Rabbi Schneider - The Principle of the Mediator
We've been looking at the plan of salvation and what I've been teaching on is this, that the way that Israel was saved in the Hebrew Bible is identical to the way people are saved today in New Testament times. Often times the church is taught that Israel in the Old Testament was saved through keeping the law. But I want you to hear me beloved ones, Israel was never saved through keeping the law. Israel was saved, because God sovereignly chose to love them. He delivered them through faith. He covered their sins by the blood sacrifice that was brought in to the Holy of Holies in the temple every year. The same foundations that we see repeated in the Brit Chadashah, the New Testament. We're saved by grace. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you". We're saved through faith, "By grace you've been saved through faith," Ephesians chapter 2. And we're saved beloved, foundationally, because Jesus shed His blood for us and covered our sin and took it away through His sacrifice.
In the same way that Israel was saved when the high priest brought in the blood of a bull and the blood of a goat into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and then the temple each year. They poured that blood of the bull and the goat on top of the Ark of the Covenant where the Ten Commandments were. And when the Lord saw the blood He said this in the Torah, in Leviticus 17:11, "The life of the flesh is in the blood sayeth the Lord and I've given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your soul. For it's the blood by reason of its life that makes atonement".
So once again, principles of salvation. Hebrew Bible being brought into fulfillment in the New Testament. Saved by grace, God's sovereign choice. Secondly through faith, God instills faith in the lives of His chosen ones. And then He brings them to Jesus who covers and takes away their sin by His blood. I'm showing you how Jesus completes Biblical Judaism. He is the only one that completes Biblical Judaism and that's why as I said at the end of last week's broadcast, as a Jewish person I'm able to stand admist my people group that for the most part rejects Jesus and I'm able to stand strong, happy, confident, secure, because when I read the Torah I see that the only way the Torah is fulfilled is in the person of Jesus. Because in order to follow the Torah beloved, a temple would need to be standing, sacrifices would need to be offered and a priesthood would need to be in place. But when the Romans came in and destroyed the temple in 70 AD, the priesthood scattered, sacrifices are no longer offered.
So Jewish people can not worship God according to so many of the commandments in the Torah, because again temple destroyed. No temple, no sacrifices, no priesthood, which takes away three of the major and the main pillars of Judaism. But Jesus, hallelujah, completes it all. This is why shortly after Jesus' death we read that the veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies where atonement was made; once again atonement was made in the Holy of Holies, where the high priest would take in the blood each year on Yom Kippur, on the Day of Atonement, pour it over the altar there. Shortly after Jesus death, mysteriously somehow the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the holy place was ripped. We read about it in the New Testament. It mysteriously, right at Jesus' death, it ripped apart. God was showing that final atonement has been made and it's been completed. I covered all this in previous broadcasts. I want to move on today to the next pillar of salvation.
I want to talk to you today, beloved ones, about the principle of the mediator. You see a lot of times people say to me, "Well we don't need Jesus. We go directly to God". In fact often times Jewish people have said to me, "We don't need a mediator, we go directly to God". But what I want to say as lovingly as I possibly know how to say it, within the Torah we find that there was a principle of a mediator. For example, it was Moses that went on top of the mountain. The people of Israel said, "We don't want to hear His voice Moses, you go on top of the mountain". So Moses went on top of the mountain. He received the Ten Commandments. And then when he came down the mountain, God was going to destroy Israel, but Moses prayed for them. Moses interceded on behalf of Israel. He became Israel's mediator.
Then as Israel's history continues to unfold, what do we find? That the Lord appointed the Levites to be the priests and the mediators. You see in ancient Israel every family didn't just offer up their own sacrifice to God, but rather they had to bring their sacrifices to the temple where the priests were and then the priests, the Levites, offered up Israel's sacrifices on Israel's behalf. So the Levites offer the sacrifices as the priests in the temple and were, listen now, the mediators between the God of Israel and His people. There's always been a mediator. What we are declaring boldly and stating point blankly is that Jesus has become the mediator between God and man. In fact I want to take you to a fundamental scripture. I'm taking you now to the book of 1 Timothy chapter number 2, verse number 5 and 6. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. Hear beloved the Word of God. "For there is one God and one mediator also between God and man. The man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at proper time".
