Christ Is Sole Mediator Series

Dakota Community Church

November 15, 2009

Christ is Sole Mediator

Series: Incomparable Christ 4

Adapted from a Sermon by C.H. Spurgeon

From “The First Sermon in the Tabernacle” - Delivered on Monday Afternoon, March 25th, 1861

Acts 5:42

Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

They never stopped… proclaiming… that Jesus is the Christ.

1. Christ is fully God.

2. Christ is fully man.

3. Christ is the only mediator between God and man.

It is absolutely necessary we should preach him as the only mediator between God and man.

Acts 4:1-12

1The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.

5The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest’s family. 7They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?"

8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! 9If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, 10then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11He is " ’the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ 12Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

This is not a popular truth! It is exclusionary; many Christians in 2009 have departed from the truth and now deny this fact – even some who occupy pulpits have bowed to secular pressure and human reasoning on this front. Listen to these prophetic words from C.H. Spurgeon:

And the day will come, and there are sundry traces of it here and there, in which in some churches the atonement shall be utterly denied, and yet men shall call themselves Christians, while they have broken themselves against the corner-stone of the entire system. WOW!!

Wait there is more:

I have no kith nor kin, nor friendship, nor Christian amity, with any man whatever who claims to be a Christian and yet denies the atonement. There is a limit to the charity of Christians, and there can be none whatever entertained to the man who is dishonest enough to occupy a Christian pulpit and to deny Christ. It is only in the Christian church that such a thing can be tolerated. I appeal to you. Was there ever known a Buddhist acknowledged in the temple of Buddha who denied the basis doctrine of the sect? Was there ever known a Mahomadan Imaum who was sanctioned in the mosque while he cried down the Prophet? It remains for Christian churches only to have in their midst men who can bear the name of Christian, who can even venture to be Christian teachers, while they slander the Deity of him who is the Christian’s God, and speak lightly of the efficacy of his blood who is the Christian’s atonement. May this deadly cancer be cut out root and branch; and whatever tearing of the flesh there may be, better cut it out with a jagged knife than suffer to exist because no lancet is to be found to do it daintily. We must have, then, Christ in the efficacy of his precious blood as the only Redeemer of the souls of men, and as the only mediator, who, without assistance of ours, has brought us to God and made reconciliation through his blood.

The Christian Christ is not one of many doors through whom men may approach God.

He is the one and only door.

He is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father accept through him.

Let’s review what the scriptures have to say about our sole mediator:

Hebrews 9:15

15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.