Let us turn again to the first
epistle of Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 2. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and I want
to draw your attention for a while this evening to the words that
we have here in verse 5. For there is one God and one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. In 1 Timothy 2. and verse 5 to
say something then from these words concerning Christ in his
mediatorial office. We have been previously considering
the opening verses of this chapter and the subject matter of prayer
and last week in particular as we considered verses 3 and 4
we thought of prayer in relation to the divine sovereignty. Paul
writes at verse 3, This is good and acceptable in the sight of
God, our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth. We thought then, as I say, of
prayers, which is really the subject matter being dealt with
here, as we see from the opening words, First of all, supplications,
prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks is to be made for all
men. And so we try to understand precisely
what is meant by this good and acceptable will of God in which
the Apostle speaks. of the salvation of all men,
who will have all men to be saved. And we said that we need to be
careful to take account of the context because it is evident
that God does not will the salvation of every individual that has
ever lived upon the face of the earth. Didn't Judas go to the
place that had been eternally appointed for him. He was the
son of perdition. And yet he was doubtless a man
and a real man. And here I said that what we
have to remember is that in the context he is clearly speaking
not so much of all men individually, every individual that's ever
lived, but all sorts of men, all types of men, all classes
of men. because he speaks specifically
in the second verse of those who are in places of authority
kings and the like and so we said that all must always be
understood and interpreted by taking account of the immediate
context and also the analogy of faith the teaching of the
whole of the word of God and remember Now, in verse 4, he
speaks of that salvation in terms of the knowledge of the truth.
They are to be saved and they are to come unto the knowledge
of the truth. And we said that that knowledge
is an experimental knowledge. It's that that the Lord speaks
of in John 17, that that is life eternal, to know. thee the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent the knowledge
of God and the knowledge of him who is the only mediator and
how Peter speaks of the necessity of us growing in grace and in
the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so we sought to understand the
significance of that word all that is used here in verse 4,
all men. But also what I really wanted
to emphasize was the fact that prayer has a very significant
part to play in the accomplishment of all God's goodwill and purpose. It is God's own ordinance. He
is not only appointed the end but he has also ordained the
means whereby he will accomplish his eternal purpose. And we often
think of those words in Ezekiel 36-37 where to Israel of old
he says I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel
to do it for them. Oh God will do it but God will
be inquired of his people to do it. And there he speaks of
increasing them with men like a flock, and as we know the historic
context is that they were there in exile, they were in captivity
in Babylon. And in the following 37th chapter
we have that vision of the valley of dry bones which represents
Israel as it were. a great army had been slaughtered. And there they are, the valley
is full of bones and they're very dry and they're very dead. But now the Prophet is commanded
to to prophesy unto the bones. Now the bones come together then
they're covered in sinews and flesh and then he prophesies
to the four winds, and the winds blow, and they stand upon their
feet. They're living men. It's God
who's going to restore his people from that period of exile. But he will have his children
to inquire of him. And I also referred last time
to that remarkable word that we have in Isaiah 45 11. Ask me of things to come concerning
my sons and concerning the work of my hands command ye my. Not only asking concerning his
sons but God says his children are to command him with regards
to the works of his hand. That is the power of prayer.
We have the ear of God and we come and we desire that God will
hear and answer our prayers and so we should always look and
watch and wait for the return of our prayers. So, we've said
something concerning prayer from what we've looked at previously.
And so tonight we come to consider the one by and through whom all
our prayers are to be presented. We must come only through him
who is the mediator. For there is one God and one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Remember the desire of Job, back
in Job 9 and verse 3. He says, Neither is there any
daismon betwixt us who may lay his hand upon us each. He wants one to be a daismon
between himself and his gods. And the word that's used, daismon,
there, Difficult to know why it's rendered daisman in our
authorized version, but we're told in the margin that the word
has the basic idea of one coming to argue. One coming to argue
on Job's behalf, to stand between him and God. And I wonder sometimes
if the daisman doesn't refer to a particular day that had
been appointed, when Job would need one to come and to serve
him in that capacity. The daisman, the mediator, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, it was in the
fullness of the time that God sent forth His Son, even in answer
to that prayer and that desire of the patriarch Job. Well, let
us consider these words here in verse 5 for a while tonight.