The point that I'm making once again, is that the path to salvation as revealed in the Torah in primitive form is brought to completion in the person of Jesus Himself, who becomes not only the mediator, but He becomes the sacrifice that's being offered. In the Torah the Levites who were the mediators offered up the blood sacrifices of the bulls and the lambs and the goats. But in Yeshua, He not only becomes the mediator, not only becomes the One who prays for us, not only becomes the One that intercedes for us, not only becomes the One that offers up the sacrifice for us, He Himself becomes the sacrifice offering up His own blood on our behalf.
Yeshua Hamashiach beloved, has become the one perfect and final mediator between God and man. There will never be another. There's one name by which men can be saved, the name of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. "Every knee will bow. Every tongue confess that Yeshua Hamashiach is Lord. To the glory", hallelujah, "of God the Father". The principle of the mediator was first revealed in the Torah. We see Moses going to the top of the Mountain on behalf of the people, praying so the people wouldn't be destroyed. And then we see it reaching it's pinnacle in the Levites, who administered all the sacrifices on behalf of the nation of Israel. I want to say again, not only did the Levites administer all the sacrifices and become the mediator between God and His people Israel, but there was actually judgment on somebody who tried to do the Levites job that wasn't a Levite. And so I want you to hear me, the principle of a mediator is founded in the Torah.
The reason I think, beloved ones, these principles that I'm teaching are so important for us all to understand, is that when we see how Jesus completes Biblical Judaism, that the revelation that God gave the Hebrew people in the Torah, when we see how Jesus completes that we're gonna become secure in our faith in Him; because so many in our culture today are doubting. They're thinking, "You know what? I was raised in America. I was raised in a Christian culture. I was raised in church". They're wondering, maybe you're wondering, "Maybe I believe this way only because this was the culture I was brought up in. Maybe I believe in Jesus only because I was brought up in church". Some are thinking, "Maybe if I was brought up in China, or in India, or in a country in the Middle East that practices Islam," they're thinking, "Maybe I'd be worshiping God in that way". And so they struggle, because they're not convinced that Jesus is the only way.
And so understanding how Yeshua alone completes the principles of salvation as first outlined in the Torah, that builds our faith to be able to stand strong; because Jesus said this, "Unless you believe that I am He you'll die in your sins. I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by Me". You see Jesus' claims, church listen, are exclusive. Too many Christians today they're so concerned about being liked by everybody that they don't want to stand on the exclusive claims of Jesus as revealed in the Word of God. Their mindset is, you know what I believe in Jesus, but if you don't believe in Jesus, if you believe in some other path to God, well that's okay if that works for you. But anybody that calls himself a Christian that thinks it's okay for people to approach God on a different path other than Yeshua doesn't really understand who Yeshua is.
"There is no name under heaven," the scripture tells us, "by which man can be saved, but the name of Jesus;" Because Jesus alone, listen, paid the penalty for man's sin. And I talked about that in the previous episode when I talked about the principle of a blood covering, how it's rooted in the Torah. Israel was only able to be saved because of that blood covering that was offered for them every year at Yom Kippur. It was the blood on their doorposts that saved them at Passover. If you and I don't understand that there is no other name under heaven, that Jesus alone is the mediator between God and man, then we're really beloved, listen, we really don't have the revelation of who Jesus is. We're really not Christians in the full sense of the word. I think salvation, someone's salvation is suspect if they don't understand the exclusive claims of Yeshua and stand on those claims, because those are the claims that Jesus made. Those that are written in the Lamb's book of life are saved. If your name is not written in the Lamb's book of life, you're not gonna be saved.
What does it mean in the book of Revelation, to have our names written in the Lamb's book of life? It means that we belong to Jesus, that His blood has paid for our sin. And because we've received the free gift of eternal life that's offered through Him, we receive the gift of forgiveness that can only come through His blood and mediation unto the Father first; because we've received that our names are written in His Book of Life. Those that have not received Jesus, their names are not written in the Book of Life. The Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that what was known as the White Throne Judgment, right before people are either thrown into the lake of fire or go to the final heaven. Right before that the Bible tells us, at the end of the book of Revelation, that the books were open. And there were two sets of books and the one book are recorded the names of those that belong to the Lamb.
