requires a mediator.

4. The new covenant to the Church is made to all Church Age believers. The new covenant to Israel is made to all Jewish believers of the millennium. In order to make a covenant to all believers we have to have a priesthood. The Jewish believers in the millennium also have a priesthood. We have the filling of the Spirit and they have the filling of the Holy Spirit (though it is different).

5. Heb 9:15, “And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has taken place resulting in the redemption from the transgressions which were under the first covenant, so that those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”

6. Jesus Christ is the mediator of the new covenant to the Church. 1 Tim 2:3-6, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior, who desires all mankind to be saved and come to an epignosis knowledge of the truth. For God [the Son] [is] one [in essence], and one [person is] a mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom substitute for all mankind, a statement brought out in testimony at the proper time.”

a. A mediator is an intermediator between two parties to effect reconciliation and to provide special benefits to the ones (believers) being reconciled. Our Lord is an intermediary between two parties to effect reconciliation and to provide special benefits [your portfolio of invisible assets] to the ones being reconciled. A mediator is an intermediary between two parties in conflict to effect reconciliation. Jesus Christ has reconciled us to God the Father by removing the barrier between God and man.

b. The mediator must be equal to both parties in the mediation. To be equal with mankind, our Lord had to be equal with Adam before he sinned. Jesus Christ in hypostatic union and living the prototype spiritual life provided by God the Father and God the Holy Spirit has equivalency with both God and man and qualified Him as the mediator between God and man. Mediatorship means “be reconciled to God.” While our Lord was bearing our sins on the Cross He was functioning as our mediator, reconciling the world to Himself. There is no reconciliation to God without the mediatorship of Christ.

c. Jesus Christ had to be a mediator before He could be a savior. Our Lord was born a mediator and had to demonstrate that in His perfect body He would not fall into the same trap as Adam and commit a personal sin. Our Lord became a mediator at the point of His virgin birth. He became our savior on the Cross. Because He is the only mediator, He is the only savior. Christ qualified as our mediator for thirty-three years before He could our savior, and He could not reconcile us to God until He became our savior on the Cross.

(1) The correct translation of verse 5 is “For God is one” not “For there is one God.” The Greek word HEIS is a predicate nominative, not an adjective modifying THEOS (God). The absence of the definite article indicates this is talking about the essence of God not the person of God.

(2) God is one in essence but three in persons. This can be called the concept of equivalency. Jesus Christ cannot be a mediator unless he is born with the same human perfection that Adam had before he sinned. Jesus Christ had to be equivalent with Adam before the fall. Jesus Christ cannot be a mediator if His only equality is with spiritually dead humanity. Our Lord had to maintain His perfect humanity without sin for thirty-three years.

(3) The phrase “the man Christ Jesus” is the title of our Lord as both true humanity and God united into one person in hypostatic union as our mediator. God cannot be our Savior because God cannot go to the Cross. God must become a man to go to the Cross.

d. Our Lord made a decision to become true humanity and a mediator and provide salvation from the motivation of impersonal love for all mankind. Only as a mediator is Jesus Christ qualified to reconcile mankind to God. Therefore the decision to become a mediator requires action—to go to the Cross. To be a true mediator in the reconciliation of man to God, Jesus Christ had to become true humanity and undiminished deity in one person forever. Our Lord was motivated by impersonal love for all mankind in eternity past to make a decision to become true humanity, so that He could perform the action of offering Himself as a sacrifice for all mankind. Good motivation results in good decision, which produces good action. As a priest our Lord could offer Himself as a sacrifice. As a mediator He could reconcile each one of us to Himself.