and taking the subject in a twofold sense saying something first
of the one God and then secondly something with regards to the
one mediator. For there is one God and one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The one God then first of all
and at the outset we have to recognize the unity of the divine
essence. There is but one God. Though
we confess three persons in the Godhead, yet God himself is one. and God is undivided, and God
is indivisible with regard to His very essence. Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one Lord. And how that truth is plainly
emphasized throughout the Old Testament in particular. The
unity of the Godhead. But of course, there are three
persons in the Godhead. And at the beginning of the believer's
Christian experience, he knows that truth, he knows something
of that truth. Certainly, we see that in the
formula for Christian baptism. When the Lord gives that instruction
and charge to his disciples at the end of Matthew 28, after
his resurrection from the dead before his ascension, to go into
all the world, to preach the gospel to every creature. Go
ye therefore and teach all nations, he says, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And the name there, it's not
a plural, it doesn't say in the names, it's a singular, It's
the name, God's name is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And we often sing that lovely
Trinitarian hymn of Joseph Hartz to comprehend the Great Three
One. He's more than highest angels can. But all true Christians
is composed of truth from nature, never learned that Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost to save our souls. We're all concerned. the Trinity. But here the emphasis
is very much relying on the fact that God is one. But we're not just to think of
that unity in God with respect to himself. Surely here we see
that this unity has respect to men. and we see that from the
opening word of our text that little word for that word for
that links back of course to what has been said previously and previously as we were looking
at last week in verses 3 and 4 he is speaking of men and God's
good and acceptable will with regards to men, for there is
one God." Well, because there is one God, here we have the
reason why we are to pray for men. "'I exhort, therefore, that
first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks be made for all men,' he says. for kings and for all
that are in authority. We have to pray for all and sundry,
all different types, all different classes, because there is one
God. And who is this one God? Why
this one God is the Creator of all men. We know the language,
There in Psalm 100 verse 3, Know ye that the Lord, He is God,
it is He that hath made us, not we ourselves. He is the Creator
of men. Again in the 145th Psalm, The
Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His
works. Oh, this is the sort of God He
is. He is the God who is sovereign, and He is sovereign over all
His creation, He is sovereign over all men and all types of
men. As the wise man says in the book
of Proverbs, By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes reign, and all the nobles
of the earth. It is God who has appointed society
and has ordained governments. We consider this when we started
to look at the opening two verses of the chapter. And we have to
pray for those who are in government, those who bear the rule over
us. All of these things are under the sovereign hand of God. And
we can pray concerning our rulers, because they are subject to Him.
Again, the words of the wise man, the king's heart is in the
hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever
he will. And remember how the reformers
back in the 16th century would pray to God himself that he would
open the king of England's eyes to behold the truth of scripture. We are to pray then. And we might
say, and I mentioned this last time with regards to verses 3
and 4, we might say that when it speaks here of God's will
to save all men, we could understand it in terms of God's general
benevolence. I prefer that term, general benevolence,
rather than common grace. As I said last time, grace is
not common. Grace is special, grace is saving,
but there is a general benevolence in God. And here we read, you
see, of God our Savior. The reference then is more to
God rather than to the mediator, that one who is the mediator
of the New Covenant. And what does God do? He's a
good God. He makes His sun to shine on the... or to rise on
the evil and on the good. And He makes His rain to fall
on the just and on the unjust. And when Paul is preaching there
at Athens in Acts 17, he declares concerning all men that in Him
we live and move and have our being. Everyone is dependent
upon God. And so we can understand what
he is saying in a certain sense in terms of that general benevolence
that is in God. In praying for all sorts of people
we address the God who is sovereign over all things. He is the one
God and there's no other God besides Him. But then also here
we read of the one Mediator. And certainly when we read of
the Mediator, we have to think very much in terms of the covenant
and the covenant of grace. Remember those words that we
find in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 20. Now, a Mediator is
not a Mediator of one, but God is one. What does that mean? A Mediator is not a Mediator
of one, A mediator is one who stands between two. But it says
