God has Provided a Mediator

Job 9:32–33: “For He is not a man, as I am, that I may answer Him, and that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, who may lay his hand on us both.”

God is not human. He is not a flawed man that we can simply sit down and meet with on equal footing. Job understood that God was holy and he was not. He recognized that he was spiritually bankrupt before God and couldn’t even approach Him without there being someone to represent him, a mediator or go-between. Jesus said in the New Testament, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), those who have an understanding of their spiritual poverty before God. Job had that understanding and because of it was going to be so blessed in just a few short chapters. Unfortunately, many of us today are much more blind to our own spiritual condition than Job was. In our arrogance, we seem to have no trouble placing ourselves on the same level as the Creator of the universe. We often hear people say to God, “Why are you doing this to me?” Spiritual eyesight is essential if we are to have a relationship with God.

I read of a 50-year-old man who underwent a delicate new surgical procedure on both eyes. He had been born blind and had never experienced sight. When he woke from the successful surgery, he was overwhelmed. “I never would have dreamed that yellow is so—yellow,” he exclaimed. “I don’t have the words. I am amazed by yellow, but red is my favorite color. I just can’t believe red. You could never know how wonderful everything is.” This man is probably right in that those of us who have lived a lifetime with sight, take it for granted and will never know just how wonderful it really is.

However, every one of us is born spiritually blind. Jesus told a religious man named Nicodemus that a second birth was required for spiritual sight (John 3). Jesus is waiting for us to recognize our poverty, to understand that we need someone to go to God on our behalf, because He has already done just that on the cross. He is our mediator, our go-between, our surgeon, who has made a way for us to come before God, made a way for us to receive an amazing operation on our spiritual eyes so that we can go from dark blindness to vivid sight.

“LORD, please be our mediator again this day between our sinful flesh and holy God.”