Nowhere in the Bible do we have a suggestion that the Messiah is just a human being. The Bible tells us more than once that Messiah will be the Son of God. Whether you read in the book of Isaiah that unto us a Son is given and He will be mighty God, everlasting Father. Or you can even read in the book of Proverbs in chapter 30, what’s His name and what’s His Son’s name? You shall know. The Bible tells us that in the days to come, God will give Israel a New Testament, a new covenant. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 31 it suggests that the new covenant will not be based upon the law of Moses, which was broken by the people of Israel because it’s simply impossible to be fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled the law, and, by doing so, no one else is required anymore to do so. He fully filled the law. There is no other way to reach to God but through Jesus. Jesus said that to the Jews, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one can come to the Father, but through Me.
“Justification by faith” is a phrase most Christians are familiar with, yet some of the specifics of it are unfamiliar to them. Justification is often defined as “just as if it never happened” (in reference to our sin). This is a great way to understand the end result of justification by faith, but it skips over the process of getting there.
1 Timothy 2:5-6
For 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.
God has not just arbitrarily acted as though our sin never happened. That would violate His justness. The wages of sin had to be paid by death, and in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6).
This is the mediation that Paul wrote to Timothy about. A mediator was required to represent both sides of an issue equally. As the Triune Godhead, neither Father, Son, or Holy Spirit could represent humanity as mediator. For man, there was no one who was of a divine nature who could represent God as a mediator.
Hebrews 10:5
Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.”
If mediation was going to happen, resulting in the justification by faith of all who believe, a mediator who could equally represent both sides was necessary. God could not represent man because He is God and not a man. No man could represent God because he is man and not God. So, God became a man in the person of Christ so that mediation could be possible.
How did this justification happen through the God-man, Christ Jesus?
Romans 5:7-11
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when 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. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
When Christ mediated for mankind through His death, reconciliation with God became possible by faith. When Jesus fulfilled the law, He fulfilled it as a representative of mankind thus mediating as an equal representative of man and God.
Colossians 1:21-22
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.
Justification required debt satisfaction, and no man could nor ever will fulfill the law. Jesus did, and, because He died as a sinless Savior, He could mediate for all mankind having endured the suffering and wages of sin He did not deserve.
This nullifies all arguments of “how could a God of love” allow suffering, hunger, or any of the other things people use to accuse God of unfairness or deny His existence. His Son demonstrated a love that is incomparable by paying the sin debt of all humanity by virtue of dying a sinner’s death despite having lived a sinless life.
The only One who could offer such meditation had to be one who could represent both God and man equally, and, thus, the necessity of the birth of Emmanuel, the God man, the man Christ Jesus.
Hebrews 4:15-16
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Justification is a wonderful Christian doctrine. It reminds us that access to God, and His help, is our right through Christ. In Christ, we bypass the second death (and, for one generation of people, the death of the body too!), Through Christ we can come boldly to the throne of grace. The word “boldly” means that we can come to the very throne of God because through Christ we have the right to do so.
There is only One who can mediate between God and man, and no human could ever qualify to do so, unless that human was actually God in human flesh – God with us. Jesus is God the Son, and His sinless life and sinner’s death made it possible for whosoever will to come through Him to the Father, for He and the Father are One.
Justification – just as if your sin never happened – is a great way to understand this complex doctrine, but we cannot skip over the “how" of the justification process. It is the very heart of the gospel in that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and whoever believes on Him will be saved!
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,