Alright brethren, let's go back
now to Galatians 3. Paul says here in Galatians 3.19, Wherefore then
serveth the law? He had declared that God had
saved Abraham by his everlasting covenant of grace He'd done it
430 years before the law was given and did it by promise. And so the Spirit moved him to
raise this question, wherefore then serveth the law? He had
said the believers through Christ is dead to the law that we might
live to God. He said it's not by the hearing
of the works of the law, it's by the Spirit, by the miracle
of Christ working grace in the heart through the hearing of
faith that he gifts us and makes us alive. He'd said that Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law. He said that the believer
walks by faith and not by law, and the law is not of faith.
So he asked this question, now wherefore then serveth the law?
Well, it was added because of transgressions. God added the
Ten Commandments and the rest of the law to show his people
our transgressions in breaking the law in the garden. They both
were covenant of works. It was the same covenant of works,
the law in the garden, the law at Sinai. It was just an addition
to it to show how much we transgressed in the garden. And it was to
show us our own personal transgressions. The law was never intended for
us to be justified by it. to be motivated by it or to be
saved by it, the law was given to give us a knowledge of sin,
to shut our mouths in guilt, to declare that all we are is
sin and all we do is sin. And that's so, that's what the
law says to us. But the law was only for a set
time. He said, till the seed should
come to whom the promise was made, and that seed is Christ.
It was till Christ came in person and fulfilled the law for his
people and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.
And it was also till Christ comes experimentally into the heart
and spirit and makes you hear the law and cast all your care
on Christ so he delivers you from the law into the covenant
of grace. But notice here, When God gave
the law at Sinai, he foreshadowed Christ our Mediator. He says,
and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator. Now listen to this statement.
Now a Mediator's not a Mediator of one, but God is one. I want to focus on that statement.
A Mediator is not a Mediator of one, but God is one. Now there is a ton of commentaries
on this, and they all disagree with one another. And I'm not
trying to straighten out a bunch of things people say. I just
want to look at this in light of Christ. In light of Christ,
what is a mediator? A mediator goes between two parties
who are at odds with one another. Two parties that don't have communion,
two parties that do not have peace. That's what a mediator
does. Moses, in a limited sense, typified,
in a shadowy way, he typified Christ our mediator. At Sinai,
there were two parties represented. They represent God and his elect. But the two parties at Sinai
that we see most, we see God and we see the children of Israel.
They represented God the Father and his elect Israel. I'm not
saying everybody in Israel was elect. I'm just saying that's
who's represented there. And so Moses was the mediator. He was the go-between between
God and the children of Israel. He represented God to the children
of Israel, and he represented the children of Israel to God.
That's a mediator, and in a limited sense, he typified Christ in
that. But Christ Jesus is the mediator
between God and his elect people. He's the mediator. 1 Timothy
2.5, there is one God, and there's one mediator. Between God and
men, between God and his elect, there's one mediator, the man,
Christ Jesus. We saw last time in Hebrews 9.15,
for this cause, Christ is the mediator of the New Testament. That by means of death, for the
redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant,
we broke the law in Adam. And so he came to pay for all
our sins and redeem us from those transgressions
under that first testament so that when we're called, we receive
the promise of an eternal inheritance through his blood. Nothing for
us to be done. He's the mediator who worked
it all out for us. We read in Hebrews 12, 24 that
when you're brought to Mount Zion, you're brought to heavenly
Jerusalem, you're brought to Jesus, the mediator of the new
covenant. and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaks better things than that of April. And we're commanded
to hear him that speaks, to hear Christ. We think of his mediatorial
work sometimes, I think, as that which he did when he walked this
earth. He's still doing it. He's still doing it. He still,
he ever lives to make intercession for his people. He's still speaking
on behalf of God to his people and speaking to God on behalf
of his people. Speaking to his people on behalf
of God and speaking to God on behalf of his people. So I want
to look at this. Now this statement says a mediator
is not of one. He's not a representative of
only one of the parties. A mediator doesn't just represent
one party, he represents both parties. But he says here, but
God's one of the offended parties here. He's one of them. So first of all, this is what
struck me. It's amazing that God, who we
offended, provided a mediator to bring
He and His people together in peace. You think about that. God's the offended party. He's
the offended party. We're the offenders. He created
us. He breathed into us the breath
of life. He sustains us in Him. We live and move and have our
being and yet When he put us in a perfect world with one commandment,
we broke it, we transgressed against God. We offended God
and we sinned against God and we cut ourselves off from God
and we come into this world and we don't want to have anything
to do with God. We don't perceive how wickedly
we transgress against God, how we did and how we do. We transgressed against him in
the garden, and we transgress against him personally in ourselves. I've been talking to several
pastors for several, a good while now, and just one of the things
that we keep talking about is just how little we really believe
that we're sinners. We just really don't believe
it. It's kind of like when somebody dies and you know how it strikes
you that somebody you know dies and it sort of shocks you. And
why? And it's the same way with sin.
