We are sinners. We are guilty before God. How then can we safely enter His presence when life is over? How can we come before Him in this life? If we continue in our natural condition, we cannot possibly expect ever to enter heaven, or to have our prayers heard, apart from a mediator. The fact is that sin separates between God’s creatures and Himself. On the human level, the friendship between two individuals may be broken – so seriously that they can no longer speak to each other. Afterwards, even if one party wishes to be reconciled, the other party might forcefully reject all attempts at restoring harmony. The only hope is to find a mediator, a third party who may be able to bring the two individuals together.
The obvious question is: Where can we find a mediator who can restore harmony between the sinner and God? Or, to use the words of Job: Where can we find someone who “might lay his hand” on both God and the sinner? This is a problem that no human being could solve. Only God, with His infinite wisdom, could provide a mediator who would provide for the needs of sinners while satisfying His own justice perfectly – so that sinners might come into His presence in prayer and be accepted and so that, freed from both the guilt and power of sin, they might enter permanently into heaven when they leave this world.
Hear then the call, given in prophecy: “Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth” (Is 42:1), a verse that Matthew (12:18) quotes as fulfilled in Jesus. He is the God-man who, so to speak, can lay a divine hand on God and lay a human hand on sinners. Through Him and His finished work, sinners may approach God, for He is the God-appointed Mediator. Through Him even the guiltiest of sinners may come near to God and have all their needs supplied. Although no fallen human being can have access to God through their own works – through any kind of effort to please God – they may approach Him through Jesus Christ, who was revealed as Emmanuel, God with us, the Mediator.
If sinners are to be reconciled to God, this Mediator must take upon Himself what brought about the separation in the first place – the guilt of Adam’s first transgression – and also what confirms that separation: continuing human transgression, for everyone keeps coming short of the glory of God. The Mediator must take on Him both the guilt involved in original sin and all the further guilt of each individual He came to save, and He must bear it away, through His sufferings unto death. This is what He did, as Peter writes, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18). And His resurrection on the third day should assure us that He has indeed taken away all the sin that brought Him to Calvary. Thus sinners are to receive the fact that “whosoever believeth in Him [shall] not perish, but have everlasting life”.
This truth is to be proclaimed by those who have been sent out to preach the gospel. They are to make known that sin is a universal disease which will prevent people from entering heaven. But they are to point to the Mediator who, if they seek Him, will represent them before God the Father. So Paul made repeated journeys from Palestine as one sent out to preach about sin and about the Mediator for sinners. He was one of those who preached in Ephesus; yet he tells the Ephesians that Christ “came and preached peace to you” (Eph 2:17). Christ was never physically in that city, but when His ambassadors proclaimed the gospel there, making known that there is “peace through the blood of the cross” – through the death of the Mediator – it was as if He was Himself speaking there personally.
Then Paul goes on to add, “Through Him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (v 18). In this verse all three Persons of the Godhead are mentioned, making it an important testimony to the doctrine of the Trinity. But the point of quoting it here is to highlight this reference to Christ as Mediator: sinners may be reconciled to God the Father through the Son, “the one Mediator between God and men”. The verse also draws attention to the fact that it is by the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul that anyone is able to look by faith to the Saviour, who died to make it possible for sinners to be brought into a state of peace with God.
Consider a sinner who is conscious of sin and conscious also that sin separates from God. What is Christ telling to the sinner? He says this in particular: “I am the way” (Jn 14:6). He, the Mediator, is the way to the Father. He also makes clear: “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me”. Though sinners cannot come directly to the Father, yet Christ calls them: “Come unto Me”. And, through Christ, trusting in Him, sinners may approach the Father. If they do so, their sins will not be held against them, for the Mediator took these sins and bore them away.
Sinners are not to hold back from coming to Christ because of the seriousness of their sins; however great their sins may be, they are to think of the greatness of Christ’s work. They are to remember His words: “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men” (Mt 12:31). Sinners may feel that they are not worthy to come to Christ. But let them look away from themselves and consider the worthiness of the Mediator; they are to say, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Rev 5:12), who is willing to represent sinners like them before His Father. Of course, we are all unworthy, but that is not the point at the moment. The critical matter is the worthiness of the One who stands between sinners and God, pointing to His finished work as what has been accepted on behalf of unworthy sinners.
Even those who are converted and forgiven cannot approach God in prayer apart from the Mediator. In themselves they continue to be unworthy; they are still sinners; they need the Mediator to present their petitions before the Father. There is nothing in themselves that they can point to as a basis for obtaining forgiveness, grace, protection, or any other blessing; Christ is the foundation. And He, says Paul, “is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us [believers]” (Rom 8:34).
David Brown comments on this verse: He is “using all His boundless interest with God in our behalf. . . . But how are we to conceive of this intercession? Not as of one pleading ‘on bended knees and with outstretched arms’, to use the expressive language of Calvin. But yet, neither is it merely a figurative intimation that the power of Christ’s redemption is continually operative . . . . It cannot be taken to mean less than this: that the glorified Redeemer, conscious of His claims, expressly signifies His will that the efficacy of His death should be made good to the uttermost, and signifies it in some such royal style as we find Him implying in that wonderful Intercessory prayer which He spoke as from within the veil, “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am” (Jn 17:24). But in what form this will is expressed is as undiscoverable as it is unimportant.”
Thus we may bring all our needs before God, but we must approach Him through the Mediator. Because those who pray are sinners, there is no other way to approach. Are we afraid to bring all our needs to Him – the greatest as well as the smallest, the smallest as well as the greatest, but our spiritual needs particularly? Even the most afraid should take encouragement from the call: “Let us . . . come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). But may we actually come boldly, with confidence? Yes, we ought not to hold back; we must have confidence in the Mediator, who opened up the way to the Father. “For through [Christ] we . . . have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” And He continues to intercede with the Father. Thus, however sinful, ignorant and weak we may be, we can be heard – for the sake of the Mediator.