1 Timothy 2:5

For there is one God--God's unity in essence and purpose is a proof of His comprehending all His human children alike (created in His image) in His offer of grace (compare the same argument from His unity, Rom 3:30; Gal 3:20); therefore all are to be prayed for. Ti1 2:4 is proved from Ti1 2:5; Ti1 2:1, from Ti1 2:4. The one God is common to all (Isa 45:22; Act 17:26). The one Mediator is mediator between God and all men potentially (Rom 3:29; Eph 4:5-6; Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24). They who have not this one God by one Mediator, have none: literally, a "go-between." The Greek order is not "and one mediator," but "one mediator also between . . . While God will have all men to be saved by knowing God and the Mediator, there is a legitimate, holy order in the exercise of that will wherewith men ought to receive it. All mankind constitute, as it were, ONE MAN before God [BENGEL].

the man--rather "man," absolutely and genetically: not a mere individual man: the Second Head of humanity, representing and embodying in Himself the whole human race and nature. There is no "the" in the Greek. This epithet is thus the strongest corroboration of his argument, namely, that Christ's mediation affects the whole race, since there is but the one Mediator, designed as the Representative Man for all men alike (compare Rom 5:15; Co1 8:6; Co2 5:19; Col 2:14). His being "man" was necessary to His being a Mediator, sympathizing with us through experimental knowledge of our nature (Isa 50:4; Heb 2:14; Heb 4:15). Even in nature, almost all blessings are conveyed to us from God, not immediately, but through the mediation of various agents. The effectual intercession of Moses for Israel (Num 14:13-19, and Deu. 9:1-29); of Abraham for Abimelech (Gen 20:7); of Job for his friends (Job 42:10), the mediation being PRESCRIBED by God while declaring His purposes of forgiveness: all prefigure the grand mediation for all by the one Mediator. On the other hand, Ti1 3:16 asserts that He was also God.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

5. For there is one God] Usually taken as a proof of God’s willing all men to be saved, as in the quotation from Theodore, 1Ti_2:4. But the parallel passage is ch. 1Ti_3:15-16, where the test word ‘the truth’ leads at once to the recital of an apparently well-known elementary creed. And so here, 1Ti_2:5-6 give us a creed, a brief exposition of ‘the truth’; and 1Ti_2:7 is seen to have a much plainer connexion and stronger force—this creed, this Gospel, is what you have received with my imprimatur as apostle of the Gentiles, and is ‘the truth,’ whatever the teachers of false knowledge may say. See App. A iii.

and one mediator … the man] Accurate rendering requires one mediator also … (himself) man. The word ‘mediator’ has now come to be applied without explanations to Christ; a token of the later use, even of creed formulary. The places in Heb_8:6; Heb_9:15; Heb_12:24, where Christ is thus spoken of in contrast to Moses would lead on to this usage. ‘Man,’ not of the angelic race, whose aid some would wish to use for mediation, Col_2:18. Cf. Heb_2:16.

“The other equally essential condition that he should be God is not here insisted on, for the tendency of Gnosticism was to Docetism.”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti_2:5

One Mediator between God and man.

The mediation of Christ

That there has been a Mediator in this world is conceded by all except Jews and heathens. But respecting the precise nature of the work which He has undertaken and accomplished, there has not been even in those to whom the knowledge of this salvation has come, clear conceptions, nor correspondent emotions of gratitude and thanksgiving. With what distress would you gaze on the Divine power and infinity, and say, He is not a Man as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgment; neither is there any days-man betwixt us, that might lay his hand on us both? With what anguish would you look around and inquire for some being able and ready to rescue you from perdition? But what, in such circumstances, you would look for in yam is now declared unto you. You are now taught on the authority of inspiration that there is one God and one Mediator between God and man.

I. What is implied in the idea of a mediator between God and man? The fact of a mediation between one man and another implies a difficulty which it is not easy to reconcile. This is equally implied in the employment of a government to mediate between two other nations. Such measures are never adopted in the times of peace and of mutual friendship. So of our attitude to God. The fact that there is a Mediator between God and man unquestionably proves that there is an alienation which it is exceedingly difficult to reconcile.

II. Alienation does not imply criminality in both the parties which are thus brought into conflict. On this subject a proverb seems to have obtained among men, that in cases of alienation there is transgression in both the conflicting parties. Both are to blame is a maxim which has prevailed. It may perhaps be important to show the fallacy of the principle itself against which I am here contending. We are often asked, with a confidence amounting almost to the authority of inspiration, Do you not believe that in all cases of alienation there is blame on both sides? To this we reply, We do not, we cannot believe it. If the question still be pressed, we ask our inquirer, Do you not know that there is an eternal alienation between sheep and wolves; and have the sheep ever committed any aggression on the wolves? You have all heard of the warfare which goes forward between the angels which kept their first estate and those spirits which have revolted from God. And is it not to be assumed that in this controversy the angels, who have always been spotless in the eyes of Jehovah, were free from the imputation of guilt? Pre-eminently is this principle applicable to Jehovah. Of what wrong, respecting us, has He ever been guilty? Who amongst those that have in former alines charged Him with injury or injustice has ever been able to sustain it? Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, etc. The objects around us were never created and never designed to be the cause of our transgressions. Our sins are not the result either of the example of those individuals or circumstances which God has placed around us. They are the fruit of our own hearts. There is an alienation from Him in the sons of men, and the causes of this alienation are not mutual: the criminality is altogether with us.

III. But who is there that is adequate to undertake the mediatorial work? In human affairs there are many individuals who are equally competent to settle a difficulty and remove the causes of alienation which exist between a man and his neighbour. And in a great share of the instances which occur, any individual of a multitude that can be mentioned is equally as well qualified to undertake the work as any other individual that can be selected. Not so in the work of human redemption. Here there is but one Being in the universe who is competent to be a Days-man, a Mediator between Jehovah and His offending subjects (Isa_63:5).

IV. To inquire why no other being but Christ is qualified for this work. And here I must frankly confess that of my own unaided reason I am incompetent to tell. And I apprehend that had the family of man been left to ascertain by their own intellectual powers what Mediator is suited to their circumstances, no one of them would have been able to discover the truth. His agony for reconciliation burst forth in the affecting question, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings and calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Let us go to the Scriptures to ascertain what Christ is; and having thence derived a knowledge of His character, let us draw the only safe conclusion, that on account of the respects in which He differs from every other being in existence, He is chosen to be the Mediator between God and man.

V. What, then, are the respects in which he differs from every other being? It must here be remembered that in certain respects He is God. I here refer to His original nature. Of Him, John in his Gospel says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Nor was He God only. In some respects He differed in His mediatorial office from the Father. He assumed into immediate connection with Himself a human body and a rational soul. This was done in accordance with the prophets. Isaiah in prophetic vision declared, Unto us a Child is born, etc. These expressions show the union of divinity with humanity in our Lord Jesus Christ, and indicate His wonderful adaptedness to the work of redeeming men from their sins and reconciling them to God. Are we, then, asked in what respects Christ differs from every other being? Is it demanded in what respect He differs from the Father? We reply, by the addition unto His own glorious nature of all the powers and faculties of man. He is at once Divine and human. Is it again demanded in what respects He differs from men? I reply, He is human and Divine. In these respects He is altogether diverse from any other being in the universe. And viewed in this attitude, we may wonder, and say in the language of the prophet, There is none like unto Thee, O God! Having now learned from the Scriptures the qualifications of Him who undertook to be the Mediator for us, we can see His wonderful adaptations to the work which He has undertaken. Human salvation requires a thorough acquaintance with all the wants, perplexities, and temptations of man. In this respect, such a Mediator as He who has become flesh is wonderfully suited to our condition. He did not undertake to help the angels. The work of human salvation also requires a thorough knowledge of all the causes and a complete control of all the beings who have power either to advance or retard it. And what eyes but those which run to and fro through the universe are competent to see all the wants, and all the exposures, and all the means of relief which pertain to the condition of ruined man? What hands but those which formed the universe are competent so to direct all the influences of the material and the spiritual worlds in such a manner as to subserve the welfare of His people and cause them to conspire together for the promotion of their salvation? What other Presence, except that which pervades the universe, can be co-extensive with all the wants of His people who dwell in every part of the earth, who call upon Him for aid at every hour of the day and of the night What other knowledge but that which transcends all limitation, and is strictly infinite, can be adequate to an acquaintance with the condition, the thoughts, the emotions, the feelings, and the actions of all the immortal beings who inhabit the vast regions of His Mediatorship? And what memory short of that to which all past, present, and future things are equally known is competent to bring together all the particulars of thought, of feeling, and of action, which constitute the life of a human being; and accurately to weigh in the balances the gold and the dross of his character; and not only this, but to extend the process to all the sons of men, all the apostate, and all the holy angels? Yet all this knowledge must be possessed by the Son of Man; and all the powers to which we have referred must be held by Him who undertakes the work of a Mediator between God and man. This work has commonly been regarded and taught under three separate heads. The first is His office as a Prophet. This portion of His work was referred to by Moses when he said, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me. Him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever He shall say unto you. In this office it pertained to Him to reveal the character, the law, and the gospel of God to the children of men, and cause it to be written and preached unto them. It also pertained to His work to open the understandings of His people, that they might know the excellency of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ. The next particular in the work of a Mediator is that of a Priest. He was a Priest, not indeed according to the order of Aaron, but of Melchizedek. As in the Mosaic history no priest is named as the predecessor of Melchizedek, so in human redemption there is no other priest but Jesus Christ. And in this Priesthood His work differed widely from that of other priests. They first offered sacrifices for their own sins, and afterwards for those of the people; but He had no occasion to offer sacrifices for Himself. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. He is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. A third particular in this work is His office as the Ruler and Defender of the people of God. This is called His kingly office. In this respect the apostle declares that God hath put all things under His feet, and given Him to be Head over all things to the Church (Eph_1:22). Such is the Mediator between a ruined world and the Holy One of Israel. A Mediator in some respects Divine, in other respects human. A Mediator who in the Scriptures is sometimes denominated God, at other times He is called Man. A Mediator who is set apart by Jehovah Himself to be the Prophet, the Priest, and the King of your souls; a Mediator whom, if you accept, on whom, if you rely, to whom, if you commit your immortal interests, you shall yet stand on Mount Zion with songs and eternal joy. This subject calls loudly on us to admire the wisdom and goodness of God. What could He have seen in us or any of our depraved race that induced Him to confer on us such an immense favour as this? All, He saw nothing but evil in our hearts, nothing but vice in our deeds. It was not owing to any righteousness in us, but of His mercy, that saved us. The subject calls on us to consider what our condition would have been had not Jesus undertaken to be Mediator between God and man. (J. Feet, D. D.)

The one Mediator

It is good for me, said the Psalmist, to draw near to God. It is the idea of all true religion that it can be nothing but good to get near to God--the nearer the better; that he who gets near Him finds peace, blessing, satisfaction of all wants; that away from Him is darkness and unrest. But why have a Mediator at all? Why have any one standing between you and God, instead of going direct to Him, and dealing with Him, without any Mediator? Just because our nature needs the Mediator. We cannot understand the mysteries of God, which pass our understanding. Out of the limits of our capacity, and out of the infinitude of God, springs that need of One who shall stand between Him and us, revealing the Infinite to the finite, the Divine to the human. And He who does this is called here emphatically the man Christ Jesus; for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? And thus, in order that the life and character of God should be understood by us, they must be revealed to us by a man; by one in human form, and living under human conditions. It is only thus you can come to a real knowledge of any person. You must learn his character. Is it hard or tender; generous or narrow; wise or foolish? And so your only true knowledge of the living God must be a knowledge of His character, of His life, of His ways. And as these, the life, the character, the ways of the infinite and eternal God are far above, out of human sight, they must be brought near enough for us to see, revealed to us by a Mediator who is Himself a man, the man Christ Jesus. A God thus revealed we can know, can understand. This is the idea of the mediation of Christ; the revealing of what otherwise would be unknown and unknowable in God; so that we, seeing His face and understanding His character, may lose the ignorance that is full of darkness, and the fear that is full of torment, and may draw nigh to Him with true hearts, and in the full assurance of faith. The end was spiritual perfectness; the Church was but the means, and only useful as it served the end, and subject to such changes as might make it serve the end better. But the belief, in which many people seem to find the essential nutriment of their spiritual life, is altogether different from this. To them the Church is all in all, while Christ recedes into the distance; and where the Church is not He is not and cannot be. They do not deny that He is the original source of Christian life and all its blessings; but to this truth they add the error, that these blessings can reach the individual soul only through one channel of sacraments and ministries. They thus interpose between God and man a certain mediation of the Churchs, apart from which they do not recognize any reality of Christian life at all, thus drawing across the Holy of Holies a veil as thick as that which was rent in twain on the day of the crucifixion. Be on your guard lest you should ever learn to regard any system, or creature, as possessing a right to come between you and your own Lord and master; or as having the power to add to or to take from what He has done, and is doing, for you as the one Mediator between you and God. Now, you may see another example of the tendency. I speak of--to substitute a lower mediation for the mediation of Christ, in the idea which many have (especially persons in whom feeling is stronger than reason) as to the relations which should exist between them and those who occupy the position of their spiritual guides and instructors, and whose duty it is, as such, to guide and instruct them. There is a strong desire in all minds, and particularly in minds of that class, for sympathy where feeling is deeply stirred, for counsel where the highest interests are involved; and there is, too, a strong inclination to depend on and defer to those, with whom that sympathy and that counsel are found. Sympathy is good; but it is dangerous, when in order to evoke or to secure it, you unbare the secrets of the soul, and have to relate, even to the friendliest and justest ear, the trials and difficulties which you find besetting your inner life. A human director or guide or counsellor is safe, not because he fills a certain office and is ordained to a certain ministry; but when his character is such, that you know by the instinct of the spirit that there is in him the mind of Christ, and that communion with him is communion with one who is near the Master, and who will help to bring you near. Unless he is this, he can do nothing for you; he cannot bring you nearer to Christ, he can only stand between Christ and you. Now, in these instances (and more might be mentioned) we see the one tendency, to push Christ away, and set something of our own, a church, a system, a sacrament, a priest, a teacher, in the Mediators place; so that the truth becomes obscured to us that the life of every human soul is wrapped up in its direct communion with its God, through faith in God as Christ revealed Him, and service of God after the pattern of the Divine life of Christ. (R. H. Storey, D. D.)

Christ Jesus the Mediator

I. The necessity of a mediator. But there are difficulties existing--a mighty gulf separating God and man. He cannot cross to us; we cannot cross to Him. His holiness is one obstacle. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil. Guilty and polluted as we are, we cannot approach that Holy Being without being at once consumed as were Korah and his companions. We at once see the necessity of a mediator. His justice is another obstacle. Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne. Maintaining the honour and dignity of His government was another obstacle. The great Legislator of heaven has enacted a law that sin must be punished, that death must be the penalty of disobedience. That peace on earth and glory to God may harmonize, there must be a mediator. Thus we have noticed the need of a mediator on the part of Jehovah. The mediator is equally necessary on the part of man. Man needed One who would descend into the depths of ruin, place underneath him the arms of omnipotent love, and raise him up--One who could enter into his dungeon, strike off his fetters, and throw open the prison door for his release--One who can reveal the Most High as a God of mercy, compassion, and love, yearning over the wandering prodigal, and anxiously watching for the first sight of a trembling penitent returning home.

II. Christ Jesus through the combination of the two natures is adapted to act as mediator.

1. He is equal with God; He is the mighty God.

2. He is acquainted with the mind of God.

Christ being human possesses three qualifications to act as mediator:--

1. An affinity to our nature.

2. A sympathy with our infirmities.

3. An interest in our cause.

From this subject we learn--

1. To admire the wisdom of God in providing such a mediator.

2. The love of Christ in occupying such a position.

3. The folly of sinners in rejecting this mediator. (I. Watkins.)

The mediator of the covenant, described in His person, natures, and offices

Communion with God is our only happiness; it is the very heaven of heaven, and it is the beginning of heaven here on earth. The only foundation of this communion is the covenant of grace; and it is the great excellency of this covenant of grace, that it is established in such a mediator, even Jesus Christ.

I. The only way of friendly intercourse between God and man. It is through a mediator; that is implied. Whether man in the state of innocency needed a mediator, is disputed among persons learned and sober; but in his lapsed state, this need is acknowledged by all. God cannot now look upon men out of a mediator but as rebels, traitor, as fit objects for His vindictive wrath; nor can men now look up to God but as a provoked Majesty, an angry Judge, a consuming fire.

II. The only mediator between God and men. One mediator, that is, but one. Some acknowledge one mediator of reconciliation, but contend for many of intercession. So is Christ said here to be one mediator, that is, but one. This mediator is here described partly by His nature--the Man; and partly by His names--Christ Jesus.

1. His nature--the man; that is, That eminent man, so some; He that was made man, so others. But why is this mediator mentioned in this nature only?

