GOD'S MEDIATOR WAS DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO “SOMEWHERE IN THE DMZ. . .”

I.    Christ, Our Mediatorial Priest

Why did I escape that deadly chaos in the DMZ with my life? There are some very specific biblical reasons. As we have seen, God the Father had covenanted with God the Son, the cosmic King to deliver me. Moreover, Jesus became the Mediator of a better covenant, to rescue me from that day so that I would eventually trust in God's Son alone. There is no salvation apart from the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, in John 17, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, 2 just as You gave Him authority over all mankind, so that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I glorified You on the earth by accomplishing the work which You have given Me to do. 5 And now You, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world existed. I have revealed Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have followed Your word. 7 Now they have come to know that everything which You have given Me is from You. 

In eternity past, the Father gave the Son authority over all flesh so that He would receive and give eternal life to a people (including me) who would know the Father and His Christ savingly. On my behalf, the Son's mediatorial work would glorify both the Father and Son. It was the Father's good pleasure to reveal to me that He had given me to His Son so that no danger came near me Somewhere in the DMZ.

A.     His Atoning Work

Both the London Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) make the same proclamation about the mediator: 

"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 His 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." 

1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus. 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.” (See also Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24) Dr. Van Groningen comments, “This mediatorial role is of utmost significance; to lose sight of it, to ignore it, or to refuse to acknowledge it, results in missing a key factor in the understanding of the place and purpose of the biblical terms mashakh and mashiah (Messiah, royal anointed One who reigns).”

Q. 23. What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?

A. Christ, as our Redeemer, executes the offices of a prophet,[Dt. 18:18; Acts 2:33; Acts3:22-23; Heb. 1:1-2] of a priest,[Heb. 4:14-15; Heb. 5:5-6] and of a king,[Isa. 9:6-7; Lk. 1:32-33; Jn. 18:37; 1 Cor. 15:25] both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.1

All three of these mediatorial offices (prophet, priest, and king) Christ fulfilled in his estate of humiliation and exaltation. After Adam sinned, The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them (Gen. 3:21). Christ graciously covered their nakedness and atoned for their sin via the deaths of animals. This death work pointed the way to the Messiah’s cross-work on behalf of His people and creation (See Rom. 8).

Christ is not only God's faithful high priest, but He is also the sacrifice, united in the same person, once for all (See Heb. 9). As a priest, Christ actively rendered obedience in His earthly sufferings and humiliation for sinners like you and me. Jesus' perfect obedience to the law of God actively fulfilled its precepts which Adam left unfulfilled. 

As a priest, Christ passively offered Himself as a sacrificial atonement for the sins of his people. By willingly laying down His life, he rendered satisfaction to the law’s penalty (death) incurred by the whole race through the transgression of Adam.

Christ’s priestly obedience and sacrifice are penal (legal punishment) and vicarious (experienced for others). The priest officiates for and answers for the legal liabilities (“for the sins of his people,”) whom he represents.

The priestly work of Christ has a twofold mediatorial result toward and between God and man. First, Towards God: Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrifice satisfy divine justice and propitiates or turns away the wrath of God from us. It also procures for sinners the Father’s favor. Secondly, Towards man: Christ’s obedience and sacrifice expiate (atone; make amends) the guilt of His people’s sin. His atonement meets and thoroughly removes it in His own body on the tree, making peace with God.

Such a mediator must be at once both divine and human. Christ was fully divine, and his obedience and suffering for sinners like you and me possessed infinite value, and our sin possessed infinite disvalue.

But Jesus was equally human. In His life and death work, He represented human sinners like us.

For these reasons, combat trauma is not the greatest need of spouses, veterans, First Responders, abused women, or children. I agree they need healing, but spiritual healing must come first. 

II.    Christ, Our Mediatorial Priest

A.     His Intercessory (Prayer) Work

Heb. 9:11-14 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things having come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all time, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

The intercessory work of the covenant Mediator of grace presents comfort to those of us struggling with trauma. Another vital part of the priestly work of Christ is Him making continual intercession for his people at the right hand of the Father. Christ prays on behalf of those for whom he has purchased redemption. The Larger Catechism contains several items of much interest and value.

1. The man, Jesus, appears in His glorified human nature continually before the Father in heaven. 

2. The basis of Christ's intercession is meritorious, while His perfect obedience and sacrificial death are virtuous. Christ fulfilled the meritorious and virtuous condition of the covenant perfectly.

3. As our advocate, Christ pleads with his Father that the redemptive benefits He purchased be applied to all his believing people.

4. Christ’s intercessory ministry secures for all believers peace of conscience. Christ also procures relief from the inward sense of guilt and dread.

In 1968, I didn't know God gave His Son for me, and that Jesus would spiritually keep me safe in the DMZ where men were dying around me. I was a heathen Marine, showing disdain for anything sacred. That I would be a gift from the Father to His Son never could have entered my mind. However, Christ would reveal me to the Father in the summer of 1972.  

Not knowing any of this at the time, I pled for mercy from God when under duress. With mortar rounds “dropping like rain,” I assured God I would change my ways if He could see His way to get me out of this death trap alive. Christ interceded for me, and the Father who had chosen me listened and heeded His Son’s desire. 

I can't speak for those men who died on that numbered hill in the DMZ. God wrote His law on their hearts as He had done on mine. We all climbed that hill guilty as sin. I know that God’s law witnessed against me and those Marines and Corpsmen every time they broke it. We all had a conscience and knew when we rebelled against that witness, we were without excuse (Rom. 1:18-23). Abraham interceded on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah at the oaks of Mamre that God would not destroy the righteous with the wicked (Gen. 18). The patriarch concluded that the judge of all the earth would do what was right in the matter. Lot and his two daughters survived. Moses repeatedly interceded for idolatrous Israel (see Ex. 15:25; 17:4; Num. 11:2; 14:5ff; et al.), mercifully saving them time and again. Yet, almost all of them died in the wilderness because of their rebellion against God, testing Him (see Num. 11; 16; Heb. 3, 4). 

No matter how close those mortar rounds landed to me, I could not have been wounded or killed. How do I know this? I know it because I'm here to write these words. I am in Christe because He mediated for me. I remember too my grandmother prayed for me. I had no idea about the intercessory prayers of Christ and God’s people (See Jas. 5:16-18). What I am writing to you is true. As God’s royal mediator, Christ powerfully saved me. As God’s mediatorial Prophet, Christ proclaimed His word to my hearing heart in 1972. God bore witness via His covenant that nothing remotely serious would befall me, notwithstanding the changes to my brain. I came out in one living piece. 

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1 Westminster Shorter Catechism.