We don't think we really believe we're sinners. God has every
right to be offended at us. Every right to be offended at
us. But we don't have any right to be offended at God. And yet,
we transgressed against Him. We're the one that transgressed
against God. He didn't transgress against
us. The carnal mind's enmity against God, but we don't have
a right to be angry at God. We don't have a right to hate
God. He has every right to be angry
towards the wicked every day. Because we've transgressed and
sinned against Him. You know, if somebody steals
a center's property, they come break into your house, they steal
your property, a center will hire a prosecutor,
somebody to go after them and prosecute them and hope they're
convicted and hope that they have to make restitution, hope
they have to do time and have to make restore what they stole
and more. You think about if the robber
who robbed you went around blaming you and saying it was your fault
and spewing out hatred against you, who he robbed. That's what we did to God. Even a man who's a third party,
who could act a part of a mediator, What do we do as a third party?
We hear about the crime, we listen to the salacious talk, and we
take sides and we blame. We defend one, blame the other. But have you ever heard of a
sinner who was robbed and hated and maligned, providing a mediator
for the offender to bring him and the offender together in
harmony? That's what God did for us. A
mediator's not of one, but God is one. God's the offended party
that we offended, and yet the offended party provided the mediator
to reconcile his people to himself. That's just amazing. God didn't send a lawyer to prosecute
us. Christ said, I didn't come to
condemn the world. He could've. He said, I didn't come for that.
We were guilty. We were worthy of the death penalty.
He didn't come to prosecute us. Instead, the very God we offended
provided the mediator to bring he and his people together. And
here's the amazing thing. The mediator he provided is his
only begotten son. You see God's glory. He said,
as the heavens are higher above the earth, so are my thoughts
higher above your thoughts. This is God in His glory. He provided a mediator. He didn't
provide it for those who loved Him, just for those who had offended
Him constantly. A people who've only provoked
God to His face by our sin. That's the good news that he's
gonna use to melt our hearts. That's the good news. If he brings
us centered down and puts us in the dust and makes us teachable
and in our right mind and able to communicate and to speak to
God and to confess what we are to God, that's what's gonna do
it, is this message. He humbles a believer. He makes
his child want to be a peacemaker, a mediator, like Christ. Here in his love, not that we
love God, but that he loved us. And that's not that we love God. No, we didn't. We hated him. We hated God. And yet he loved his people and
he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. He sent the one
to mediate for us to bring us back into peace with him. And he says to us, beloved, if
God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. And it means after this manner. So means after this manner. We
ought to love one another. Now secondly, look here, a mediator
is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Now a mediator is
not a mediator of only one of the parties, he's a mediator
of both. So secondly, God sent his son
to take flesh like those he came to save so that he might be both
God and man and represent both. Now mediators, if he's gonna
represent both parties, he's got to know both parties and
be one with both parties so he can represent both parties. Moses
couldn't be a perfect mediator. He couldn't make legal mediation
between God and men because he was only a man. He wasn't God. He could only represent one party,
man. And he really couldn't represent
man because he was an offender too. So he couldn't represent
man to God. Not only did God the Father,
as the offended party, provide the mediator, he sent his Son,
the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, came down and
took flesh so that he could be the God-man mediator. You see, he's the mediator in
the fact that he's God and man in one, and that's what he accomplishes. He was, Moses was a sinful man. He was one of the offenders just
like us. But the mediator that God provided for his people is
sinless. He knew no sin. He's the sinless
man. Christ can mediate for his sinful
people because he's the holy man who's without sin. And he
can mediate for God because he's the son of God. The second person
in the Trinity, the angel answered Mary and said, the Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow
thee and therefore also that holy thing which shall be born
of thee shall be called the Son of God. He's God in human flesh. Now a mediator has the interest
of both the parties. That's his heart. God is one
party, but Christ didn't come to seek the interest of God only. He didn't come to seek the interest
of his people only. He had both God and his people's
interests at heart. He didn't come to condemn his
people. He didn't come to justify us in our sin and leave us in
our sin and say that God's wrong and we're right. He didn't do
that. What did he come to do? He came to put away all reason
for blame. That's what he came for. So there's
no reason for it whatsoever. To bring us together in peace,
that's what he came for. He's the blessed peacemaker.
And he's the one who makes peacemakers. He didn't come for his own self-interest. It wasn't some secret motive
that he had. He came, the glory of Christ
is he came and he made himself of no reputation. What does that mean? He was not
interested in his reputation. That wasn't his interest. He was interested in the reputation
of the two parties for whom he was mediating. That was what
he was interested in. His interest was for God's glory.