there, a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Why? God is both the offended
party, and God is also the mediator. And it reminds us, you see, of
the unilateral nature of the grace of God. It is all of God. It is all of grace. God is one. And although in his sovereign
providence we recognize that God is the one who sustains all
his creatures, Christ is not the mediator of all. These words that we're considering
in verse 5 are often misquoted. It's amazing the number of times
one might hear men refer to this verse, maybe in their own prayers,
and they misquote it. There is one God and one mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. You listen to the
number of times it's quoted in that fashion. It's a misquote
of the verse really. It's not saying that there's
one mediator between God and mankind, because men here is
in the plural, not in the singular. Christ is the mediator between
God and certain men, and not all. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ
himself in his high priestly prayer. Who does the Lord pray
for? There in John 17 and verse 9,
he says, I pray for them. Those are the ones that the Father
had given to him to be his disciples. I pray for them, I pray not for
the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine. Verse 20, Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word. The
Lord's own intercession is particular. As a great high priest, he has
made a particular sacrifice, he has shed his precious blood
for those that the Father had given to him in the eternal covenant,
and as a high priest, so he also intercedes for that very people
that were given to him in the in the Covenant. Oh, the Lord
Jesus Christ is that one who is the only mediator between
God and men, and all those who know the grace of God in the
Lord Jesus Christ, they come only by and through Him. They
implore His name, they invoke His name in all their prayers. It is their only way of access
and entrance. And here we're reminded, aren't
we, of the two natures in Christ. We read of the man, Christ Jesus,
one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ
Jesus. But he is not merely a man. We
referred just now to Job 9 and Job's great desire, even his
prayer, that there might be one who could lay his hand upon us
both. that he stand upon God in heaven
and upon Job here on the earth. And who is that one? It's only
the Lord Jesus Christ who can stand between heaven and earth,
who can come between God and men. And why? Because he is the
God-man. And doesn't the Apostle go on
to speak of him in chapter 3 and verse 16? the great mystery of
godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh. Oh, the man Christ
Jesus is God's manifest in the flesh. And when he lives, and when he
dies, he is never anything less than the God-man. And so we have those remarkable
words of the Apostle when he addresses the Ephesian elders
in Acts chapter 20. And he speaks of the Church of
God which he hath purchased with his own blood. The Church of
God which he hath purchased with his own blood. God is a spirit. God doesn't
have a physical body. God doesn't have blood in his
arteries and in his veins. It is the man Christ Jesus that
he is speaking of, who is the head of the church. It is the church that belongs
to God. There we have the genitive of possession. The church of
God, says Paul to those Ephesian elders, which he, that is God,
hath purchased with his own blood. How could that be? because that
one who died was God's, manifest in the flesh, and all the worth,
the value and the efficacy then of that precious blood that he
shed, that blood with which he purchased his church. How he
came and he fully satisfied divine justice. Why, as we're told,
in Galatians 4, he was made of a woman, he was made under the
law to redeem them that were under the law. Look at the language
that Paul uses on another occasion when he's writing there in Romans
chapter 3 at verse 24 following. He speaks of those who are true
believers being justified. being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at
this time, His righteousness that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. And the language that
the apostle is using here, he speaks of justification as justified
freely by his grace. And again in verse 26 he speaks
of God as just and the justifier of him that believeth. But then
he also speaks of redemption, and for propitiation, and the
remission of sins. Those three verses, it's a tremendous
statement that we have there, in which we see how the Lord
Jesus Christ has fully satisfied the divine justice, both by His
life and by His death. There we have atoning blood,
and there we also have justifying righteousness. Oh, that's what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done. He has come and vanquished sin
and Satan, death and the grave. Oh, death, where is thy victory? The sting of death, He says,
is sin. The strength of sin is the law.
Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. He is God then. But He is also
Man. And really, the emphasis in the
text falls on that fact, that he is man. It's that human nature. He doesn't speak of the God-man
here. He speaks of God-man later, as we said in chapter 3 and verse
16. But here, it's the one mediated between God and men. It's the
man. It's the man, Christ, Jesus. Oh, He comes and He stands then
as the surety of His people. He stands in their very law place.