(1) Negatively: not by way of diminution, as if He were not God as well as man, as the Arians argue from this Scripture; nor as if the execution of his mediatorship were either only, or chiefly, in His human nature, as some affirm.

(2) Positively: to prove that Jesus Christ was the true Messiah whom the prophets foretold, the fathers expected, and who had in that nature been so frequently promised: as in the first gospel that ever was preached (Gen_3:15), He is promised as the Seed of the woman.

2. His names--Christ Jesus. Jesus, this was His proper name; Christ, this was His appellative name. Jesus: that denotes the work and business for which He came into the world. Christ: that denotes the several offices, in the exercise whereof He executes this work of salvation.

III. That there is now no other way of friendly communion between God and man, but through a mediator. And, indeed, considering what God is, and withal what man is; how vastly disproportionable, how unspeakably unsuitable our very natures are to His; how is it possible there should be any sweet communion betwixt them, who are not only so infinitely distant, but so extremely contrary? God is holy, but we are sinful. In a word: He an infinitely and incomprehensibly glorious majesty, and we poor sinful dust and ashes, who have sunk and debased ourselves by sin below the meanest rank of creatures, and made ourselves the burden of the whole creation. If ever God be reconciled to us, it must be through a mediator; because of that indispensible necessity of satisfaction, and our inability to make it (Rom_8:7). If ever we be reconciled to God, it must be through a mediator; because of that radicated enmity that is in our natures to everything of God, and our impotency to it.

IV. That there is no other mediator between God and man, but Jesus Christ. And one mediator; that is, but one. And indeed there is none else fit for so high a work as this but only He.

1. The singular suitableness of His person to this eminent employment. To interpose as a mediator betwixt God and men, was an employment above the capacity of men, angels, or any other creature; but Jesus Christ, in respect of the dignity of His person, was every way suited for this work. Which you may take in these four particulars.

(1) That He was truly God, equal with the Father, of the same nature and substance. For the further confirmation, take these arguments--

(a) He whom Scripture honours with all those names which are peculiar unto God, must needs be God. That Christ hath these names ascribed to Him appears from these instances: He is not only styled God--the Word was God (Joh_1:1).

(b) He in whom are those high and eminent perfections, those glorious attributes, of which no creature is capable, must needs be more than a creature, and consequently God.

(2) As He is truly God, so is He complete and perfect man; having not only a human body, but a rational soul; and in all things was like to us, sin only excepted. That He had a real, not an imaginary, body, appears from the whole story of the gospel.

(3) He is God and man in one person.

V. The singular fitness of christ for this work of mediation arises from His being God-man in two natures, united in one person without confusion or transmutation.

1. Had He not been truly God, He had been too mean a person for so high an employment. It was God that had been offended, an infinite Majesty that had been despised; the person therefore interposing must have some equality with him to whom he interposes. Had the whole society of persevering angels interposed on mans behalf, it had been to little purpose; one Christ was infinitely more than all, and that because He was truly God.

2. Had He not been completely man, He had been no way capable of performing that indispensably-necessary condition, upon which God was willing to be reconciled; namely, the satisfying of that righteous sentence which God had pronounced: In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die (Gen_2:17).

3. Had He not been God and man in one person, the sufferings of His human nature could not have derived that infinite value from the Divine nature. We could not have called His blood the blood of God, as it is called (Act_20:28): it would have been no more than the blood of a creature, and consequently as unavailable as the blood of bulls, etc. (Heb_9:12; Heb_10:4).

4. Had He not been God-man without confusion of natures, His Deity might either have advanced His humanity above the capacity of suffering; or His humanity might have debased His Deity below the capability of meriting, which is no less than blasphemy to imagine. And this is the first reason, the singular fitness of Christ for this work, because of the dignity of His person. The singular fitness of Christ for this employment in respect of the suitableness of His offices. There is a threefold misery upon all men, or a threefold bar to communion with God.

(1) The guilt of their sins, which themselves are never able to expiate, or satisfy for.

(2) The blindness of their minds, the cure whereof is too difficult for any creature-physician.

(3) Their bondage and captivity to sin and Satan, which are enemies too strong for man to deal with. Suitably to these three great necessities, Jesus Christ is anointed of God to a threefold office, of a Priest, a Prophet, a King: the former of which offices he exercises on our behalf to God, and the last two from God to us.

(a) The priestly office of Christ is the great, the only relief we have against the guilt of sin. The work of the priesthood consisted, under the law, chiefly of these two parts.

(1) Satisfaction for the sins of the people (Lev_4:15-19, etc.).

(2) Intercession unto God on their behalf (Lev_16:15-17). Both which were verified in Christ our great High Priest (Heb_4:14). His satisfaction, in discharging those debts which His people had run into with Divine Justice to the utmost farthing.

(3) His intercession; this is the other part of His priestly office. His satisfaction--that was performed on earth; His intercession is per formed chiefly in heaven. By the former He purchased pardon and reconciliation (2Co_5:19, compared with verse 21), by the latter He applies the benefits He hath purchased.

(b) The prophetical office of Christ is the great, the only relief we have against the blindness and ignorance of our minds. He is that great Prophet of His Church whom Moses foretold, the Jews expected, and all men needed (Deu_18:15; Joh_1:24-25; Joh_1:45; Joh_6:14); that Sun of Righteousness, who by His glorious beams dispels those mists of ignorance and error which darken the minds of men; and is therefore styled, byway of eminency, that Light (Joh_1:8), and the true Light (Joh_1:9). The execution of this prophetical office is partly by revealing so much of the will of God as was necessary to our salvation; partly by making those revelations powerful and effectual.

(1) In revealing the will of God.

(2) In enlightening effectually the souls of His people. In causing the blind to see, and making them who were once darkness to be light in the Lord (Eph_5:8) Thus He instructs by His word and by His Spirit (1Pe_1:12).

(c) The kingly office of Christ is the great, the only relief we have against our bondage to sin and Satan. He to whom all power is given in heaven, and in earth (Mat_28:18). (W. Whitaker, M. A.)

Christ Jesus the only Mediator between God and men

I. That God hath appointed but one mediator, or advocate, or intercessor in heaven for us, in whose name, and by whose intercession, we are to offer up all our prayers and services to God. Besides that it is expressly said here in the text, there is but one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, and that the Scripture nowhere mentions any other: I say, besides this, we are constantly directed offer up our prayers and thanksgivings, and to perform all acts of worship in His name, and no other; and with a promise, that the prayers and services which we offer up in His name will be graciously answered and accepted (Joh_14:13-14; Joh_16:23-24). St. Paul likewise commands Christians to perform all acts of religious worship in the name of Christ (Col_3:16-17). And indeed, considering how frequently the Scripture speaks of Christ as our only way to God, and by whom alone we have access to the throne of grace, we cannot doubt but that God hath constituted Him our only mediator and intercessor, by whom we are to address all our requests to God (Joh_14:6; Eph_2:18). And we have no need of any other, as the apostle to the Hebrews reasons (Heb_7:24-25). But this person (speaking of Christ) because He continueth for ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, since He abides for ever, is able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us.

II. I proceed to show that this doctrine or principle of one mediator between God and man, is most agreeable to one main end and design of the Christian religion, and of our saviours coming into the world, which was to destroy idolatry out of the world; which St. John calls the works of the devil (1Jn_3:8).

III. It is likewise evident from the nature and reason of the thing itself, that there is but one mediator and intercessor in heaven, who offers up our prayers to God, and that there can be no more. Because under the gospel there being but one high priest, and but one sacrifice once offered for sin; and intercession for sinners being founded in the merit and virtue of the sacrifice, by which expiation for sin is made, there can be no other mediator of intercession, but He who hath made expiation of sin, by a sacrifice offered to God for that purpose; and this Jesus Christ only hath done. He is both our high priest and our sacrifice; and therefore He only, in the merit and virtue of that sacrifice, which He offered upon earth, can intercede in heaven for us, and offer up our prayers to God. (J. Tillotson, D. D.)

Only one Mediator

Dora Greenwells seemed to be a kind of dual nature religiously. On one side, as it were, she was High Church to the verge of Romanism; on the other, an earnest and simple evangelical Protestant. However much, she said, I may appreciate the value of great Catholic ideas … When I kneel down to pray I am a Protestant; with Christ only between me and God, and between me and Christ--faith. (Sunday at Home.)

The atonement

I. The necessity for a mediator is distinctly implied. Christ is a true mediator, because He blends two natures in His own, the Divine and the human. When a man is down in a horrible pit, a rope dangling above him would be a mockery if it were far out of his reach; and a ladder set in the miry clay beside him would be equally useless, if the ground above were at an unreachable distance from its highest rung. The only means of communication, which can bring him salvation, must reach the sunlit plain above him, and yet be within his grasp. So is it with the one Mediator. As the God-man He reigns in the highest, yet reaches the lowest, and as the Son of man rather than the Son of David or the Son of Abraham, He touches every man, whatever his race or condition.

II. The essence of the atonement appears in the statement that He, the mediator, Christ Jesus, gave Himself a ransom for all. The idea of substitution, however little it commends itself to the judgment of some who have often very imperfectly considered it, is unquestionably involved in this. The Greek word translated here ransom, means the redemption price paid for the deliverance of a slave or captive, and when Jesus gave Himself (not money or power) a ransom for all, He was like one who takes the place of a prisoner that the prisoner may go free. If the captive refuses freedom he perishes, but the love of his would-be deliverer is none the less. Most of those who have rejected this great doctrine have done so because they have had pressed home upon them only one phase of it--as if that were in itself a complete and satisfactory account of a profound mystery. The atonement has sometimes been spoken of as a sort of legal transaction, having no essential bearing upon moral character, which will procure acquittal for the sinner at the bar of judgment without setting him free from the usurpation of sin.

1. The God-ward side of the atonement is as important as it is mysterious, but it is not to be insisted upon as it it were all. The Scripture asserts again and again in types and in texts that it is in virtue of the death of Christ that God can justly forgive; that except for His sacrifice the Divine love could not reach us; that by Him satisfaction was made to the law of God, and that pardon was not, and could not be, a bare act of grace. These statements are beyond proof. They concern a sphere of existence about which we know absolutely nothing except what is revealed in Scripture. They have to do with the relations between the Eternal Father and the Only Begotten Son, about which the wisest of us are profoundly ignorant. We do not understand how the law of the Father required the sacrifice of the Son, nor how the death of the God-man affected the purpose of the Father; but are we to say, therefore, that there is no connection between them? Is that the only mystery in life? Why, what do you know of your own existence in its deeper relations? Yet it has been a frequent and grievous mistake of popular theology to dwell upon this aspect of the atonement only as if it contained the whole truth. But we must also remember that Christs giving of Himself as a ransom for all was meant to have its influence on human hearts. This leads us to contemplate--

2. The man-ward side of the atonement. The Cross of Calvary assured the world that the Divine love, even for sinners, was capable of the utmost self-sacrifice, which taught many to say, We love Him because He first loved us. But there is yet another phase of Christs atoning work which must not be lost sight of. We have seen that it vindicated Divine law, and revealed Divine love so as to touch the hearts of those who saw it, but it was meant also to exert an ethical influence over men.

3. The moral power of the atonement. Many sneer at professing Christians as men who persuade themselves that they are relieved from the punishment of sin, but who show no signs whatever of being redeemed from its power. But love such as God calls for, and the sacrifice of Calvary demands, is really a strong and active affection; indeed, we are told that love is the fulfilling of the law.

III. The propagation of this fundamental truth through the world is to depend upon testimony. Paul says that he himself was a living witness of it. This is our duty too. It may be that we have not any remarkable gifts like Pauls, but we may reveal to others the power of Christ to save from sin, if only we ourselves experience that power. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)

Jesus Christ the one Mediator between God and man

Before entering upon the discussion of our text, we would offer a few remarks on the precise meaning of the term mediator, in this passage. Now, by the word mediator, in its general meaning, we understand one who interposes between two parties, either to obtain some favour from one to the other, or to adjust and make up some difference between them. But such a mediation may be either voluntary or authorized, assumed or commissioned. Moses was a mediator in the former sense, when he showed himself to his brethren as they strove, and would have set them at one again (Act_7:26). His interference was rejected, when he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler or judge over us? It is not such a mediator that the text speaks of. It is not presumption, not unauthorized good intention in Christ when He mediates. But, again: the meaning of the term is modified by the relative condition of the parties to be brought together. These may be equal; and then each is privileged to commit his own part in the matter in hand to the care of the common arbitrator. A mediator, under such circumstances, becomes an umpire, a judge, a referee, to whom the interest of each party is committed, and by whose decision each party is bound. But this does not come up to the idea of Christs mediation. A further notion of a mediator is that of one interposing between unequals: one that has been appointed by a superior, who has a right to make his own terms with an offending inferior, and to depute to whomsoever he may see fit the regulation of the manner in which intercourse is to be carried on between him and those with whom he may be willing to communicate. Moses, when called of God to the direction of Israel, is an instance of this authorized mediation between unequals; and, as such, was representative of the one great Mediator of whom our text speaks. By the term mediator, then, we are here to understand one duly commissioned by God, with whom the power rests, to negotiate between Himself and man, in order, as Gods vicegerent, to receive mans submission and obedience; and, as mans representative and advocate, to propitiate Gods justice, and to procure and communicate Gods blessing.

I. The parties to be reconciled are God and man; the Creator and the creature; the rightful Sovereign and the rebellious subject; the kind Father and the ungrateful child. Strange, it may be said, that there should be variance between such: was it always thus? No: once all was harmony and peace and love. Whence, then, did the estrangement arise? From God? No: the profusion and magnificence and beauty of Eden forbid the entertainment of such a thought. It was in man that the alienation began. But how is the estrangement perpetuated? The carnal mind is enmity against God: here is the sinners having learned to hate what he feels he has abused, and manifesting the identity of interest and feeling between himself and that evil one whose cause he now maintains. The very purity of the Being he has injured makes his hatred but the more malignant: the very lack of palliation for his disobedience confirms him in his settled purpose still to sin with a high hand. Thus, what folly and pride began, folly and pride perpetuate.

II. The person mediating--the man Christ Jesus.

1. As to His nature, we may remark, that the expression, the man Christ Jesus, must not be considered as declarative of His humanity to the denial of His divinity. He is Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God; God over all, blessed for evermore. But the Mediator is still the man Christ Jesus. Our high notions of His Divinity must not cause us to overlook or deny His humanity. As His Divinity fits Him to act with God for man, so His humanity fits Him to act with man for God. But He must be sinless man. The slightest flaw in His moral character would make Him a criminal, and not an Advocate--would make His mediation offensive. The circumstance of having a tendency to sin would imply partiality: He would be prone to palliate rather than to condemn, and have a tendency to lower the standard of the Creators requirements, in order to make easier terms for the creature.

2. Again, as to His commission. He is authorized and empowered by Him with whom alone the power rests.

3. His work is threefold: His atonement, intercession, and mission of the Spirit.

III. The design or end of this mediation, Now, we must bear in mind that a mediator is required to consider the interests of both parties in behalf of whom he acts, and to make terms by which the honour of the superior, and the restoration to favour of the inferior, may be most effectually secured. With regard to the Almighty Ruler, His honour and sovereignty must be maintained, and His glory acknowledged and admired. Mans position is naturally now one of rebellion; but he must be brought to lay down his arms. Christ, in the person and place of man, has tendered and paid the penalty incurred, met the demands of offended justice, and now He tenders the submission of each individual child of man that receives Him as his Mediator by faith. The construction of man in his original form was a wonder of Divine skill: the formation of his spirit in knowledge, holiness, and happiness, bespoke a master hand; but, when all the beauty of this wondrous production had been marred by the fall, to re-construct, re-adorn, re-glorify the whole, was the act only of Him whose thoughts are not as our thoughts. Yet such is the effect of Christs mediation. Intelligence continually enlarging and expanding in the unclouded presence of the very Source of truth; holiness everlastingly increasing in those regions where nothing entereth that defileth; love for ever glowing with increasing intensity before Him who is its very essence; happiness continually accumulating in the presence of Him who supplies it in inexhaustible abundance--these are the prospects of the redeemed soul: this is the high perfection to which the wisdom and power and love of Jehovah will bring the frail fragile thing that Satan shivered, and sin defiled. The glory of the perfections of Jehovah, then, are acknowledged and illustrated. But another end of this mediation was the good of man. Christ came to procure the outpouring of the blessing which sin had checked and intercepted. God now can visit those who had loved Him in Christ Jesus. We would now proceed to offer a few general observations which seem to be suggested by the whole subject.

1. And, first, how great is the unfairness of those who affirm, and the folly of those who can be persuaded, that the tendency of the doctrine of justification by faith only, is to engender a careless and an antinomian spirit.

2. But another observation is this: How great are the injury and injustice done to Christ by the addition of other mediators! To endeavour to make out a necessity for the interposition of the virgin, of saints, or of any priestly mediator on earth, in order to our availing ourselves of the mediation of the Redeemer, is grounded on no warranty of Scripture, and reflects injuriously on the character of the blessed Jesus. (John Richardson, B. A.)