e. Our Lord has to be a priest in order to be a mediator and offer Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father. No one has the right to offer a sacrifice unless he is a priest. A priest represents mankind to God. Jesus Christ not only had to be a mediator, but He also had to be a priest. In eternity past God the Father appointed Jesus Christ a high priest, Ps 110:1, 4; Heb 5:4-5, “And no one takes this honor [appointment to a priesthood] to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron. So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become a high priest, but He [God the Father] who said to Him [Jesus Christ at the point of the virgin birth], `You are My Son. Today I have given You life at birth’; just as He says in another [Scripture], `You are a priest forever similar to the order of Melchizedek.’” Jesus Christ was appointed a priest in eternity past, but He became our mediator and High Priest at the point of the virgin birth. He became our savior on the Cross. With His priesthood Jesus Christ had motivation in His love to become a mediator and provide salvation for every person in the human race, 1 Tim 2:4. Christ, our High Priest, is the mediator of a perfect contract between man and God. At salvation we entered this grace contract and the contract requires nothing else on our part. God has contracted to do everything for the royal family as a matter of grace.

f. Your spiritual life is based on what God the Father provided through the mediator, God the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. You are insulting all three members of the Trinity when you do not execute this spiritual life. You must have motivation to live your spiritual life. You must make decisions from your motivation to live the spiritual life. You must take action based on your decisions. Motivation is the metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. Virtue demands that you have to be motivated by Bible doctrine. None of us in any better than our motivation at any time of the day. Neglect of Bible doctrine destroys any possibility of motivation. If there is no motivation, there is no decision. If there is no decision, there is no action. If there is no action, you are dead in your spiritual life.

F. Summary.

1. Our Lord’s motivation to sacrifice Himself for us is the greatest motivation that has ever existed. In eternity past Christ expressed a two- fold motivation:

a. The desire to save all mankind. It is a desire because no one can be saved apart from their own volition.

b. The provision of the unique spiritual life for the Church Age.

2. Only Jesus Christ in hypostatic union is qualified to be a mediator to reconcile mankind to God.

3. In eternity past the appointment of a royal High Priest was necessary to offer an efficacious sacrifice of Himself. The high priesthood of our Lord did not become operational until the day of the virgin birth.

4. At the point of the virgin birth Jesus Christ became true humanity under the doctrine of equivalency, which qualified Him to be a mediator between God and mankind. The humanity of our Lord is equivalent to the humanity of Adam before he sinned.

5. Only Jesus Christ in hypostatic union is qualified to reconcile mankind to God.

6. As High Priest Jesus Christ offered the unique efficacious sacrifice of Himself on the Cross, Heb 7:27, 9:14, 10:14, “For by one offering He has brought to completion for all time those who are sanctified.”

7. All of this results in our Lord’s motivation, decision, and action. Good motivation results in good decisions which produce good action. We must have daily motivation from metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness resulting in daily decisions that produce daily action of the spiritual life. Some of the results of our Lord’s motivation, decision, and action are very important.

a. In the hypostatic union our Lord Jesus Christ is mediator, High Priest, and savior. He was appointed a priest in eternity past, but His priesthood did not become operational until the point of the virgin birth. His mediatorship did not begin until the Cross.

b. Reconciliation is the function of mediatorship. High priesthood is the offering of our Lord’s efficacious sacrifice of Himself by which we are saved. In saviorhood, we have the substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross as the only efficacious sacrifice.

8. The new covenant to the Church requires a mediator between parties in conflict. The new covenant for the Church is for believers of the Church Age. The new covenant to Israel is for Jewish believers during the Millennium.

9. There are eight results related to our Lord’s priesthood, mediatorship, and salvation work on the Cross.

a. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, Gal 3:26-28, “For all of you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as were baptized into Christ you have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free man; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Your race, social status, cultural status, or gender do not hinder you from executing the unique spiritual life of the Church Age. There are no races in the royal family because we have a universal priesthood.

b. We have better things than have ever existed in human history, Heb 8:6, “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much that He is also the mediator of a better covenant [the new covenant to the Church], which has been enacted on the basis of better promises.”

c. The new covenant to the Church rescinds and supercedes the old covenant to Israel. The old covenant to Israel, the Mosaic Law, has been rescinded and replaced with a better covenant—the new covenant to the Church, Heb 7:18-19, “For on the one hand, there is a rescinding of the former covenant because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law brought nothing to completion), but on the other hand there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God.” All Church Age believers are under a new covenant with a royal priesthood, High Priest, and Mediator which is different. A mediator must provide a spiritual life compatible to a new spiritual species in the new covenant to the Church. The new covenant to the Church distinguishes its believers from the new covenant to Israel. The blessings of the new covenant to the Church are Church Age blessings only, and the blessings to the new covenant to Israel are for Jewish believers of the millennium only.

d. The future of Israel is not the future of Jewish believers in the Church Age.