He wanted God to be glorified, and his interest was for his
people's perfect character. That's what his interest was,
to present them in perfection. That was his interest. The glory of Christ is that in
order to mediate, he took the form of a servant to do this. He didn't come as judge and jury
and executioner. He's God, all judgments his,
he certainly could have, but that's not how he came to his
people. He had the interest of God and
the interest of his people. He served bring about peace. That's what he was serving for.
He didn't come and serve God to condemn us. He came to serve
God to save us from condemnation. The glory of Christ is that he
obeyed the Father by denying himself, and his self-denial meant the
death of the cross. He totally denied himself. He
totally denied himself. He said, I didn't come to do
my will. I came to do my Father's will.
And he was obedient to the Father, denying himself unto the death
of the cross. That's his glory. That's how
he mediated. So Christ, he mediated with both
parties' interests at heart. Now for God, God's law had to
be upheld. And His justice had to be poured
out on the offenders. And His offending people had
to die in order for God to be holy. And for His brethren, we have
to be justified. We have to be, our sins have
to be completely put away. He had to bear them away. And
He had to robe us in his righteousness so that God saw nothing but our
righteousness. He didn't see our sin, just his
righteousness upon him. So how did our mediator serve
the interest of both of these parties? How did he accomplish
this for both of these parties? He did it by one great act on
the cross. And you think about this, he
took the place of his offending brethren. He didn't come, He knew we were
guilty. He knew you were guilty. And He didn't come to you and
condemn you. He came and took your place. He came and stepped
in between you and God and took your place by putting all your
sin and guilt and crime on Himself and burying it Himself. and saying to God, punish me
instead of him. Pour out your wrath on me instead
of him. And so he bore our burdens and
he bore the curse, the unyielding justice of God that we deserve And He bore our sin away, out
of sight, blotted them out with His own blood. Blotted out our sins with His
own blood. We can't stop talking about one
another's sins. He blotted out our sins with
His own blood. He died for us. That's the love and the interest
He had in offenders like us. And then He took His perfect
righteousness and robed us in it. Everything we were not, He
made us to be. And he served God's interest
by magnifying and honoring his law. He said, they can't honor
it. He can't keep it. This sinner
can't keep your law, Father. I'll keep it for him. And not only that, I'll go under
the justice of God and I'll bear justice of that law so that it'll
be satisfied toward him because he can't even satisfy the justice
of it. He can't die an eternal death
unsatisfied. I'll do that for him. And so he bore everything we
deserve. Now, Paul calls that, in this
letter to Galatia, he calls that the law of Christ. It's called the law of love.
That's what he calls it. And then lastly, let me get to
this and then I want to apply this, but lastly, these two parties,
though, have still got to be brought together. in peace. It's got to be an experimental
union. They've got to be really and truly brought together so
that we experience it and know it so and we have this communion
of peace with God. So his brethren, we weren't willing
to be reconciled. We just weren't. We heard this
message and we weren't willing to be reconciled. Even when we
heard it in truth, we weren't willing to be reconciled. So,
he's going to have to change the heart, but what's he going
to use to change the heart? Here's Paul's point back up in
the first chapter 3. Is he coming and he's going to
change your heart with the hearing of works? Is He coming to change
your heart, telling you, now here's what you need to be doing.
This is what you ought to be doing, and you're not doing it.
You should be doing this, and you're not doing it. No, that's
not what He used, is it? He used the gospel of what He
did for you. That's totally different. One's
law, the other's grace. One is the hearing of works,
the other is the hearing of faith. And brethren, this message is
of His mediatorial work. This is the only word He blesses
to create obedience in His people. This is the only message He blesses
to mortify our flesh. Whether we're talking about our
sinful, immoral, whoring flesh that needs to be mortified, or
we're talking about our proud, self-righteous, pious flesh that
needs to be mortified, this is what He's going to use to do
it. He makes His brethren know our
sin, not by coming to us in judgment, not by coming to us in the letter,
not by coming to us and condemning us. That's not how He makes us
know our sin. He makes us know our sin in grace
and in truth and in spirit. What is that? He makes you see
your sins on Him. He makes you see your sins being
borne by Him and being put away by Him. And when you behold Him in spirit,
and behold the grace of God to send Him for you, and behold
that God brought about the truth, He redeemed you in truth and
in mercy, and He had great grace on you in a just way, and He
makes you see your sin put away by Him. That's what changes the
heart. That's what melts the heart.
That's what revives the heart. That's what renews the heart
by His Spirit coming in. He makes us know that God who
we offended sent Him and reconciled us to Himself by His blood. Look at 2 Corinthians 5 and look
at verse 18. Here's what He makes us hear
in our heart. This is what Paul was preaching to Corinth for
all their trouble. It's what he preached in Galatia
for all their trouble. It's what he preached in Rome
for all their trouble. Everywhere he preached, this
is the answer. This is the cure, brethren. Verse 18, all things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. not charging us with our sins,
not condemning us for our sins, but he's committed to us the
word of reconciliation. Now then, we're ambassadors for
Christ. We're speaking on behalf of Christ.
