The Everlasting Mediation of the Son of God: A Case Study of the Enduring

Mediatorial Office of Christ in Calvin and the Reformed Tradition

by

Aaron Pendergrass

B.S., Bryan College, 2017

A THESIS

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in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in Systematic Theology
at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Illinois
May 2020
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ABSTRACT

This thesis observes John Calvin’s understanding of the mediatorial office of Jesus

Christ, and the mediation theologies of Isaac Ambrose, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, Francis

Turretin, Jonathan Edwards, and Abraham Kuyper. It is an attempt to present a case that the

mediatorship of Jesus Christ is not a temporary office, but rather it is an office that possesses at

least five functions, some of which will perpetuate into the new creation. Many contemporary

theologians have critiqued the mediator-Christology of Calvin, and other figures in the Reformed

tradition, by suggesting that these figures only saw Christ’s office as Mediator to hold a

soteriological purpose, but I argue that this traditional interpretation of Calvin and many in the

Reformed tradition is an incorrect assumption. Rather, Calvin and many others in the Reformed

tradition envisioned a cosmic function, a revelatory function, a soteriological function, an

intercessory function, and a hypostatic-ontological function of mediation. This thesis will

challenge the traditional understanding of Christological mediation that is usually truncated and

limited to expiation, and seeks to explore the entirety of the mediatorial office of Jesus Christ.

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To my mentors and former professors Dr. Scott Jones and Dr. Samuel J. Youngs,

the men who fueled my academic curiosity and nurtured

my love for theology and the Church

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. James Arcadi for his invaluable guidance

throughout this endeavor. It was a reading assignment (Union with Christ by Todd Billings) in

Dr. Arcadi’s class that first sparked my interest in this thesis topic. Many countless hours were

subsequently spent theologizing in his office. It is a privilege to have worked with a theologian

of his caliber.

Likewise, I would like to thank Dr. Scott Manetsch, my second reader, for sharing his

extensive expertise on Reformation history and theology. His personal encouragement to me

when I nearly abandoned this project will not be quickly forgotten. It is refreshing to see pastoral

hearts within higher academia.

I would like to thank my mentor Dr. Scott Jones (Bryan College). It is you who first

introduced me to Reformed theology, and where my love for it sparked. Thank you for fostering

my heart for the Church, and for teaching me to always be thinking practically about the

edification of Christ’s body (Eph. 4:11-13). You will always be my Paul, and I your Timothy.

I would also like to thank my former professor Dr. Sam Youngs (Bryan College) for his

feedback from afar. I’ve become a lifelong student of theology because of the contagious nature

of your academic curiosity.

I would like to thank Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer for introducing me to the covenant of

redemption in his Essentials of Reformed Theology class. My thesis greatly benefited from the

topics discussed in his class. I am grateful for the innumerable things he has taught me

concerning the relationship between biblical and systematic theology.

My utmost gratitude to Yasmin Thomas for her eagerness to wrestle through many a

theological issue with me. The church needs more deep-hearted women theologians like you.

Thank you for all of the food and snacks, and most of all, for the gift of your company.

Deepest thanks to Olle Larson. Your friendship has been a gift to me during my time at

TEDS. Discussing your studies of the shared office and functions of the Paraclete in Johannine

literature significantly impacted my thesis research, and I am grateful for the theological

camaraderie that we share.

To my church family at Trinity Community Church in Libertyville, IL, thank you for

walking alongside me during my education at TEDS. I am grateful for the congregational

generosity, the ministry opportunities to teach and preach, and, above all, for the friendships that

were formed.