He will answer all the demands of the Holy Lord of God on their
behalf. For them He will accomplish that
righteousness that the law requires. But then also He doesn't only
live, He dies, and He dies as their substitute. bearing that
punishment that was there just as her or it's God sending his
own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and foreseeing condemning
sin in the flesh it's the man Christ Jesus and as we see him standing in
their law place and answering all that the law requires so
we also see him as that one who who is a sympathetic High Priest. He has come just where his people
are. He is altogether identified with them, this Mediator. Or remember the language of the
Apostle, we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities, he says. But was tempted in all
points like us, we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need. He's able to sympathize. He's
able to sympathize because he's a man. He's touched with the
feeling of all the sinless infirmities of his people. for he was made
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and he has come
just where his people are. Although there are these two
natures, he is God, he is man, yet we have to recognize his
truth, he is one person. He is one person. It says quite
clearly there is one mediator, and that mediator He's the God-man. But here we
read of Him as Christ Jesus. The two names that are given
to the Lord, the Saviour, the Mediator, the two names. And
what's the significance of these two names? Christ Jesus, it says. There is the human name, the
name Jesus. That was the name that was given
to him at his birth. Remember the instruction that
the angel gave to Joseph, how he was to take Mary. They were betrothed. She's with
child, with child of the Holy Ghost. He was minded to put her
away. But no, she's an honorable woman. she is a virgin with child that's
the miracle of course of the virgin birth but the angel says
to Joseph he is to name this child Jesus for he shall save
his people from their sins and so that's the name that's given
to him as a babe as a man child but then there is also the official
name Christ is the official name. It's, of course, the Greek form
of the Hebrew, Messiah. And each of those words simply
means the Anointed. The psalmy says of Him, God hath
anointed thee with oil above thy phallos. Oh, He is the Anointed
One. And now God has anointed him
and anointed him with the Holy Ghost. John 3.34 God giveth not
the Spirit by measure unto him. There was such an effusion of
the Holy Ghost upon him that he's baptizing. As he comes up
out of the waters of baptism the Spirit descends upon him
in the form of a dove. He is led of the Spirit then
into the wilderness. He returns after the temptations
in the fullness of the Spirit. And throughout the Gospels, and
I've said this before, and we need to mark it and recognize
it, there's time and again this dependence of a man upon the
unction of the Spirit. The Spirit is upon him as he's
casting out demons. He does it by the very finger of God. The
Holy Ghost upon him. How remarkable! When we think
of the Lord Jesus Christ then as the Anointed One, and how,
when we come to God in prayer, we have to plead, with God as
the Holy One of Israel, that He would behold us in Christ.
Think of the language that we have there in Psalm 84 and verse
9, Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of thine
Anointed. Well, there is our safety. We
read those words at the end of Hebrews 12, that God is a consuming
fire. But we're shielded by the Lord
Jesus Christ when we come and plead with God that He will behold
us in Him, that He will look upon His face, the face of the
Anointed One. He is the mediator. He is that
one, the only one by whom we can come to God. There's no other
way of access. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. He says, No man cometh unto the Father but by me. But, observe again here, what
we have in the text. We have not so much an ascending
order, but a descending order. The very order of the words. One God and one mediator between
God and men. The man Christ Jesus. Now, it doesn't say, does it?
One mediator between men and God. The man Jesus Christ. We really believe, you see, in
the inspiration of the Word of God. It's interesting. We need
to take account of the syntax. the way in which the words are
laid before us. And again, this is one of the
great beauties of the Authorized Version because it seeks to stick
as closely as possible to that syntax that's there in the original.
I'm not saying it always is able to do that. It's not possible. I don't pretend to be any great
linguist, but I understand that it's very difficult to translate
exactly from one language to another. But that's what our
Authorized Version translators have attempted to do. to be as
close as they possibly can to what we have there in the original. And so here we have this descending
order. He's the mediator from God to
man. And who is it that is the mediator?
It's Christ, that official name is first, Jesus, that's His human
name, the name that's associated with His humiliation. Oh, it is the Lord Jesus Christ,
you see, who mediates between God and men. He mediates between
men and God. We come to God by Him. How does
God come to us? God comes to us by and in His
Son. No man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him. For He comes to us as that One
who is the image of the invisible God. I do, I know, I feel sometimes
I just keep choosing the same hymns. But I so like that hymn
that we sang just now as our opening praise, 1095. It's a lovely hymn, of course,
on the Lord Jesus Christ. What truths we have here? Till God in human flesh I see,
my thoughts no comfort find. The holy, just, and sacred three
are terrors to my mind. Well, God is a consuming fire,
but when we see God descending, as it were, coming down to us
in the person of His only begotten Son. And it ends, while some on their
own works rely and some of wisdom boast, I love the incarnate mystery
and there I fix my trust. Now we have to look then to the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's in Him that we see all the
fullness of the grace of God. It's in Him that we have the
Gospel. And that's why I read those verses in Hebrews chapter
12. All there is drawing a contrast
between the two covenants, the one from Sinai and the other
associated with Zion. Drawing a contrast between Law
and Gospel. And what does he say? Verse 22
of that twelfth chapter, But ye are come unto Manzion, and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an
innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church
of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge
of all, and to the Spirit of just men made perfect, and to
Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling, that speak of better things than that of Abel, for
ultimately we come by Him who is the only Mediator. For there
is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ
Jesus. May the Lord help us to avail
ourselves of this glorious way of access. We are to come boldly
to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need. Well, before we pray, let us
turn to our second hymn, number 119. Great God, from Thee there's
naught concealed, Thou seest my inward frame. To Thee I always
stand, rebuilt exactly as I am. Verse 3, But since my Saviour
stands between, in garments dyed in blood, Tis He instead of me
is seen, when I approach to God. 119. The Tune St. Agnes, 218.