008 SCS One Mediator

Welcome back to the Sad Catholic Show! I’m glad you are here. Today I want to talk to you about first Timothy Chapter 2 verse 5.

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”

This verse has been twisted into knots by so many people. Some use this to say that only Jesus can pray to the Father for us.

Let’s start there because it is the simplest to address.  The verse says nothing about the Father. It says “there is one God”. Any Trinitarian Christian should see this immediately. We know, believe, and we teach that there is ONE God, made up of three person, all of the same substance that is “God”.

Notice next what this verse says about Jesus. Saint Paul is distinguishing the humanity of Jesus from the divinity of Jesus when he said “the Man Christ Jesus”. What does this mean?For that answer we have to wade a little deeper into the water on this. “The man Christ Jesus”.  Jesus is born of “The seed of Woman” (Genesis  Chapter 3 verse 15), overshadowed by God in the person of the Holy Spirit (Luke Chapter 1 verse 35). There is no male seed involved, yet Jesus was born male, (which is a miracle). The Humanity in the Seed of the Woman and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit combined to bring forth a human person that is fully man, and is also Fully Divine as the second person of the Holy Trinity, which is God. We call this the hypostatic union.

Hypostatic Union is a theological term used with reference to the Incarnation to express the revealed truth that in Jesus Christ one person subsists in two natures, the Divine and the human. Hypostasis means, literally, “that which lies beneath as basis or foundation”. It was used by the Greek philosophers to denote reality as distinguished from appearances. It occurs also in St. Paul’s Epistles. It was brought about gradually in the course of the controversies ivolving Christological heresies, and was definitively established by the Council of Chalcedon in 4 51, which declared that in Christ the two natures, each retaining its own properties, are united in one subsistence. They are not joined in a moral or accidental union, nor commingled, nevertheless they are substantially united.

To see why this matters, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis Chapter 1 verse 26 we are told: “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

It is at that time that Divinity (God) created Humanity (Man). But why was humanity created? To be united in relationship and communion with God. Genesis Chapter 3 verse 8 tells us “the LORD God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God.”

Why did they do this? Because they (humanity) sinned. This sin broke the unity between Divinity and Humanity. Mans attempts to reconnect with God fail time and time again throughout the Old Testament.

Only in the hypostatic union of Jesus Himself, being 100% divinity, and 100% humanity, was the union able to be reconnected permanently with God and Man. This union is locked in eternally in the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that ALL of humanity will be saved, what it means is that ALL of humanity can never again be separated from Divinity.  Individually we can still reject God, but humanity itself cannot. In the person of Jesus Christ Divinity and Humanity are reconciled eternally. He alone forever intervenes between the two parties in eternal peace and friendship. 

When Jesus died on the cross, the deal was sealed, and humanity once again had access to the divine. Matthew Chapter 27 verses 50 through 54 tell us:

“ But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, and they said, “Truly, this was the Son of God!”

We see further proof of this. Jesus preached to the spirits held captive while He Himself was in the tomb. Look at first Peter Chapter 3 verses 18 through 22:

“For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. 

In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. 

This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains,

Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell”—Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek—because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell. Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him. (C C C 6 33)

Now that Humanity had been rejoined to Divinity through the hypostatic union of the one person Jesus Christ, who Himself now went from physical life to physical death, thus opening access to heaven, the just that had gone before Him were no longer held captive in Abraham’s bosom, they could finally enter heaven and commune with God for eternity!

Now let’s go back to first Timothy chapter 2 verse 5:

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”

The word “mediator” here is an English word translated from the Greek word mes-ee’-tace.

Which is defined as: “one who intervenes between two, either in order to make or restore peace and friendship, or form a compact, or for ratifying a covenant”

This definition perfectly describes what we’ve just talked about in the hypostatic union of Jesus. 

I am not entirely sure where so many people got the idea that Jesus being the only mediator between God and man in ANY way suggests that only Jesus can pray for us to the Father. Jesus IS God, The verse doesn’t mention the Father, and Sacred Scripture is FULL of verses instructing us to pray for each other. Including the 4 verses JUST before this one. Now let’s look at it in context.

First Timothy Chapter 2 verses 1 through 6 say:

“First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus,  himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time”

Knowing what we know now, doesn’t it seem a bit silly to say that this one verse in the middle of this section of first Timothy Chapter 2 means that only Jesus can pray for us? Christ being the only mediator, the only one able to reconcile Divinity with Humanity for eternity, is SO much bigger than who can or can’t pray for us, or who we can or can’t ASK to pray for us. Especially when read in context.

With a deeper knowledge of “mediator” and the reconciliation of Divinity and Humanity in the hypostatic union of the Person Jesus Christ, my “prayer” for each of us is that we can stop fighting about who can or can’t pray for us and instead hit our knees and pray for everyone! And ask them to pray for everyone else too! As Saint Paul said “prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone”.

Keep that in mind as you pray this week, and please help correct people that have this all wrong when they cross your path. We need to speak the truth when given the opportunity.

Be kind to others, and try to be happy.

Let me be the only Sad Catholic.

Until Next Time! -Sad