Lastly, I would like to thank my family. To my grandfather Don Leggett, thank you for

financially supporting my ministry and theological training at Bryan College and TEDS. To my

grandmothers Mary Ann Leggett (1943-2018) and Dianne Latham Egbert, it is only because of

the constant support, prayers, and biblical truths that you taught me that I am in the kingdom

today. To my mom, my biggest fan, I am forever indebted to you for the sacrificial love,

steadfastness, and encouragement you have provided. I would not be the person I am today if it

were not for these strong women of faith. (2 Tim. 1:5) Finally, to my dad, who implanted in me a

strong work ethic – you have shown me what it looks like to be a provider, and you unknowingly

taught me many truths about my Father in heaven who supplies and provides for my every need.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................... v
Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1

2. RECLAIMING CALVIN’S DOCTRINE OF THE OFFICE OF MEDIATOR ..... 4

Mediation in Conflict: Stancaro and Biandrata’s Mediatorial Objections ........ 7

The Mediator of Sustenance: The Role of the Cosmic Christ in Calvin ......... 17

The Possibility of Primordial Mediation: The Implicit Pactum Salutis in

Calvin .............................................................................................................. 26

Adam’s Cosmic Mediator: Communion and the Issue of

‘Incarnation Anyway’ ...................................................................................... 40

Mediator of the Angels: What Hath Christology to Do with Angelology? ..... 49

3. CHRISTUS MEDIATOR DOCTRINAE:

EXPLORING REVELATORY MEDIATION ..................................................... 60

Soteriological Mediator: Observing the Mediation of Reconciliation ............ 70

Mediation of Patrocinii: Christ’s Mediation of Intercession ........................... 76

In Search of a Perpetual Mediator: The Mediation of Union .......................... 82

4. TOWARD A SEMPER MEDIATOR: A SURVEY OF REFORMED

MEDIATION THEOLOGIES............................................................................... 88

Isaac Ambrose (1604-1663?): “His Mediatorship Shall Cease” ..................... 90

Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680): Christ Should Be a Mediator of Union ........ 96

John Owen (1616-1683): Pondering the Mediation of Glory ....................... 100

Francis Turretin (1623-1687): The Mediatorial Office Will Be Perpetual ... 105

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): Christ the Grand Medium.......................... 113

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920): Immediate Knowledge of the

Eternal Being ................................................................................................. 117

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5. IMMEDIACY WITHOUT MEDIATION? EXPLORING MEDIATION

TO COME ........................................................................................................... 122

He will Discharge the Flesh: Considering Contemporary Perceptions of

Immediacy ..................................................................................................... 124

1st Corinthians 15:24-28 and the Possibility of Everlasting Mediation ........ 132

Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................... 141

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 144

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The study of Christology is one of the chief doctrines that sets apart Christianity from the

other religions of the world. Christians are given the divine privilege to learn, read, and study the

person of Jesus Christ for all eternity. The Word of life was made manifest, and disciples are

tasked with the blessing of testifying to these wondrous works of God, in order that the

fellowship of the saints and our communion with the Triune God might be strengthened (1 Jn.

1:1-4). There is benefit in the study and practice of godliness not only for this life, but also for

the life to come (1 Tim. 4:8). This thesis is an attempt to encourage the saints to meditate more

frequently on the blessings that are currently ours in Christ in this life (Eph. 1:3), and to ponder

on the riches of the glory that shall be ours in the life to come (Eph. 2:7). Believers live in a great

disservice to the Savior and to the world when they fail to love the Lord their God holistically

with every facet of their being: heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matt. 22:37). Let this not be so,

as children of the light the day is more quickly approaching when our faith shall be turned to

sight (1 Thess. 5:5, Heb. 10:25, 1 Cor. 13:12). It will be a joy to us and our precious Savior if the

body of Christ is busy attending to observing and obeying all that Christ Himself has taught

mankind (Matt. 28:19-20). Oh, may the Son of Man find faith when He returns to the earth (Luke

18:8). This thesis is a case study of the various functions of the mediatorial office of Jesus Christ.

It is fueled in part by a concern that contemporary Christianity possesses a truncated view of the

purpose of Christ’s mediation, seeing it as only necessary for accomplishing the atonement while

neglecting the benefits of a fuller understanding of Christ’s mediatorial office.1 It is with this

1
Paul Wells puts it more stringently, saying “It can hardly be doubted that a doctrine of Christ as
the mediator is what Christianity lacks at present.” Cf. Paul Wells “The Person and Work of Christ,” in
John Calvin: For a New Reformation, ed. Derek Thomas and John W. Tweeddale. (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway, 2019). 367.

purpose that I have decided to address the question of whether Christ’s mediatorial office is only

a temporary reality, or is it one that will characterize our relationship with God hereafter?2 In this

thesis, I have decided to observe the theology of John Calvin to accompany my theologizing. His

unique history and theological reflection on the mediation of Christ will serve as a springboard to

answer the question of whether Christ will discharge his mediatorial office in the new creation.

