The sermon by Mike Davenport on 'Of Christ the Mediator' from the 1689 SLBC Confession explores the necessity and role of Jesus Christ as the mediator between God and humanity. It begins by explaining God's eternal purpose in ordaining Jesus, His only begotten Son, as the mediator due to the enmity caused by Adam's sin. This enmity necessitated a mediator to reconcile humanity to God. The sermon highlights the eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the Son, ensuring redemption for fallen humanity. Jesus' role as a mediator is tied to His dual nature as fully God and fully man, which is essential for fulfilling the covenant's demands. The sermon underscores that Christ's mediatorial work includes being a prophet, priest, king, and savior, achieving redemption through His sacrifice. It emphasizes the exclusivity of Christianity and Christ as the sole mediator, reconciling God and man through His atoning death. The sermon concludes by reflecting on the profound love and pleasure God finds in reconciling believers through Christ, encouraging believers to measure God's love by this act rather than their circumstances.

Well, we come to chapter 8, chapter 8 of our confession, 1689, of Christ the Mediator. So paragraph 1 reads, it pleased God in His eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them both, to be the mediator between God and man, the prophet, priest, and king, head and savior of the church, the heir of all things, and judge of the world, unto whom he did from all eternity give a people to be his seed and to be by him in time, redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified." called, justified, sanctified, and glorified. Well the opening words find their foundation In the third chapter of the confession, here again is that foundation, God hath decreed in Himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably all things whatever come to pass." So we study the decrees of God and this is nothing more than what God has decreed. It is this sovereign God who has decreed all things from all eternity that did choose and ordain one to be the mediator between himself and mankind. Now the first question that we need to answer is what is a mediator?

What is a mediator? Well, Webster's 1828 dictionary defines mediator as one that interposes or places himself between parties at variance, that is, in the midst of controversy or at enmity, for the purpose of reconciling them, that is, bringing them back together or restoring relationship. And so Jesus Christ was chosen and ordained by the Father, the one who is his only begotten Son." Now the fact that God chose and ordained a mediator begs another question. Why was a mediator required? What is the cause of this controversy or enmity between God and man that makes the designation of a mediator necessary?

Again, we refer back to what the Confession stated back in chapter 6, paragraph 2. Our first parents by this sin, this sin of disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit. Our first parents by this sin fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and we in them whereby death came upon all, all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. It is this falling from original righteousness and communion with God that requires the designation of a mediator if man is ever to be reconciled again to God. Children, do you understand and feel your need for a mediator before God?

Do you understand that? Do you feel that you have been alienated from God? You're separate from God. You cannot approach God without a mediator. Do you understand that Adam's sin separated you from God?

It was Adam's sin that separated you from God because you were in Adam sinning with him and fell with him in that very first sin. And you cannot come to God on your own apart from Jesus' blood and righteousness. Well so how did this mediation come about? Well, again, looking back at the confession, and I hope you're beginning to understand and appreciate the order provided in our confession. For looking back at chapter 7, paragraph 1, we're told the distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to him as their creator, yet they could never, never have attained the reward of life, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

So there's this huge separation, and that's why we need a mediator, and God has decreed one for us. In paragraph three of the same chapter, chapter seven, we read the following. This covenant of redemption is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect. And it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency. All of that to say God had to move to create a covenant because the distance between He and mankind was so great that there was absolutely no other way for man to be reconciled to God.

And so we have the confession building up to this very moment where we contemplate this eternal covenant transaction between the Father and Son in providing all that was necessary for fallen and sinful man to be made right with his just and holy God. I love the holy imagination of the Puritan divine John Flavell as he contemplates the scene of this great transaction. In his works He says this, here you may suppose the Father to say when driving his bargain with Christ for you, my son here is a company of poor miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lie open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these souls?

The son says, Oh my father, such is my love to and pity for them that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their surety bring in all thy bills that I may see what they owe thee Lord bring them all in that there may be no after reckonings with them. At my hand shalt thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath than they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt." The Father says, but my son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatements.

