Is the Catholic doctrine of intercession of the saints biblical?

When our Lord was on earth, did not the sinful and distressed, the sick and the diseased, come direct to Him? Never one was rebuffed. Never once do we read of their asking His mother to intercede for them. The Lord never refused any supplicant. “And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them ALL” (Mark 12:15). Does not 1 Timothy 2:5, at one stroke sweep away the intercessor and saints of the Romish system, when it says definitely, “There is… ONE Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). The Virgin Mary did not give herself a ransom, but our Lord did, and He, who did that, may well be trusted in the matter of approach to Him, and not to any intermediary. Such an attitude puts more honour on the Virgin than approaching her, as if her qualities of tenderness and compassion were superior to His, and that He needed intercession to soften His heart and persuade Him to be compassionate.

God's desire ever has been to dwell among His people. Thus far in the Tabernacle we have had Christ personally as the Mediator, and His work, typically before us. "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a Ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Tim. 2:5-6). "Christ also has once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us To GOD" (1 Peter 3:18). We need neither the Virgin Mary, blessed among women, nor the pope, nor priest, be he Roman or Anglican, to mediate for us. The believer is brought to God, and has boldness to enter the Holiest of All by the blood of Jesus.

But the fact is, seventhly, that the Romish creed consecrates natural feeling without the least warrant and in the grossest way, against the faith of God's elect in the mediation of the Virgin, of angels, and of saints. Scripture is not plainer in the O.T. for the unity of God than in the N.T. for "one mediator between God and man" — Christ Jesus, not only man but Son of the Father Who is God over all blessed for ever.

The unity of the God-head was thus the distinguishing testimony of the Mosaic age; to this is added, now that Christ has come, the unity of the Mediator. It is not enough for sinful men to know that there is one God; the heart yearns to understand how that God may be reached and known. Job in his distress said: "He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgement. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both" (Job 9:32-33). Realising that man cannot bridge the gulf that sin has made between himself and God, Job felt the need of a mediator. Christ alone meets this need. From God-head glory He stooped to manhood in His ineffable grace. This enables Him to "lay His hand upon us both." But His incarnation could not of itself remove one single sin. "The extension of the benefits of Christ's incarnation," of which men of the Ritualistic sort speak so sagely, is nothing but meaningless jargon. Remission is impossible apart from blood. Accordingly the apostle adds: "Who gave Himself a ransom for all." The manger was a necessary step to the cross, where the foundation of all blessing for the guilty children of men was by Him well and securely laid. He is now risen and exalted. "Christ Jesus" is His resurrection title. His resurrection is the public proof before all the universe that every claim of the throne of God has been met by His atoning sacrifice. When Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, went up to God after the affair of the golden calf, he said to the people: "You have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up to Jehovah; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin" (Ex. 32:30). No such language of uncertainty could rest for one moment upon the lips of the Lord Jesus. The cross of Calvary admits of no "peradventure." In this world He made atonement, full, ample and perfect; and then, in the power of it, He went up to God on behalf of all His people.

The Mediator is one. No other dare we profanely put alongside Him, be it Mary, saints, or apostles. This would be to His public dishonour, and to the injury of our own souls. Christendom has been as grossly unfaithful in relation to the truth of the unity of the Mediator as ever Israel was in relation to the truth of the unity of the God-head. This sin God will not fail to judge when His present long-suffering is exhausted. Meanwhile, Christ may be universally proclaimed. He is Mediator, not between God and Israel, as Moses in the past, but between God and men. He gave Himself a ransom, not for a single nation, but for all. For this reason, Paul the apostle, once the most conservative of Jews, loved to describe himself "a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth."

1919 299 "There is one Mediator." We do not want Mary, Saints, or any one to turn the heart of the Lord Jesus to us. "The Man Christ Jesus," Who is spoken of as "King of kings, and Lord of lords" — our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ is the one and only Mediator. Oh, the dignity of His Person — what He is in Himself! And He gave Himself a ransom not for "many," but for all!

Christ, and Christ alone, is the mediator between God and man.

Christ dead, risen, glorified, having made expiation by His precious blood, is the only Mediator now.

There is but One: to think of another would be to snatch from Him His glory, and from us our perfect consolation. His coming from on high, His divine nature, His death, His life as Man in heaven, all point Him out as the one and only Mediator.

In the present testimony that God gives to men the Lord Jesus is presented as the “Mediator between God and men.” Jesus has come from God to make Him known as a Saviour God, and He is the only One in whom we can learn what God is, and what the thoughts of God concerning man are. There is no other mediator, whatever the pretension of those who would put themselves between God and men. It is a very solemn matter for those who bring in a priestly caste to keep men from the knowledge of God in the One Mediator, or to keep men from going to God who has made Himself known in the One Mediator.

Secondly, there had to be no steps by which to approach the altar. What was intended to be conveyed by that? It was to show that no person or thing was to come between the soul and its needs and Christ. Does it not exactly fit in with 1 Timothy 2:5, “There is … one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” There are not any intermediaries, no system of approach, no person or ordinance or ritual, to come between the soul and Christ. The Lord says, “Come to ME.” Again, “I,” and no one else, nor any system, “am THE WAY.”