3. Christ Taking the Office of Mediator
Rev A W MacColl
A mediator is a middle-man, one who occupies a position between two parties or persons who are at variance with one another, or are separated from one another. There was clearly no need for a mediator between God and men before Adam’s fall, since man was created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness and enjoyed communion with God. Since the Fall, however, a mediator is absolutely essential. God’s claims on His sinful creatures cannot be set aside, neither can man by His own endeavours begin to reconcile God and himself.
The great task of satisfying divine justice and justifying sinners therefore could belong to no mere man, a sinner of Adam’s ordinary posterity. W G T Shedd adverts to Galatians 3:20 when he emphasises that the “Mediator between God and man cannot be God only or man only. . . . A mediator supposes two parties between whom he intervenes; but God is only one party.
1Last month’s section of this paper dealt with later controversies in the development of this doctrine.
Consequently the Mediator between God and man must be related to both and the equal of either.”2 Christ the Mediator “must be a prophet who can inwardly enlighten and not merely teach by words externally, a king who can protect His kingdom, and a priest who can make atonement to justice for His people. These functions cannot be discharged by a finite being.”3
A special anointing of Christ’s human nature was required in order fully to fit Him to be the Mediator. The Father anointed Him with the Spirit without measure at His incarnation and at His baptism. Hugh Martin very beautifully describes some of the effects of the anointing received at His baptism: “Compassion for the countless perishing ones, and adoring desire for His Father’s glory in their salvation, shall now qualify Him to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken hearted. Patience unmurmuring, perseverance . . . longings for His cross, and straitenings till His baptism of blood be accomplished (Lk 12:50); all these graces, and all others needed in His office, will the Holy Spirit of His baptism unfailingly, and unto the uttermost, operate in Jesus, the Head and Mediator of His Church.”4
Now, the office of a mediator between God and man is one of condescension and humiliation: because it involves a divine Person assuming a human nature, as we see from Philippians 2:7: “He made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant”. If the distance between the manger in Bethlehem and the cross was incomprehensibly great, we might suggest the distance was infinitely greater still between the manger and the glory He had with the Father before the world.
To be a mediator between God and man implies a condition of dependence. He consented to take a secondary place. As Shedd puts it, “a king who volunteers to become an ambassador to his own subjects condescends and humbles himself”.5 That humility was seen in the fact that Christ assumed the office of Mediator in response to a special divine call. The Westminster Confession says, “This office [He] took not unto Himself, but was thereunto called by His Father, who put all power and judgement into His hand and gave Him commandment to execute the same”. Thus the position He assumed in the covenant was one which involved dependence and subordination. He would depend on the Father’s promised strength through the Holy Spirit and He would subject Himself to the sufferings necessary to satisfy divine justice.
2Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Presbyterian and Reformed, 2003 edn, p 675.
3Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p 265.
4Martin, The Abiding Presence, Knox Press, p 78. For more on this glorious subject see John Owen, Works, vol 3 (Banner of Truth, 1966, pp 159-185; George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Banner of Truth, 1958 edn, pp 116-136.
5Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p 676.
Perhaps never was this more solemnly seen than when the Redeemer in His agonies in the Garden of Gethsemane cried out, “Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done”.
With regard to the covenant, we might also add that it involved condescension on the part of God the Son to enter into a covenant with the Father and take the position of the Mediator. Only because He was the co-equal Son of God could He agree to take a subordinate position as the Servant of Jehovah in the covenant. This clearly shows that Christ is equal in power and glory to, and of the same essence as, the Father; He is “the Son of the Father, in truth and love” (2 Jn 3).
Moreover, since the office of Mediator is one of condescension and humiliation, it is also one of reward. The reward was consequent upon enduring the humiliation: “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame . . . for consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself” (Heb 12:2,3). He was straightened until His baptism was accomplished, but ever knew that the accomplishing of His mission involved both reward for Himself and eternal life for His people: “His glory is great in Thy salvation, honour and majesty hast Thou laid upon Him” (Ps 21:5); “But we see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour, that He by the grace of God might taste death for every man” (Heb 2:9).