The Man Christ Jesus.

Christs--a true and proper humanity

In whatever way God is pleased to manifest Himself, the medium of manifestation must be limited and finite. His union with our humanity, as an organ of revelation, is no more inconceivable than with any other nature which is restricted and confined. He was pleased to assume our humanity as the form through which to reveal the Divinity, and had He not been conscious of a complete participation in human nature, He never would have adopted or employed the designation--Son of Man. Having taken our nature, the man Christ Jesus followed the laws of purely human development both in body and in mind. He not only represented but passed through every successive period or stage of life. In every sense He was a child--in every sense a youth--in every sense a man. The social affections enter immediately and inseparably into the very idea of our humanity. With these social feelings our Creator has endowed us, and has fixed our abode in a world in which they are ever being called into joyous play, and in which there exists the most beautiful provision for their gratification. Nor does Christianity interfere with these social ties and relationships. We are formed to love. Nor can we conceive of any principle, human or Divine, stronger or more impressive. It is the conservative principle of families and of society at large. A world without love would be a world in which every social bond would soon be loosened and broken, and the human passions become the play of so many lawless forces, which would ultimately involve society in eternal enmity and opposition. One of the most touching scenes in the social life and history of Christ is connected with His death. Not far from His cross, and just as He was in the act of giving up His spirit into the hands of His Father, He beheld His mother standing at a distance, burdened with sorrow and bathed in tears. While His development was from first to last without sin--while He was a living and pure model of that conduct which is pleasing to God--yet His fellowship with humanity was emphatically a fellowship of suffering. In suffering He surpassed all men. In proportion to the perfection, refinement, and sensibility of His nature, was the depth and keenness of His affliction. Never was sorrow like unto His sorrow. We wonder not, therefore, that Christ should have a deep and unmistakeable sympathy with suffering and with sorrow. Not that His sympathies could flow out only amid scenes of grief and distress. The subject of the purest social affections, He could freely mingle in the intercourse of men, and share in all their human joys. In Him we behold that Spirit of liberty with which the Divine life takes hold of, and appropriates to itself the relations of the world and of society. Christianity is eminently social in its character. True piety is cheerful as the day, and sheds its radiance over every scene. That school of spiritual life in which the Saviour taught His disciples differed from every other. Instead of a sour, austere, unyielding asceticism, He trained them to a comparatively unrestrained mode of life. Nor was it with poverty only that the Saviour sympathized. Nor must we lose sight of the truth, that the sympathy of Christ sprang from the purest and most intense love-that love, which, in seeking and in blessing its objects, asks not how, or when, or where. It is true that this loving, compassionate, sympathizing Saviour, has left this lower sphere of being, and hath passed into those higher heavens, in which room is found for nothing but the most refined and the most sublime enjoyment; and yet even there is He touched with the feeling of our infirmities. His sympathies are still with us, whether we be in joy or in sorrow, and He can so communicate with our spirit, as to give us the consciousness of Divine succour and support. We are conscious of the fellowship of mind with mind. And what shall we say of those kindred virtues which clustered and shone like the most brilliant constellation in the life and character of the Man? Humility is the queen of graces. It is one of the rarest and the truest virtues. It is far removed from everything approaching to meanness of spirit. Having come into the world to offer himself a sacrifice for man, there was no act of hazard or of self-denial to which the Saviour was not prepared and willing to descend. Allied to this humility is meekness. Self-denial is nothing if clamorous and noisy. It does not lift up and cause its voice to be heard in the street. It is silent, unobtrusive, and retiring. If humility be not servility, neither is meekness to be looked upon as softness. Hence it is that we read of the gentleness of Christ. Not only was He harmless in life, but in death He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Not that He can be charged with timidity and weakness. His soul was full of manly energy. A spirit so humble, and meek, and gentle, could not be wanting in forbearance; but forbearance must not be understood as involving anything of timidity or cowardice. It is the highest manifestation of self-control. It follows that this forbearance carries with it the corresponding idea of patience. In forbearance there must be the power of enduring. But patience is not to be resolved into insensibility, any more than forbearance is to be resolved into cowardice. The Saviour of man could not only face opposition and danger, but He could with calm assurance bear every species of wrong and suffering which could be inflicted on His deeply sensitive and susceptible nature. It new only remains to add, that this patience was allied to the most child-like submission--the most perfect resignation. To give up our own individual will for the will of another in circumstances of deep suffering, is the perfection of Christian virtue. Nor were these virtues embodied and exemplified in the life of Christ otherwise than as a model and example to man. Our character and life should be the mirror in which His virtues are reflected; or rather, our life should be the counterpart of His. We must copy after our great pattern. It is not forbidden us in the arrangements of infinite wisdom and love to cultivate and cherish the social affections to the highest possible point, so long as they do not withdraw the heart from God, and the sublime objects of immortality. Nor can our Christianity have its full development but amid the scenes, and friend ships, and enjoyments of our present being. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report--if there be any force, and if there be any praise in them, think on these things, and these things do, and the God of peace shall be with you. (R. Ferguson.)

The man Christ Jesus

To pray for all, even for those that are most hostile or most alien (verse 3), is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour. It may well be so, it must be so. For it is in accordance with His mind and will as Saviour. He is our Saviour, it is true; but not ours only (verse 4). He will have all men- His greatest enemies, the most outcast prodigals, not excepted--He will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. If there are any for whom we cannot pray directly out of sympathy with them, we can pray for them out of sympathy with the Lord, who is our Saviour, and who is willing also to be theirs. All the rather will we pray for them all, when we bear in mind that they and we are all one. Yes! all are one, they and we are one; inasmuch (verse 5) as there is one God for all, one Mediator for all, one Saviour for all. There are not many Gods, so that one might belong to one God and some to another. There are not many Mediators, many Captains of salvation, under whose separate banners men might rank themselves at pleasure. There are not many ransoms, with blood of various hues to meet varieties of taste among the sprinkled worshippers. There is but one God, to whom all belong. One God for all. One Mediator for all. One ransom for all. And the ransom, the Mediator, Christ Jesus, is the man. Not a man of a particular colour, whether fair, or dark, or of Ethiopian dye. Not a man of particular race, Jew or Gentile; of Shem, of Japhet, or of Ham. Not a man of a particular class or rank, whether of royal ancestry or of lineage proper to His birth in the stable of an inn. Not a man of a particular temperament, whether sanguine or morose, grave or gay. Not a man of a particular history, walking in a path apart. He is the man Christ Jesus; everywhere, always, to every one, the same; the man. Therefore they who love Him, the man Christ Jesus, may well be exhorted to pray for all men.

I. He is the man all through; out and out the man. In soul, body, spirit; in look, voice, carriage, walk; in mind, heart, feeling, affection. In Him--in all about Him, all He is, and all He does, you see the man; not the man of honour, the man of piety, the man of patience, the man of patriotism, the man of philanthropy, but the man. The manhood in Christ Jesus is very noble, but it is very simple. And it is because it is so simple that it is so noble. None have ever succeeded in drawing His character since. Do you ever think of Him but just as the man? Other men you think of as distinguished by their features. You remember other men by their peculiarities of manner. But by what peculiarity do you remember the man Christ Jesus? Oh! it is a blessed thing to know that Jesus Christ is the man. The man for you, brother, whoever you are--and the man also, I thank God, for me! The man for the strong--the man for the weak I The man for heroes, for who so heroic as the man Christ Jesus? The man for you who toil in the carpenters shop; in the like of which once He toiled, like you--the man Christ Jesus I

II. He is simply man throughout; in every exigency, in every trial, simply man--the man Christ Jesus! In all His earthly and human experience, you never find Him other than man; you never find Him less than man; and you never find Him more than man. He is the Son of God, you know; the Fathers fellow. But you never think of His being the Son of God as making His manhood at all different from yours. No! For you never find Him taking shelter from the ills to which flesh is heir in any power, or privilege, or prerogative of His Divine nature and heavenly rank. Thus, as the man Christ Jesus, He lies in His mothers bosom, and works at her husbands trade, He is subject, all His youth, to His parents, He is weary, hungry, thirsty, He is vexed, grieved, pained, provoked, His soul is exceedingly sorrowful, and at times His anger is stirred, He cries, and groans, and weeps, He bleeds, and quivers, and dies. Mans capacity of attainment, mans power of endurance--what man is fit for, what man can stand, with the help of God, you learn from the human history of the man Christ Jesus!

III. He is the man exclusively, pre-eminently, par excellence, to the absolute exclusion of all others, He is the man, the only man, complete and perfect. He stands alone as man. Manhood, in its integrity, belongs to Him alone. Not otherwise, Oh, my brother sinner, could He be the man for you; the man for me. Let one gather up in himself all the fragments of the manhood which you and I share together. Let him collect in one heap, as it were, every particle of glory and beauty to be found anywhere among the ruins of humanity. Let him take every great mans quality of greatness, every good mans element of goodness. Take all the good, of all sorts, you can possibly discover in the records of good men of all the ages. Mix, compound, combine as you may please, you cannot get the man! For the man to meet my case, and satisfy the craving of my soul--must be no thing of shreds and patches; but complete, perfect, an Unbroken round, in himself one whole. No composite will do. He must be a single and simple unity; one, like the seamless coat, woven from the top throughout. But humanity, manhood, has never been thus one, inwardly and intensely one, since the fall. Men there have been, good and great. But they have been fragmentary; a bit of manhood in each; often a very beautiful bit of manhood; but set, alas! and often well-nigh lost, in a confused, chaotic jumble of inconsistencies and incoherences! And here is the man; the man Christ Jesus. All manhood is His; manhood such as yours and mine; but untainted, incorrupt, one and indivisible, which yours and mine is not. He is holy, harmless, undefiled; and separate from sinners. Nay, even if we could fancy a man more complete still, more completely uniting in himself the excellences of all other men, and more completely excluding their infirmities and faults; we cannot reach the idea of one who would not be more to some than he might be to others; who might be everything to you, and little, if anything at all, to me. No! If we would find one who is to be the man for me, for you, for all; we must ascend the stream of time, and fetch his manhood from beyond the flood, from beyond the fall! Then, in the unbroken image of God, manhood, human nature, the very self of man, was truly and- indeed one. Since then the manhood among men has been manifold and broken and fragmentary. The man who is to gather up the fragments must himself be whole. The only one who can be the head of all, because He can be the same to all, is He who takes our human nature--not as it is now, rent and torn by sin--but as it once was; one in unbroken, pure, and holy innocence, one in immaculate likeness to the Holy One. And who is this but the man Christ Jesus?

IV. He is the man to mediate between God and man. To be the one Mediator, He must be pre-eminently and distinctively the man; the representative man; the one man. If mediation is a reality; if it is a real transaction outside of us; not an internal process, but the adjustment of an external relation, as all Scripture teaches us that it is; the mediator must be a third party, distinct from both the parties between whom He mediates. He may and must represent both. But He is to be confounded with neither, He is to be merged in neither. A man cannot have a mediator within himself; nor can he mentally create a mediator out of himself. He cannot be his own mediator. Every man is not a mediator, nor is it any man indiscriminately who can be a mediator. Nor will an ideal man, springing, as it were, fully grown, from the thoughtful head or fond heart, the living ideal outcome and expression of those human instincts that are opposed to evil, and yearn for good, suffice. No. Not though we give it a local habitation and a name, and call it the man Christ Jesus of Nazareth. If there is to be real and actual mediation in the fair and honest sense of the term, the man who is to be mediator must be found for me, not found by me, least of all found by me in myself. He must be born, not from among us, but from above. He mush be the man, not by assent or consent on the part of earth merely, but by the decree of heaven, or rather by the creative act of heavens Lord, doing a new thing on the earth, bringing in anew the man, the second Adam! Thus three conditions come together and coalesce as identifying the man who is to be the mediator. First, He must be the man, not as manhood exists and appears, marred and broken, among the children of the fall, but as it was in its original oneness and perfection, when man really bore the image of his Maker. Secondly, He must be the man, not as suggested by mens own instincts, and impulses, and cravings, but as directly chosen, appointed, introduced by God Himself. And, thirdly, He must be the man, as being, in His wondrous person, one with God in the same true and real sense in which He is one with men. All these three conditions meet in the man Christ Jesus. And they meet in Him as the man who sounded the utmost depths of human experience, and in the strength of His pure and simple manhood, aided only by prayer and by the Spirit, withstood evil, mastered pain, and by suffering overcame the wicked one. Truly there is and can be but one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The man--

(1) Made, as to His human nature, by special miracle, in the unbroken image and likeness of God. The man

(2) Who comes forth from God, bearing His commission to negotiate peace. The man

(3) Who in respect of His Divine nature, unchanged, unchangeable, is one with God--the Son dwelling evermore in the Fathers bosom.

V. He is the man to give himself a ransom for all. He who would do this--must be one who is willing to take your place, and be your substitute; and fulfil all your obligations, and meet all your responsibilities. But more than that, He must be Himself free, under no obligations, under no responsibilities of His own. He must be one who owes nothing to God on His own account; no service, or righteousness, or obedience; and one also who lies under no penalty on His own account; against whom no charge can be brought. In whom are these qualifications found combined but in the man Christ Jesus? For His willingness who can doubt it? Lo, I come, He says (Psa_40:7). But willingness alone will not suffice. He who is to be your surety, your ransom, must be no common man. If He is one who, as a mere creature, is made under the law, as all intelligent creatures are made under the law, He cannot answer for others; He can but answer for Himself. Not even if He were the highest of the angelic host could He do more. Brother, thou needest a ransom, an infinite ransom, a perfect ransom, a ransom sufficient for the cancelling of all thy guilt and the perfecting of thy peace with God. No such ransom canst thou find in thyself, in me, in any angel. But God has found it.

VI. He is the man to be testified in due time. A testimony for fitting seasons, a great truth to be attested as a fact at the right crisis of the worlds history, to be ever afterwards preached and taught as the source of life to men doomed to die--is this marvellous constitution of the manhood of Christ Jesus; fitting Him for being the one Mediator, the one Ransom. It is the testimony for which I am ordained a preacher, an ambassador for Christ.

1. It is my ordained and appointed testimony, or rather the Lords by me, to thee, O sleeper--to thee, O doubter--to thee, whosoever thou art, who art living a godless, unholy life, unrenewed, unreconciled, unsanctified. It is a testimony in due time to thee.

2. It is the testimony with which I am charged to thee also, O downcast soul, who art afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, sin-laden, sorrow-laden, unable to see thy warrant for having peace and life with thy God. I testify to thee, the Lord testifies by me to thee, that all thou needest is in the man Christ Jesus, the Mediator, the Ransom, and in Him for thee.