Who's the Lamb? There's only one Lamb. There's only one Lamb, it's Yeshua whose blood was shed. "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world". The books were open. The one book takes the names of those that belong to the Lamb. They're written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The other books that were opened contained the names of all those that are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life. They are judged, the Bible says, according to their deeds and no one goes to heaven because of their deeds. No one goes to heaven because of their deeds. Remember when Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah was as righteous as they came on earth at the time, we would think, right? But when he saw the revelation of God's glory he fell on his face and he said, "Woe is me". He said, "I'm defiled and I'm surrounded by a people of unclean lips".
He saw that all that humanity was defiled before a holy God. No one goes to God because they're a good person. Somebody came to Jesus and they said, "Good teacher". Jesus said, "Why do you call Me good? Only God's good". I'm trying to make the point beloved, that there's only one way to heaven, it's through the mediator Jesus the Messiah. Who is the mediator? Jesus is God Himself clothed in humanity. That's the beauty of salvation. God didn't send an agent for you and I, He Himself came clothed, the Bible says in human form. The Bible tells us in the Gospel of John the 1st chapter these words, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God". So the word was with God and the word, get it now, was God. And then in John chapter 1 verse 14, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us".
And so God Himself, who's always been, came to humanity, clothed Himself in human form, lived a perfect life, then as the innocent one died on the cross for our sins, shedding His blood, rose through the heavens and became the mediator between God and man. And what kind of a mediator is He? Let's go to the book of Hebrews to find out a little bit about the principle of mediation that is being accomplished for us through Yeshua. I'm gonna be reading now beginning in the book of Hebrews chapter number 9, beginning with verse number 11. "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal salvation. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant".
What the author is saying here, is that when we believe that Jesus really is who He said He is and He's really done what the scripture says He's done; meaning that His blood for ever is sufficient to remove all your and my sin. And we receive Him knowing that His death on the cross completely paid the penalty for our sin, that when we receive Him our sin is removed as far as God's concerned. It's paid for, it's gone. There's no sin barrier any longer between God and man when Christ Jesus becomes our Savior.
So the scripture says when we really believe that, listen, our conscience is sprinkled. We no longer have a guilty conscience, because we're confident that Yeshua, that Jesus has really taken our sin away. No need to beat yourself up. No need to feel ashamed. No need to feel guilty. When we really believe Yeshua is who He said He is, that He really did, that He really paid the price for our sin, that there's no reason for us to feel guilty any longer, no reason for us to be afraid before God any longer, because Yeshua took our sin out of the way so we could experience freely and completely the Father's love. Not because of deeds of righteousness, church, which we have done, but because of His mercy and love toward us and because of His mercy and love towards us He took our sin out of the way through the person of Jesus Himself.
Listen to what the 28th verse tells us of chapter 9 of Hebrews. "So Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time for a salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await for Him". In other words, He came the first time and when He came the first time we needed to have an understanding of our sinful state, so that we could come to Him and receive Him as our Messiah. And those that have come to Him and received the free gift of eternal life, when He comes again there's not gonna be any talk about sin. We've already repented. We were already made aware of our sin. We've come to Him. When He comes again beloved, He's gonna come to us in His glory. We're gonna immediately be transferred into His presence, into paradise, into the fullness of the kingdom of God. We have a great Savior and a great hope beloved and a great expectation of our destiny in Him.
Christ Jesus is the mediator between God and man and when you and I truly give our lives to Him He becomes sensitive to our every need. The Bible tells us, "Come boldly before the throne of grace, because He cares for you". And He's able, beloved ones, to sympathize with our weakness, even our sin when we're struggling; because the Bible says, "He became flesh and blood" and experienced what it's like to be a human being just like you are and just like I am. In other words, He experienced our state, the state of humanity, so He's sensitive to us. He can relate when we struggle and most of all beloved, He ascended through the heavens and He now sits at the right hand of God in majesty, completely victorious over all. "All authority," Yeshua said, "in heaven and on earth has been given to Me". And He said, "I am with you always even to the end". Beloved ones, I want to encourage you today, continue to run after Him, continue to love Him. He has great things prepared for you. Beloved, you're gonna be brought to a place that's more than you could ever imagine.