He possesses the universal dominion of kingship (Gen 1:28), he is placed over Eden as its ruling high priest (we will see evidence of this in the discussion of priestly mediation), and he was first to be given the Word of God (2:15–17). Nevertheless, he failed in his exercise of his mediatorial position and Israel was elected as the new carrier of the promise of universal redemption (3:15).
As previously noted, the Old Testament envisions creation and the history of salvation as existing within a matrix of exile and return. Within the pre-exilic history of Israel both the inspired prophets and the historians recognized YHWH’s patient and persistent attempts to maintain his gracious promise to Israel. In particular, such a gracious purpose takes the form of YHWH’s election of a series of mediatorial figures whose function it was to maintain the relationship between God and his people. Because of YHWH’s own self-donation as Israel’s God, he himself provided means of dealing with Israel’s failure to fulfill the law through his appointed mediators. Throughout the Old Testament such mediators took the forms of prophets, priests, and kings. Since, as the Apostle Paul tells us, there is but “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5), we must view these mediators as deficient in their roles as fulfillers of the law, but nevertheless efficient in prefiguring Christ. Their lack of success at resolving the tension between the law and the gospel creates the context wherein Christ enters the drama of history and fulfills all things.
It will be our thesis in this section that a pattern can be discerned in the function of the various mediatorial figures in the Old Testament traditions. First, mediators are consistently portrayed as representing both God and Israel. This represents both the unity of the promise binding God and Israel together, as well as prefiguring the final unity of God and humanity through Christ, the God-man. God’s ultimate faithfulness to his people and the whole cosmos will be to enter the field of battle himself as an individual Israelite. This hearkens back also to the protevangelium: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). If the redeemer destroys the power of Satan, he must be divine, since humans after the Fall clearly remain under Satan’s power.43 Similarly, he must be human, because he is the “seed” of the woman and represents humans who are condemned to eternal death by God.44 Thirdly, he must be born of a virgin since we are told that he is the woman’s “seed,” not the man’s. As David Scaer notes, in the cultural understanding of the Ancient Near East, women did not have “seed” and thereby did not contribute to reproduction.45 Therefore the “seed of the woman” is highly suggestive of virgin birth. Indeed such a birth represents a break with the previous dispensation of death (Rom 5; 1 Cor 15:42–56) and an inauguration of a new creation.46
Next, we must recognize that mediatorial figures were established to deal with Israel’s sin. Mediators were regularly appointed by YHWH when Israel failed in a significant way to be the true humanity. This also in turn prefigures Christ’s role as the one who overcame the curse of the law and made manifest God’s purpose of grace towards sinners. The second aspect of mediation follows from the first, in that the mediator then represents the fulfillment of the law on the part of Israel, as well as God’s righteous maintenance of his promises to Israel through the fulfillment of the mediator. Christ is therefore mediator according to both natures, as the Formula of Concord states.47
Finally, the Old Testament explicitly understands God’s election of mediators as possessing an ultimate fulfillment in the coming of a Messiah. Throughout the Old Testament, there are prophecies of the coming of one who will ultimately fulfill the various forms of mediation. Though these prophecies are diverse, the protevangelium spoken to our first parents unifies and frames these prophecies as all pointing to the manifestation of the work of Christ. Ultimately, Christ both recapitulates Adam and the history of Israel.
Prophetic Mediation
Within the Old Testament there is a significant amount of material concerning the work of prophetic mediators. Since Adam was the first to receive the Word of God, we must designate him as the first prophet. Nevertheless, below we will mainly focus our discussion on the prophet Moses in that he is exemplar and source of prophetic mediation throughout the Old Testament. All the later prophets call Israel back to the law and promise mediated to Israel by Moses. This choice is also fitting because the Bible views him as being a type of Christ in this capacity (Deut 18:18, Acts 7:37). Moses also exemplifies Christ in that his temporal exodus from Egypt prefigures Christ’s leading humanity to a spiritual exodus from sin, death, the devil, and the law (1 Cor 5:7, 10; Heb 2–3). Beyond leading Israel out of Egypt, the major function of Moses’s prophetic ministry is the fulfillment of Israel’s vocation of receiving the Word of God, of which Christ being the true Word of God (John 1) is the final fulfillment.
Moses’s role as mediator is best illustrated in the later chapters of the book of Exodus. Beginning in chapter 19, we are told after the long journey from Egypt that Israel came to the foot of Sinai. God calls Moses to the top of the mountain and tells him that he is going to come to the people in “a thick cloud” (Exod 19:9) (to conceal his glory) and then will speak with Moses. The purpose of such speech is so that “the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever” (v. 9). When God’s special presence finally descends onto the mountain, he does so in fire and smoke (v. 18). The people are warned to stay away lest they perish (v. 21). Moses and Aaron are then instructed to ascend the mountain. Before they can do so, God speaks the Decalogue from within the cloud (19:25—20:17). The people and the priests hear God’s own voice reciting the words of the law and are completely terrified by both the sound and the visible manifestations of the divine glory. They cry out to Moses (who has apparently not ascended the mountain yet), “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (20:20). John Durham, commenting on this passage, states that Moses’s response is best understood as suggesting that God has come to Israel in this manner in order to test them or give experience of his presence to them so that they will not sin.48 In this way, the people have failed such a testing, and as Durham further comments, they have prefigured their future failure as God’s people.49
A breach has therefore opened up between the holy God and his people dead in their sin. Moses moves into the breach created by their inability to receive the Word of YHWH. We are told that “The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (20:21). In spite of the earlier instruction, Aaron is not reported to have entered into the thick darkness with him and Moses therefore becomes the sole mediator.50 On the mountain, further instructions concerning the law are given (20:22—23:33) and Moses reports these commandments to the people who pledge themselves to obey the law (24:3).
There are several interesting aspects of mediation that we discover in this account. First, because of human sin, there is a necessary distance between the divine presence and humans. Israel cannot enter into the darkness of Sinai and receive the law, just as Adam could not stand in the presence of God once he had fallen into sin (Gen 3:8–10). Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were able to stand in the presence of God without fear. Israel cannot even bear the sound of the divine voice issuing from Sinai. For this reason, Moses as a mediator is necessary to represent Israel and do what Israel cannot do. The text of Exodus seems to make Moses an embodiment of Israel on several occasions. God refers to Israel as “my firstborn son” (Exod 4:22) and the name “Moses” means “a son” in Egyptian.51 By divine power, he is able to bring YHWH and Israel together by fulfilling Israel’s vocation