3. It is a timely, seasonable testimony to thee also, O man of God, my son Timothy, O child of God, who hast quiet peace in believing, and art walking at liberty, having respect to all Gods commandments. The testimony to thee this day is of the man Christ Jesus, the Mediator, the Ransom. And it is for every due time, every fitting season. For thyself, I urge thy recognition always of Him of whom I testify, the man Christ Jesus. For, whatever the time, whatever the season, it is a due time, a fitting season, for His being testified to thee, by the Spirit, as being present with thee. As thou walkest the streets, or journeyest along the road, He talks with thee by the way, and opens to thee the Scriptures concerning Himself; the man Christ Jesus, who taught thus of old in Galilee and Jewry, speaking as never man spoke. As thou sittest at meat, He breaks bread with thee, the man Christ Jesus, in whose living, personal, human, and Divine fellowship, the first disciples at Jerusalem did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. As thou visitest the fatherless and widows in their affliction, He goes with thee, the man Christ Jesus, who in all their affliction is Himself afflicted. As thou art wearied among the workers of iniquity whom thou art seeking to turn to righteousness, ready to complain, Who hath believed our report? see, ever near thee, at thy side, the man Christ Jesus, who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, and whose prayer on the cross was, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do! (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

Christ, the mediating man

Jesus Christ as standing for mediatorial purposes between God and man, is doing a work necessary to be done before satisfactory relations can be established between the sinner and the holy God. Our sins have separated us from God, and Christ lives to intercede, to mediate for us. Now, this fact has been so stated at times as to produce false impressions concerning God and His feelings towards men. It has been spoken of as though Jesus Christ had to stand for us in the presence of God, to offer Himself as a sacrifice, to persuade the Supreme to have pity, to take us back into His favour. God is thus represented as One who sustains a stern anger against the entire race, and who is determined to hold out in His terrible wrath against them. Now, I venture to assert that any teaching which leaves that idea of God upon the hearts of men is a gross libel of the Divine nature, utterly contrary to Scripture, and solemnly untrue. We could not feel any conscious gratitude for such compulsory pardon as that. If we realized any love or gratitude, it would not go forth to Him, but to the Mediator who had interposed to save us from the impending wrath. We should regard God as One to dread, and Christ only as One to love. If there is one clear testimony of Scripture that we are invited to receive, it is that Gods mercy is the fountain and source of the grace we receive. Christ is the expression of Gods mercy. Christ is Gods gift. Yet, it may be asked, could not God have saved and reconciled the world without the intervention of the man Christ Jesus? He is a very bold dogmatist who would say that God could not have redeemed without the aid of the appointed Mediator. That would be to shut Him up to necessity, to surround Him with limitations, to restrict Him within the sphere of a single method, forgetting that with God all things are possible. That God has arranged that this shall be, warrants us, not in saying that the end could not have been accomplished in some other way, but that this was in the Infinite Wisdom the best, and that it met a necessity which could not have been otherwise so well and adequately met. If you ask what was that necessity which resulted in the life and death of Christ, then Scripture is silent. There it stands, a sublime history, an accomplished fact, in some way unexplained to us. Our salvation depends upon that mediatorial work; the Christ has come between us and God, and so achieved our ransom; and He now appears in the presence of God for us. Yes, there it is; though, I repeat, so far as the Divine side of the work of Christ is concerned, we know nothing more than this, that it has satisfied the Divine Father, and made salvation possible to all. So we rest assured that it was the best way. When, however, we turn to the human side, we perceive how wonderfully gracious is the arrangement that the Mediator should have been what He was--a man, the man Christ Jesus. This is what we are asked to fix our attention upon as of supreme and vital importance to us. He who undertakes our case and pleads our cause is not an angel, is not to be regarded as standing in any degree aloof from us; for though He had a supernatural birth, that in no sense was meant to separate Him from the race: He is still essentially one with it. It is just what we want to realize. He is distinctively the man--the man belonging alike to all. His nationality is hot prominent in our minds, and in no way estranges our sympathy from Him, or affects our feeling towards Him. The fact is, as you read the exquisite record of His life, you feel that no nation has any special claim upon Him. He lives, and acts, and speaks, and dies as One who belongs to all humanity. Then, carry the thought further. Your study of the character and conduct of Jesus Christ will have revealed to you this great truth--that He does not impress you as manifesting any particular temperament. We mark off men according to certain peculiarities of disposition which they possess: their individuality puts them into classes. We speak of the reserved and the frank, the serious and the gay. Now you find nothing of all this in Christ. He shows no one quality of mind or heart predominant over any other. There is a rounded completeness of nature in Him altogether unique. What is the consequence of this? That He repels none, and is attractive to all. Men of varying temperaments, like those who formed the first group of disciples, cluster around Him, accept Him as their guide and teacher. He is the Christ for all--the Mediator in whom all can trust. He can draw all temperaments and natures to Himself. See in this again another proof of His fitness for the office He holds, and the work He undertakes--the man Christ Jesus, the One Mediator. The world wants no other, no multiplied agency. Take notice again that He has none of the faults and flaws and imperfections of common manhood. Here indeed is His peculiarity. Yes, but even then you have proof that He is the Man. In Him you have manhood in its integrity. You have manhood in its grandest possibilities. But how does that complete manhood of our Lord help us to rejoice that He is the right One to become our Mediator? I reply that you could not conceive the idea of an imperfect one representing the case of sinners; you could not be content to trust it in his hands; you could not be sure of the result. His infirmities might interfere with and mar his grand work. It would not be to such a one that we could look hopefully to be the means of redeeming us, for he would need himself to be redeemed. He is a man, knowing us altogether, yet free from our defects and evil, and so fitted to achieve the work of reconciling us and leading us back to God. Thus the very integrity of His manhood is the reason why He should be the Mediator for all other men. You are linked to God through Him, and through Him will come every blessing that God has to give to His children. Let none fear to come to God, since the way is opened for reconciliation through the Mediator--the man Christ Jesus--and all that Christ is and all that He has accomplished are for you. (W. Braden.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti 2:5-7. For there is one God — One Creator of all, the Father of the spirits of all flesh, who is no respecter of persons; and one Mediator between God and men — Appointed by God to make atonement for the sins of men by his death, and who, in consequence of that atonement, is authorized to intercede with God in behalf of sinners, and empowered to convey all his blessings to them. The man Christ Jesus — Therefore all men are to apply to this Mediator. By declaring that the one Mediator is the man Jesus Christ, St. Paul intimated that his mediation was founded in the atonement which he made for our sins in the human nature. Wherefore Christ’s intercession for us is quite different from our intercession for one another: he intercedes as having merited what he asks for us. Whereas we intercede for our brethren, merely as expressing our good-will toward them. We, depraved and guilty sinners, could not rejoice that there is a God, were there not a Mediator also; one who stands between God and men, to reconcile man to God, and to transact the whole affair of our salvation. This excludes all other mediators, as saints and angels, whom the Papists set up and idolatrously worship as such: just as the heathen of old set up many mediators to pacify their superior gods. Who gave himself a ransom for all — Αντιλυτρον, such a ransom, the word signifies, wherein a like or equal is given, as an eye for an eye. The clause seems to be an allusion to Christ’s words, (Mat 20:28,) to give his life, λυτρον αντι, a ransom for many. Any price given for the redemption of a captive, was called by the Greeks λυτρον, a ransom; but when life was given for life, they used the word αντιλυτρον. Indeed, this ransom paid by Christ, from the dignity of his person, was more than equivalent to all mankind. To be testified in due time — Το μαρτυριον καιροις ιδιοις, the testimony, that is, a thing to be testified, in his own seasons; namely, those chosen by his own wisdom. Whereunto I am ordained — Appointed; a preacher — Κηρυξ, a herald, to proclaim the grace of it all abroad; and an apostle — To attest by miracles that great and essential doctrine of it, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I speak the truth in Christ — As thou, Timothy, well knowest; I lie not — In pretending to such an extraordinary mission. A teacher of the Gentiles — As if he had said, I was not only in general ordained to this ministry, but by peculiar destination was appointed to preach to the heathen and instruct them; in faith and verity — That is, in the faith of the gospel, and in the whole system of truth which it comprehends. This same solemn asseveration the apostle used Rom 9:1. He introduces it here in confirmation of his being an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles in the true faith of the gospel, because some in Ephesus denied his apostleship, and especially because the Jews were so averse to his preaching the gospel among the Gentiles, charging his doing it either upon the want of a due regard to his own nation, or some view of avarice or ambition. On this passage Dr. Benson remarks, “What writer ever kept closer to his subject than this apostle? The more we understand him, the more we admire how much every sentence and every word tends to the main purpose of his writing.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:5-6 Compact teachings, as in this passage, occur throughout the letters to Timothy and Titus (see also 1 Tim 3:16; 2 Tim 1:9-10; 2:8, 11-13; Titus 3:4-7). They might be adapted bits of creeds, hymns, or prayers that were known to the churches. The doctrines referenced probably relate to Paul’s trouble with the false teachers; it appears that their teaching undercut the universal appeal of the Good News and the effectiveness of the Gentile mission. The false teachers also had a deficient understanding of Jesus and his salvation.

2:5 There is one God and therefore one mission encompassing all people (Rom 3:29-30; Gal 3:26-29). Using the phrase one God suggests a fundamental declaration of Christian faith, analogous to the basics of Jewish faith (Deut 6:4). • There is one Mediator of God’s covenant, the man Christ Jesus. He is fully human and fully God, and thus able to reconcile God and humanity (see 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:5-6).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Ti 2:5. Εἷς) one, common to all. They who have not this one God, by one Mediator, have none, [—and therefore they are not saved. Yet GOD wishes all men to be saved by the saving knowledge of God and the Mediator; but there is a legitimate and most holy order in the exercise of that will, wherewith men ought to receive it. All mankind constitute as it were one man before God; wherefore it is right, that they who have obtained salvation should intercede for those who are farther distant from it. If that were done, how much better would be the condition of the human race! Let him pray, I request, who knows how to pray.—V. g.]—γὰρ, for) 1Ti 2:4 is proved from 1Ti 2:5; 1Ti 2:1 from 1Ti 2:4. The whole is universal. Comp. Isa 45:22.—εἷς καὶ, one also) [who is Mediator.] He does not say, also one; therefore the stress of the voice does not so much fall upon the adjective, one, as upon the substantives. We could not rejoice that there is a God, if we did not rejoice also in the Man Mediator.—εἷς—εἷς, one—one) Mar 12:29; Mar 12:32; 1Co 8:6; Eph 4:5-6.—μεσίτης, Mediator) This is as it were an epithet of the noun, man; and the word, one, coheres at the same time with both of these.—ἄνθρωπος, man) The Saviour, not without reason, is here called man, rather than God; that the reason may be marked, why all men should be converted to this Mediator, who [i.e. inasmuch as He, a man] has given Himself for all [men]: comp. Rom 5:15, note. The article is not added. Again, in turn, he calls Him God, ch. 1Ti 3:16.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti_2:5. Εἷς γὰρ Θεός] The particle γάρ connects this verse with the thought immediately preceding (Wiesinger), and not, as Leo and Mack think, with the exhortation to pray for all.[89] The apostle wishes by it to confirm the idea of the universality of the divine purpose of salvation as true and necessary: he does this first by pointing to the unity of God. There is a quite similar connection of ideas in Rom_3:30 (emphasis is laid on Gods unity in another connection in 1Co_8:6, and, in a third connection, in Eph_4:6). From the unity of God, it necessarily follows that there is only one purpose regarding all; for if there were various purposes for various individuals, the Godhead would be divided in its nature. As there is one God, however, so also there is one Mediator.

εἷς καὶ μεσίτης Θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων] The word ΜΕΣΊΤΗς[90] occurs elsewhere in the Pauline Epistles only in Gal_3:19-20, where the name is given to Moses, because through him God revealed the law to the people. Elsewhere in the N. T. the word is found only in Heb_8:6; Heb_9:15; Heb_12:24, and in connection with διαθήκης, from which, however, it cannot (with Schleiermacher and de Wette) be concluded that the idea mediator refers necessarily to the corresponding idea covenant. Christ is here named the μεσίτης Θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων, because He is inter Deum et homines constitutus (Tertullian). He is the Mediator for both, in so far as only through Him does God accomplish His purpose of salvation (His θέλειν) regarding men, and in so far as only through Him can men reach the goal appointed them by God (σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγν. ἀλ. ἐλθεῖν). Hofmann says: He is the means of bringing about the relation in which God wishes to stand towards men, and in which men ought to stand towards God. As with the unity of God, so also is the unity of the Mediator a surety for the truth of the thought expressed in 1Ti_2:4, that Gods θέλειν refers to all men.

To define it more precisely, Paul adds: ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς. This addition may not, as Otto and others assume, have been occasioned by opposition to the docetism of the heretics. In other epistles of the N. T. special emphasis is laid on Christs humanity, with no such opposition to suggest it; thus Rom_5:15; 1Co_15:21; Php_2:7; Heb_2:16-17. In this passage the reason for it is contained first in the designation of Christ as the μεσίτης (Theodoret: ἄνθρωπον δὲ τὸν Χριστὸν ὠνόμασεν, ἐπειδὴ μεσίτην ἐκάλεσεν· ἐνανθρωπήσας γὰρ ἐμεσίτευσεν); and further, in the manner in which Christ carried out His work of mediation, i.e., as the next verse informs us, by giving Himself up to death.[91]

[89] Van Oosterzee confuses the two references: Gods universal purpose of salvation is here established in such a way that at the same time there is to a certain extent (!) an indication of a third motive for performing Christian intercessions.

[90] Regarding the use of the word in classical Greek, comp. Cremer, s.v.There is no necessity for Cremers opinion, that μεσίτης in the passages of Hebrews does not so much mean mediator as surety.

[91] The ἀνθρώπων suggested the ἄνθρωπος all the more naturally, that in the apostles consciousness the σωτηρία of men could be wrought only by a man. Only a man could reconcile men with God; only, indeed, the man of whom it was said ὃς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί (chap. 1Ti_3:16). Hofmann supposes that Christ Jesus is here called ἄνθρωπος, in order to say that, as He became man to be mediator, He is therefore the mediator and saviour not of this or of that man, but of all men without distinction. This thought, however, is more the ground of the εἷς, for even the mediator of this or that man might also be a man.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti 2:5 . This emphatic statement as to the unity of the Godhead is suggested by the singular σωτῆρος just preceding. The εἷς neither affirms nor denies anything as to the complexity of the nature of the Godhead; it has no bearing on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity; it simply is intended to emphasise the uniqueness of the relations of God to man. The use of one , with this intention, is well illustrated by Eph 4:4-6 , ἓν σῶμα , κ . τ . λ . The current thought of the time was conscious of many σωτῆρες . In contrast to these, St. Paul emphasises the uniqueness of the σωτήρ and θεός worshipped by Christians. The contrast is exactly parallel to that in 1Co 8:6 , εἰσὶν θεοὶ πολλοί , καὶ κύριοι πολλοί · ἀλλʼ ἡμῖν εἶς θεὸς ὁ πατήρ … καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησ . Χρ . The question as to the mutual relations of the Persons of the Godhead had not arisen among Christians, and was not present to the writer’s mind. Indeed if it had been we could not regard the epistle as a portion of revealed theology. Revealed theology is unconscious. The prima facie distinction here drawn between εἷς θεός and εἷς μεσίτης would have been impossible in a sub-apostolic orthodox writer.

Again, the oneness of God has a bearing on the practical question of man’s salvation. It is possible for all men to be saved, because over them there are not many Gods that can exercise possibly conflicting will-power towards them, but one only. See also Rom 3:30 . One Godhead stands over against one humanity; and the Infinite and the finite can enter into relations one with the other, since they are linked by a μεσίτης who is both God and man. It is noteworthy that μεσίτης θεοῦ κ . ἀνθρώπων is applied to the archangel Michael in The Test. of the Twelve Patriarchs , Dan 6:2 .

ἄνθρωπος explains how Christ Jesus could be a mediator. He can only be an adequate mediator whose sympathy with, and understanding of, both parties is cognisable by, and patent to, both. Now, although God’s love for man is boundless, yet without the revelation of it by Christ it would not be certainly patent to man; not to add that one of two contending parties cannot be the mediator of the differences (Gal 3:20 ). See also Rom 5:15 . Again, we must note that ἄνθρωπος ( himself man , R.V., not the man , A.V.) in this emphatic position suggests that the verity of our Lord’s manhood was in danger of being ignored or forgotten.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5.] For (further grounding of the acceptableness of prayer for all men,—in the unity of God. But this verse is joined by the γάρ directly to the preceding, not to ver. 1. Chrys. gives it rightly—δεικνὺς ὅτι σωθῆναι θέλει πάντας) there is one God (He is one in essence and one in purpose—not of different minds to different nations or individuals, but of one mind towards all. Similarly Rom 3:30, and, which is important for the understanding of that difficult passage, Gal 3:20. The double reference, to the unity in essence and unity of purpose, for which I have contended there, is plain and unmistakeable here), one Mediator (see reff. It occurs, besides the places in the Gal., only in the Epistle to the Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24. There is no necessity that the idea should, as De W. and Schleierm., be connected with that of a mutual covenant, and so be here far-fetched as regards the context (borrowed from the places in the Heb., according to De W.): the word is used as standing alone, and representing the fact of Christ Jesus being the only go-between, in whatever sense) also (the εἷς prefixed to the καί for emphasis) of (between) God and men (if one only goes between, then that One must be for all), (the) man Christ Jesus (why ἄνθρωπος? Thdrt. answers, ἄνθρωπον δὲ τὸν χριστὸν ὠνόμασεν, ἐπειδὴ μεσίτην ἐκάλεσεν· ἐνανθρωπήσας γὰρ ἑμεσίτευσεν: and so most Commentators. But it is not here the Apostle’s object, to set forth the nature of Christ’s mediation as regards its being brought about;—only as regards its unity and universality for mankind. And for this latter reason he calls him here by this name man,—that He gathered up all our human nature into Himself, becoming its second Head. So that the ἄνθρωπος in fact carries with it the very strongest proof of that which he is maintaining. Notice it is not ὁ ἄνθρωπος, though we are obliged inaccurately thus to express it: in personality, our Lord was not a man, but in nature He was man. It might be rendered, “Christ Jesus, Himself man.”