As though God was speaking to you by us, we pray you in Christ's
stead, be ye reconciled to God. He's done this for somebody.
He's reconciled somebody. And our message is now, you be
reconciled to him. And if he can, that's how you
know he did it for you. But now how come He didn't impute
our sins to us? He didn't just wipe them away.
He didn't just ignore them. What did He do with them? For
He, the very one we offended, had made Him, His own Son, to
be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's how He mediated for us
and reconciled us to God. Go to Romans 5 and look at verse
6. And here's the result. Romans
5 verse 6. When we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. I'm not going to die for them.
They reached their limit. I'm not going to, nope. If they
hadn't done that, I would have, but nope. Nope, he died for the
ungodly. That had done everything wicked
we could do against God, that's who he died for. He laid his
life down for us. For scarcely for a righteous
man one will die. Pharisee would do that, perventure
for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God commended
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Much more then, being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if,
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more than being reconciled, we shall be saved
by His life. You know what he's saying? There's
nothing you can do, believer, that's gonna make Him stop loving
you and stop mediating for you and stop keeping you in peace
with God. Nothing. There's one sin He won't
forgive. That's rejecting Christ. That's
apostasy. That's the one sin he won't forgive,
because if you reject Christ, there's no Savior. But everything
else you do, he'll forgive it. It's a blessing for God to let
us fall on our face in sin sometimes, just to remind us, you need him. You're not quite so big as you
think your britches are. You need him. And by that good news, He makes
us be reconciled to Him in the first hour and every hour. It's this one message. It's this
one message. I preached it to you in 2005
or 2006, whenever I first came here, and I've been preaching
the same message to you. This is the message. This is
what we use. This is it. And you can't make
a person believe it, and I can't either. But God can, and in his
time, he will. And he's the only one that can.
But this is the message we have to use. We can't break out the
whip of the law. We can't bite and devour and
accuse. You've got to use this word.
This is it. This is it. But a mediator pleads not with
one party only. He mediates bringing us to confess
our sins. He brings you to confess your
sins, and he promises you while he's doing that, he makes you
know God's faithful. He's just to forgive you of your
sins, and he'll cleanse you. He'll cleanse you of all iniquity.
But while he's mediating for God to you, telling you that,
he's also mediating for you with God, saying, Father, forgive
him. I put his sin away. It's gone. And that's how the two parties
are brought together. So what's Paul's point in this?
Well, these false brethren were agitating the Galatians to be
lawyers. They were agitating them to take
each other to the letter of the law and condemn. And so Paul
has been speaking, everything he's been speaking, working,
declaring the one remedy, he's declaring the gospel, he's declaring
Christ the mediator, he's saying the law came by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. He's the one from whom all fullness
come, he's the one who mediated and saved us. And so he's telling
us that this new covenant, it's got a better minister, a better
mediator, it's a better covenant, It's all fulfilled by Christ
and He's not going to let one not receive the promise. All
His people are going to receive the promise. And He's got better
promises than they owe. And so he said all of this, and
he's working towards this, and I don't want us to forget this,
because as we go through it, we just hear the message of the
believers not in the law. But why is he saying it? It has
such a practical application. Because as you behold your mediator,
Galatians 5, he's telling us this. He's telling us to deal
with one another in the spirit of our mediator. He's saying
be a mediator, be mediators. And here it is, verse 26. Let
us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying
one another. Brethren, if a man be overtaken
in a fault, you which are spiritual. This is what Christ did for us. We were overtaken in a fault,
but Christ who's spiritual came down, restored such a one, in
the spirit of meekness. Not judgment. Meekness. Just like Christ did us. Considering
yourself, lest you also be tempted. Tempted to what? To everything contrary to what
he's saying right here. To go into law and to use the
letter and to condemn. We're sinners, brethren. We don't
want God to deal with us in judgment. And he said, if you won't show
mercy, then just expect judgment. That's what you'll get. I need
mercy. I'm a sinner and I need mercy.
And you're sinners and you need mercy. And so he's saying, remember
that. Just remember that. And he says,
and bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
How did Christ do it? He stepped in and said, put that
sin on me. And he said, and whatever you
wanna pour on him, pour it on me. I'll stand here between you
and that sinner, pour it on me. And at the same time, he covered
our sin and he put it away and he said, I'm not gonna remember
it anymore. And he pleads with the Father and says, Father,
don't remember his sin. That's the spirit that he brings
us to. That's the newness of spirit.
That's how our mediators serve the interest of God his Father,
and that's how he served you and I as his brethren. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.