What is the significance of Jesus' being called "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5)?

Long before Christ appeared the hearts of men yearned for a mediator. The book of Job is evidence of this, for that patriarch felt the immense gulf that lay between God and himself. "He is not a man as I am" was his complaint, "neither is there any Daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both" (Job 9:32-33). The One who takes up the part of Daysman or Mediator must Himself be God to fully represent God, and must be Man to rightly represent man. The Man Christ Jesus is He. Being Man we have no need of further men to come in as subsidiary mediators between Him and ourselves.

And then, oh wonder of wonders! the Mediator became the Ransom. Being Man He could rightly offer Himself as the ransom price for men, and being God there was infinite value in the ransom price that He offered. Hence none are excluded on God's part. His desires for the salvation of men embrace all: the ransom work of Christ had all in view. This is one of those Scriptures that states the scope and bearing of the death of Christ rather than its actual realized effects. All are not saved, as we know sadly enough, but the blame of that lies upon their side and not upon God's. The tidings of Christ's ransom work are the subject of gospel testimony in the appointed season. Now is that appointed season and the Apostle himself was the great herald thereof in the Gentile world.

The one Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus, was as necessary for Jews as for Gentiles: neither could actually be brought to the true God except by and through Him. And His becoming Man was an absolute essential, in order that any man might really know the eternal God. He is the "Daysman," of whom Job speaks, one who might lay His hand both upon God and upon man (Job 9:33). For of necessity there is between God and man a naturally impassable barrier. How can mere finite, earthbound man comprehend an infinite, eternal, omniscient God? In fact men commonly use this argument to dismiss any consideration of their responsibility Godward. Of course, this is vain, for the fact is that God is a God who reveals Himself. Admittedly, in the Old Testament this was only a partial revelation, though progressive. But this is completely changed in the person of the Man Christ Jesus. His incarnation involves more than mediatorship, for He is Himself the revelation of the eternal God in human form; but His mediatorship is of vital consequence for all men, for only through Him may anyone actually be brought into contact with the Living God.

Moreover, He is available for all; in fact has given Himself a ransom for all. This word holds the thought of loosing or setting free by means of substitution. If one was to be a mediator, this too was requisite, for man's sin had estranged him from God, a question that must be settled as part of a mediatorial bringing of men to God. Not that all are actually ransomed, but the ransom is fully sufficient for all. To be applicable, it must be received by faith in the Man Christ Jesus, the Son of God.

Two things here characterise the Mediator. He is a man; He gave Himself a ransom for all. The time for this testimony was ordered of God. Precious truth! We are in weakness, we are guilty, we could not bring ourselves near to God. We needed a Mediator who, while maintaining the glory of God, should put us into such a position that He could present us to God in righteousness according to that glory. Christ gave Himself as a ransom. But He must be a man in order to suffer for men, and to represent men. And this He was. But this is not all. We are weak — here, where we are to receive the revelation of God; and weak, with regard to the use of our resources in God and our communion with Him — even when our guilt is blotted out. And, in our weakness to receive the revelation of God, Christ has revealed God, and all that He is in His own Person, in all the circumstances wherein man could have need either in body or in soul. He came down into the lowest depths in order that there should be none, even of the most wretched, who could not feel that God in His goodness was near him and was entirely accessible to him — come down to him — His love finding its occasion in misery; and that there was no need to which He was not present, which He could not meet.

It is thus that He made Himself known on earth; and, now that He is on high, He is still the same. He does not forget His human experiences: they are perpetuated by His divine power in the sympathising feelings of His humanity, according to the energy of that divine love which was their source and their motive power. He is still a man in glory, and in divine perfection. His divinity imparts the strength of its love to His humanity, but does not set aside the latter. Nothing could resemble such a Mediator as this; nothing could equal the tenderness, the knowledge of the human heart, the sympathy, the experience of need. In the measure which divinity could give to what He did, and in the strength of its love, He came down, took part in all the sorrows of humanity, and entered into all the circumstances in which the human heart could be, and was wounded, oppressed, and discouraged, bowing down under the evil. No tenderness, no power of sympathy, no humanity, like His; no human heart that can so understand, so feel with us, whatever the burden may be that oppressed the heart of man. It is the Man, the Christ Jesus, who is our Mediator; none so near, none who has come down so low, and entered with divine power into the need, and all the need, of man. The conscience is purified by His work, the heart relieved by that which He was, and which He is for ever.

Thus, as we need, we have an adequate image of the invisible God; and this Jesus is "mediator of God and men," though mediation of course goes farther than representation. For there are two parts in it — His manhood and His ransom, both of special moment if God is to be known, and if man, sinful man, is to be suitably blessed in the knowledge of God.

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.

It is the Man Christ Jesus who is the Mediator, for only by becoming Man could the Lord Jesus disclose what God is in His nature of love and in His desire to save men from their lost estate. Though never ceasing to be God, the Son of God is truly Man, One in whom is the fulness of Godhead and the perfection of manhood.

God Himself, has clearly demonstrated His desire for the salvation of all in that Christ has given His life a ransom for all. He has died, the testimony has now to be maintained, God is one — the Mediator between God and men one — the Man Christ Jesus. This proves the utter worthlessness of all men, for only Christ can bring men to God, and all need so to be brought. The Mediator is great enough to put His hand upon the throne of God. In taking Manhood and going into death He stooped low enough to put His hand upon the sinner that He might bring such righteously to God.

Paul in writing to Timothy tells us something of the present testimony, even that "God is one, and the Mediator between God and men one, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2:5-6). Of this testimony Paul was "ordained a preacher, and an apostle … a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity." Christ as the Mediator has come out from God to represent Him before men, and to show God's disposition towards men has given Himself a ransom for all.

Manifestation and mediation are intimately associated in New Testament teaching, the latter being consequent upon the former, and both being "in flesh." God's manifestation among men was "in flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16), and "the Mediator of God and men" was in flesh also, for He is the "man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). And He "gave Himself a ransom for all." His mediation involved not only His appearance in the likeness of sinful flesh, but the sacrifice of Himself, God's Son sent a propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10) and "not for ours alone, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2).

"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be rendered in due time." Judaism was the revelation and testimony of the one God. Christianity reveals also the true God, but brings forth the equally great truth that there is but one mediator, as there is but one God. And this one mediator is the Man Christ Jesus, who came into the world and who gave Himself a ransom for all.

I have read these verses, beloved friends, not with the thought of trying to bring out, in any wise, even in outline, all that might present itself to me here, but rather taking them as the key to some thoughts with regard to our blessed Lord Himself, in that character which is His exclusively, the character of Mediator. He is the "one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus." And this word, Mediator, means, one who is in the midst — between two. Thus Christ is, on the one hand, with God, for God, and God and with man, for man, and man. The fact of what He is in His own person is, I would say, the basis-fact for all the rest.