I should object, as against Ellicott, to introduce at all the indefinite article: not individual but generic humanity is predicated: and “a man” unavoidably conveys the idea of human individuality. It is singularly unfortunate that Ellic. should have referred to Augustine, Serm. xxvi. as cited by Wordsw., in corroboration of the rendering “a man:” the Latin homo being of course as incapable of deciding this as the Greek ἄνθρωπος, and “a man” being only Bp. Wordsworth’s translation of it. Nay, the whole tenor of the passage of Augustine (ed. Migne, vol. v. p. 174) precludes such a rendering. The stupidity of such writers as Baur and the Socinians, who regard such an expression as against the deity of Christ, is beyond all power of mine to characterize. In the face of εἷς θεός, εἷς μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων, to maintain gravely such a position, shews utter blindness from party bias even to the plainest thoughts expressed in the plainest words), who gave himself (reff., especially Tit.) a ransom (ἀντί-, as in ἀντιμισθία, Rom 1:27; 2Co 6:13: ἀντάλλαγμα, Mat 16:26, expresses more distinctly the reciprocity which is already implied in the simple word in each case. That the main fact alluded to here is the death of Christ, we know: but it is not brought into prominence, being included in, and superseded by the far greater and more comprehensive fact, that He gave himself, in all that He undertook for our redemption: see Php 2:5-8) on behalf of all (not of a portion of mankind, but of all men; the point of ver. 1, ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων),—the testimony (‘that which was (to be) testified:’ so St. John frequently uses μαρτυρία, 1Jn 5:9-11: “an accusative in apposition with the preceding sentence.” Ellicott. This oneness of the Mediator, involving in itself the universality of Redemption, was the great subject of Christian testimony: see below) in its own seasons (reff.; in the times which God had appointed for it. On the temporal dative, see Ellicott’s note), for (towards) which (the μαρτύριον) I was placed as a herald (pastoral Epistles and 2 Pet. only: but see 1Co 1:21, 1Co 1:23; 1Co 9:27; 1Co 15:14) and apostle (the proclaiming this universality of the Gospel was the one object towards which my appointment as an apostle and preacher was directed. Those who hold the spuriousness of our Epistle regard this returning to himself and his own case on the part of the writer as an evidence of his being one who was acting the part of Paul. So Schleierm. and De W. They have so far truth on their side, that we must recognize here a characteristic increase of the frequency of these personal vindications on the part of the Apostle, as we so often have occasion to remark during these Epistles:—the disposition of one who had been long opposed and worried by adversaries to recur continually to his own claims, the assertion of which had now become with him almost, so to speak, a matter of stock-phrases. Still, the propriety of the assertion here is evident: it is only in the manner of it that the above habit is discernible. See more on this in the Prolegomena. The same phrase occurs verbatim in ref. 2 Tim.),—I speak the truth, I lie not—(in spite of all that Huther and Wiesinger say of the evident appropriateness of this solemn asseveration here, I own I am unable to regard it as any more than a strong and interesting proof of the growth of a habit in the Apostle’s mind, which we already trace in 2Co 11:31, Rom 9:1, till he came to use the phrase with less force and relevance than he had once done. Nothing can be more natural than that one whose life was spent in strong conflict and assertion of his Apostleship, should repeat the fervour of his usual asseveration, even when the occasion of that fervour had passed away. Nor can I consent to abandon such a view because it is designated “questionable and precarious” by Ellic., who is too apt in cases of difficulty, to evade the real conflict of decision by strong terms of this kind)—a teacher of the Gentiles (it was especially in this latter fact that the ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων found its justification. The historical proof of his constitution as a teacher of the Gentiles is to be found in Act 9:15, Act 9:22:21, Act 9:26:17; but especially in Gal 2:9) in (the) faith and (the) truth (do these words refer subjectively to his own conduct in teaching the Gentiles, or objectively to that in which he was to instruct them? The former view is taken by Thdrt. and most Commentators: μετὰ τῆς προσηκούσης πίστεως καὶ ἀληθείας τοῦτο πᾶσι προσφέρω: the latter by Heydenreich, al. Huther (also Ellic.) takes the words as signifying the sphere in which he was appointed to fulfil his office of διδ. ἐθνῶν,—πίστις being faith, the subjective relation, and ἀλήθεια the truth, the objective good which is appropriated by faith: Wiesinger, as meaning that he is, in the right faith and in the truth, the διδ. ἔθν. Bengel regards them merely as another asseveration belonging to the assertion that he is διδ. ἔθν.,—‘in faith and truth I say it.’ This latter at once discommends itself, from its exceeding flatness: though Chrys. also seems to have held it—ἐν πίστει πάλιν· ἀλλὰ μὴ νομίσῃς ἐπειδὴ ἐν πίστει ἤκουσας, ὅτι ἀπάτη τὸ πρᾶγμά ἐστι. καὶ γὰρ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ φησίν. εἰ δὲ ἀλήθεια, οὐκ ἔστι ψεῦδος. In judging between these, we must take into account the usage of ἀλήθεια above, ver. 4, in a very similar reference, when it was to be matter of teaching to all men. There it undoubtedly is, though anarthrous, the truth of God. I would therefore take it similarly here, as Wiesinger,—the sphere in which both his teaching and their learning was to be employed—the truth of the Gospel. Then, if so, it is surely harsh to make ἐν πίστει subjective, especially as the ἐν is not repeated before ἀληθείᾳ. It too will most properly be objective,—and likewise regard that in which, as an element or sphere, he was to teach and they to learn: the faith. This ἐν π. κ. ἀλ. will be, not the object of διδάσκαλ., but the sphere or element in which he is the διδάσκαλος).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

God would not else be manifested to be the only God of all men, unless he would show his goodness in saving of all sorts of men: neither should Christ be seen to be the only mediator between God and all sorts of men, by having taken upon him that nature of man which is common to all men, unless he had satisfied for all sorts of men, and made intercession for all.

Christ Jesus which was made man.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 5. There is one God] Who is the maker, governor, and preserver of all men, of every condition, and of every nation, and equally wills the salvation of all.

And one mediator] The word μεσιτης, mediator, signifies, literally, a middle person, one whose office it is to reconcile two parties at enmity; and hence Suidas explains it by ειρηνοποιος, a peace-maker. God was offended with the crimes of men; to restore them to his peace, Jesus Christ was incarnated; and being God and man, both God and men met in and were reconciled by him. But this reconciliation required a sacrifice on the part of the peace-maker or mediator; hence what follows.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5 For there is one God This argument might, at first sight, appear to be not very strong, that God wishes all men to be saved, because he is one; if a transition had not been made from God to men. Chrysostom — and, after him, others — view it in this sense, that there are not many gods, as idolaters imagine. But I think that Paul’s design was different, and that there is here an implied comparison of one God with the whole world and with various nations, out of which comparison arises a view of both, as they mutually regard each other. In like manner the Apostle says,

“Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yea, it is one God who justifieth the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.’ (Romans 3:29.)

Accordingly, whatever diversity might at that time exist among men, because many ranks and many nations were strangers to faith, Paul brings to the remembrance of believers the unity of God, that they may know that they are connected with all, because there is one God of all — that they may know that they who are under the power of the same God are not excluded for ever from the hope of salvation.

And one Mediator between God and men This clause is of a similar import with the former; for, as there is one God, the Creator and Father of all, so he says that there is but one Mediator, through whom we have access to the Father; and that this Mediator was given, not only to one nation, or to a small number of persons of some particular rank, but to all; because the fruit of the sacrifice, by which he made atonement for sins, extends to all. More especially because a large portion of the world was at that time alienated from God, he expressly mentions the Mediator, through whom they that were afar off now approach.

The universal term all must always be referred to classes: of men, and not to persons; as if he had said, that not only Jews, but Gentiles also, not only persons of humble rank, but princes also, were redeemed by the death of Christ. Since, therefore, he wishes the benefit of his death to be common to all, an insult is offered to him by those who, by their opinion, shut out any person from the hope of salvation.

The man Christ Jesus. When he declares that he is “a man,” the Apostle does not deny that the Mediator is God, but, intending to point out the bond of our union with God, he mentions the human nature rather than the divine. This ought to be carefully observed. From the beginning, men, by contriving for themselves this or that mediator, departed farther from God; and the reason was, that, being prejudiced in favor of this error, that God was at a great distance from them, they knew not to what hand to turn. Paul remedies this evil, when he represents God as present with us; for he has descended even to us, so that we do not need to seek him above the clouds. The same thing is said in Hebrews 4:15,

“We have not a high priest who cannot sympathize within our infirmities, for in all things he was tempted.”

And, indeed, if this were deeply impressed on the hearts of all, that the Son of God holds out to us the hand of a brother, and that we are united to him by the fellowship of our nature, in order that, out of our low condition, he may raise us to heaven; who would not choose to keep by this straight road, instead of wandering in uncertain and stormy paths! Accordingly, whenever we ought to pray to God, if we call to remembrance that exalted and unapproachable majesty, that we may not be driven back by the dread of it, let us, at the same time, remember “the man Christ,” who gently invites us, and takes us, as it were, by the hand, in order that the Father, who had been the object of terror and alarm, may be reconciled by him and rendered friendly to us. This is the only key to open for us the gate of the heavenly kingdom, that we may appear in the presence of God with confidence.

Hence we see, that Satan has, in all ages, followed this course, for the purpose of leading men astray from the right path. I say nothing of the various devices by which, before the coming of Christ, he alienated the minds of men, to contrive methods of approaching to God. At the very commencement of the Christian Church, when Christ, with so excellent a pledge, was fresh in their remembrance, and while the earth was still ringing with that delightfully sweet word from his mouth,

“Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Matthew 11:28,)

there were, nevertheless, some persons skilled in deception, who thrust angels into his room as mediators; which is evident from Colossians 2:18. But what Satan, at that time, contrived secretly, he carried to such a pitch, during the times of Popery, that scarcely one person in a thousand acknowledged Christ, even in words, to be the Mediator. And while the name was buried, still more was the reality unknown.

Now that God has raised up good and faithful teachers, who have labored to restore and bring to the remembrance of men what ought to have been one of the best-known principles of our faith, the sophists of the Church of Rome have resorted to every contrivance for darkening a point so clear. First, the name is so hateful to them, that, if any one mentions Christ as Mediator, without taking notice of the saints, he instantly falls under a suspicion of heresy. But, because they do not venture to reject altogether what Paul teaches in this passage, they evade it by a foolish exposition, that he is called “one Mediator,” not “the only Mediator.” As if the Apostle had mentioned God as one out of a vast multitude of gods; for the two clauses are closely connected, that “there is one God and one Mediator;” and therefore they who make Christ one out of many mediators must apply the same interpretation in speaking of God. Would they rise to such a height of impudence, if they were not impelled by blind rage to crush the glory of Christ?

There are others who think themselves more acute, and who lay down this distinction, that Christ is the only Mediator of redemption, while they pronounce the saints to be mediators of intercession. But the folly of these interpreters is reproved by the scope of the passage, in which the Apostle speaks expressly about prayer. The Holy Spirit commands us to pray for all, because our only Mediator admits all to come to him; just as by his death he reconciled all to the Father. And yet they who thus, with daring sacrilege, strip Christ of his honor, wish to be regarded as Christians.

But it is objected that this has the appearance of contradiction; for in this very passage Paul enjoins us to intercede for others, while, in the Epistle to the Romans, he declares that intercession belongs to Christ alone. (Romans 8:34.) I reply, the intercessions of the saints, by which they aid each other in their addresses to God, do not contradict the doctrine, that all have but one Intercessor; for no man’s prayers are heard either in behalf of himself, or in behalf of another, unless he rely on Christ as his advocate. When we intercede for one another, this is so far from setting aside the intercession of Christ, as belonging to him alone, that the chief reliance is given, and the chief reference made, to that very intercession.

Some person will perhaps think, that it will, therefore, be easy for us to come to an agreement with the Papists, if they place below the only intercession of Christ, all that they ascribe to the saints. This is not the case; for the reason why they transfer to the saints the office of interceding is, that they imagine that otherwise we are destitute of an advocate. It is a common opinion among them, that we need intercessors, because in ourselves we are unworthy of appearing in the presence of God. By speaking in this manner, they deprive Christ of his honor. Besides, it is a shocking blasphemy, to ascribe to saints such excellence as would procure for us the favor of God: and all the prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and even the angels themselves — are so far from making any pretension to this, that they too have need of the same intercession as ourselves.

Again, it is a mere dream, originating in their own brain, that the dead intercede for us; and, therefore, to found our prayers on this is altogether to withdraw our trust from calling upon God. But Paul lays down, as the rule for calling on God in a proper manner, faith grounded on the word of God. (Romans 10:17.) Justly, therefore, everything that men contrive, in the exercise of their own thoughts, without the authority of the word of God, is rejected by us.

But not to dwell on this subject longer than the exposition of the passage demands, let it be summed up in this manner; that they who have actually learned the office of Christ will be satisfied with having him alone, and that none will make mediators at their own pleasure but those who neither know God nor Christ. Hence I conclude, that the doctrine of the Papists — which darkens, and almost buries, the intercession of Christ, and introduces pretended intercessors without any support from Scripture — is full of wicked distrust, and also of wicked rashness.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(5) For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.—“For.” This gives the reason why it is good and well-pleasing in the sight of God that Christians should pray for all—for there is one Saviour, God the Father, who wills that all should be saved, and there is one Mediator, Christ Jesus, who has given Himself as ransom for all. Surely then, to us who call ourselves by the name of Christ, the fate of the heathen who as yet know not Christ cannot be a matter of indifference. We must in our praise and prayer include these strangers whom the Father wills should come to Him, for whose sake the Son has given his life.

The man Christ Jesus.—St. Paul with special emphasis speaks of the “one Mediator between God and man” as “the man Christ Jesus,” no doubt wishing to bring into prominence the true humanity of the Lord. It is also a silent refutation of the docetic errors of some of the false teachers, of whose doctrines Timothy was to beware. These would have persuaded men that the Christ Jesus who was nailed to the cross was no man, but simply a phantom.

The human nature of Christ is also specially mentioned because in this state He performed His office as Mediator. In the statement of the next verse we find another reason for St. Paul’s allusion here to the fact of the Mediator being a man. The Messiah must have taken the human nature upon Him before He could have suffered that death which was the ransom of all. Again, the human nature of the Mediator is brought forward to show that the mediatorial office extended over the whole human race—a grand thought, expressed in the following words—“who gave Himself a ransom for all.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who gave himself a ransom for all,.... What the Mediator gave as a ransom for men is "himself", his body and his soul, which were both made an offering for sin; and his life, which is the result of union between soul and body; his whole human nature as in union with his divine person, and so might be truly said to be himself: this he gave into the hands of men, of justice and of death; and that voluntarily, which shows his great love to his people; and also as a "ransom", or a ransom price for them, in their room and stead; to ransom them from the slavery of sin, and damnation by it, from the captivity of Satan, and the bondage of the law, and from the grave, death, hell, ruin, and destruction: and this ransom was given for "all"; not for every individual of mankind, for then all would be delivered, freed, and saved, whereas they are not; or else the ransom price is paid in vain, or God is unjust to receive a sufficient ransom price from Christ, and yet not free the captive, but punish the person for whom he has received satisfaction; neither of which can be said. But the meaning is, either that he gave himself a ransom for many, as in Mat 20:28 for the Hebrew word to which this answers, signifies sometimes many, a multitude, and sometimes only a part of a multitude, as Kimchi observes (y): or rather it intends that Christ gave himself a ransom for all sorts of men, for men of every rank and quality, of every state and condition, of every age and sex, and for all sorts of sinners, and for some out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, for both Jews and Gentiles; which latter may more especially be designed by all, as they are sometimes by the world, and the whole world; and so contains another argument why all sorts of men are to be prayed for, since the same ransom price is given for them; as that for the children of Israel was the same, for the rich as for the poor. We (z) read, that when the people of Israel comforted the high priest upon the death of his wife, or any relation, they used to say to him, , "we are thy atonement", expiation, or ransom; that is, as the commentators (a) explain it, by us thou shalt be atoned, for we will be in thy room and stead, with respect to all things that shall come upon thee; but here the High priest and Mediator is the atonement and ransom for the people:

to be testified in due time; or "a testimony in his own times"; that is, the sum and substance of what is before said is the Gospel, which is a testimony concerning the person, office, and grace of Christ, exhibited in the times of the Messiah, or the Gospel dispensation. Some copies read, "the mystery", which is another word often used for the Gospel; for that that is intended, appears by what follows.

(y) Sepher Shorash. rad. (z) Misna Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 1. (a) Jarchi & Bartenona in ib.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

Ver. 5. For there is one God] sc. Both of kings and subjects, both of heathens and Christians. Go boldly to him therefore, for yourselves and others. "Have we not all one Father?" Mal 2:10; "Art not thou our Father?" Isa 63:16; "O Lord" (saith the Church in Habakkuk), "art not thou from everlasting my God, mine Holy One?" It was a bold question, but God approves it, and assents to it in a gracious answer ere they went further: "We shall not die," say they abruptly; by a cast of God’s countenance they could tell so much. So true is that of Jamblichus a heathen (but herein he speaks more like a Christian), Supplicatio familiares et Deorum domesticos facit eos, qui ea utuntur. Prayer gives a humble boldness and a holy familiarity with God unto those that use it; and again, prayer, saith he, is like a key whereby we may open God’s treasury, and take out of it plentiful mercy for ourselves and others.

Between God and men] Gr. of God and men; he is God for the business with God; and man, for the business with man.

One Mediator] Not of redemption only (as the Papists grant), but of intercession too. We need no other master of requests in heaven, but the man Christ Jesus, who being so near us in the matter of his incarnation, will never be strange to us in the business of intercession. But what horrible blasphemy is that of the Papists, who in their devotions say thus, By the blood of Thomas Becket, which he did spend, make us, Christ, to climb where Thomas did ascend! (Acts and Mon.)

