There are two great realities, two great divine facts, which constitute the basis of all true religion.
We have them both stated in the verse before us, namely:
“One God”—“one mediator.”
God was pleased in former times to make one nation (the Jewish) the depositary and testimony in the world of the truth of the unity of the Godhead: “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our Lord is one Lord.”
We learn from Josh. 24:22And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. (Joshua 24:2) that the world had lost the knowledge of the one true God even the family of Shem, and the position which belonged to God alone in the mind and heart had been usurped by Satan, for the gods they worshiped were demons (see 1 Cor. 10:2020But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. (1 Corinthians 10:20), where Deut. 32 is quoted). It was then that God chose and called out one man for Himself, to be separate from his country and kindred, and his father’s house, a witness both in the world and against the world for God. In Abraham God had separated to Himself a family, a nation, Israel, and as we have observed, with the purpose of their being His witnesses among other realities to the fact that there was one only God. In due course this nation were further separated to God Himself from the world, of which Egypt was the figure, by a typical redemption, and became His dwelling-place on the earth.
But now be it observed this great revelation and witness of one only God was not sufficient to bring men into relationship with Him, and as to fact, God abode within the veil, as it is said, “In the darkness which shrouded his majesty” (see Deut. 5:2222These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me. (Deuteronomy 5:22); 1 Kings 8:1212Then spake Solomon, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. (1 Kings 8:12); 2 Chron. 6:11Then said Solomon, The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. (2 Chronicles 6:1); Lev. 16:22And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat. (Leviticus 16:2)).
Now it is in the second great fact, which is the distinctive truth of Christianity, that we learn how God can be in relationship with man. Note it well that whilst Christianity fully reveals the one God, it alone presents the fact of one Mediator. I would here record the testimony of another witness to the greatness and preciousness of this truth:
Two things here characterize the Mediator. He is a man; He gave Himself a ransom for all. The time for the testimony was ordered of God.
Precious truth! We are in weakness, we are guilty, we could not bring ourselves near to God. We needed a Mediator, who, while maintaining the glory of God, should put us into such a position that He could present us to God in righteousness according to that glory. . . . But He must be a man in order to suffer for men and to represent men. And this He was. But this is not all. We are weak—here, where we are to receive the revelation of God; and weak with regard to the use of our resources in God and our communion with Him—even when our guilt is blotted out. And in our weakness to receive the revelation of God, Christ has revealed God, and all that He is in His own Person, in all the circumstances wherein man could have need, either in body or soul. He came down into the lowest depths in order that there should be none, even of the most wretched, who could not feel that God in His goodness was near him and was entirely accessible to him—come down to him—His love finding its occasion in misery; and that there was no need to which He was not present, which He could not meet.
It is thus that He made Himself known on earth; and now that He is on high, He is still the same. . . . He is still a man in glory and in divine perfection. . . . No tenderness, no power of sympathy, no humanity like His. No human heart that can so understand, so feel with us, whatever the burden may be that oppresses the heart of man. It is the man, the Christ, Jesus, who is our Mediator.
It is blessed to dwell upon His Person as both God and man, and our wisdom and blessing is to hold fast both, not the one to the setting aside of the other. It is a poor and contemptible piece of Satanic deceit to so blind any by the pride and vanity of a supposed orthodoxy, as to lead men to obscure, and in some instances even to set aside practically, the great truth of His manhood. How blessed for us that “the Word became flesh.” The eternal Word who was ever with God and was God, was pleased to become man. Let me here notice a point of great beauty in John 1. We read that the Word was God and was with God, but we equally read the positive statement that His presence as man was with men. This will help to show the equal preciousness to God of His Person as both God and man.
But further, it is important to guard against a system from which the mediatorial character of the blessed Lord and of His work, almost entirely disappears or is destroyed; it is not possible for instance to have true divine understanding of eternal life, if this mediatorial character of Christ is denied. Oh, how easily we can be both cheated and deceived by the enemy; his wiles are most dangerous when they are of a religious nature, and when pride rules the will, the soil of the heart is ready for his seed. Alas! what is unmortified and unjudged flesh not capable of? “Full of light, full of Satan,” is an awful possibility.
Now on no side of His mediatorial character is it more needful to be clear than on that of life; I do most thankfully adopt the words of another and say:
If they did not eat His flesh and drink His blood, they had not life. . . . For that it was necessary that a divine and heavenly life should descend from heaven and communicate itself to souls, and that in one man; it was necessary that that man should die and terminate every relation between God and the fallen race, and risen should begin a new race, possessing (having through grace appropriated to themselves Christ) divine life.
How blessed to dwell then on the precious Lord’s “emptying Himself ” (©"LJ@< ¦6,Phil. 2:77But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:7)). Oh, to receive into our souls the full significance of this amazing grace, how He “took on him the form of a servant,” and so being dependent and obedient, a position He most carefully and in perfection continued in. . . . The Father has “given to the Son” (so incarnate) to have life in Himself. This is not true of Godhead. You could not say God lives ‘4" any being. Christ says, I live ‘4" J@< A"J,D" (by the Father) (John 6:5757As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57)). And the subject here is just this descent of life and our living by Christ, and the flesh of Christ is distinctly brought in and His death. In John’s Gospel this reception from the Father is most carefully everywhere retained, while His own proper Deity shines all through most strikingly.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the mediatorship of our precious Lord, both as regards life and propitiation. Further, the fact of a mediator between God and man is, as we have observed, the great and distinctive truth of Christianity, “His coming from on high, His divine nature, His death, His life as man in heaven, all point Him out as the one and only mediator.” The loss of this mediatorial place of the blessed Lord would be the loss of Christianity.
Oh, for hearts true and loyal to His blessed Person in all that constitutes the God-Man, holding fast His divine glory with all holy reverence, but equally holding fast the perfection of His humanity and its servant form, the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”