TweetieBird: Here's the Mediator references

by ozziepost 1 Replies latest jw friends

  • ozziepost
    ozziepost

    G'day TweetieBird,

    You asked for the references about Jesus not being the Mediator for the G.C.

    Try these Watchtower magazine references:

    w79 4/1 31 Questions from Readers
    Is Jesus the “mediator” only for anointed Christians?
    The term “mediator” occurs just six times in the Christian Greek Scriptures and Scripturally is always used regarding a formal covenant.

    Moses was the “mediator” of the Law covenant made between God and the nation of Israel. (Gal. 3:19, 20) Christ, though, is the “mediator of a new covenant” between Jehovah and spiritual Israel, the “Israel of God” that will serve as kings and priests in heaven with Jesus. (Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24; Gal. 6:16) At a time when God was selecting those to be taken into that new covenant, the apostle Paul wrote that Christ was the “one mediator between God and men.” (1 Tim. 2:5) Reasonably Paul was here using the word “mediator” in the same way he did the other five times, which occurred before the writing of 1 Timothy 2:5, referring to those then being taken into the new covenant for which Christ is “mediator.” So in this strict Biblical sense Jesus is the “mediator” only for anointed Christians.
    The new covenant will terminate with the glorification of the remnant who are today in that covenant mediated by Christ. The “great crowd” of “other sheep” that is forming today is not in that new covenant. However, by their associating with the “little flock” of those yet in that covenant they come under benefits that flow from that new covenant. During the millennium Jesus Christ will be their king, high priest and judge. For more detailed information, see Aid to Bible Understanding, pages 1129 and 1130 under “Mediator”; also God’s “Eternal Purpose” Now Triumphing for Man’s Good, page 160, paragraph 10; also The Watchtower issues of February 15, 1966, pages 105 through 123; November 15, 1972, pages 685 and 686, under the subheading “Leading the Way to a New Covenant”; and April 1, 1973, pages 198 and 199, under the subheading “The New Covenant.”

    w79 11/15 24-5 Benefiting from "One Mediator Between God and Men"
    “MEDIATOR” TO HOW MANY?
    11 However, was God making the new covenant with the natural, fleshly “house of Israel” and the natural, fleshly “house of Judah”? How could that be possible, inasmuch as the natural Jews of those two houses had violently rejected the prospective Mediator of that new covenant and were, as a nation, celebrating the Pentecostal festival on the appointed day at the temple in Jerusalem? God could not do so. He had in mind to conclude the new covenant with the newly born Christian Israel, the spiritual Israel, it having its birth on that very Pentecostal day when the “holy spirit fell upon” the baptized disciples of Jesus Christ, about 120 of them. (Acts 11:15) These had waited, not at the temple, but in an upper room in Jerusalem. There those disciples, already immersed in water, were begotten by God’s spirit to become his spiritual children, “the Israel of God.” As such they were introduced into the new covenant through the heavenly Mediator, Jesus Christ, the Prophet greater than Moses.—Acts 2:1-36; Joel 2:28, 29; John 3:3, 5; Gal. 6:16.

    12 So Jesus Christ in heaven is the Mediator between God and the spiritual Israelites, while these are still in the flesh as men and women. Even within the membership limits of this small “holy nation” the mediatorship of Jesus Christ has expanded, for God has followed a certain order in admitting classes of persons into the new covenant. Thus, for about a year from Pentecost of 33 C.E., Jesus was the Mediator of only those spiritual Israelites who had been fleshly Jews or circumcised Jewish proselytes. About 3,000 of these were added to spiritual Israel on that day of Pentecost, 33 C.E. (Acts 2:10, 37-41) Then, likely in the following year (34 C.E.) as a side effect of the persecution by Saul of Tarsus, the “good news” about the Christ was preached in Samaria and the holy spirit ‘fell upon’ the baptized believers there. (Acts 8:15-17) From then on the mediatorship of Jesus was widened out to benefit spiritual Israelites who had been men and women of Samaria, Samaritans.

    You may also find it good to show this point about the N.T. being for the 144,000, not the G.C.

    w74 6/15 376 Serve with Eternity in View
    Also, it is to the spirit-anointed Christians who will rule in that kingdom that most of the Christian Greek Scriptures is directed, including the promises of everlasting life.

    Cheers,
    Ozzie

    "It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
    Anonymous

  • TweetieBird
    TweetieBird

    Thank you Ozzie, I'm just now finding this. I was sick with the flu for the past few days and didn't check my email.

    Once again, thanks.

    "If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?"

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