Jesus Our Mediator: The One Who Stands in the Space Between

There’s a word in the New Testament that we don’t use much anymore—Mediator. It sounds legal, formal, maybe even distant. But when Scripture calls Jesus our Mediator, it’s actually describing one of the most intimate and hope-filled realities of the Christian life:

Jesus stands in the middle.

Between our longing and God’s holiness. Between our brokenness and God’s wholeness. Between our faltering prayers and God’s generous heart. The Christian faith says that we don’t need to work our way up to God - He came down to us in Christ.

The One Who Reveals God to Us

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is "the exact representation of God’s being."
Not a glimpse. Not a distant reminder.
If you want to know what God is like—how He cares, how He comes toward you, what His compassionate heart is—you look at Jesus.

Jesus represents God to us in a way we can trust. Not just with blind faith but a certain hope.

The One Who Represents Us to God

But the miracle works both ways.
1 Timothy 2:5 tells us:
“There is one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus.”

Fully God. Fully human.

Jesus doesn’t just understand us from the outside; He stepped into our experience—our temptations, sorrows, limitations, and wounds. He stands before the Father on our behalf, bringing not just our fear or our failures but His own perfect righteousness.

He represents us perfectly—even when we feel like we can barely represent ourselves.

The One Who Reconciles What Was Broken

Sin fractures relationships. It creates distance, shame, and a sense that we need to hide. But a mediator doesn’t simply pass messages back and forth—they heal the divide.

The cross is Jesus’ great act of mediation: He takes what separates us from God and removes it.

Keller once said, “Grace is not feeding God your best efforts—it is God giving you His.” Jesus doesn’t meet us halfway. He comes all the way.

The One Who Intercedes for Us Right Now

Perhaps the most astonishing line in Hebrews is this:
“He always lives to intercede for them.” (Heb. 7:25)

Mediation isn’t something Jesus did—it’s something He is still doing.

Right now, He is carrying our greatest needs. Right now, He is advocating for you. Right now, He is sustaining your faith.

Our spiritual lives are not held together by our own discipline or consistency. It is held together by the compassion and constancy of Jesus Himself.

The One Who Opens the Way

Because Jesus stands in the middle, we don’t come to God with fear or hesitation. Hebrews 4:16 invites us to approach the throne of grace with confidence.

Not confidence in ourselves.
Confidence in the One who brings us in.

The Beautiful Simplicity of Mediation

At its core, Jesus as our Mediator means this:

You are not alone in your approach to God.
You are not left to bridge the distance.
You are not left to cleanse, fix, or justify yourself.

Jesus stands with you and for you. He brings God to you, brings you to God, and keeps you held in the love that restores all things.

This is the gospel:

Jesus steps in for us,
pays what we could not,
and opens the way back to God.