Mediation of Christ in the Heavenly Sanctuary
What do the following texts tell us about what Christ is doing for us as our Mediator in heaven? John 16:23, 24; Acts 5:31; Eph. 1:3; 2:18; Heb. 1:2; 4:16; 13:20, 21.
If the death of Christ could not be separated from His resurrection, neither should we separate His enthronement and mediation after the Resurrection. The forward-looking purpose of the Resurrection was His installation as our High Priest. Jesus finished His sacrificial work on the cross and is now working as King and Priest in the heavenly sanctuary. The movement from humiliation to exaltation indicates a further development of His work as Redeemer. This does not affect the finality of His atoning sacrificial death (Heb. 10:12) but rather reveals more benefits from it.
Christ began His intercessory work immediately after His enthronement, and this event had a direct impact on the church. As a result of that work of mediation, “Christ’s toiling, struggling ones on earth [His disciples] are ‘accepted in the Beloved.’ Eph. 1:6. Before the heavenly angels and the representatives of unfallen worlds, they are declared justified.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 834. This objective justification of Christ’s followers in heaven was immediately accompanied by the outpouring of the Spirit. Jesus promised the disciples that He will request from the Father another Counselor (John 14:16, 17), and at Pentecost Peter interpreted the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as indicating that Christ had begun His intercessory work on behalf of those who believed in Christ (Acts 2:33).
The good news is that Jesus still is working on behalf of His people. Peter stated that Christ must remain in heaven “until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). There are prophecies that still need to be fulfilled, and then Christ’s work before the Father will end. The ultimate restoration is still in the future; and Christ’s intercessory work is leading toward it. We are still living within salvation history, between His ascension and His return. The time between those two events is filled by His mediation and the fulfillment of the mission of the church.
| Read Revelation 8:2–5. What is the meaning of the imagery there? More important, what hope do those verses, a reference to Christ as our heavenly Mediator, offer you, who at times might feel that God cannot accept your prayers? |
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