The Mediator

For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17)

As Moses met with God to receive His commandments, the people of Israel built a golden calf to worship with food, alcohol, and sex. In His justice, God said He’d destroy them all, but Moses interceded on behalf of God’s chosen people. Israel’s mediator asked God to be forgiving and merciful, remembering His covenant of grace and blessing to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants.

So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people (Exodus 32:14).

The following day, Moses went up on Mount Sinai to speak with God. Israel’s mediator, one who stands between, confessed that God’s people were not innocent or good, but committed a great sin (Exodus 32:31). God forgave, but His justice against the sinners and their sin still had to be satisfied. Moses offered himself to God as a willing substitute to personally pay the penalty for the nation’s sin (Exodus 32:32). Israel still had consequences for their sin, but God spared their lives.

Then Moses asked to see God’s face.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed … and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:4-6).

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

• Part 1 of 3.

Ordained as Mediators

And he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him, to consecrate him. Then Moses brought Aaron’s sons and put tunics on them, girded them with sashes, and put hats on them, as the Lord had commanded Moses (Leviticus 8:12-13).

Under the old covenant God made with the Jewish people, the sons of Aaron were made priests. Only priests were permitted to enter the tabernacle and there serve the Lord. These priests of Israel stood as mediators between a holy God and the sinful nation.

These priests were ordained in an elaborate ceremony, setting them apart from the rest of Israel for God’s service. They were ordained with oil, animal sacrifice, sacrificial blood, and special clothing (Leviticus 8). Each of these symbols pointed toward either the Person or the work of Jesus as the Saviour of the world.

Some Christian organizations foolishly follow this ordination process for the descendants of Aaron. The one to be ordained today is anointed with oil and given a special robe or collar; all the while conveniently forgetting the part about making bloody sacrifices and smearing the blood on the priests (Leviticus 8:14, 23-24).

These imperfect sons of Aaron were ordained to an imperfect serve unto the Perfect Lord. The priests themselves had to make and partake of animal sacrifices to cleanse them from sin. They were unable to remove their own sins, let alone the sins of their fellow Jews. Yet they were ordained by God to stand as symbols of the perfect Messiah, Christ Jesus. First Timothy 2:5 says, For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.

Never Question the Love of God for You

Daniel and me weeks before the accident (2006)

Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself … (John 10:17-18).

Fifteen years ago, I sat in the children’s hospital with my son Daniel, not knowing if he would live or die. A serious car accident crushed his skull and left glass embedded in his brain.

Nine years earlier, my sister’s two-year old son died in the very same hospital. Nathaniel’s death was on my mind as I prayed for Daniel. No parent in a similar situation ever thinks, At least it’s not me. Our suffering is different, but we nonetheless suffer with the children we love.

When we think, speak, act, or are motivated by intentions contrary to who God is, it’s sin. Simply, sin is rebellion against God. Yet the Bible says God loves sinners. The Father loves them so greatly that He gave His only Son as the Substitute to receive the judgment we justly deserve for our sin. The Righteous died for the unrighteous, mediating between a holy Creator and His unholy creatures.

It’s hard to comprehend the kind of love God has for us. So hard that Jewish scholars have spent millennia contemplating the words of the prophet Isaiah: Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. … Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief (Isaiah 53:4-5, 10).

It’s an incredible love that would purposely sacrifice one’s own son so children who hated you could be reconciled to you eternally!

This sacrificial love isn’t just the prerogative of the Father; it’s also the love of the Son. John 3:16 reveals that the Father gave His Son for love. John 10 reveals the Son gave His life for love. Christ’s love was for both the Father and those whom His life would redeem.

In a very small way most of us understand the suffering Jesus experienced for our sin. Most of us will never understand the suffering of the Father watching His Son die for others, and being the One who caused that suffering for others.

My believing friend, never question the love of God for you.

Christ Entered into Heaven

For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us, not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place with the blood of another (Hebrews 9:24-25).

Sin separates the sinner from God. Symbolizing their separation from God because of sin, the Jewish people stood outside the tabernacle on the Day of Atonement. On this high holy day, the high priest of Israel as the lone mediator between God and men, entered the tabernacle in the wilderness with a bowl of blood in his hand (Leviticus 16:15).

The tabernacle was divided into two parts. When the high priest crossed behind the thick veil separating the two rooms, he sprinkled the blood upon the top of the ark of the covenant, known as the mercy seat. Forgiveness wasn’t by prayer, good deeds, fasting, religious rituals or personal sacrifice, but by faith in the ancient promise of God known to Abel, Abraham, and Aaron: when I see the blood, I will pass over you (Exodus 12:13; Leviticus 6:7; 17:11; Hebrews 9:22).

Through His death on the cross, Jesus offered Himself once and forever as payment for the sins of God’s people (John 19:30). Accepting Christ’s death as the perfect sacrifice for sin, the Father raised Jesus from the dead, justifying the sinful (Romans 4:25). Like the lone high priest of Israel, the resurrected Jesus presented Himself in Heaven, once and forever, becoming the High Priest of Heaven’s redeemed.

In this High Priestly role, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34).

Lifting the Veil on Sanctification

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Exodus 32-34 details Moses’ response to Israel’s worship of the golden calf. In their false worship, Israel broke the Ten Commandments they’d twice previously agreed to obey. In his anger at their sin, Moses slammed the two tablets of stone to the ground, illustrating Israel’s disobedience.

One result of Israel’s sin was God’s refusal to dwell in the midst of His people. Instead He’d remain far off (Exodus 33:7). Sin separated God and man.

From outside the camp, Moses would enter the tabernacle of meeting to hear from God and then bring God’s message to the people. Moses became the mediator between God and man.

Whenever Moses met with God, his face shone like a lamp, reflecting the majesty and glory of God. The glow terrified the people because it revealed God’s perfect holiness and the darkness of their sin-corrupted hearts. After delivering God’s word, Moses would veil his face – not to hide the glory of God – but to hide the fact that the glory quickly faded from his own face (Exodus 34:30; 2 Corinthians 3:13). Moses’ veil protected the people from God’s judgment but also kept them from being transformed by God’s glory.

In Second Corinthians 3, Paul uses the shining face of Moses as an illustration. Many people only see the Bible as a series of stories, God’s wrath, commandments impossible to comprehend or comply with, and difficult sayings. Sin veils the heart from seeing Jesus in Scripture, the primary reason Scripture exists!

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (2 Corinthians 3:16). When we follow where the Scripture leads – which is always to Jesus – we see Him in all His glory and can’t but help to love, adore, obey, and worship Him alone.

Now we all, we who trust in Jesus by faith, have the veil of separation removed and we find ourselves looking in a mirror. The shadows are replaced by a crystal clear revelation of Jesus. As we lovingly gaze at His image revealed in Scripture, something remarkable happens to us: the Bible becomes ever clearer and we find our own image being transformed bit by bit, from glory to glory, into Christ’s moral likeness and character. This is sanctification!