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For there is one God - This is a reason for offering prayer for all people, and for the declaration 1Ti 2:4 that God desires that all people should be saved. The reason is founded in the fact that he is the common Father of all the race, and that he must have the same desire for the welfare of all his children, He has made them of one blood Act 17:26, and he must have the same interest in the happiness of all; compare Eph 4:6 note; Rom 3:30 note.

And one Mediator between God and men - see Gal 3:19-20 notes; Heb 9:15 note. This also is given as a reason why prayer should be offered for all, and a proof that God desires their salvation. The argument is, that there is the same Mediator between God and all people. He is not the Mediator between God and a part of the human race, but between “God and men,” implying that He desired the salvation of the race. Whatever love there was in giving the Mediator at all, was love for all the race; whatever can be argued from that about the interest which God has in man, is proof of his interest in the race at large. It is proper, therefore, to pray for all. It may be remarked here that there is but one Mediator. There is not one for kings and another for their subjects; one for the rich and another for the poor; one for the master and another for the slave. All are on the same level, and the servant may feel that, in the gift of a Mediator, God regarded him with the same interest that he did his master. It may be added also that the doctrine of the Papists that the saints or the Virgin Mary may act as mediators to procure blessings for us, is false. There is but “one Mediator;” and but one is necessary. Prayer offered to the “saints,” or to the “Virgin,” is idolatry, and at the same time removes the one great Mediator from the office which he alone holds, of making intercession with God.

The man Christ Jesus - Jesus was truly and properly a man, having a perfect human body and soul, and is often called a man in the New Testament. But this does not prove that he was not also divine - anymore than his being called God (Joh 1:1; Joh 20:28; Rom 9:5; 1Jo 5:20; Heb 1:8), proves that he was not also a man. The use of the word man here was probably designed to intimate that though he was divine, it was in his human nature that we are to consider him as discharging the office. Doddridge.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

One mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all. Take all these words together, and we may easily understand in what sense the apostle calls our Saviour Christ, the one or only mediator; that is, he is the only mediator, who at the same time is our Redeemer; the only mediator who could mediate betwixt God, the person offended by sin, and men the offenders; the only mediator who reconciled God to mankind by his incarnation and death, by the infinite price of his blood, by his own merits, independently of the merits of any other. All Catholics allow that the dignity and office of mediator in this sense belongs only to our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, made man to save us. The sense then of this place is, that as there is but one God, who created all, so there is but one mediator, who redeemed all. But yet the name of mediator is not so appropriated to Christ, but that in an inferior and different sense the Angels and saints in heaven, and even men on earth, who pray to God for the salvation of others, may be called mediators, intercessors, or advocates; and we may apply ourselves to them to pray, intercede, and mediate for us, without any injury to Christ, since we acknowledge that all their intercession and mediation is always grounded on the merits of Christ, our Redeemer. The same word for mediator, in the Greek as well as in the Latin, is given to Moses, God’s servant. (Galatians iii. 19.) See also Deuteronomy v. 5. The words of our Saviour himself, (Matthew xxiii.) taken according to the letter, contains an express prohibition of being called masters, or fathers; and this reason is given, because all men have one Father in heaven, and because Christians have one master, Christ. Yet no one can justly pretend from thence, that in a different sense, a man may not be called father or master, without any injury to God, or to Christ. (Witham) --- Christ is the one and only mediator of redemption; who gave himself, as the apostle writes, a redemption for all. He is also the only mediator, who stands in need of no other to recommend his petitions to the Father. But this is not against our seeking the prayers and intercessions, as well of the faithful upon earth, as of the saints and Angels in heaven, for obtaining mercy, grace, and salvation, through Jesus Christ. As St. Paul himself often desired the help of the prayers of the faithful, without any injury to the mediatorship of Jesus Christ. (Challoner) --- If there be other mediators among the Angels and saints, they are only so in subordination to the first [to Christ], who by themselves have no right to mediation or favours, and who cannot demand them but through the merits of him [of Christ] who is our only essential mediator. (Estius, Menochius, &c.) Consult Judges iii. 9; 2 Esdras ix. 17; Acts vii. 35. --- A redemption for all. Not only for the predestinated, not only for the just, not only for the faithful, but for all Gentiles and infidels: and therefore he says again, (chap. iv. 10.) that Christ is the Saviour of all men, and especially of the faithful. See St. Augustine[1] and St. John Chrysostom.[2] (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle proves the universal love of God to men by two reasons, the unity of God, and the unity of the Mediator: though there are divers societies and vast numbers of men, yet there is but one God, the Creator and Preserver of all. If there were many gods in nature, it were conceivable that the God of Christians were not the God of other men, and consequently that his good will were confined to his own portion, leaving the rest to their several deities; but since there is but one true God of the world, who has revealed himself in the gospel, it necessarily follows that he is the God of all men in the relation of Creator and Preserver. And from hence he concludes: God will have all men to be saved. He argues in the same manner that salvation by faith in Christ belongs to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, Rom 3:29,30. The apostle adds, for the clearest assurance of his good will of God to save men, that there is

one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. When the sin of man had provoked Divine justice, and the guilt could not be expiated without satisfaction, God appointed his Son incarnate to mediate between his offended Majesty and his rebellious subjects. And it is observable, the parallel between the unity of God and the unity of the Mediator; as there is one God of all nations, so there is one Mediator of all. The strength of the apostle’s argument from the unity of the Mediator is this: If there were many mediators, according to the numbers of nations in the world, there might be a suspicion whether they were so worthy and so prevalent as to obtain the grace of God, every one for those in whose behalf they did mediate. But since there is but one, and that he is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him, it is evident that all men have the same Mediator, and that every one may be assured that God is willing he should be saved, and, for that blessed end, should by faith and repentance accept the covenant of grace. The apostle for the stronger confirmation specifies the Mediator,

the man Christ Jesus, to encourage the hopes of all men, from the communion they have with him in nature, that they may partake of his salvation, and that this great Mediator, having come from heaven and assumed the infirmity of our nature, Heb 4:15, will be inclined compassionately to assist them, and raise them to his heavenly kingdom.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5. The universality of the mediatorship proves the universality of the provided salvation; for as God is one and Christ the mediator is one, so both are for not a part but for the whole to be saved. A universal God and a universal mediator proves a universal humanity, between whom and God he mediates.

Mediator—One who serves as communicator between two parties.

Men—The all men of 1Ti_2:1; 1Ti_2:4.

The man—Without the definite Greek article, a man. Men are mediated with God by a man, who, by being a man and yet divine, partaking a double nature, brings God and man into contact and unity.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

One... also for and one, A.V; himself mar, for the man, A.V For there is one God, etc. The connection of ideas indicated by gar seems to be this: Pray to God for all men, Jews and Gentiles, barbarians, Scythians, bond and free. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of the one God, who is the God of all the nations of the earth. And God wills that all should come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, because Jesus Christ is the One Mediator between God and all men, by whom alone men can come to the Father, and who gave himself a ransom for all. One Mediator. The term mesithv is only applied to our Savior in the New Testament here and in Heb_8:6 Heb_9:15:12:24. In the only other passage where St. Paul uses it (Gal_3:19, Gal_3:20) it is applied to Moses the media-tar of the Old Testament. In the LXX it only occurs innqrwpov, Job_9:33. Himself man. Surely an infelicitous and unnecessary change from the A.V Even supposing that the exact construction of the sentence requires "Christ Jesus" to be taken as the subject and "man" as the predicate, the English way of expressing that sense is to say, "the man Christ Jesus." But it is very far from certain that a standing as it does in opposition to Qeov, is not the subject, and must not therefore be rendered "the man." The man. The human nature of our Lord is here insisted upon, to show how fit he is to mediate for man, as his Godhead fits him to mediate with God.

Vers. 5-7.

Reasons for this universality of prayer in the relation of all went to God and Christ.

there is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus." The salvation of men cannot, therefore, be to us a matter of selfish indifference.

I THE RELATION OF ALL MEN TO GOD. The unity of God is consistent with all differences of dispensation. "There is one providence belonging to the one God." The apostle tells the Romans that, "as God is one," he is the God of the Gentiles as well as the Jews. (Rom_3:30) There is, indeed, "one God and Father of all". (Eph_4:4, Eph_4:5) The apostle also says, "The mediator" (Moses) "is not of one one seed, i.e. including Jew and Gentile, for Moses had nothing, to do with the Gentile but God is one, in relation to Jew and Gentile. (Gal_3:20) In these passages the apostle sets forth the universality of the gospel offer. But in the text he infers the universality of the Divine good will from the provisions made for man"s salvation.

II THE RELATION OF ALL MEN TO THE MEDIATOR. "One Mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus.

1. There is but one Mediator. The Gnostic mediation of angels is, therefore, excluded. (Col_2:15, Col_2:18) Likewise the mediation of saints and angels, as held by the Church of Rome. This idea is dishonoring to the only Mediator. There is no Scripture for the distinction made between a mediator of redemption (Christ) and mediators of intercession (saints and angels).

2. The Mediator was man as well as God.

(1) He was truly man, in opposition to the Docetic notion that he did not possess a real human nature.

(2) He was God as well as man in his Mediatorship, in opposition to the Roman Catholic theory that he only mediated in his human nature. The design of this error is to make way for human mediators. It is said to be absurd to conceive of Christ as God mediating between sinners and himself.

(a) We answer that the Divine nature operated in Christ"s priestly work as well as the human, for "he through the eternal Spirit" (his own Spirit) "offered himself to God". (Heb_9:14)

(b) If he did not mediate in his Divine nature as well as his human nature, he could not have been in any sense Mediator of the Old Testament saints, because their redemption was completed before he came in the flesh. The human nature is naturally emphasized because of the work of suffering and death which is here ascribed to him.

1. The passage does not imply that Christ was not God. He is elsewhere frequently called God and true God, but here there is a necessary reference to the catholic doctrine of a subordination of office.

2. The reference to the mediatorship brings up the idea of a covenant between God and man. Christ is the Head of humanity, the new Man, the Lord from heaven, able to restore the lost relationship between God and man.

3. The mediatory agency is wrought through Christs sufferings and death. "Who gave himself a Ransom for all.

(1) This proves that all the blessings of redemption come from the death of Christ, not merely from his incarnation.

(2) He voluntarily gave himself as the Victim, yet he is "God"s unspeakable Gift.

(3) His death was strictly substitutionary. The words of the apostle resemble those of our Lord himself gave himself a Ransom for. (Mat_20:28) He was thus the Substitute contemplated by the apostle as the Messiah who had obtained from the Father the heritage of all families and nations of the earth, not Jews alone, but Gentiles.

III THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL MESSAGE. "The testimony to be borne in its own times.

1. Thus the death of Christ is the great message to be carried to all the world. It is not his birth, or his example, or his truth, but, above all, what is the completion of them all his death on Calvary.

2. It is to be preached in all times till the second coming of the Lord.

3. The apostles own relation to this testimony. "Whereunto I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I speak the truth, I lie not); a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." Thus the universality of the remedial scheme is represented by the very mission of the apostle himself. He was "a herald" to proclaim the glad tidings here; "an apostle let men say what they will, he is an apostle, therefore the surpassing importance of his message and "a teacher of the Gentiles to mark the world-embracing character of his gospel filth and truth," to signalize respectively the subjective and the objective elements in which his apostleship was to find its appropriate sphere. T.C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For - The fourth verse is proved by the fifth; the first, by the fourth. There is one God - And they who have not him, through the one Mediator, have no God. One mediator also - We could not rejoice that there is a God, were there not a mediator also; one who stands between God and men, to reconcile man to God, and to transact the whole affair of our salvation. This excludes all other mediators, as saints and angels, whom the Papists set up and idolatrously worship as such: just as the heathens of old set up many mediators, to pacify their superior gods. The man - Therefore all men are to apply to this mediator, "who gave himself for all."

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Vers. 5, 6. For there is one God, one Mediator also of God and men. The connective particle (γὰρ) presents what is here stated as an adequate ground, more immediately for the statement in the preceding verse, that God would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; but also, more remotely, for the call to prayer in behalf of all men, that so the benevolent desires of God toward them may come into effect For in the mind of the apostle the two are essentially connected together; and what affords a valid reason for the one, provides it also for the other. What, then, is the reason? It is, that all stand related to one and the same God, also to one and the same Mediator; for mankind generally there is but one Dispenser of life and blessing, and one medium through which the dispensation flows; and in the invitations and precepts of the gospel all are put on a footing in regard to them: there is no respect of persons, or formal preference of some over others. Substantially the same thought is exhibited in the Epistles to the Romans (Rom 3:30) and the Galatians (Gal 2:20); there, as grounding the universality of the gospel offer, as here the universality of the goodwill, which the provisions of the gospel on God’s part, and the prayers of His people on theirs, are ever breathing toward men. The oneness of the Mediator is followed by a declaration respecting His person and work: man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all. The want of the article before ἄνθρωπος is noticeable; not the man as contradistinguished from some others, but man, one possessing the nature, and in His work manifesting the attributes, of humanity. Not, however, as if this were all; for the very fact of Christ’s mediating between God and men implies that He was Himself something that other men were not: they men, indeed, but in a state that men should not occupy toward God (hence requiring a Mediator); He, man in the ideal or proper sense, true image and representative of God, and as such capable of restoring the relations which had been disturbed by sin, between Creator and creature, and rendering earth, as it was designed to be, the reflex of heaven. Man, therefore, is used here much in the same emphatic manner that Son of man was by Daniel in his prophetic vision (Dan 7:13), and by our Lord Himself in His public ministry; man as ordained by God to hold the lordship of this lower world, to hold it for God, and therefore to establish truth and righteousness through all its borders (Heb 2:6-18). He who should be this is the true Head as well as pattern of humanity—the New Man, and at the same time “the Lord from heaven,” because only as related to that higher sphere, and having at command powers essentially divine, could He either be or do what such an exalted position indispensably requires. So that the use made of this passage by Unitarians is without any just foundation.

Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all—ὁ δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων; a participial clause indicating how especially Christ did the part of Mediator = Christ Jesus—He who, as Mediator, gave Himself, etc. The expression plainly involves the idea of substitution, an exchange of forfeits, one in the room of all, and for their deliverance. The words are, with a slight variation, an adoption of our Lord’s own, who said that He came to give His life λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν (Mat 20:28). For that in both passages it is mainly the death of Christ by which the ransom was paid for, or in exchange of, the persons indicated by the many in the one place, and by the all in the other, can admit of no reasonable doubt. And as the apostle is here contemplating Christ as the Messiah that had been promised, and now come for mankind at large, it is perhaps most natural to understand the language here with reference to those prophetical passages which represent the Messiah as obtaining from the Father the heritage of all families or nations of the earth; not the preserved of Israel alone, nor a few scattered members besides of other nations, but also the fulness of the Gentiles (Psa 2:8, Psa 22:27; Isa 49:6; Luk 21:24). So Cocceius, who remarks: “When it is said that, Christ gave a ransom price for all, it is also signified that Christ of His own right demands all for His inheritance and possession. This, therefore, is a sure foundation for our prayers, that those whom the Father gave for an inheritance to the Son, we should ask may become the Son’s possession; and since Ave know that all are given to the Son, we should pray for all, because we know not at what time God may be going to give this rich inheritance to the Son, and who may belong to the inheritance of Christ, who not; yet we do know, that if we ask all, we shall imitate the love of the Son.”

The testimony—that which is to be testified or set forth—for its own seasons: a pregnant clause standing in apposition not to the immediately preceding term ransom, but to the whole participial clause, which declares Christ to have given Himself a ransom for all. “I understand it to mean,” says Scholfield (Hints for Imp. Version), “that the great fact of Christ’s having given Himself a ransom for all is that which is to be testified by His servants in His times; that is, in the times of the gospel: it is to be the great subject of their preaching.” (Καιροῖς ἰδίοις, the dative of time, the temporal sphere or space within which the action takes place; Winer, Gr. § 31. 9; Fritzsche on Rom 12:1, note. The own, however, is more appropriately coupled with the testimony than with Christ: comp. Gal 6:9; here, 1Ti 6:15; Tit 1:3.) The matter in question being primarily a fact—the death of Christ—but that fact in its doctrinal bearing as a ransom for the sins of men, it is here and in other places presented under the aspect of a testimony. It was above all other things the subject to which the apostles had to bear testimony, since it was through Christ’s name, as that of the crucified, atoning Saviour, that they proclaimed the pardon of sin and eternal life to the penitent. And its times—the times specially appropriate for the bearing of such a testimony, and the witnessing of its results—are those which follow the great event itself, and reach onward to the second advent. All was but preparatory before; it was the time only for the anticipations of hope respecting it, or the longings of spiritual desire. But with the introduction of the reality, there came also the period destined for its full and proper exhibition, that through belief of the testimony its merciful design might be realized. (See Appendix A.)

