Book Review: Mediator by Vern S. Poythress

The question that Vern Poythress presents before us in his latest book, Mediator: A Biblical Theology, is how immoral people approach a holy God? How can people who are morally corrupt come up to a God who is beyond corruption? As Christians, we know we cannot come to God on our own because we are sinners that deserve the wrath of God.

God provided a mediator for us in the Person of Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5, LSB). Christ is the reason those who put their faith and trust in Him can approach a holy God. 

We know Christ is our absolute mediator, but the way Poythress was communicating in his book, there were other mediators especially in the Old Testament. Now those mediators did not take away sin like Christ does, but they were means of approaching God. 

Some of the examples of the Old Testament Poythress showed was the Tree of Life, the Covenant, and even the Prophets. To be honest, I understand where he was coming from, but I thought they were a bit of a stretch and going beyond what was written in that aspect. Not accusing Poythress of being a false teacher, but I think he was executing bad exegesis.

When it came to the New Testament, the book took a needed 180 because Poythress showed the entire ministry of Jesus pointed to Him as our Mediator.  He is fulfilled the law of God which is why He is our absolute mediator. 

To be honest, I was expecting more for Poythress on this subject. Granted, when it came to teaching about Christ being our mediator, it was pretty solid. The first half of the book felt like they were just page fillers. It was a good attempt on this topic, but I think it was poorly executed.

I received this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review. 

Joel Beeke: Soli Deo Gloria

This message took place during the Sola Conference at Countryside Bible Church in Southlake, Tx:   

Nathan Busenitz: Solus Christus

This message took place during the Sola Conference at Countryside Bible Church in Southlake, Tx:   

Ian Hamilton: Sola Gratia

This message took place during the Sola Conference at Countryside Bible Church in Southlake, Tx:   

Nathan Busenitz: Sola Fide

This message took place during the Sola Conference at Countryside Bible Church in Southlake, Tx:   

Tom Pennington: Sola Scriptura

This message took place during the Sola Conference at Countryside Bible Church in Southlake, Tx:   

Jim Osman: Four Reformation Gospel Truths

Keith Foskey: Did James Contradict Paul on Faith Alone?

R.C. Sproul on the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

Does 2 Peter 3:9 Disprove the Doctrine of Election?

We must always apply sound rules of exegesis to the Scriptures. Peter accepted the Old Testament’s teaching about the nature of God. He knew Psalm 135:6 and Psalm 115:3, and the truth that whatever God pleases, He does. And, since we have already seen that repentance is the gift of God, could He not give repentance to anyone He chooses? Finally, the context of the passage must be consulted. 2 Peter is written to the elect, as 2 Peter 1:1 shows. In chapter 3, Peter is explaining the delay of the parousia, that is, the coming of Christ. He explains that Christ will indeed return, and that the delay is in order that God may gather His people. “He is patient with you,” Peter writes to God’s people, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” The “everyone” is in reference to all of God’s elect. The only reason that you are reading this book nearly 2,000 years later is because God has been patient, giving the world all this time, so that all of God’s elect could be gathered in.

Adapted from The Sovereign Grace of God by James White

Soli Deo Gloria

All of our lives are to live for the glory of God alone (Soli Deo Gloria). Our salvation, by grace through faith in Christ is for the glory of God. The scriptures tell we were made for God's glory (see Isaiah 43:7) and everything we do; we must do it for the glory of God:

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Colossians 3:17).

Living for the glory of God is not legalistic but it is the response of one who have been genuinely saved by Christ.  

Sola Scriptura

Scripture alone (sola scriptura) means that the Bible is highest and final authority for all believers for faith and practice. It does not mean the Bible is our only authority nor does it mean the Bible tells us everything. 

The Bible is not a science book, nor does it tell us how to build a computer. We have been granted "everything pertaining to life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3), which comes from the Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote:

All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The Bible is God's Word and is sufficient for all who believe in Jesus. We go to the Bible as our final authority. Our pastors, the commentaries we read, the podcasts we listen to, and that televangelist we see on TV are not the final authority. It is scripture. 

In Acts 17, we see the Apostle Paul bringing the word to the Bereans where "they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). The Bereans examined the scriptures to fact-check Paul's teaching which is something every believe needs to do. Imagine how many Christians would not be deceived if they open their Bibles and see what false teaching is being presented before them because scripture is our final authority. 

