Daily Devotional

A Ministry of the Kerwin Baptist Church

February 6, 2018

by Pastor Hawtree

I AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE

TO BE MY MEDIATOR (part 1)

I Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

“For there is one God!” What a statement. Take it in. That truth separates fact from fiction. That truth has divided families, religions, kingdoms, and countries. That truth is what separates the Bible from books. That truth separates God from gods. That truth still creates quite a controversy in our culture. Television personalities and motivational speakers often promote the idea of “many gods”, or “multiple gods”, to believe in for self peace, self enrichment, and self sufficiency.

If you will recall, the Bible states that a person that doesn’t believe there is a God, is a fool. (Psalm 14:1) But just as foolish to believe that there’s no God is to believe that there is more than just one, true God. So let us make it clear; there is a God, and there is only one God, and that is the God we are talking about here in verse five. Please don’t be confused. This statement is not contradicting the doctrine of the Trinity. The one, true God consist of three persons. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The three are “one”. My illustration is always the fact that although I am Daniel Hawtree, I am also pastor, husband, and father. Being Daniel Hawtree means I need to be all those things at one time. All three members of the Godhead, the Trinity, have different ministries. While there is only one God, there is only one person that can be the mediator between us and the one, true, Holy God. This verse tells us that this individual is the “man Christ Jesus”.

Jesus Christ had to be God the Son in order to mediate “to” God the Father, but Jesus also had to be man in order to mediate “for” us humans. Because we are sinners, we could not approach God the Father because He is a Holy God. So we had no chance, hope, or future without a mediator. If Jesus is our “mediator”, what is a “mediator”?

Interestingly enough, the word means a “negotiator”. That means someone had to handle negotiations between us and God, to see if a solution could be agreed upon. Now there is one problem with that, God does not negotiate. God never changes. His demands are now what they have always been. We really had nothing that we could use to negotiate with God. We had nothing that He needed. We needed Him, He did not need us. So as our mediator, Jesus simply agreed to pay what God demanded. Carefully read these verses from Hebrews chapter nine. (Hebrews 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?15 And for this cause He is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.) Did you notice in those verses that Jesus “offered Himself without spot to God”? Jesus made the payment, and we received the promise!

Stop a minute and take it all in. I am persuaded that He is my “MEDIATOR”!