One Mediator

The supreme work of mediation is found in Christ's office as the high priest who offers himself to satisfy the justice of God. This Christmas you have probably heard the popular Christmas hymn, Angels We Have Heard on High. It's a favourite of mine, and in its third verse we sing, Come, a door on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

And indeed, at that first Christmas, a King was born, but Jesus was more than a King. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and from all of us here at Renewing Your Mind and at Ligonier Ministries, we wish you a very Merry Christmas. As it is Christmas, we have a free gift for you, our listeners. Today only you can request R.C. Sproul's Can I Know God's Will from his Crucial Questions series. Thank you for listening, for sharing each day's episode, and for giving generously throughout the year.

Request your free gift at renewingyourmind.org. It is right to sing of the newborn King, but Jesus is also prophet and priest. Here's Dr Sproul with a Christmas message that we've never released on Renewing Your Mind before, given back in the late nineties, simply titled, One Mediator.

We are not here to celebrate the birth of a baby. We are here to celebrate the incarnation of God, that what makes Christ different from any other mediator, from any other religious leader, from Gautama Buddha, to Mohammed, to Confucius, or anyone else, is that the Scriptures reveal Jesus to be what the Apostle John describes as the monogenes, the only begotten of the Father, that Christ and Christ alone is the God-man. Christ and Christ alone can mediate between deity and humanity because He is God incarnate. He is God who has joined Himself with and taken Himself upon a true human nature. And so in His very person, He mediates humanity and deity as He is vera homo vera deus, truly man and truly God. But because of who He was, He was able uniquely to accomplish the mission of mediation that was set before Him.

Now in the sixteenth century, the magisterial reformer John Calvin introduced an idea to the church in his inimitable fashion of clarity to call attention to the mediatorial office of Christ by the Latin phrase, and you'd be disappointed if I didn't have at least one of them, by the Latin phrase munis triplex, which is theological shorthand for the simple concept of the so-called threefold office of Christ, the threefold office of Christ, which was the office of prophet, priest, and king. It's a remarkable thing, isn't it, that Jesus in His earthly ministry exercised the role of the prophet, the role of the priest, and the role of the king. Now we make a distinction between the Old Testament prophets and Jesus as a prophet.

As I mentioned a moment ago, the prophet in the Old Testament was a mediator. He spoke for God to the people. When the prophets of Israel gave their message, they would preface their message by saying, thus saith the Lord.

Not in my opinion, says Jeremiah, or from my perspective, said Isaiah, but thus saith the Lord. They were anointed as agents of revelation and authorized by God to speak for God to the people. They were the spokespersons for God Himself. Now, Jesus is also called a prophet, but He was more than a prophet. He wasn't just a prophet. He was what? The prophet, the prophet supreme, the prophet par excellence, because, beloved, He was both subject and object of prophecy.

Now what do I mean by that? I mean that as a personal subject, Jesus exercised the role of the prophet uttering prophecies. He was the subject of prophecy. But He was also the object of prophecy because the crystallized essence of what He announced and what He taught about was what?

Himself. When He said, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. That in the Beatitudes themselves, the focus of attention is one's response to Jesus, and Jesus was declaring who would receive the supreme rewards by the hand of His Father. That is to say, even the Beatitudes are Christ-centered.

All of the teachings of the prophets of the Old Testament were focused upon Him. He was the object as well as the subject of prophecy. What about the priesthood? We would also say that the uniqueness of Christ in His priesthood that unlike the Old Testament priests, Jesus was both subject and object of the priesthood.

What do I mean by that? Well, every priest in the Old Testament offered sacrifices. They offered the animals that were slain, the offerings that were presented on the altar, and Jesus, like the subjects in the Old Testament priesthood, did the same thing.

But the unique radical difference of His priesthood was that the offering that He presented was Himself, an offering that was not to be repeated on the altar and an offering that was not to be repeated on an annual basis, but was so perfect that it was given once and for all. But Christ is also the King. Now, the kings in the Old Testament were supposed to be visurgents, that is, vice-regents.

They were supposed to represent the kingdom of God, the reign of God. And even when Samuel first anointed Saul to be the king of Israel, the Lord spoke to the people of Israel through the voice of Samuel, and He said to them, regarding the people and the king, He said, if the king and the people obey the law of God, that God would bless the land. But if the king and the people would not obey the law of God, then God would visit His judgment upon the nation. In a real sense, God holds the people responsible for the behavior of the king. And when the people accept the wickedness of the king, the nation mourns.

Don't forget that. But what happened in Israel? The history of the kingship in Israel reads like a rogue's gallery, and the greatest of them all was an adulterer and a murderer whose name was David. And yet David, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, spoke prophetically of the one who would come after him and whose fallen booth would be restored, who would be David's son and David's Lord.

The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. And in David's greater son, the Davidic kingship is established forever. And Jesus is recognized, again, as not just a king, but as what? The king, because He is called in the superlative language of the New Testament, the King of Kings, the King of all of the kings. And He alone has been exalted to the right hand of God, and the Father has given to Him all authority on heaven and earth. So in this threefold office of Christ, we see the uniqueness and the supremacy of Jesus over all who had gone before Him. Now, beloved, this is the point that is the central motif of much of the book of Hebrews, where comparisons and contrasts are drawn between Jesus and other lesser mediators. What happens in the book of Hebrews is the author of Hebrews compares and contrasts Jesus with other mediators, first of all with the angels. One of the problems that the early church faced was the tendency in certain parts of the community to elevate angels to the level of deities, as it were, and to be engaged in angels as it were, and to be engaged in angel worship.

