Rev A W MacColl
The Christian Church took nearly 16 centuries to reach the classic statement we find in the eighth chapter of The Westminster Confession of Faith, on the doctrine of the Person and work of Christ. It is not intended in this series of articles, however, to give a clause-by-clause exposition of that marvellous chapter of the Confession, “On Christ the Mediator”. Rather, we will take an overview of the subject, looking in particular at four aspects of the theme. Firstly, we may deal with the scriptural evidence for the doctrine of the Mediator; secondly, we will survey something of the historical process whereby the doctrine was clarified in the Church; thirdly, we may endeavour to state the essential elements which must go into the doctrine of the Mediator; and, fourthly, we will outline the activity of Christ in His function as Mediator.
It need hardly be said that the doctrine of Christ is intimately bound up with, and indeed flows out of, the doctrine of the Trinity. Obviously our knowledge of Christ and our knowledge of God are linked in many ways, and it is significant that there seems to have been, from the beginning, far more opposition to these two fundamental doctrines, along with that of justification, than to any others in the whole system of revealed truth.
1. The Scriptural Basis of the Doctrine of the Mediator. A Mediator is one who reconciles persons or parties who are at variance with each other. The task of mediation belongs to the middle-man, or mediator. According to Shedd, “speaking generally, Messiah is the Old Testament term for the Redeemer, and Mediator is the New Testament term. . . . The Christian Church prefers the New Testament designation mediator to the Old Testament designation Messiah.”2
1This is the first section of a paper delivered at last year’s Theological Conference.
2W G T Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Presbyterian and Reformed reprint, 2003, p 675.
Old Testament Christology. John “Rabbi” Duncan tells us that the true Christology of the Old Testament is not to be sought merely in isolated passages but “as the pervading element of the whole book . . . if Christ is there at all, He is there throughout”. He added, “The Messiah is Theanthropos – Emmanuel, God with us – and the doctrine of the Theanthropos is the keystone of the theology and anthropology3 of the Old Testament”.4 We must, therefore, seek a view of Jesus in all the Scriptures of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms.
At the same time, it is surely profitable to consider some of the outstanding passages and statements in the Old Testament concerning the coming Mediator. The first intimation of mercy to mankind contained, we believe, the revelation of a personal Redeemer, there announced as the Seed of the woman (Gen 3:15). Later on, in Genesis 28:12,13, we have Jacob’s vision of the ladder, which was a revelation of a way of communication between heaven and earth, to be more fully unfolded much later in the words of Christ to Nathanael in John 1:51. Job felt his need of a “daysman”, one “that might lay His hand upon on us both” – a Mediator between an offended God and a suffering sinner (Job 9:33). The word translated daysman has reference to a legal function, to one who pleads in a court. This is another theme which is more fully developed in the New Testament but which had a reality in the earliest periods of God’s dealings with His people.
When we come to the law of Moses, we see that all the ceremonies and sacrifices brought the priestly work of Christ into view. Both Moses and Aaron, in different ways, performed mediatorial functions typical of Christ. The emphasis is on Moses as a mediator declaring God’s will rather than actually effecting reconciliation; Moses was also personally typical of Christ the Mediator in the sense that he executed a prophetic function (Deut 18:15, 34:10). He introduced the priesthood of Aaron to its special role in Israel and interceded with God for them (see Ex 24 and 32:30-32), and he was lawgiver and judge to the nation.
The Messianic Psalms are full of material belonging to the work of the Mediator: for example, “I have laid help upon One who is mighty, I have exalted One chosen out of the people” (Ps 89:19). In the book of Proverbs we have the wonderful reference to Christ, revealed as the Divine Wisdom, “being set up from everlasting” in the covenant purpose of God, “Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth, and My delights were with the sons of men” (8:22-36). In the prophetic books, we have the remarkable prophecy in
3Here theology is, specifically, the doctrine of God. Anthropology is the doctrine of man.
4John Duncan, Rich Gleanings After the Vintage from Rabbi Duncan, F P Publications reprint, 1984, p 288.
Isaiah 53:12 which says that the Servant of the Lord “bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”.
We can see in the Old Testament functions of prophet, priest and king various strands which go into our understanding of how sinners and God are to be reconciled. The effects of the Fall left man in a threefold condition of alienation from God: man is ignorant of God, is guilty before God and is rebellious against God – and the functions of the Mediator correspond exactly with the needs of perishing sinners. A mediator is required to address the state of man in such a condition: hence the necessity for a Prophet, Priest and King.
Melchizedek as a priestly king is, in a certain sense, the most remarkable personal type of Christ in the Old Testament, since the other types foreshadowed Christ’s functions as Mediator and not His actual personal constitution. David, under inspiration of the Spirit, got a remarkable view of the significance of the priesthood of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4), which was brought out so profoundly in its application to the Lord Jesus by Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Again, in Zechariah 6:13, we have a prophecy of the priest on His throne, and the covenant of peace between them both, pointing to the reuniting of the offices of priest and king in one Person and also in the success of His mediatorial work in reconciling God and man in the covenant. And in the last Old Testament Prophecy, that of Malachi, we are told that “the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal 3:1).