The sermon titled 'Of Christ the Mediator, 1689 SLBC, Chap. 8, Par. 1' by Colton Neifert focuses on the eternal purpose of God in choosing Jesus Christ as the mediator between God and man. According to the covenant, Christ is the prophet, priest, and king, the head and savior of the church, the heir of all things, and the judge of the world. Job's reflections on the need for a mediator illustrate humanity's inability to stand before God's holiness on its own. The Israelites' experience at Mount Sinai and the establishment of the Levitical priesthood further highlight the necessity of a mediator. While the Levitical priesthood provided a temporary solution through sacrifices, Christ, as the true high priest, offers a permanent solution by entering the true Holy of Holies in heaven with His own blood. Hebrews 12 contrasts the terrifying experience of Mount Sinai with the spiritual reality of Mount Zion, emphasizing Christ's role in the new covenant and His work in reconciling all things to God.

As of the seed chapter 8 of Christ the mediator paragraph 1 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. So in trying to understand Christ's role as a mediator and our need for that. It's very helpful to understand and recognize the holiness of God and the sinfulness of our sin. I was reading through Job 9 and he really understood this. He says, in Job 9 verse 29, If I am condemned, why then do I labor in vain?

If I wash myself with snow water and cleanse my hands with soap, yet you will plunge me into the pit, and my own clothes will abhor me. For he is not a man as I am that I may answer him and that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us who may lay his hands on us both. Let him take his rod away from me and do not let the dread of him terrify me. Then I would speak and not fear him, but it is not so with me." So Job saw his need for a mediator and Job understood that he couldn't speak with God on his own behalf.

He says, Though I were righteous, I could not answer him. I would beg mercy of my judge. Though I were righteous, my own mouth would condemn me. Though I were blameless, it would prove me perverse." Later on, you see the children of Israel after they're led out of Egypt, and God brings them to Mount Sinai, they see their need for a mediator. When they see the lightnings and the thunderings, and they hear the trumpet blasts and the smoke coming down from the mountain, and They ask Moses to be their mediator.

They ask him to go up on their behalf so that they don't need to meet with God himself. And then later on, when the Levitical priesthood is established and the tabernacle is built, God appoints Aaron as High Priest and he institutes the Day of Atonement, which comes once a year. And on the Day of Atonement, Aaron approaches God in the Holy of Holies. And to come before God in the Holy of Holies requires the blood sacrifice of animals and rituals of purification. It's a very serious thing and if he misses anything or transgresses in any of those things, God says he would die.

So it's a very serious thing for Aaron to come before God in the Holy of Holies. And even to come before God, he himself needs to make a sacrifice for his own purification before he can go in and make a sacrifice for the purification of the people. So at best, in that situation we have God and man and there's enmity between them. There's crime that's been committed and man is seeking reconciliation, but the mediator himself is party to the crime. But what God gives us in Christ, it says in Hebrews 9 that Christ fulfills these things that were shattered in the Levitical priesthood and the high priest entering the Holy of Holies.

Christ is the true high priest and he enters the true Holy of Holies, which is heaven and he comes before God not with the blood of animal sacrifice, but with his own blood. He is our mediator to this end, which is in Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 says, You have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire into blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.

And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and the Church of the Firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of the sprinkling that speaks better things than that made to God. It says in Colossians 1 19, it pleased the Father that in him all fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him whether things on earth or in heaven, having made peace through that or not, taking His sacrifice and His mediatorial work and saying, great thank you, and may continue living out of them. Let's live for Him.