Mediator

Mediate = to work with opposing sides in an argument or dispute to get in agreement. To interpose between parties in order to reconcile them.

Synonyms are: intercessor, interposer, peacemaker.

I would like to share a problem I have carried with me my whole life. I was taught the following paradigm.  My artistry leaves much to be desired but you will get the point.

"Therefore, remember, oh man, for all thy doings that shall be brought into judgment.. No unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, you must be cast off forever."

At the same time, I was taught since the time I was very little that Jesus loves me.  He was the polar opposite of his Father.  He would do everything He could to get the Father to have mercy upon me.

In this paradigm of my youth:

• Justice is pitted against Mercy.
• Christ loses his role as collaborator with our Heavenly parents.
• The true nature of the Father is lost.
• Justice equals the inflexible standard of a legalistic heavenly monarch.
• It conflicts with things Jesus taught about his father. "I and the father are one; if you have seen me, you have seen the father."

So I needed a new paradigm. I should have done more praying and studying about this because when I found a new paradigm of understanding in the Givens' book "The Christ Who Heals", I realized I should have seen this for myself.  And I was SO ready to make the change. All quotes below are from this book.

It all begins with our understanding of agency.

I will start by quoting B. H. Roberts on page 54:

"We should not see justice as some abstract, cosmic universal, 

nor as the inflexible standard of a legalistic Heavenly monarch. It is, 

rather, another name for what, from a human perspective, 

guarantees the integrity of human choice."

Choice must be a choice of something.

"Human liberty requires the freedom of doing as we like - 

subject to such consequences as may follow."

"If choice is to be more than an empty gesture of the will, 

more than a mere pantomime of decision-making, any given 

choice should eventuate in the natural consequences of that choice."

"But our agency would be compromised if consequences followed

 immediately and directly. Who would send a second time if pain where 

the Swift and inevitable result. who would act from pure motive if virtuous 

actions unfailingly reaped manifold and immediate joy."

"We navigate our way through turbulent seas under dark skies. 

We see through a glass, darkly.  Yet there is still a quote quality of 

regularity... Necessary to a sense of security."

"Hence, the validity, the efficacy, of our very agency rather than some 

abstract Justice, is what is at stake in the expectation that consequences

 indeed follow upon the exercise of human agency."

The Givens then point out this is why the Book of Mormon urges us to be"instructed sufficiently in the workings of the universe, the laws that govern pain and happiness, the nature of choice and consequences, so that we may freely choose liberty and eternal life."

"In this schoolroom of mortality, with our knowledge still in perfect, our wheels not yet purified, and our character not fully-formed, we too often choose poorly."

"This is why our Savior was appointed, before Earth's creation, to bear the burden of pain that follows in sin and errors wake. Christ volunteers himself and offering to assume the painful consequences of our injuries choices.

• Not to appease Justice
• Not to propitiate a sovereign God

But to preserve in the universe real opposites, and real stakes, in order to assure the efficacy of agency and its consequences.

So what does this paradigm look?

All of us are collaborating in a plan that will help us 

become like our Heavenly parents.

No wonder we shouted for joy!

Now back to the word mediator. I suggest that we have been using it wrongly - brought on by the incorrect paradigm - Protestant in origin - that terrible paradigm that I was taught.

A second definition of the word mediate is this: to have an effect or influence in causing something to happen.

This definition fits the Savior completely. He volunteered himself to carry the pain of the world and helped to create the Earth and as such helped to create the great plan of happiness!

Thus in the scriptures He is the Mediator of this first covenant & Mediator of the New Testament.