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.
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