Over the past several weeks, the verse found in 1 Timothy 2:5 has really hit me at a deeper level all over again. I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but it does happen to me. It’s usually with a verse I have spent some time with, and I understood the meaning of the verse in my original passing. What changes is the implications of the verse after I’ve understood the meaning. Here is the verse:

⁵ For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,

I’ve always understood the verse, in context, for what it was saying: that on the cross, Jesus was our Mediator. Verse 6 goes on to read: who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. So it is properly understood as, Christ is the one who intervenes between two parties who are at odds: namely, God and mankind, in His death on the cross.

Jesus gave Himself as a sacrifice in order to reconcile us to God. This holy sacrifice by Christ was the penultimate act of mediation on behalf of those who are saved.

But what hit me, is tied up in the implication of there being only “one Mediator.” There is only One Mediator. The implication of what hit me is that Jesus, as the Second Person of the Trinity, has always been, the only Mediator between God and Man. We should not understand His office as Mediator as something that He only took on in His earthly ministry, since mankind has always needed a mediator since the fall. This means the even at the fall of man, the same Mediator who died on the cross, was the same Mediator who said: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you not eat?”

And even in that, we see that the same Mediator was the One who gave the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Old Testament Implications

Where this really helps us out, is that we see the role of the Second Person of the Trinity in the Old Covenant. When YHWH tells Noah to build an ark, Christ was speaking. When YHWH tells Abram to leave UR, it was Christ telling him. When He makes a covenant with Abram, it was Christ making the covenant. When He meets with Abram along with two angels, it is Christ who met with Him. When Jacob wrestled with YHWH, he wrestled with Christ.

When YHWH tells Moses from the burning bush, “I Am who I AM,” it Christ who spoke the words (as He clarifies to us in John 8). When He leads them through the Red Sea by a pillar of cloud during the day, and fire at night, it was Christ.

The neat thing about this is that it begins to develop our understanding of how Christ relates to the Old Testament. We all know of His words to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “O foolish ones, and slow to heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!… And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”

We read these words but are at a loss what Jesus said. Yet, when we understand that He was the Mediator all throughout the Old Covenant period, we begin to see how it was that the Scriptures were all about Him. We see His actions, hear His words, and know that it was Christ who said them.

We also get a glimpse of this reality in one of the few references to the Father. In Psalm 110: 1, it reads, The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

King David could write “My Lord,” because he knew the Second Person of the Trinity. The Mediator had spoken to him, revealed truth to him, and guided David in life. So the concept of knowing and hearing the Mediator was not beyond David. He knew and was known by the Mediator.

The new revelation for David was hearing the Father say to the Son, “Sit at My right hand…”

There is a lot more to the realization of what it means that Christ is the One Mediator between God and man. Hopefully, you will start to see the implications for yourself as you read through Scripture.