Dreams and visions should be checked as well because they can lead us astray. Someone who claims to have a "word from the Lord" should be checked as well. Thankfully, "we have as more sure the prophetic word, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts" (2 Peter 1:19). 

God's Word is our final authority. God's word is enough. 

Solus Christus

We are saved by one man who is our mediator, Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). Christ came to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). He alone can save us.

Why? He fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17). We could never live a perfect, obedient life before a holy God to save us. We are all sinners and fallen short of God's glory (see Romans 3:23). We cannot come to God on our merit, we needed someone in our place to do that.

Jesus was God in the flesh. He came as man and as God. He came to bring about peace but not a peace the world understands (see John 14:27). Christ saved us from the wrath of God by His life (see Romans 5:9-10).

Christ was a righteous man who suffered for us to bring us to God (see 1 Peter 3:18).  Now, some would say that Christ was given righteousness because He fulfilled the law. Nope. He is righteous:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2).

Christ was not given righteousness. He is righteous.

In the 1 John passage, Christ was called the propitiation, which is a word not commonly used today. In fact, it is only mentioned three other times in the New Testament (Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, and 1 John 4:10). What does this mean? Burk Parsons said:

...the word propitiation simply put means "satisfaction." It means that Christ, in His perfect life and atoning, substitutionary death, that He satisfied the wrath of God against our sin and against us. It wasn't that He simply satisfied or assuaged God's wrath against sin; He assuaged God's wrath against us.

Christ took God's wrath meant for us to satisfy His righteous anger against us. Christ could only do this if He fulfilled God's law. Who else meets this requirement? No one. No other religion had their founder, which for Christians it is Christ (Hebrews 12:2), died for them.

Jesus Christ is the only One who can save us from our sins and that is why we say we are saved by Christ alone.

Sola Gratia

Sola Gratia means that we are saved by grace alone, which is one of the five solas in the Reformation. Many do not understand what grace is. To put it simply, grace means getting what we do not deserve. Contrast with mercy which is not getting what we deserve. Grace is receiving from God what we did not earn nor worked for. 

The Bible says:

But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:21-24).

The Apostle Paul tells us that God has given us a righteousness apart from obeying the law. That righteousness comes from Christ who lived a perfect life on our behalf. We all have sinned, yet God has given us grace as a gift. Paul used Abraham to illustrate his point:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about—but not before God! For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not counted according to grace, but according to what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” (Romans 4:1-8)

Grace is nothing that is owed to us. We do not deserve anything from God. God owes us nothing except damnation because we are sinners yet He "demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The wages of our sin is death but God's free gift is eternal life in Christ (Romans 6:23), which is given to us by grace alone through faith (Ephesians 2:8). 

Gabriel Hughes on Justification by Faith Alone

Sola Fide

One of the solas of the reformation is sola fide which means that we are saved by faith alone. We are not saved by works. The Bible tells us:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

He saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7).

nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified (Galatians 2:16).

The Bible is clear that works will never save us no matter how good they are or the intention of our hearts. Because of our sin, God demanded perfect obedience for all His children. There were 613 laws and if you break just one, you are convicted as breaking all of it (see James 2:10).

Jesus came to fulfill the Law on our behalf. The Bible says:

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill (Matthew 5:17).

Jesus lived on our behalf so that He could die on the cross to be the perfect sacrifice:

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:10).

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Three days after His death, God rose Jesus from the dead because He accepted the sacrifice of Jesus in our place (see Romans 4:24-25). We received eternal life through Jesus by faith not by works which we can never boast about because we boast in Him:

Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law (Romans 3:27-28).

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31).

We are not saved by works; however we are saved for works as the evidence of one who has been given eternal life from God the Father:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

What use is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith; and I have works. Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26).

We are saved by faith alone which is backed up by the works God has given us to walk in obedience to Him as a response to this salvation He has given us.

Unconditional Election explained in less than 5 Minutes

The following video is from The Chorus in the Chaos:

The Debate Between James White and Jason Breda on the Reformed Doctrine of Atonement

Does Regeneration Proceed Faith?