First, I will examine this Reformation figure as a dialogue partner to this topic within

Christology, seeing that most have criticized his view of divine mediation by suggesting that he

only sees a temporary need for it.3 I will argue that the Reformer had a multifaceted system of

divine mediation within his theology, and that the accusation deserves another look before it is

stamped “finished.” I will argue that there are five mediatorial functions of Christ’s office within

the thought of the Reformer, and in the thought of many that succeeded him within the Reformed

tradition. These will be labeled the cosmological, epistemological, soteriological, sacerdotal, and

ontological functions of divine mediation. After examining the implicit and explicit theology of

John Calvin’s five-tiered function of the mediatorial office of Christ, I shall revisit the

controversial section in his works as to whether he truly believes Christ will cease mediating in

the new creation. Since this is a constructive work in systematic and historical theology, I will

examine some doctrinal intersections that divine mediation immediately necessitates further

inquiry upon. Next, I will examine the mediation theologies of Isaac Ambrose, Thomas

Goodwin, John Owen, Francis Turretin, Jonathan Edwards, and Abraham Kuyper. It shall be

noted that the statements of the Reformer, both clear and unclear, immediately affected the

2
Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in the Christian Tradition. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2018). 326. Perhaps another way of practically stating the problem is, “Will heaven (or the new
creation) be so perfect that we will no longer need Jesus?” I’m afraid this is what many are saying in
suggesting that Christ will cease to mediate in the new creation. I have Yasmin Thomas to thank for
simplifying the issue more concisely than I could have ever articulated.
3
Edwin Van Driel, “‘Too Lowly to Reach God Without a Mediator’: John Calvin’s
Supralapsarian Eschatological Narrative,” Modern Theology 33:2, (2017): 285.

following generations, and the doctrine did not close its doors to maximal development. Some

believed mediatorial functions endured, and others advocated for models of the beatific vision

that contained strong Christological deficiencies. Finally, contemporary elaborations upon the

subject shall be visited and examined, along with a theological interpretation of 1 Corinthians

15:24-28. A case shall be presented that the mediatorial office of Christ shall endure into the new

age, and I will provide some Scriptural and traditional benefits for this doctrine. In conclusion,

the reader shall be able to understand the importance of why the eschatology of the beatific

vision must be Christological, and also why Christology must be eschatological.4

4
Richard Bauckham, “The Future of Jesus Christ,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology,
16.3, (1983): 97.

CHAPTER 2: RECLAIMING CALVIN’S DOCTRINE OF THE OFFICE OF MEDIATOR

John Calvin has indubitably been marked as the one of the most impactful Reformers in

history. Although his magnus opus of the Institutes has had much to contribute to the

discipline(s) of theology throughout the centuries, along with his other extant works, many

recent interpreters have raised questions regarding the Reformer. Within the past few decades,

segments of his Christology have come under fire, and Calvin’s accusers have begun to

stigmatize him with committing near-Nestorianism, particularly in regard to the doctrine of

divine mediation, wherein Christ exercises the office of mediator as prophet, priest, and king.

Calvin’s critics have accused him of espousing a temporary, instrumental function for the office

of mediator, by suggesting that Calvin only sees the need for mediation to fulfill a redemptive

purpose, and once this original, soteriological goal of redemption has been completed, mediation

will no longer be necessary. In this sense, the office of mediator is assumed for an instrumental

function to accomplish redemption, and in the eschaton the Word’s human nature will no longer

play any mediatorial role.1 Calvin’s commentators have not only accused him of discharging the

office of Mediator within the eschaton, but some have even suggested that if one follows his

logic of the incarnation consistently, he considers the flesh of Christ as superfluous within the

new creation,2 or even worse, that the assumed flesh of Christ will be torn asunder from the

