1 Timothy 2:5
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
The apostle Paul presents this statement as a reason for his earlier advice on the need to pray to God for all men, even for kings and people in authority. Such praying is good and acceptable in the sight of God, “Who will have all men to be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth” (v. 4). The reason for such prayers for all men is because “there is one God”. He alone is the Creator and the sovereign God of all classes, races and nationalities; without coming to Him through the Mediator whom He has appointed, no man shall be saved.
A mediator is one who stands as an agent of reconciliation between two parties or persons that are at odds with one another. His task is to bring them together and make peace between them. God has appointed such a Mediator, that man (who has been alienated from Him) may be reconciled to Him. Explaining man’s alienation from God in Ephesians 4:18, Paul said, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart”. In Romans 8:7, he said, “the carnal mind is enmity against God”. He told the Colossian Christians, “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled” (Colossians 1:21). Without a mediator, no man could find his way back to God.
The only One whom God has appointed to be the Mediator in order to reconcile men (estranged from God by their sins) to Himself, is “the man Christ Jesus”. God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who became a man, is His appointed Mediator between God and men. Scripture also makes it plain how Christ, as our Mediator, reconciles us to God. Paul affirms in Romans 5:10, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Paul again said in Ephesians 2:16, “And that he might reconcile both (Jews and Gentiles) unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby”. The believing penitent is now “accepted in the Beloved”. In this high office, Christ stands alone because He alone is both God and man. To join Mary and the saints to Christ in His Mediatorship – which is what the church of Rome does – implies that Christ is unable to accomplish His own peculiar work. We must reject Rome’s error and only trust in Christ as our Mediator in order to be reconciled to God.