If I spare them, I will not spare thee." Jesus answering, content Father, let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able to discharge it and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, yet I am content to undertake it." Well the writers of the confession then proceed to describe the other things Christ becomes to us by virtue of this covenant with the Father. Now, note that he can become none of these other things apart from his role as a mediator. We see it says that the prophet, priest, and king, head and savior of the church, the heir of all things, and the judge of the world, none of these things would he become apart from this office, this role as a mediator for his people.

By means of this work as the mediator of this covenant of redemption, Christ becomes to his people all of these things. Now this paragraph ends with a description of what this reconciliation consists of. What does Christ's mediatorial role accomplish? What did this eternal transaction between Father and Son bring about for us who have been alienated from God? It brought about something that is sure from all eternity.

It tells us that it is sure from all eternity. Christ was given a people, a people to be His posterity, And he brought about the surety of things that would be revealed throughout time as a result of this eternal possession. Our redemption, which was accomplished during the suffering of our Lord. And then that redemption applied individually and at varying times by means of our calling, our justification, our sanctification, and our glorification. And it should not surprise you that after a brief chapter on the condition of Man's will in a fallen state, the writers of our confession deal with the effectual calling, then justification, adoption, and sanctification with glorification still being future for all of his people and being placed by the writers therefore at the end of the confession.

And so that's what we see here that it it pleased God in his eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them both, that transaction from all eternity, for him to be the mediator between God and man, the prophet, priest and king, head and Savior of the church, the heir of all things, and judge of the world, unto whom He did from all eternity give a people to be His seed and to be by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified." What a beautiful thing to consider. Christ our Mediator. Our mediator. Then secondly, the second paragraph, it says, the Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one substance and equal with Him who made the world, who upholdeth and governeth all things he hath made, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin. Being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowing her, and so was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah of the seed of Abraham and David according to the scriptures so that two whole perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition or confusion, Which person is very God and very man?

Yet one Christ the only mediator between God and man Christianity is of necessity by its very nature an exclusive religion. It cannot be inclusive of other ways and means of salvation. It cannot. Now we do not as others religions do make our religion exclusive. We don't do that.

It's not us that has made our religion exclusive. Christianity is made exclusive by God Himself. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes to Timothy in his first epistle, 1 Timothy 2, 5, and 6, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Paul says there is One God and one mediator. One.

One mediator between God and men. Now, this second paragraph we have before us seeks to label for us why Christ alone, why He alone was sufficient to be chosen for and ordained to this office as mediator, as well as what was necessary for him to undertake in order to fulfill his role. Now the following paragraph, which would be paragraph 3, then speaks to the qualifications of Christ that were present and sufficient in the taking up of this role given him by his Father. But we'll probably have only time to deal fully with this second paragraph, Why Christ alone was sufficient to be chosen and ordained to this role as mediator as well as what was necessary for him to undertake in order to fulfill this role. So why is Christ alone sufficient?

Why? Why can he alone be that one mediator between God and man? Well, this mediation was vastly different than all other acts or even possible acts of mediation, largely due to the realities related to the two parties involved. There can be mediation, there can be mediators between groups, between men on earth, seeking to bring those two parties to a point of reconciliation. But here's what we have before us.

We have before us. On one side is God, whose holiness and justice must be satisfied. Mediation in this circumstance could never ask God to set aside His very essence and lessen the penalty of man's sin or to ignore it altogether. In forms of mediation on earth, that might be what one party is asked to do. Just step back a little bit from your demands.

You know, let's try to meet in the middle. Might not be 50-50, might be 60-40, 70-30, might be 90-10. But this mediation could not ask of God to remove His holiness and justice, the demand of His holiness and justice in order to move man to a point of reconciliation with Him. Now on the other side is man whose sin has so alienated him from God that he could never provide the first step towards reconciliation apart from the work of another. And so Christ as the mediator cannot look at man and say, it looks like I can't ask demands of God because my Father's holiness and justice must be satisfied.

It's all up to you. Man's utterly incapable because that distance is so great. Children, do you understand that? Your distance from God is so great, you can't take the first step toward Him in being made right with him. You need, I need, we all need the mediator, the one mediator, Jesus Christ.