(1) The new covenant of the Church is for believers of the Church Age, both Jew and Gentile and it supercedes the old covenant of the Mosaic Law. When a Jew or Gentile believes in Christ during the Church Age they enter into the royal family of God which supercedes all racial distinctions from physical birth, Gal 3:28. A Jew who believes in Christ during the Church Age is no longer a Jew. A Gentile is no longer a Gentile. The baptism of the Holy Spirit takes our racial identity from us and gives us something far greater. The new covenant to the Church recognizes only the royal family.

(2) There is no influence of the new covenant to Israel right now in your spiritual life. The new covenant to Israel is for all born again Jews except those of the Church Age. Jewish believers of the Old Testament will be resurrected at the second Advent and return with Christ to receive the benefits of the new covenant to Israel.

(3) The hope of the Jewish believers of the Old Testament and the Tribulation is the new covenant to Israel. Jewish believers of the Church Age are absorbed into the new covenant for the Church and integrated into its blessings through its unique provision of the royal priesthood. The new covenant to Israel is a fulfillment and extension of the Davidic covenant.

(4) Jewish and Gentile believers during the Church Age have a new sacred Temple on earth. It is constructed in the believer’s body by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19-20. God the Holy Spirit provides the temple for the indwelling of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory, Jn 14:20, 17:22-23; Col 1:27; Rom 8:10.

(5) The Jewish believers of the millennium are part of the restoration of the Jewish client nation to God. The diaspora of Israel is ended at the second Advent, Isa 5:26, 11:11-16, 14:1-2; Joel 2:18-29; Zech 12,14. There is also the restoration of the Levitical priesthood under the descendants of Zadok, Ezek 43:19. There will be a millennial Temple, Ezek 40:1-43:18, but there will still be an empty Holy of Holies. There will the restoration of Levitical offerings, Ezek 43:20-27. The unique spiritual life of Israel in the millennium is stated in Ezek 39:29, “...for I will pour out My Spirit on the house of Israel.” Jesus Christ will rule Israel as the God of Israel and as the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. There will be blessing by association, Zech 8:22-23.

e. We have the ministry of reconciliation, 2 Cor 5:17-21, “Therefore, if anyone [is] in Christ, [he is] a new spiritual species. Old things have lost there power; behold, new things have come to pass. Now all things [are] from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God by means of Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them and He has committed to us the doctrine of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were inviting through us; we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin [to be] a substitute for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

f. We have a priestly prayer for the Church, Eph 3:14-21, “For this reason I kneel before the Father from which the entire family in heaven and on earth drives its title, that He may give you on the basis of the riches in glory to become strong with power through His Spirit in your inner being, that Christ may be at home in your heart through doctrine, when you have been firmly rooted and established in virtue-love, that you may utilize this power to grasp the idea with all of the saints, what is the width [spiritual mechanics], length [spiritual objectives], height [the anchor within the veil], and depth [escrow blessings], and to come to know the love for Christ which goes beyond gnosis that you may be filled resulting in all the fullness from God. Now to Him who is able to do infinitely more than all we ask or think according to the power that keeps on working in us; to Him the glory by agency of the Church by agency of Christ Jesus with reference to all generations of this age of the ages. I believe it.”

g. We have a high priest saluted by God, Heb 5:8-14, “although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered; and having been brought to completion, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation; having been saluted by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Concerning whom we have much to communicate, and hard to explain, because you have become dull of hearing. For because of the time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for some one to teach you the elementary categories of the doctrines of God, and you have become those who need milk and not solid food. For every one who is a partaker only of milk is unacquainted with the doctrine of virtue, for he is a baby. But solid food is for the mature, who by means of exercise have trained themselves to distinguish between virtue and evil.”

h. We have a new perspective on love. See the Doctrine of Love.

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