Chapter II

My Bible contains two stories--one near its beginning and one near its end--which to-day I must lay side by side. The _first_ is the story of a man who feels that he is suffering more than his share of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He thinks of God as very high and very holy; too wise to err and too good to be unkind; yet he cannot shake from his mind the conviction that God has misunderstood him. And, in his agony, he cries out for one who can arbitrate between his tortured soul and the God who seems to be so angry with him. Oh, for one a little less divine than God, yet a little less human than himself, who could act as an adjudicator, an umpire, a mediator between them! But neither the heavens above nor the earth beneath can produce one capable of ending the painful controversy. 'There is no daysman who can come between us and lay his hand upon us both!'

_A God!_

_But no Mediator!_

That is the _first_ story.

The _second_ story, the story from the end of the Bible, is the story of an old minister whose life-work is finished. He writes, in a reminiscent vein, to a young minister who is just beginning; and earnestly refers to his own ordination. 'Whereunto,' he asks, 'was I ordained a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity?' What is his message? He answers his own question. It is this. '_For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus._'

_A God!_

_And a Mediator!_

_Job_ needed a Friend in the Great Court; but, alas, he could not find one!

_Paul_ tells Timothy that he was ordained for no other purpose than to point men to Him who alone can intercede.

III

'_One God--but no Mediator!_' cries Job.

'_One God--and one Mediator!_' exclaims Paul.

In one respect these two thinkers, standing with a long, long file of centuries between them, are in perfect agreement. They both feel that if there is a God--and only one--no man living can afford to drift into alienation from Him. If there is _no_ God, I can live as I list and do as I please; I am answerable to nobody. If there are _many gods_, I can offend one or two of them without involving myself in uttermost disaster and despair. But if there is _one_ God, and only one, everything depends upon my relationship with Him. And if I am already estranged from Him, and if there be no Mediator by whose good offices a reconciliation may be effected, then am I of all men most miserable.

'_One God--but no Mediator!_' cried Job in despair.

_'One God--and one Mediator!_' exclaims Paul, in delight.