That was one mistake. The other mistake was to try to lower the status of Jesus to regard Him merely as an angel. And the prohibition against angel worship is part of the witness of the New Testament and of the apostolic community, and where the angels do appear and people prostrate themselves before them and give worship to the angels, they are immediately rebuked for that sort of thing. And what the author of Hebrews is saying is, don't even think of Jesus in terms of an angel.

Let me read what he says. Chapter 1, beginning in verse 3, with respect to Jesus, who being the brightness of His glory the express image of His person, upholding all things by the word of power, when He had by Himself purged our sins and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels. And then we have this rhetorical question, to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my Son, today I have begotten you? Three times in the New Testament, it is reported that God's voice was heard audibly speaking from heaven.

On every one of those occasions, the substance of the divine declaration from the clouds was what? This is my Son, my Son in whom I am well pleased. This is my Son, listen to Him.

This is my Son, listen to Him. To which of the angels did God ever say that? Of what angel did God ever say, this is my beloved Son?

Listen to Him. That's what the author of Hebrews asks us to contemplate. And again, he writes, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son. And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, God says, let all the angels of God worship Him. Let all the angels of God worship Him. Let no one worship an angel, but let the angels worship Christ, because He is superior to the angels, because He's God incarnate. In chapter 3 of Hebrews, we read this, Therefore, holy brethren, partaking of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle.

Let me just stop there. Consider the apostle. That's all you read in the text. Consider the apostle. Who do you think the writer of the text is going to be talking about? Paul or Peter, right? That's not who the author of Hebrews is talking about here. Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus.

Did you remember that? The first apostle is Christ Himself. He is the supreme apostle of God. Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him, who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all of his house. But this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all of his house, that is all of God's house, as a servant for the testimony of those things that would be spoken afterwards. But Christ, as a son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the firm hope in us.

Do you get the picture? Moses was a great man. Moses was obedient. Moses was faithful. But he was faithful in the house of God, in the house of God, as a servant, as a steward, as a hired hand who was brought into the house to manage the affairs of the house. He is involved with economics, which is the combination of the words oikonomia has to do with stewardship, and it has to do with house rule, the term for house added with the term for law. And so an economist in the Old Testament was a hired steward who came in and managed the affairs of the house, and Moses was the best of such servants.

But he didn't build the house, he didn't own the house, and he was not an heir of the house. And what the author of Hebrews is saying is, Moses was great as a servant, but Jesus is a son in His own house. Finally, we see the comparison between Jesus and the Old Testament priesthood. Now, if you remember the book of Hebrews, you know this goes on for chapter after chapter after chapter, where Jesus is shown to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And the author gives us that very cleverly set forth argument that proves the superiority of the Melchizedekian priesthood over the Aaronic or the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. But again, the superiority of Jesus as our great high priest is seen in the perfection of the sacrifice and the offering that He makes once and for all, and the efficacy of it. The author of Hebrews is the one who tells us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin, that all of the sacrifices in the Old Testament were mere shadows of the reality that was to come in the atonement that really brings reconciliation. The supreme work of mediation is found in Christ's office as the high priest who offers himself to satisfy the justice of God.

Listen to these words. Chapter 7, verse 23, Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore, He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives in the world to make intercession for them. Again, listen, for such a high priest was fitting for us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints this high priest men who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.

Do you hear that? Even the high priest in Israel and the Old Testament could not dare to enter into the Holy of Holies without first going through a significant ritual of cleansing. The priests in the Old Testament, before they could offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people, first had to offer a sacrifice for their own sins. But Jesus makes no sacrifice for His own sins because He is without sin. Perhaps that's more dramatic than any other attribute of Jesus, that He was without sin, and that His priesthood continues forever, and the value of the sacrifice that He made is so perfect that it never needs to be repeated. Finally, chapter 10, verse 11, every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting until His enemies are made His footstool, for by one offering He is perfected forever, those who are being sanctified.

Do you wonder then that the Apostle Paul should declare to his beloved disciple Timothy that there is but one God and one mediator between God and us? Christ is the only way because He's the only begotten. What is lacking in the great religions of the world?

Two things, chiefly. Atonement and resurrection. Muhammad could not atone for his own sins, let alone for yours. And Muhammad is dead. Buddha made no sacrifice to the justice of God, and Gautama Buddha is dead. Confucius had wise insights for practical living, but could offer no perfect sacrifice to reconcile God and men, and Confucius is dead. But Christ, who was born in a manger on that first Christmas, was God incarnate, the only begotten of the Father, who of all men was the only man to live in perfect sinlessness before His Father, and the only one to offer an atoning sacrifice as a mediator to reconcile you with God.

And He is the only one whom God has vindicated for the perfection of that offering by raising Him from the dead. That's what we're here to celebrate, the incomparable Christ, whose uniqueness, whose superiority, and whose supremacy is the reason why we sing the songs of praise that we do. This Christmas, worship and remember the incomparable Prophet, Priest, and King, the Lord Jesus Christ. You heard a message today from R.C. Sproul on this Christmas Day edition of Renewing Your Mind. Don't forget that today only we have a free gift for you. Request R.C. Sproul's Can I Know God's Will from his crucial question series at renewingyourmind.org. This offer is one per household and while supplies last. May this gift help you as you seek to grow in your knowledge of God and His Word in the new year. For the rest of the week, we'll be considering the parables of Jesus. Have a Merry Christmas and I hope you'll join us tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind.