Jesus Christ Is Our Mediator

II. Christ is our Mediator from Mount Zion

This letter is addressed to people, believers, who were almost too strongly connected with their past. As they look back into their history, even though the Ten Commandments was terrifying to Moses, these people felt a certain comfort knowing that God with them. We heard that in our first lesson this morning (Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18) where the people were kept safe from their enemies. But the writer says that has all changed. He says: 22But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. He is going to give them all kinds of contrasts between Mount Zion and Mount Sinai from the Old Testament. He says Mount Sinai was a dead mountain. Those that touched it were to be put to death. Now Mount Zion is the New Jerusalem, the city of the living God.

The writer describes it by saying: You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly. It is not gloom and doom and a storm and lightening, but a joyful assembly of thousands of angels. (The original says, "countless numbers.") He goes on to describe that on Mount Zion there were even more than angels. He says, 23to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. Then he describes the believers there beyond the number of angels whose names are written in heaven. He describes these believers reminding them that their names also are written in heaven. He adds: You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect. They too would stand before the Righteous Judge, but they would be righteous and made perfect, not by their own doing, but by Christ the Mediator of this new covenant.

How does this all happen when the Lord in the Old Testament gave the people the Ten Commandments? There is God’s Gospel of forgiveness. How does it happen that people who do not deserve eternal life are given heaven? In the very last verse of our text he says: You have come 24to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. He takes them back to the very beginning, doesn’t he? These believers are reminded when the Lord created the heavens and the earth, it was good. It was a perfect place. On earth God had placed Adam and Eve who had children. What happens to their first children, Cain and Abel? Cain kills Abel. We are told in Genesis that Abel’s blood was spilled on the ground and it cries out for justice. It demanded that something should be done. The writer here says that the sprinkling of Jesus’ blood is far better. The blood of Abel spilled on the ground cried out for justice. The blood of Jesus spilled out on the cross delivered justice, divine justice.

Sometimes it is hard for people to understand Scripture and what we would call blood theology. It is the blood of Jesus that saves us and every penitent sinner from eternal condemnation. This blood of Jesus provided divine justice, because we did not deserve to be saved. Certainly, you and I cannot earn our way into heaven. Certainly, you and I cannot pay the price to get into heaven. We cannot pay the price even for one single sin. Instead we have Jesus who is the Mediator for our sins, the go-between. In the first Epistle of John we are told: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin"(1 JOHN 1:7). There it is in black and white. Jesus’ blood saves us. Even though it may be hard for some to comprehend this blood theology, Scripture talks about it again and again.