. 296). This use of the word is parallel to St.
aul’s in Gal 3°. ®, where the apostle applies it to Moses as the agent through whom the covenant of the law was introduced. In both cases we have only the descending mediation, the mediator repre- senting and executing God’s will among men, But though the author does not use the title for the other aspect of mediation, he is most explicit in teaching the truth that represents in effect the Godward side of mediation. This is implied in the riestly work of Christ. Like the Levitical priests,
hrist approaches God on our behalf; but with these important differences, that He not only effects much more than Aaron eflected for Israel, but also brings His people directly into the Divine Presence. Subse pent the argument roceeds to develop the idea ot the sacrifice of Phrist in contrast with the Jewish sacrifices, and here it directly deals with the Godward aspect of mediation. Christ offers the sacrifice of Himself to God (9%). Later, contrasting this sacrifice of Christ’s with the Jewish rites, the author quotes Ps 40, where God says He has no pleasure in burnt- offerings and sacrifices for sin, and where the Psalmist promises instead of such oblations the offer of his own service to do the will of God. That surrender of obedience is taken over by the author of Hebrews and applied to Christ as the essence of His sacrifice. By this will, i.e. by Christ thus doing God’s will, we are sanctified. But such obedience involves dying, it is carried out to the very end and consummated in death (cf. Ph 2° ‘becoming obedient unto death’); and thus it is offered as a ‘ sacrifice for sins.’ This is so effectual that it needs to be offered but once, while the Jewish sacrifices were repeated (He 10'"), Here we have most distinctly set forth the Godward aspect of mediation. It is ee to under- stand the writer’s doctrine of Christ’s sacrifice merely as God sacrificing Himself in the person of His Son in the sense of giving Himself to us, for he distinctly says that the sacrifice is offered by Christ ‘unto God’ (τῷ θεῷ, 9). The efficacy of this is widespread. It is to cleanse the conscience from dead works to serve the living God (9"), for ‘the redemption of transgressions’ (v.¥), ‘te
320 MEDIATOR, MEDIATION put away sin’ (v.™), a ‘sacrifice for sins’ (ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν, 10'), and so leading to ‘remission of sins’ (105). At the same time it is for the confirmation of the new covenant. The author connects the death of Christ with this result in two ways: reading the word for covenant (διαθήκη) in the classical Gr. sense as a will [but see Westcott, ad Joc.], he argues that for the will to take effect there must be death (9!7); then, returning to the idea of covenant, he compares the blood of Christ to that of the sacrifice which confirms a covenant (Ex 24°). ἃ. St. John.—(a) The Johannine theology as represented in the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles. wFrhe Prologue to the Gospel introduces the Logos as the mediator of creation and revelation, the title probably coming from Philo and Stoic usage, but the idea from Hebrew conceptions of the ‘Memra’ [see JOHN, vol. ii. p. 685). God’s revela- tion in nature (Jn 1’), in prophecy (νν. δ 8), in consciousness (νυν. 10), and in the incarnation (vv.4-15), is in every case mediated by the Logos, who is a Divine Being, in intimate relations with God, and Himself essentially God, yet with a certain personal distinction from God (1). God ives eternal life to the world through Christ (315). Ὁ have the Son is to have the life, and not to have the Son is not to have the life (1 Jn 5%). It is through Him that we receive the knowledge of truth and God (v.”). Other ideas of the same character are contained in St. John’s accounts of the teachings of Christ, referred to above. Then the apostle distinctly sets out the other aspect of mediation, in the atonement for sin offered by our Lord. Christ was ‘manifested to take away sins’ (or ‘ bear sins,’ RVm; Gr. ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἄρῃ, 1 Jn 35). Compare St. John’s report of John the Baptist’s words about ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away (RVm ‘beareth,’ Gr. αἴρων) the sin of the world’ (Jn 159). More specifically St. John describes Jesus Christ as ‘an advocate’ (παρά- xAnrov) with the Father (1 Jn 2"), i.e. as a pleader who mediates on our behalf, and represents our case to God; and as a ‘propitiation for our sins’ (ἱλασμός ἐστιν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, 33). It is to be observed that the word rendered ‘ propitiation’ is not the same as that employed by St. Paul in Ro 3% (ἱλαστήριον), and signifies distinctly either an act of Ἐπορτ δέοι or, in Alexandrine usage, a means of propitiating (e.g. Nu 5°, Ly 25°). In 2 Mac 838 ποιεῖσθαι ἱλασμόν is used of a priest making a propitiatory sacrifice (see Thayer-Grimm). Ac- cordingly St. John seems to mean that Christ is the propitiatory sacrifice. He had said earlier that ‘the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin’ (1 Jn 1"); where, as usual, the word d/ood, written by a Jew with reference to cleansing from sin, must refer to a sacrificial idea. Thus by His death Christ becomes the sacrifice which removes the guilt of sin, and secures forgiveness for the enitent. In common with other NT writers, St. ohn does not explain the rationale of the process. (8) The idea οἵ mediation in the Apocalypse.— Both aspects of mediation are here presented to us. On the one hand, Jesus has come from God with truth and grace, and will come again to execute judgment. He is the Logos, ‘The Word of God’ (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ, 1915), and so the source of revelation. He is the ‘Living One’ (ὁ ζῶν, 4% 1° 10°), and therefore the source of life. He appears as the mediator of creation, like the Logos in the Gospel, for He is ‘the beginning of the creation of God’ (ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ, 34). Beyschlag understands this to mean the first being created (NT Theol. ii. 381); but most interpreters regard the ἀρχή as independent of creation, its determin- ing principle (so Weiss, Gebhardt, Lechler, Bousset, Briggs, Stevens, οἷο). Further, he holds the keys of Hades and of death (118), i.e. determines who