Chapter 14. How Christ Becomes a Fit Reconciler
sinners in need of God's mercy, and because the wrong done to God by sin must be made right and His justice fully satisfied, herein lies the necessity of Christ. Thus, God reconciled Himself to the world through Jesus Christ.
The truth is, although some of you have heard this many times before, you must understand that this is the great mystery of the Gospel. By presenting this to you repeatedly, perhaps God will grant you a deeper understanding of this truth. This is the mystery that even the angels desire to look into. They understand that God's justice must be satisfied, but they do not know it as deeply as the Church and the saints do. Therefore, they continually explore this mystery to see its further depths, as indeed there are greater and greater depths that we can never fully comprehend, reserved only for the time of the Resurrection.
Most people think that when they seek reconciliation with God, they are dealing solely with God as a merciful being. But you must know that when you seek reconciliation with God, you are dealing with more than just His mercy; you are dealing with God reconciling
Himself to the world in His Son. You can never seek reconciliation with God in a true, evangelical way unless you seek it through His
Son.
That shall briefly suffice for the first point: the necessity of Christ's coming into the work of reconciliation.
Chapter 14.
How Christ Becomes a Fit Reconciler Opened in Seven Particulars:
1. Because He is the Second Person in the Trinity.
2. He has taken our nature upon Himself.
3. He fully knows the mind of the Father.
4. He fully knows what will satisfy the Father.
5. God the Father infinitely loves Him.
6. He has never offended the Father.
7. What He does has infinite efficacy and worth.
The second point presented in the twelfth chapter is this: How Christ becomes a fit reconciler. It is He who is the great peace-maker; and therefore, in Scripture, He is called the "Prince of Peace." It is He who is Melchizedek, King of Righteousness, and King of Peace. But how does He come to be so? It is by being a mediator between the Father and us, and as such, you shall find Him called in Scripture.
In Hebrews 8:6, we read: "But He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant," that is, of the covenant of grace and not that of works. Now Christ is a fit mediator to step in and mediate between God and us.
Among people, when there is a breach between two parties and they are at a distance, it often requires a mediator to come between them.
This is not always necessary in human disputes, but since there was a breach between God and us, it was absolutely necessary that a mediator should step in to treat between God and us. There could never have been the slightest parley or treaty between God and fallen man had not a mediator intervened. This mediator is Jesus Christ, and it is He who is the only fit reconciler and peace-maker.
Firstly, Christ is fit to be the reconciler because He is the Second Person in the Trinity.
You might ask, "How does this make Him fit?" The sin committed in the first transgression was more directly against the first person, God the Father. You may wonder why it was against one person more than the others. While the sin was indeed against all, it was more directly against the first person because man's first sin was against the perfection that God gave him in his creation—against that created righteousness that was imparted to him, which was especially the work of the first person of the Trinity.
Creation is attributed to the first person, and as man sinned against the work of creation, it follows that God the Father was especially offended. Therefore, the second person in the Trinity, who comes next in order, is fit to be a reconciler between the Father and us.
Secondly, However, if Christ had only been the second person—if He were merely the Son of God—He could not have been the reconciler of us to God. There must be something more. When we ask who Christ is, you may ordinarily answer, "The Son of God." But if that were all—if He were only the Son of God and the second person in the Trinity—
He could not, according to the way God has revealed in His Word, have been a fit mediator for us.
Therefore, to be a fit mediator to make our peace and reconcile God and us together, He took our nature upon Himself and became truly human. Thus, the same person is now both God and man. By taking
our nature into a personal union with the Son of God, He now partakes of both the natures that are to be reconciled. Observe this well.
Christ, who is to be the reconciler, is tasked with reconciling God and man, between whom there was a vast breach. To be fit for this work and reconcile these two, God and man, He partakes of both natures.
By uniting human nature to Himself in personal union with the Godhead, He becomes both God and man, having an interest in both.
He has an interest in God the Father, being the same God coequal with the Father (though not the same in a personal regard, but the same God), and He has an interest in humanity, sharing the same nature with us.
Therefore, in this regard, He becomes a fit mediator between God and us. This is the great work of God—to reconcile man to Himself— and in this, God must do a work that is far greater than the creation of Heaven and Earth. It would not have been as great a work for God to have made ten thousand worlds again as it was for God to create a mediator who would be both God and man in one person.