One of the classic arguments against Calvinism is the belief of regeneration proceeding faith. Many non-Calvinists would say, no faith always comes first then we are regenerated. That does sound nice, but it is not biblical. What is implied by saying faith proceeds regeneration is our salvation is based on our decision to trust in Christ. They are saying we determine our salvation which is very unsound.

Does the Bible teach that regeneration proceeds faith? Yes, it does. Jesus said, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out..No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:37, 44, LSB). God is the One who draws to Jesus (regeneration), and He will never cast us away from Him (faith). 

Ephesians 2:1 says we were dead on our transgressions and sins. How do dead people come back to life on their own. They cannot. We need someone to bring us up from the dead, spiritually speaking. Romans says no is righteous and no one seeks for God (Romans 3:10-11). We have been made alive in Christ by God and saved us by grace through faith which is not our own doing (Ephesians 2:4-9).

Another verse to consider is 1 John 5:1, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him" (LSB). If you come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, you have been regenerated by God. The reason you can claim faith is not because of some rational explanation that came to you mind, it is because God has made you alive in Him. "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13, LSB). It was God's will for you to be born again. 

You have come to faith in Christ because God has made you alive in Him not because of a prayer or going down during an invitation. It is because salvation is the work of God. We come to Him because He is the One who made us alive. 

Sproul on John 3:16 and the Ability to Choose God

The Bible teaches that we were predestined to be adopted into the family of God (Ephesians 1:5). Jesus says that whoever comes, He will not cast out (John 6:37). Considering these passages, we see that John 3:16 says that "whoever believes in Him (Jesus) shall not perish..."

Do we have the ability to chose God based on John 3:16? R.C. Sproul writes:

What does this famous verse teach about fallen man’s ability to choose Christ? The answer, simply, is nothing. The argument used by non-Reformed people is that the text teaches that everybody in the world has it in their power to accept or reject Christ. A careful look at the text reveals, however, that it teaches nothing of the kind. What the text teaches is that everyone who believes in Christ will be saved. Whoever does A (believes) will receive B (everlasting life). The text says nothing, absolutely nothing, about who will ever believe. It says nothing about fallen man’s natural moral ability. Reformed people and non-Reformed people both heartily agree that all who believe will be saved. They heartily disagree about who has the ability to believe.

Some may reply, “All right. The text does not explicitly teach that fallen men have the ability to choose Christ without being reborn first, but it certainly implies that.” I am not willing to grant that the text even implies such a thing. However, even if it did it would make no difference in the debate. Why not? Our rule of interpreting Scripture is that implications drawn from the Scripture must always be subordinate to the explicit teaching of Scripture. We must never, never, never reverse this to subordinate the explicit teaching of Scripture to possible implications drawn from Scripture. This rule is shared by both Reformed and non-Reformed thinkers.

If John 3:16 implied a universal natural human ability of fallen men to choose Christ, then that implication would be wiped out by Jesus’ explicit teaching to the contrary. We have already shown that Jesus explicitly and unambiguously taught that no man has the ability to come to him without God doing something to give him that ability, namely drawing him.

Fallen man is flesh. In the flesh he can do nothing to please God. Paul declares, “The fleshly mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7, 8).

We ask, then, “Who are those who are ‘in the flesh’?” Paul goes on to declare: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9). The crucial word here is if. What distinguishes those who are in the flesh from those who are not is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. No one who is not reborn is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. People who are in the flesh have not been reborn. Unless they are first reborn, born of the Holy Spirit, they cannot be subject to the law of God. They cannot please God.

God commands us to believe in Christ. He is pleased by those who choose Christ. If unregenerate people could choose Christ, then they could be subject to at least one of God’s commands and they could at least do something that is pleasing to God. If that is so, then the apostle has erred here in insisting that those who are in the flesh can neither be subject to God nor please him.

We conclude that fallen man is still free to choose what he desires, but because his desires are only wicked he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ. As long as he remains in the flesh, unregenerate, he will never choose Christ. He cannot choose Christ precisely because he cannot act against his own will. He has no desire for Christ. He cannot choose what he does not desire. His fall is great. It is so great that only the effectual grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith.

Source: John 3:16 and Man’s Ability to Choose God by R.C. Sproul