Recall again those opening words from the previous chapter, chapter 7. The distance between God and the creature is so great they could never have attained the reward of life, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part. Condescension on God's part. As we saw from our first paragraph tonight, this role of mediator required so much more, so much more, such that he became a prophet, a priest, a king, the head of the church, the savior of the church, and the judge of the entire world. Hebrews 9, 14, and 15 state it like this, how much more shall the blood, and it's talking here about the blood of bulls and goats and the shedding of blood that was necessary for those in the Old Covenant.

How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God and for this reason and for this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death For the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." Because there had to be the shedding of blood that was sufficient to cover man's sins. The writer to Hebrews said, for this reason he is the mediator of the New Covenant and he's the mediator by means of death. This mediation required blood, sacrifice, death in order to achieve a redemption that would truly reconcile God and man. And this distance between God and man required is so great that it required the condescension of very God, a condescension that also required that he be made like man. And so the writers sought to demonstrate first the deity of Jesus Christ.

So they declare that he is the Son of the true and living God. That He is the second person of the three and one. That his sonship and his personhood, being the second in the Trinity, do not lessen the reality of his deity that he is very God and he is eternal. Is eternal. They declare that he is the brightness of the Father's glory, not a mirror as it were, but in a manner that Jesus could say to his disciples, if you have seen me, you've seen the Father.

Because they said, show us the Father. We like to see the Father. Jesus could say, if you've seen me, You've seen the Father. He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In a visible Christ can be seen not in faded and dim measures, but in a brightness and clarity that makes the Sun pale in comparison, the glory of the invisible Father.

The writers declare him to be of one substance and equal with the Father. That is, he is fully God, not a third of what can be declared God. And he's equal with the Father. The Catechism tells us that he is equal with the Father in the Spirit, in glory, and in all power. And he is declared to be the one who upholds all things by the word of his power and governs all things according to his will." I think it would be good at this point to interject the answer to the twenty-second question of the Baptist shorter catechism.

The question is, who is the Redeemer of God's elect? Who is the Redeemer of God's elect? Who was this one that was necessary to be the mediator of this covenant of redemption? The answer is this. The only, the only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God became man, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever.

So if you can think of a couple of dots with some arrows, you have Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh. And the writers of the Catechism, as did the writers of this confession, they looked back and said, being God, he's Jesus Christ, he has always been God. But he became man. There was a point in time that he became man. He had not been man, he became man.

But from this point in life, there are these two arrows now moving forward, two distinct natures in one person, not two persons put together, but two natures in one person, and he continues to be both God and man. So this one who from all eternity is the Son of God became a man in the fullness of time. In the fullness of time. He stayed what he had always been, God, but he became something he had never been. Man, Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 8 and 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich." Now please don't miss this.

It's a crucial truth that many fail to grasp. Christ did not lay any of his deity aside. He did not, in the words of Wesley, empty himself of all but love. We have changed those words so that we might sing, he humbled himself because of love. Because Christ became poor, he became poor not by subtraction.

He became poor by addition. He didn't become poor because he stepped down from his godhood. He became poor because he took upon himself something he had never been, man. He took upon himself, as we read in Philippians 2, the nature of man in the form of a bond servant, And it was this addition that made him poor. But this was necessary and essential to his role as mediator.

He had to fulfill the requirements of his Father's holiness and justice by means of his living and by means of his dying. And so we read here after they have set before us the deity of this one. They say he did when the fullness of time was come take upon him man's nature with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof yet without sin. How was it yet without sin? If he took all of this upon himself, how was it yet without sin?

They said because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her. And so he was not of Adam's posterity, having been conceived in the virgin's womb by the Holy Spirit. And so that sin nature that is passed down from us, from one Father to all his children and they to their children and on and on, all who have descended from Adam by ordinary generation they have this corruption within but Christ did not come by ordinary generation it was the Holy Spirit And so he was able to take on all the essentials of manhood and be subject to all the infirmities of manhood because he took a true body upon himself, man's nature, yet without sin. Then we read on, and the power of the Most High overshadowing her, And so Christ was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham and David, according to the Scriptures." So this is what we read of Christ's manhood, the fact that He became man. And so, this covenantal transaction between the Father and the Son required that He become man.

Now, how are we to understand this God-man Jesus Christ? Two natures. Fully God as if not man, yet fully man as if not God. Well children, if your mother said go run to the refrigerator and pull out one whole gallon of orange juice. So you go and you run you bring back this full gallon of orange juice and you set it down.

