One Mediator

Or, why I reject Roman Catholicism

There are many things that are in conflict between the religion that many the world over confuse with Christianity, and the Holy Scriptures of God. Of all of those things, that religion has what seems to me to be the fatal flaw from which all others branch. It is actually the doctrine that this religion uses to create, establish, and validate itself. It is the doctrine of “the Mother Church”.

The Roman Catholic church has the belief that “the Church”, an institution run by a hierarchy of men on earth, is the place where one must come if he is to have access to God.

But that is so contrary to the Word of God. The Apostle Paul, the man that Jesus Christ chose to bear His Name to us, has the following to say on this regard:

1 Timothy 2:1–7 — “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.”

In the verses above, the Apostle Paul is in context talking about governments. The specific government would have been the Roman Empire, one in which the Caesar had his place as a “god” on earth. Paul is exhorting Timothy to pray for this man, and other men in authority, that they would run a government that keeps the peace and allows for godly living in Christ Jesus. Notice that even these unsaved and wicked kings could rule in a way that Christians would flourish, and that we should pray for the same, even in our day.

Notice also that these “gods among men” need to be saved and that God very much desires that. Not that these “great ones” being saved would be greater than the lowliest pauper coming to salvation, but because God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

As people in Christ, we know that we pray for them knowing that there is but one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Roman Catholicism grew out of this Roman Empire system and it has this same type of hierarchy. There is a pope, the “vicar of Christ” as they call him, who speaks to “the Church” in Christ’s place. He has such authority in this capacity that a papal bull to the RCC is on the same level as the Bible. So if RC doctrine is contrary to the Bible, the church is to trust that the pope and the hierarchy know better and go on with their lives. The church will take care of it.

But the Apostle Paul says the opposite—Christ is the one mediator between God and man, and no one else is allowed that job.

All of the other egregious errors I believe stem from this or could at least be checked if this error was not so accepted. If a religious system is standing between God and man, then that religious system sets the rules whereby one may go in; and you, the unlearned and ignorant, have to go through the door at which it sets the rules. So if mother church says one must be baptized to be regenerated and allowed a place in “the Church”, then what mother says goes. If mother church says one must go to God after getting a foot in the door by way of intercession of “the saints”, then who are we to argue. The Church is the mediator. If mother church says buy indulgences, what can we say?

But the Bible puts no church with authority over God’s Word. The Bible puts no one between God and man, but the man Christ Jesus. It is He who said:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

He has also made that way plain. It is by grace, through faith, not of works (Ephesians 2:8–9). Christ died for our sins, not so that a religious imperial system could lord over the souls of men, but so that all men could be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

The faith that man must have to come to God is dependent on the object of that faith, and that is Christ Jesus, the Son of God. When we believe that He, the Son of God, died for our sins and rose again, we have come to God in God’s way.

John 6:37 — “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

With all of this said, it is not only the RCC to which this applies. Any institution that would set itself up as the door that men must enter to get to God is contrary to the Bible, and thus contrary to God Himself. Remember that there is ONE MEDIATOR. There is ONE LORD.

Our One Lord and One Mediator also wants you to be saved. He has completed all of the work necessary to save any sinner to comes to God by Him. But you must come to God by Him, for all other ways are but a dead end. There is one way of eternal life and that life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, our One Mediator.