Your first father sinned, and your mediators transgressed against me. --Isaiah 43:27
In ancient Greek mythology, there was a doctor-demigod named Asclepius. According to Wikipedia, Asclepius was said to be such a skilled doctor that he could even raise people from the dead. So stemming from the myth of his great healing powers, pilgrims would flock to "healing temples" built in his honor in order to seek spiritual and physical healing. These temples, called Asclepieia were scattered throughout ancient Greece, and throughout the Roman empire.
Some might say that the Pool of Bethesda mentioned in John chapter 5 was just such an Asclepieon, or "healing temple." In fact, there may have been some Hellenistic influence in this Jewish site, but the spot was definitely of Hebrew origin. The name itself means "house of mercy" or "house of grace," and the Jews who gathered there had not made a pilgrimage to some Greek demigod. According to verse 4, the people there were waiting for a messenger of God (usually translated "angel") to stir the waters, so that the first to wash in the water would be healed.
This Messianic hope of an intermediary, a messenger or interpreter from God to intervene on behalf of His people is evident from the earliest Jewish writings. Perhaps the oldest book in our biblical canon is the book of Job, and in chapter 33 we see the fourth "friend" of Job excoriating him regarding repentance and deliverance. Let's read Elihu's message in verses 23 through 30:
If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to man what is right for him, and he is merciful to him, and says, "Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom; let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor"; then man prays to God, and He accepts him; he sees His face with a shout of joy, and He restores to man his righteousness. He sings before men and says: "I sinned and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me. He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and m life shall look upon the light." Behold, God does all these things, twice, three times, with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted with the light of life. (Job 33:23-30, ESV)
Reading the book of Job is difficult, because the "friends" whom Job called "miserable comforters" (Job 16:2) all spoke half truths. Their advice, which each one voiced vehemently, was couched in theological jargon and sounded right, but was a misinterpretation of Scripture. Like many false teachers today, they believed that God's blessing was always found in health, wealth, and prosperity. If a man was found to have lost his fortune, or to be stricken with disease, then he must have committed a heinous sin and God must be terribly angry with him. The remedy, then, was repentance and penitent acts that might ease God's anger, after which one could only hope that God might forgive, and then perhaps restore what was lost.
The Pulpit Commentary explains the passage (from verses 23 and 24) this way:
"If there be a messenger (or angel) with him." It is generally supposed that "the angel of the covenant" is meant, and that the whole passage is Messianic; but much obscurity hangs over it. The Jews certainly understand it Messianically, since they read it on the great Day of Atonement, and use in their liturgies the prayer, "Raise up for us the righteous Interpreter; say, I have found a ransom." Elihu's knowledge of an Interpreter, or Mediator, one among a thousand, who should deliver the afflicted man from going down to the pit, and find a ransom for him (ver. 24), is certainly very surprising; and we can scarcely imagine that he understood the full force of his words; but it cannot be right to denude them of their natural signification. Elihu certainly did not mean to speak of himself as an "angel-interpreter, one among a thousand;" and it is not probable that he intends a reference to any merely human helper.
"Then he is gracious unto him; and says." Some interpret, "Then he (i.e. God) is gracious unto him, and he (i.e. the angel) says. Others make God the subject of both clauses. But the angel is the natural subject. "Deliver him from going down to the pit." The mediating angel thus addresses God, and adds, "I have found a ransom," leaving the nature of the ransom unexplained. Some notion of ransom, or atonement, underlay the whole idea of sacrifice, which appears to have been universally practiced from the remotest times, by the Oriental nations.
In short, Elihu was speaking more than he knew. If God sent a messenger, or mediating angel, to intervene on Job's behalf (and it was a one-in-a-thousand shot, that may happen once in a lifetime, or maybe twice or three times if he was lucky), then Job would receive from God the light of life.
Just like the paralytic in John 5, who could not have dreamed that the man Jesus could do so much more than the mythic angel who would stir the healing waters in the pool, Elihu in Job 33 could not have imagined that the mediator whom God would send would not be merely a messenger, not merely an angel, but the very Son of God. Without intending so, Elihu was prophetically testifying of the Messiah Himself. Job knew better than Elihu, because in Job 19:24 Job declared, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth."
The Enduring Word Bible Commentary says this about Elihu's wish for a messenger or Mediator:
"If there is a messenger for him": Again, Elihu (in is overly wordy way) told Job that God did send a messenger of some sort; Job’s problem was that he did not receive it.
i. On mediator in Job 33:23: “Or interpreter: i.e., one who can interpret and reveal the truth concerning God and His ways.” (Bullinger)
ii. “Jesus Christ is indeed a blessed interpreter. An interpreter must understand two languages. Our Lord Jesus understands the language of God. Whatever are the great truths of divine intelligence and infinite wisdom, too high and mysterious for us to comprehend or even to discern, Christ fully understands them all… Moreover, Jesus understands our language, for he is a man like ourselves, touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and smarting under our sicknesses. He can read whatever is in the heart of man, and so he can tell to God the language of man, and speak to man in the language of man what God would say to him.” (Spurgeon)
I had never thought of a mediator in this way. In the business world, a mediator will meet with both sides in a dispute, and help bridge the gap. Jesus does this. However, thinking of a mediator as an interpreter is more than just thinking in terms of international business. It is more than a person fluent in both English and Japanese helping to negotiate terms between equal businesses in the US and Japan. It is more of a spiritual exercise, by which a physical man and a spiritual God are at odds, and God becomes a Man to stand between the physical and the spiritual, and to thereby create a way for holy God to speak to sinful man, and for sinful man to come into fellowship with holy God.
Chad van Dixhoorn said, "On the judgement day, the accuser will have no arguments to match our Advocate, for the wounds of our risen Savior will eloquently plead our case." Again, from Spurgeon:
We were neither righteous nor yet good, yet Christ died for us. “Oh!” said a little boy once to his mother, “I do not think so much of Christ dying for men, I think I would be willing to die if I could save a hundred men by dying.” But his mother said, “Suppose it was a hundred mosquitoes,—would you die for them?” “Oh, no!” he said, “I would let the whole lot of them die.” Well, we were much less, in comparison with Christ, than mosquitoes are in relation to men, yet he died for us, good-for-nothing creatures that we are. Well does one say, “God shows part of his love to us in many different ways, but he shows the whole of his love in giving Christ to die for us.” Here you see his heart laid bare, the very heart of God laid open for the inspection of every believing soul. To die for saints would be great love; but to die for sinners, while they are yet sinners, and regarding them as sinners,—this is love with emphasis, the very highest commendation that even divine love can have. (C. H. Spurgeon, “Grace Abounding,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 58 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1912), 263).
"If only," cried the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda. "If only there was someone to carry me to the waters when they are disturbed, then I might be healed." Jesus provided another way. "If only," cried Elihu. "If only there was an angel/messenger, a mediator, an interpreter who could act on Job's behalf, then he would not suffer so." Jesus is all that and more. Call upon Him and live.
