“The world by wisdom knew not God.” The heathen lost the doctrine of the unity of God; not because it was difficult to preserve, but because they did not love the character of God, “did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” The pride of the carnal mind led them to turn away from the light of heaven, to walk amid sparks of their own kindling. They boasted of their wisdom; they boasted of their philosophy. And what gained they by the exchange? The most absurd and stupid notions of the Great First Cause; almost total ignorance of his attributes. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made with hands, like unto corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” Shame to philosophic Greece and Rome!
No nation, having once lost the doctrine of the unity of God, ever regained it by the light of nature. If the light of nature is sufficient to preserve it in possession, it is not sufficient to restore it lost. It is restored only by the gospel. The gospel has restored it in India, in Otaheite, and other heathen lands. It has done more; it has revealed to the savage the only way of salvation; it has “brought life and immortality to light.”
“Fly abroad, thou mighty gospel! Win and conquer! never cease!”
Lift up thy voice with strength, and proclaim to Greece and Rome, and to all the ends of the earth, as well as to the cities of Judah, that the Son of Mary is the God of Israel, “God manifest in the flesh,” “God blessed forever!” “The man Christ Jesus” is “the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;” “in whom also we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
II. But this leads us to our second topic: “And one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” The two doctrines, you perceive, are intimately related to each other. “One God”—“One Mediator.” As we have but “one God,” we need but “one Mediator.” As that Mediator is himself God, the merit of his mediation is sufficient for the salvation of all them that believe.
The office of a Mediator supposes two parties at variance, between whom he interposes to produce a reconciliation. It is thus “between God and man.” God gave man a law, “holy, and just, and good;” man revolted, and “there is wrath.” Reconciliation is impossible, without the intervention of a mediator. Let us look at the parties engaged in this dreadful controversy.