Appendix A—Page 119. The Peculiar Testimony for Gospel Times—1Ti 2:6

TO designate the truth that Christ gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony for its own (i.e. gospel) seasons or times, is so peculiar, and at the same time so important a statement, that some further illustration of it than could fitly be introduced into the text may not be out of place. Indeed, as matters now stand, it calls for vindication as well as for more lengthened exposition. The peculiarity and importance of the statement consist in the singular prominence given, not to the simple fact of the death of Christ, but to that death in the character of a ransom or redemption-price for sinful men—elevating this to the central place in God’s scheme as disclosed for gospel times. The death of Christ on the cross as a historical fact is recorded with great fulness by all the evangelists, and is unquestionably the most prominent subject in their respective narratives. But has it there the same doctrinal significance as is assigned to it by the apostle? This is now frequently called in question, and by some the teaching of St. Paul on the subject is expressly affirmed to be out of accord with that of Christ Himself as reported by His more immediate witnesses. Of the class referred to. Professor Jowett may be taken as one of the most eminent representatives. He says: (Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles, ii. p. 555.)—“It is hard to imagine that there can be any truer expression of the gospel than the words of Christ Himself, or that any truth omitted by Him is essential to the gospel. ‘The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant greater than his lord.’ The philosophy of Plato was not better understood by his followers than by himself; nor can we allow that the gospel is to be interpreted by the Epistles, or that the Sermon on the Mount is only half Christian, and needs the fuller inspiration or revelation of St. Paul, or the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. . . . How strange would it have seemed to the apostle St. Paul, who thought himself unworthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God, to find that his own words were preferred in after ages to those of Christ Himself! “To regard the teaching of the Epistles as an essential part of Christian doctrine, it is again said, “is to rank the authority of the words of Christ below that of apostles and evangelists.”

Now, representations of this sort proceed on the idea that Christ and His apostles stood related to each other just as Plato did to his followers; that they were alike simply teachers of certain moral or religious truths; and that, of course, the master-mind must have taught in a clearer and nobler strain than any who might sit at His feet. But this is not the view of the relation given by the Master Himself—not, at least, in its bearing upon the question at issue. Jesus Christ had not simply a doctrine to teach, but a work to do; and a work of which His doctrine in the fuller sense was to be but the proper exposition and the varied application. Hence the promise of the Holy Spirit so largely dwelt upon by Christ before His departure, as requisite to bring His disciples to a full knowledge and appreciation of the truth concerning Him. The revelation He had given of Himself, therefore, in the Gospels could not by possibility be the whole. The germ of all, indeed, was there, but not its development into a comprehensive scheme of truth and duty. There are sayings and discourses of Christ which are profound and large enough to embrace everything: as when He said, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh 3:16); or, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat 11:28); or, “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain man that made a great supper, and bade many” (Luk 14:16); and so on. But how much was still required to explicate the meaning of such statements, and show precisely what they involved respecting the work of Christ, and its adaptation to the wants and circumstances of mankind? Then, there were utterances of Christ which were thrown out as occasion offered—like seed-corn scattered here and there—but in which so little regard was had to systematic form or rounded completeness of representation, that, if taken apart, and without regard to acts and operations yet in prospect, which would shed a reconciling light upon them, might have seemed scarcely compatible with each other. For example, we find forgiveness of sin at one time coupled simply with the exercise of a penitent disposition, as in the case of the woman who was a sinner, or in the parable of the prodigal son (Luk 7:15); on other occasions with the manifestation of a forgiving spirit toward one’s fellow-sinners (Mat 6:12, Mat 6:14; Luk 6:37); while, again, in a different class of statements everything in that respect is made to depend upon the atoning death of Christ—as when He said that He came to give His life a ransom for many (Mat 9:28), or that He must die, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name (Mat 16:21; Luk 24:44-47), plainly pointing to His suffering obedience as the ground on which all hope of blessing was to rest.

Indeed, this one great fact of the death of Christ—its necessity, its priceless worth, and the essential relation it was to hold to the entire mission of Christ—obviously rendered His own teaching, during the period of His personal ministry, in a great degree fragmentary and incomplete. It was with His death (coupled, of course, with the resurrection that was to follow) that He connected the finishing of His work; it was in that He was to perfect Himself as the Messiah; and till the destined consummation actually took place, the doctrinal significance of it could not possibly be more than very partially revealed. It was then only that the mystery which had hung around God’s scheme of grace began to clear away, and that it became possible to present anything like a full and harmonious exhibition of the truths and principles embodied in it. All instructions delivered beforehand, though uttered by One who spake as man had never spoken, were in a doctrinal respect necessarily imperfect; they could not possess the perfect clearness of gospel light, because the consummating act still lay in the future, which was to constitute for all time the main ground of God’s gracious procedure toward men, and of their confidence and love toward Him. It hence is the mediatorial death of Christ, not the moment of His incarnation, or of His entrance on His public ministry, which forms the proper boundary line between the Old and the New. It is with the shedding of His blood for the remission of sins—as He distinctly announced at the institution of the supper—that the new covenant was ratified, and its provisions of grace and blessing were made for ever sure to a believing people. And so the doctrine taught up to that time could not be final; in other words, the utterances and facts of gospel history could not be seen in their proper force and meaning till the events had taken place to which they all more or less pointed. The Gospels, indeed, reveal much; but they themselves close with the expressed need and promise of further revelations, in order to set in its true light, and carry out to its moral results, the perfected work of the Redeemer. (Archbishop Whately long ago urged very cogently the considerations just stated: “How could our Lord, during His abode on earth, preach fully that scheme of salvation, of which the keystone had not been laid—even His meritorious sacrifice as an atonement for sin—His resurrection from the dead, and ascension into glory, when these events had not taken place? He did, indeed, darkly hint at these events in His discourses to His disciples by way of prophecy; but we are told that ‘the saying was hid from them, and they comprehended it not, till after that Christ was risen from the dead.’ Of course, therefore, there was no reason and no room for Him to enter into a full discussion of the doctrines dependent on those events. He left them to be enlightened in due time as to the true nature of His kingdom by the gift which He kept in store for them [the Holy Spirit]. . . . Our Lord’s discourses, therefore, while on earth, though they teach the truth, did not teach, nor could they have been meant to teach, the whole truth, as afterwards revealed to His disciples. What chance, then, can they have of attaining true Christian knowledge who shut their eyes to such obvious conclusions as these? who, under that idle plea, the misapplication of the maxim that ‘the disciple is not above his master,’ confine their attention entirely to the discourses of Christ recorded in the four Gospels, as containing all necessary truth; and if anything in the other parts of the sacred writings is forced upon their attention, studiously explain it away, so that it do not go a step beyond what is clearly revealed in the evangelists? As if a man should, in the culture of a fruit-tree, carefully destroy as a spurious excrescence every part of the fruit which was not fully developed in the blossom that preceded it.”—Essays on St. Paul, sec. 2 of Essay ii.)

What, then, do we find as to those further revelations, or that more explicit and developed knowledge, when we turn to the other books of the New Testament? Do we find our Lord still acting with a view to impart it? We do. His agency in this respect did not cease with His death, nor even with His ascension to the heavenly places. A period of instruction, we are expressly informed, intervened between His resurrection from the dead and His ascension to glory, during which He often met with the disciples, and expounded to them the things concerning the kingdom. Of these explanations we are merely told that they turned much upon the necessity of His sufferings and death, in order to the fulfilment of what had been written of Him in the law and the prophets; and the results of the teaching we naturally look for in the discourses and epistles which, under the power and guidance of the Spirit, were addressed by the apostles to those who received their testimony. It had now become, in a sense, the dispensation of the Spirit, but it was not the less the dispensation of Christ, the glorified Redeemer. And it is instructive to mark how beautifully the one is linked with the other in the narrative of the Acts, where the Spirit is represented as working all, yet working as the representative of Christ—carrying forward His agency, giving effect to His will. Hence, in the march of events we never lose sight of Christ, any more than of the Spirit: everything is done as under the direction of His hand, and the witness of His risen power and glory. It is the same when St. Paul comes upon the scene; it is Christ who, by the Spirit, arrests him in his career of persecuting violence, and calls him to the work of an apostle, furnishing him with the authority and gifts requisite for its discharge. Hence the apostle disclaimed his doing anything as of himself: the commission he bore was not of man, or by the will of men, but by Jesus Christ, or by the commandment of God our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ: the gospel he preached was received, not of man, but by revelation from Jesus Christ, so that the things he spake and wrote were to be acknowledged as the commandments of the Lord (1Co 14:37); and he and his fellow-labourers were but instruments to bear the treasure of the gospel, that others might believe as the Lord gave to every man. In short, the later history of the New Testament was but the varied manifestation of the continued life and agency of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the instrumentality of His delegated servants. He was, though personally unseen, giving articulate form to His gospel, and applying it to the salvation of souls and the planting of His church in the world. The voice of Paul or the voice of Peter speaking to the churches, was in effect the voice of Jesus. Hence He had Himself said from the outset, “He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me” (Luk 10:16).

Was the voice the same now, then, as when it came directly from Christ? The same, we reply, in substance, but with a difference of a circumstantial kind suited to the more advanced stage of things which had now been reached. It was no longer the objective Saviour merely, but this through the Spirit made manifest in the hearts of men: in other words, the facts concerning Christ’s person and work known and apprehended as doctrine; divine truth entering into human thought and human experience. On this account, also, it might be expected the word would be more effective, since everything would appear now at once in its proper harmony and proportions, and in its thorough adaptation to human wants and circumstances, enlightening the understanding, satisfying the heart and conscience, taking possession of the thoughts and feelings of the inner man.

Now this is precisely what we find in the representations given in the Acts and Epistles. Christ is throughout the great subject, or matter of the testimony delivered, and the instruction imparted. The apostles, we read in the Acts, “ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ;” of one it is said “that he preached Christ unto them;” of another, “that he preached Christ in the synagogues,” or, “he preached Jesus unto them, and the resurrection.” The Apostle Paul sums up his preaching, in one place, as “Christ and Him crucified, the power of God unto salvation;” in another, as “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ; “or, in the one immediately before us, as “the Mediator between God and man, who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony for its own seasons”—Heaven’s special testimony for the times of the gospel. In other passages we find the kingdom of God put along with the person of Christ as the subject of apostolic testimony. So St. Peter, for instance, on the day of Pentecost, when he gave the people to know assuredly that the “Jesus whom they had crucified was made both Lord and Christ”—that is, both King and Messiah, or King Messiah; and St. Paul, in the last notice we have of him in the history of the Acts, is said to have received those who came to him, “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This mode of representation, it will be observed, carries us back to the kind of preaching or proclamation of which we read in the Gospels: it connects the one with the other, but with an obvious advance as to the mode of doing it. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” That was the common style of preaching as reported in the Gospels, first of John Baptist, then of Jesus, finally of the twelve; and many a parable was taught by our Lord, having for their common object the kingdom of God, in its nature, its principles of administration, and final issues. But now, since Christ had finished the work which was required for laying the foundation of the kingdom in its New Testament form, the doctrine of the kingdom came to be all associated with Himself; the truth had come to its proper realization in Him; and to preach the things which concerned His person. His work, and the glory that followed, was at the same time to testify of the kingdom. All who really received Christ as the ground of their peace and hope, entered into the kingdom; they were “translated out of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son;” and what they thenceforth looked for was His appearance in the kingdom, when they also expected to appear with Him in glory. It was thus that the Spirit, through the preaching of the apostles, glorified Christ, in a way they could not possibly do during His sojourn upon earth. And, as a matter of course, the things testified respecting Him now were no longer simply facts, but facts as the basis of doctrine—facts with an interpretation put upon them which gave them a spiritual significance and power in relation to men’s spiritual life and well-being. “The Christ preached by the apostles was one who [had not only lived and wrought righteousness on earth, but also] had died and risen again, and whom the heavens had received till the time of the restitution of all things. In these three facts the manifestation of the Son of God had culminated, and in them the true character of His mission had appeared. The old carnal thoughts of it had been left in the grave, and could never rise from it again. It was ‘the Prince of Life’ who had risen from the dead; it was ‘the King of Glory’ who had passed into the heavens. And no less did these facts declare the spiritual consequences of His manifestation, since they carried with them the implication of those three corresponding gifts—the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” (Bernard, Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, p. 130.)

It thus appears how naturally, and by reason of the inevitable progress of events, the things concerning Christ assumed a more doctrinal form; or rather, how the facts which made up the earthly career of Christ necessarily became, on being completed, doctrines, and as such were preached in the name of Christ by apostles, and by the Holy Spirit were sealed upon the understandings and hearts of men. The question now was, not whether men simply believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but with what meaning or to what results did they accept of His Messiahship? Could they say, with St. Peter, “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved”? Or, with St. Paul, “By Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses”? To say this was to affirm the doctrine that Christ by His death had done, in respect to the desert of sin, what the old sacrificial system of the law could do only in a symbolical manner—that His death is the one great sacrifice that atones, because in it He bore our sins in His own body on the tree; and, consequently, that legal rites of propitiation must be done away, and no dependence rested on anything for salvation but the perfect work of Christ the crucified. This was the gospel of Peter and Paul; and when Paul accused the Galatians of accepting, through false teachers, another gospel, he did not mean to say that they denied the facts of Christ’s holy life and humiliating death, but that they understood these differently, failed to give them their proper moral significance—in other words, did not accredit and appreciate them in their true doctrinal import. So, also, when parties in the church of Corinth and elsewhere sought to couple with the faith of Christ a disbelief of the doctrine of the resurrection, or a licence to sin, they were denounced as really subverters of the faith, enemies of the cross of Christ, because practically robbing it of that moral worth and significance which in the scheme of God are inseparably connected with it.

Such is the gospel of Christ in its completed form—completed under the direction of Christ Himself, by the Spirit He gave and the instrumentality He appointed. It is simply the facts of His mediatory work in their spiritual bearing and personal application. Contemplated merely as facts or historical events, they stand outside of us, and may leave us morally much as we were. But when apprehended as doctrine, or appropriated by faith as the elements of saving knowledge, they enter into our consciousness; they touch the springs of thought and feeling in our bosom; they form the ground of new aspirations, the motives of a new and higher life. Without the facts, indeed, the doctrine might swim in the air; but without being seen in their doctrinal import, the facts would not be spirit and life to the soul.

We thus perceive the absurdity of attempting to separate Christianity from doctrine. Only as containing elements of doctrine does it become to us matter of truth and duty. Have I faith in Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of the world? Then I hold the doctrine of the incarnation, and realize its importance. Have I faith in the death of Christ, as the ground of my reconciliation with God? Then I hold the doctrine of the cross, or of a crucified Redeemer, as the one thing needful to my peace and hope. Have I faith in Christ as the conqueror of death, the resurrection and the life? Then I embrace Him as the source of a new and undying life, beginning here and perfected in eternity. Have I faith in Christ as ready to come again and appear on the throne of judgment? Then I hold the doctrine of the second advent, and recognise its bearing on my personal condition and destiny. Thus Christianity as a doctrine, is the root of Christianity as a life; reject it in the one respect, and you cut the sinews of its vitality and strength in the other.

But there is no difficulty in understanding how many should be disposed to make such a separation—disposed, that is, to accredit more or less of the recorded facts in Christ’s life, but make little or no account of them in their doctrinal aspects. So long as they are considered apart from these aspects, everything about them presents a kind of loose, sporadic appearance; and men may fix, some upon this, others upon that point in the life-history of Jesus as what, in their view, chiefly serves to make it valuable and important. There is, too, so much in that history, brief and chequered as it was, which appears attractive and winning even to the natural man—so much of grace and condescension, of disinterestedness in doing good, of compassion toward the miserable and unworthy, of readiness to brave the fiercest opposition, and to sacrifice life itself in the cause of truth and righteousness, that all the better feelings and sympathies of the heart can without difficulty be awakened, and turned toward the Son of man as exhibited in the Gospels with profound affection and regard; nay, can find there, as they can find nowhere else, what is fitted to interest and instruct them, in the varied circumstances and relations of life. But it is another thing when all that there was in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is brought out in the subsequent parts of the New Testament, and, under the form of doctrinal belief, presented to every Christian bosom as the ground and nourishment of a life devoted to God, and fraught with the fruits of righteousness. Under this aspect of matters the natural heart rebels, and seeks in a thousand ways to escape the unwelcome conclusion. It does so, often, by putting another than the natural interpretation on the facts of gospel history; or, if not, by allowing other things to intercept their due influence on the affections of the soul and the actions of the life. To enter aright into this part of gospel teaching—to accept and relish Christianity as exhibited by the apostles, and by them formed into a system of truth and duty—has for its essential prerequisite a mind that has become profoundly conscious of the guilt and danger of sin, and longs for an interest in the restored favour and blessing of God as the one great good. Whenever men reach this state of spiritual conviction and desire, they will be ready to hail the entire manifestation of the truth in Scripture, and will find but the fitting sequel of Christ’s own teaching, and the true explanation of His work in the world, in the discourses and writings of His apostles.