The union of the two natures of Christ is the greatest work that God has ever done from all eternity or ever will do, and yet this was required to reconcile us to Himself. Surely, you may well conclude that the work of reconciling a sinner to God is a greater matter since
Heaven and Earth must be moved to achieve it. The greatest work ever done, or that ever will be done, had to be accomplished for this, or else it could never have been effected.
Thus, the Second Person of the Trinity had to come, take on our nature, and be made in the form of a servant to be a fit peace-maker or mediator between God the Father and us.
Thirdly, Christ is a fit mediator in this: that He fully knows the mind of the Father and thoroughly understands, even to the utmost, what wrong the Father has received by our sin. If someone were to come to mediate between two people and ask the offended party to make peace, the offended party might say, "You speak to me in this way, but do you know what wrong has been done to me? If you truly understood the wrong that has been done, you would not think it so easy for me to be at peace."
In truth, if all the angels in heaven and all the men in the world were to intercede and attempt to make peace between God and a sinner for even one sin, God would immediately respond, saying, "Why do you attempt to undertake this work of making peace between me and a sinner? You do not understand the wrong that has been done to me by this sin. You do not comprehend the injury I have received.
Therefore, you are not a suitable party to be a mediator."
In this regard, no angel in heaven could possibly be a fit peace-maker between God and man, for they do not fully understand the wrong that sin has done to God. But Jesus Christ knows to the utmost; He comprehends thoroughly and completely all the wrong and injury that has been inflicted upon the Father by the sin of man. He understands the extent of the harm the Father has sustained from all the sins of all men throughout the world—something no other creature, whether angels or men, could ever comprehend. In fact, they are so far from grasping the wrong that is done to God by the sins of the world that they cannot even comprehend the wrong done by the smallest sin that can be committed.
Fourthly,
Christ is a fit mediator because He fully knows what would please and satisfy His Father. If someone were to be a mediator to reconcile two parties who are in conflict, and if that person truly understood the mind of the offended party, they would be more qualified to heal the breach. Such a person who knows exactly, even down to the smallest detail, what will satisfy the offended party is indeed fit to be a mediator.
All the angels in heaven do not possess this knowledge to the extent that Jesus Christ does; only He fully and thoroughly knows the mind of God and what will satisfy Him. It is only Jesus Christ, who was with the Father and lay in His very bosom from all eternity, who fully understands what will satisfy the wrong that has been done to the Father. Therefore, He alone was the most suitable to undertake this work.
Fifthly, Christ is a fit mediator in this respect: God the Father infinitely loves
Him, and He is infinitely dear to the Father. It is a special quality for a mediator, especially one who seeks to reconcile, to be dearly loved by both parties, but particularly by the one who is offended.
If a poor man has offended a rich man in a town and thinks to himself, "Oh, if only I could be reconciled to him," he might seek out the person who is the rich man's closest and most intimate friend to speak on his behalf. He would likely believe that the matter would have a good outcome and that this friend would prevail.
In the same way, our mediator, who reconciles us to God, is infinitely dear to the Father. God the Father delights in Him above all else.
Therefore, whatever Christ says or does must infinitely please God the Father. This is our mediator, who has come to reconcile us to
God. He can say and do nothing that does not infinitely please and delight the Father.
Furthermore, He is one who never did offend. There may be a friend who is very dear to the offended party, yet perhaps he himself has also offended. But Jesus Christ is one who never offended the Father, and has pleased Him from all eternity. Therefore, He is a fit mediator, suitable to speak on behalf of those who have displeased
Him.
Consider, for example, a family: if one child has offended and another child comes to speak for his brother, the father might respond, "You need to speak for yourself, for you have also offended." But if another child, who has never offended his father in all his life and has been the most obedient child imaginable, comes and speaks, this is much more likely to influence the father. God the Father has declared before all the world that Jesus Christ is His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased; and it is this Christ who stands up to speak to God the Father on behalf of poor sinners, seeking their reconciliation with Him.
Lastly, He is a fit mediator in this: that whatsoever He does has an infinite efficacy in itself. He is not only a fit mediator because God is well pleased with Him, but because whatever He lays down as a means of satisfaction holds infinite value. There is such an infinite price, such an infinite worth in whatever Christ offers to purchase this reconciliation, that the infinite justice of God cannot but acknowledge, "This is indeed a valuable consideration, and I must recognise that there is efficacy and sufficiency in this to make full satisfaction, even if the sins of men had been a thousand times more than they are."