She said, now go back to the refrigerator and get one gallon of apple juice, full gallons. Took that big thing in there and you set it up on the counter. Now if you were to pour both of those into just one container, that container would have to be at least how big? How many gallons? Two, right?

Because you've got one gallon plus one gallon. Now, you need a larger container if you're to pour both in there. So you pour them in there. Now if I were to ask you how much of that new two gallon container is apple juice? What would you say?

How much of it? Any of you children you can answer out loud. How much of that new container would be apple juice? Half, right? It would be half because you've put one gallon of apple juice in there and one gallon of orange juice.

So now you have this big two gallon container, half orange juice, half apple juice. But that's not how we see the two natures of Christ. That is not how it is. It's not half God, half man. It is fully God and fully man.

How is that possible? There's no example I could give you to show how that's possible Because our minds only understand it in terms of what I just described to you. We put two things together. It's no longer the pure one or the pure other. But Jesus Christ is fully God, 100% God, and He is 100% man, fully man.

Two natures. One person. Not needing a two gallon container to hold both. Two natures in one person. And as we described some of the earlier things, we were dealing with God's decree and God's providence, all my wires just, they blow.

We can't understand it. We can't explain it. It's also called the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. But note the closing words, the closing words that we have here. So that two whole perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion.

Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man? Two natures, each of these, as we were just discussing, each of these whole, not half, not a portion, each of them whole, each of them perfect, and each of them distinct, but these two inseparably joined, they can't be pulled together again. Remember what I told you when Christ came? He had always been God. There's that arrow pointing back into eternity.

But this side of his incarnation, that arrow that points back also points that direction, will always be God. But here, having become man, in one instant in time, he now continues as God and man, both natures, inseparably joined in that one person, Jesus Christ, for all eternity. It's without conversion. It's not molding and shaping and converting like a drop of rain that falls and it converts into ice or to snow before it hits the ground. There's no conversion.

It's not morphing from God into man. It's without composition. It's not this much God, this much man put together in Jesus Christ. And there's no confusion. There's no confusion.

We know what belongs to deity, and we know and understand the essentials of man that makes him a sympathetic high priest because he has been touched with all of the infirmities which we have been touched with. He has faced all the types of sin that we could ever be faced with, and yet, He Himself without Sin. As I close, I want to draw your attention back to the first three words of this chapter. Can we back up one slide? I just want your eyes to follow in those first three words, it pleased God.

It pleased God. Of all of this, of the fact that Christ is 100% God, 100% man, two distinct natures, only in one person, without conversion, without composition, without confusion. My mind can't comprehend that, but neither can my mind comprehend the fact that it pleased him. It pleased him to do this. All of this, all of this just to reconcile us to the Father Simply out of his own pleasure Are you measuring his love for you by your circumstances?

We've been talking about that in recent weeks, in recent months, all the circumstances that have been coming to us, are you measuring God's love for you by those circumstances? If so, your soul will be forever doubting and pulling the proverbial petals from the flower as you waver between he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not as you look at your circumstances. We can't measure God's love by those circumstances. Measure it by this, it pleased the Father to reconcile you dear believer to himself how by choosing and ordaining a mediator to be your prophet to be your priest to be your king to be the head of the church, to be the savior of the church. He did this for you.

Will you judge him by the circumstances in life when it pleased him to do this? This is how we should judge our God. It pleased him to give us Christ. I leave you with the precious promises of Romans 8, 31 to 35. By this measure, by this measure, His love for you.

By this understand how much pleasure He takes in you as His child. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect?

And here it's argued by many commentators that it's almost like a sarcastic kind of, instead of saying just it is God who justifies, it's almost like a rhetorical sarcastic. Who should bring a charge against God's elect? God who justifies? You think He's going to do it? Shall he bring the charge against God's elect?

Who is he who condemns Christ who died and furthermore is also risen and who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ. Christ our mediator. Hallelujah. What a Savior.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness and your mercy in providing us a mediator, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Oh, we pray that all of us would come to the Father through Him, that we might be reconciled and made right with you. In Jesus name we pray, amen.