It is incumbent on all who would do the part of faithful representatives of Christ, and true exponents of His mind and will to men, to draw their materials from what He has thus made known to us as the whole of His counsel in regard to salvation. It is of special moment that they should do so in an age like the present, when many persons of note, biassed by the aims and spirit of literary or scientific culture, are disposed to take the gospel only in part, and refuse to go the full length of a cordial appreciation and belief of the truth. They will speak, perhaps, in the most approving terms of the simply human aspects of our Lord’s character, and of the moral qualities exhibited by Him in His career on earth; they will also frankly concede the impulse derived from the power of Christianity in raising the tone of thought and feeling among the nations that have received it, and ameliorating in many respects the condition of society. But in all this they restrict themselves to humanitarian ground, and appear to make account of nothing as actually true, or at least appreciable by them, except the incomparable excellence of Christ’s character, and the pure morality of the gospel. But had that been all, great and valuable as it is, should the results which even such writers acknowledge to have followed in the train of Christianity have been produced by it? What wonders have been achieved, what moral reformations accomplished, by such a Christianity in the hands of its formal abettors, the modern Unitarians? Has not the history of the past taught us to associate with them the stagnant marshes of Christianity, rather than its vivifying streams and fruitful fields? “The force which Christianity has applied to the world, and by which it has produced that change in the world which it has, is the doctrine of grace. There has been a new power actually working in the system, and that power has worked by other means besides doctrine; but still it is the law of God’s dealings with us to apply His power to us by means of our faith and belief in that power—that is, by doctrine. Faith in his own position, the belief at the bottom of every Christian’s heart that he stands in a different relation to God from a heathen, and has a supernatural source of strength,—this it is which has made him act, has been the rousing and elevating motive to the Christian body, and raised its moral practice.” (Mozley on Miracles, p. 182.)

Yes, for a Christianity of regenerating power and divine blessing, we must have the saving doctrines, as well as the historical facts and moral teaching, of the gospel wrought into men’s convictions and experience. The light shall otherwise want power to reach the conscience, and call forth the nobler acts of self-denying love and patient continuance in well-doing, which are the marks of a living Christianity. Only when there is a faith which embraces all the essential elements of truth and hope in Christ, and is itself sustained in the heart by the Spirit of God, is there a principle of life powerful enough to resist the desires of the flesh, and overcome the evil that is in the world. With such faith, however, the followers of Christ have no need to be afraid. They will prevail in the future as they have done in the past. “Their antagonists themselves will be their helpers;” for these will but serve to drive them the more closely to Christ, and cause them to drink more deeply from the well-spring of His salvation.

Patrick Fairbairn — An Exposition of Ezekiel (1851), Jonah (1849), and The Pastoral Epistles (1874) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The offer of salvation is universal, hence also intercessory prayer should be general:

v. 5. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,

v. 6. who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

v. 7. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not,) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.

v. 8. I will, therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

This fact, that the gracious will of God unto salvation extends to all men, is so important that Paul brings another point in support of his statement: For one God there is, one Mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, He that gave Himself as a ransom for many, to be attested to at His own time. There is only one true, revealed God, therefore there is only one gracious will unto salvation. The matter must not be represented as if God had one will for those that are saved, and another will for those that are damned. He has only one will, that of His grace and mercy, by which He desires all men to be saved. Furthermore: The Mediator Christ Jesus, God and man in one person, is one; the redemption is one. There is no varying degree of excellency and power for the various people in the world, as if the atonement were not just as full and complete for the gross transgressor as for the self-righteous moralist. The redemption of Christ Jesus is there for all men in the same degree. He is purposely designated the Mediator between God and men, for His atonement has come in between God and the sinful, condemned world and has restored the relation which should obtain between God and men. By becoming a true man, by taking upon Himself the sin, the guilt, the punishment, the death and damnation of mankind, He has made full satisfaction for all men; as the Advocate and Representative of all men He can step before God and demand full acknowledgment from divine justice for His satisfaction, for His work of redemption. All of this was accomplished through a single work of redemption, through the fact that Christ gave Himself as the ransom instead of all men. They should have been slaves in the power of the devil in all eternity, but He paid the full price to deliver them, and salvation is now prepared before the face of all men, to be attested to by all the ministers of the Gospel and by all Christians in this great age of fulfillment as the most glorious fact of all ages. All the world should hear this testimony, all men should be assured of salvation in Christ Jesus.

This thought gives the apostle an opportunity to point to his apostolic authority: For which I am ordained a herald and apostle, (the truth I say—I am not lying,) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Paul had been called, ordained, for this testimony, for this proclamation of the grace of God, particularly to the Gentiles, Act 9:15. His life’s work was that of being a herald of the Lord, of preaching the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins, 1Co 9:27; 1Co 15:12. Moreover, he belonged to the special ministers of God, to the men that had been fitted out, endowed with special apostolic power and authority. In the face of all actual and possible opposition on the part of errorists, of Judaizing teachers, the apostle can place the calm asseveration that he is not guilty of lying, but is speaking nothing but the truth. Paul could not and would not yield his position for one minute, for he was responsible to God for its proper upholding. He is a teacher of the Gentiles in faithfulness and truth. These were the two attributes which characterized his work; to these he could point without undue self-glorification; they were evident before the eyes of all men in his ministry.

With the reasons for general prayer thus abundantly established, the apostle now resumes his admonition: It is my will, then, that the men should pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, without anger and doubt. The apostle’s tone here is very solemn and emphatic, he delivers his charge by virtue of his apostolic authority. The men should pray, they should have charge of the prayers in public worship. In every place such prayers should be offered, for the worship of the New Testament is not confined to any particular buildings or holy localities. No matter where a Christian congregation meets for worship, whether that be in the finest cathedral or in a sod-house on the prairie, the prayers are acceptable to God. Only they must be made in such a way that the men raise holy hands, lifting them up in a gesture of prayer which was in use in the Church of the Old Testament as well as in that of the New. Holy, pure hands are mentioned as representing the proper condition of the whole body, for a heart that is filled with thoughts and projects at variance with the holy will of God cannot pray acceptably, and the finest gesture of prayer is hypocrisy in such a case. Therefore Paul adds: Without anger and doubt. So far as men are concerned, the heart of those that pray, in public worship must be free from bitterness, vengeance, hatred, wrath. And so far as the Lord is concerned, a heart that expresses a prayer and still is filled with doubts as to the possible fulfillment of the prayer, defeats its own ends. Doubt not only interferes very seriously with the earnestness of prayer, but actually neutralizes its effects, for doubt is unbelief.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The apostle’s argument runs thus: We ought to pray for all, because there is one God who is good to all, and one Mediator between God and mankind, who took upon him the common nature of all men, and gave himself a satisfactory and sufficient ransom for all, which was in due time testified and borne witness to by us his apostles.

Learn hence, 1. That the only way of friendly intercourse between God and fallen man, is by and through a Mediator. God cannot look upon fallen men out of a Mediator, but as rebels, traitors, and objects of his vindictive wrath; nor can fallen man, without a Mediator, look up to God, but as a provoked majesty, an angry judge, and a consuming fire.

Learn, 2. That there is no other Mediator between God and man, but Jesus Christ, who was both God and man; for though the apostle calls him the Man Christ Jesus, this is not added to exclude the divine nature from the Mediatorship, but emphatically to declare that nature in which he gave himself a ransom for us; the human nature is the matter of our ransom; the divine nature gave worth and value to it; Christ suffered being man, and satisfied being God.

Learn, 3. That this one Mediator, Jesus Christ, gave himself a ransom for all; whoever perishes under the gospel, it is not because no ransom was paid for him, nor because it was not sufficient for him, for it is most notorious that God has issued forth an universal act of grace, offering pardon of sin and eternal salvation to all men without exception, living under the gospel, upon condition of their believing acceptance; if they reject and refuse it, ’tis to their unutterable and inevitable condemnation.--

Learn, 4. That Christ’s mediation and intercession is founded upon redemption; because he gave himself a ransom for all therefore is he, and he only, qualified to intercede for all, in virtue of that sacrifice which he offered for the salvation of mankind: therefore the distinction of the church of Rome, between a mediator of redemption, and a mediator of intercession, is groundless: for who dares plead with an offended god as an intercessor on the behalf of sinners, that has not first, as a redeemer, satisfied the justice of God for sin? As there was no redemption wrought by any, so there is no intercession to be made by any, but by Christ; as there is but one God, so but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5–7. For there is one God. One God of all men, not many gods. Hence the One God desires equally the salvation of all his creatures. And one mediator. For all men. The gospel scheme is universal. The man, Christ Jesus. Taking upon himself manhood in order to be the Savior of all men.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

one mediator for God and man

A mediator is a person who helps negotiate a peaceful settlement between two parties who disagree with each other. Here Jesus helps sinners enter into a peaceful relationship with God.

gave himself

"died willingly"

as a ransom

"as a price of freedom" or "as a payment to obtain freedom"

as the testimony at the right time

It can be made explicit that this was the testimony that God wants to save all people. AT: "as the proof at the right time that God wants to save all people" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

at the right time

This means that this was the time that God had chosen.

For this purpose

"For this" or "For this reason"

I myself, was made a herald and an apostle

This can be stated in active form. AT: "Christ made me, Paul, a preacher and an apostle" (See: Active or Passive)

I am a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth

"I teach the Gentiles the message of faith and truth." Here, Paul may be using "faith" and truth" to express one idea. AT: "I teach the Gentiles about the true faith" (See: Hendiadys)

translationWords

God

mediator

Jesus

ransom

testimony

apostle

true

teacher

Gentile

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

5–7. FURTHER REASONS FOR THE DOCTRINE THAT ALL MEN COME WITHIN THE SCOPE OF GOD’S SAVING PURPOSE

These are threefold, (i.) the Unity of God, (ii.) the Incarnation, and (iii.) the Atonement of Christ. To take them in order:

(i.) 5. εἶς γὰρ θεός, for God is one. This is connected immediately with 1Ti 2:4, and only indirectly with 1Ti 2:1. The Unity of God was indeed the centre of the Hebrew religion, but the inference here derived from it was not self-evident to the mind of the Jew. To him Jehovah was the God of the chosen people, and the exclusion of Gentiles from His grace and bounty did not present itself as strange or inconsistent with the character of the Supreme. But when it is analysed the conception of the Unity of God is seen to carry with it the truth that the Supreme stands in the same ultimate relation to all His creatures, and that His Divine purposes of love and mercy must embrace all mankind. So St Paul explains in Rom 3:30 that God is the God of Gentile as well as Jew, εἴπερ εἶς ὁ θεός, ὄς δικαιώσει περιτομὴν ἐκ πίστεως καὶ ἀκροβυστίαν διὰ τῆς πίστεως; cp. also Rom 10:12.

(ii.) There is also one mediator between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus. As there is only one God, so there is only one Way to God: “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (Joh 14:6). Christ is the only Mediator (the mediation of saints or angels is quite unscriptural), and He has, in becoming man, taken up all human nature into Himself. In Him all men are summed up, and so He is the representative, not of this or that man only, but of all mankind. Thus, again, all men in Him “shall be made alive”; the saving graces of the Risen Lord are placed within the reach of all. This is clearly brought out in the words ἄνθρωπος Χρ. Ἰη. at the end of the clause. Christ is not a man, but man in the widest sense.

The title μεσίτης must not be overlooked. In Gal 3:19 it is used of Moses (as in the Assumptio Moysis, i. 14, iii. 12, and in Philo, Vit. Mos. iii. 19); but frequently in Hebrews of our Lord. In the latter Epistle it is always found in conjunction with διαθήκη. In the present case it is used more simply than in either of the other Epp. where it occurs, and indicates that as there is only one mediator or go-between between God and man, so the way of mediation must be alike open to all. This is brought out forcibly by the addition of the word ἄνθρωπος (without the article) at the end, which involves in itself, as has been shewn, the universal bounty of the Incarnation. It is possible that there was here present to St Paul’s mind the contrast between Moses the μεσίτης for the Jews only, and the Mediator of a new covenant (Heb 9:15), whose mediation was for all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike.

(iii.) 6. The third doctrinal reason for the salvability of all men, is the universal purpose of the Atonement: ὁ δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων. Jesus Christ gave Himself a ransom on behalf of all, and hence we may conclude that it is God’s will that all should be saved. The phraseology requires careful attention. ὁ δοὺς ἑαυτόν, He gave Himself, not merely His Death. Cp. Gal 1:4; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2; Tit 2:14, &c., and δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν (Mat 20:28 ║ Mar 10:45). ἀντίλυτρον is a word occurring only here, though the full meaning of it is contained in the passage last cited from the Gospels; the doctrinal bearing of the preposition is by no means to be lost sight of. The usual language of the N.T. is, that Christ died ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, i.e. on our behalf; but at Mat 20:28 the prep. ἀντί is used. Here we have the compound ἀντίλυτρον preceding ὑπὲρ πάντων, which suggests that both the elements represented by ἀντί instead of, and ὑπέρ on behalf of, must enter into any Scriptural theory of the Atonement. Cp. 4Ma 6:29.

τὸ μαρτύριον καιροῖς ἰδίοις. The testimony in its own seasons. These words are parenthetical, and in apposition to all that has gone before. τὸ μαρτύριον is equivalent to τὸ μαρτυρούμενον, the thing which is testified to, the purport of the Church’s witness. The great subject of the testimony to be borne by the Church from age to age is the Universality of Redemption through the One Mediator. The antecedent is not merely ὁ δοῦς … πάντων, but the whole of 1Ti 2:4-6. This witness was not of a character which could have been borne by the Jewish Church; it was reserved for the dispensation of the Gospel, καιροῖς ἰδίοις.

The formula καιροῖς ἱδίοις occurs twice again in the Pastoral Epistles, at 1Ti 6:15 and Tit 1:3, in the former of which passages the reference of ἰδίοις is clearly defined by the context to God, the subject of the sentence in each case. Here (as at Tit 1:3) it is simply in due seasons as in Gal 6:9, καιρῷ γὰρ ἰδίῳ κ.τ.λ., and the outlook is to the future of the Church.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5-7. 5-6 expand σωθῆναι, 7 expands εἰς ἐπίγν. ἀληθ. ἐλθεῖν.

5. εἷς.] Correlative to πάντας One, and therefore with a will for all mankind, for Gentile as well as Jew; cf. Rom 3:29, Rom 3:30 ἢ Ἰουδαίων ὁ θεὸς μόνον; οὐχὶ καὶ ἐθνῶν; ναὶ καὶ ἐθνῶν, εἴπερ εἷς ὁ θεός, Eph 3:4-6 and Isa 45:20-23. There may also be an implied antithesis “one and not many” (cf. 1Co 8:4-6).

εἷς καὶ μεσίτης] one mediator able to represent both God and man entirely (cf. Iren. iv. 20, “hominibus ostendens Deum, Deo autem exhibens hominem”), again with an implied antithesis, one and not more: not Moses any longer (Gal 3:19; Philo, de Vita Mosis, ii. 166, οἷα μεσίτης καὶ διαλλακτὴς . . . τὰς ὑπὲρ οῦ ἔθνους ἱκεσίας καὶ λιτὰς ἐποιεῖτο), not any Jewish High Priest (Heb 8:6, Heb 8:9, 15, Heb 8:12:24), nor any angel (Col 2:18, Heb 2:16; Test. XII. Patr., Dan, c. 6, ἐγγίζετε τῷ θεῷ καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῷ παραιτουμένῳ ὑμᾶς· ὅτι οὗτος ἐστι μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἐπὶ τῆς εἰτήνης Ἰσραήλ: Philo, Bible. Antiq. xxxii. 14), nor any being in the mysteries intermediate between God and the creation, like Mithras (Cumont, Les mysteres de Mithra3, pp. 129, 139), nor any Gnostic æon intermediate between God and the world. Philo had regarded the Word of God as occupying such an intermediate position; cf. Quis rerum div. hær. 42, where He is described as ἱκέτης τοῦ θνητοῦ and πρεσβευτὴς τοῦ ἡγεμόνος πρὸς τὸ ὑπήκοον. Christ Jesus has embodied this function in a human life.

ἄνθρωπος] The Divine side is assumed: the human only mentioned, as he is thinking of the gift given in the human life, a true man, no angel, no mere phantom appearance, but one living a human historic life, a “second Adam,” “The Son of man.” There is much to be said for Lachmann’s punctuation, putting the comma after ἄνθρωπος. For there is one only God, one only man too, representative of God and man, viz. Christ Jesus.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For [γαρ] . The universality of the grace is grounded in the unity of God. Comp. Rom 3:30. One divine purpose for all implies one God who purposes.

One God. These Epistles deal much with the divine attributes. See 1Ti 1:17; 1Ti 6:13, 15, 16; 1Ti 3:156; 1Ti 4:10; 2Ti 2:13; Tit 1:2. Mediator [μεσιτης] See on Gal 3:19. The word twice in Paul, Gal 3:29, 20, once of Moses and once generally. In Hebrews always of Christ; Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15, Heb 12:24. This is the only instance in the pastorals. As the one God, so the one mediato implies the extension of the saving purpose to all.

The man Christ Jesus. The phrase only here.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.