1
Edwin Van Driel, “‘Too Lowly to Reach God Without a Mediator’: John Calvin’s
Supralapsarian Eschatological Narrative,” Modern Theology 33:2 (2017): 285. Van Driel has written on
these ambiguous statements Calvin makes regarding 1 Cor. 15 and suggests that there are two competing
eschatologies in Calvin. Ibid. 282 However, the eschatological motif that drives Calvin’s Christology the
most is infralapsarian in essence. “The divine Word takes on a human nature to chase after us when, instead
of ascending upward to the Father, we descend into death and hell. Having reached us and turned our way
upward again the incarnate One continues his mediatory work by ruling his church and leading us to the
seeing of God. But once that goal has been reached, and we safely have been ushered into the
eschatological presence of God, being united with him, there no longer is any work for him to do in his
human nature. The sin problem is taken care of.”
2
Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of
Christian Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 257-259.

second Person of the Trinity at the consummation. This would mean that Christ’s future activity

of discharging would be an act in which He becomes unincarnate. In order explore the claim that

Christ will experience an ontological change3 in the new age to come, such as abandoning His

hypostasis and committing the heresy of Marcellus of Ancyra,4 it seems necessary to study

Calvin’s understanding of Christ’s mediatiorial office, role, and functions within his historical

and theological context. My suggestion is that Calvin’s recent commentators have misread

Calvin, and that these misinterpretations have led to attributing faults to Calvin that seem

staunchly unfitting for the Reformer. At first glance these accusations might seem founded, but a

closer look at his overall works will suggest otherwise, particularly that the Frenchman of

Geneva envisioned various functions for the person of the mediator, which means that Calvin’s

theology actually contains a multifaceted doctrine of divine mediation. My hope within this

chapter is to illuminate a lacuna within Calvin studies by providing an additional lens for reading

Calvin’s usage of the term mediator throughout his writings, seeing that his deployment of the

term is usually specific and loaded with theological meaning. This will provide signposts for the

reader to consider the function of mediation Calvin is writing about, seeing that he often utilizes

the mediation motif in conjunction with his doctrine of divine accommodation.5 Hence, this

3
Todd Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 82-83.
4
According to Bavinck, Marcellus of Ancyra “wrote a treatise about the submission of Christ, the
Lord, and was charged with teaching that the kingdom of Christ and also the union of his human nature
with the Logos would end. Marcellus was opposed by Eusebius and later by Basil. To the confession that
Christ would come again to judge the living and the dead, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan added the words
“of whose kingdom there will be no end.” Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3: Sin and
Salvation in Christ, trans. by John Vriend, ed. by John Bolt. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006),
481. Just as Marcellus thought that Christ’s status was inferior to the Father due to his submission, he also
believed that Christ’s kingdom was temporary, and that Christ would become unincarnate in the eschaton
due to his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:24-28. This crucial passage shall be studied exegetically in the
last chapter regarding the mediatorial office of Christ.
5
Todd Billings, Union with Christ, 81. For more on this, see “John Calvin and the Problem of a
Logos Asarkos: When Creation and Revelation Collide (An Ontological Concept of Mediation)” in Paul
Cumin, Christ at the Crux: The Mediation of God and Creation in Christological Perspective, (Eugene,
OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014),114-115. See also “Accommodation and Vision: John Calvin on Face-to-Face

chapter will be an exercise in what is commonly called theological retrieval; this study will

assume a methodology that seeks to frame Calvin’s development of the doctrine through a

historical theological perspective.

In this chapter, I will explore the backdrop of Calvin’s development of the doctrine of

mediation. It shall be observed that the doctrinal development Calvin contributes to mediation is

primarily owed to his development of the munus triplex, or the threefold office Christ exercises

as Prophet, Priest, and King. The doctrine of mediation will be traced in Calvin’s

correspondences with Giorgio Biandrata and Francesco Stancaro, in addition to various excerpts

throughout the Institutes as well as his commentaries. Secondly, I will propose a remodified,

more promising theory as to why Calvin thinks the office will be disposed, namely by

highlighting that Calvin has different mediatorial functions in mind for the office of the

mediator: (1) a cosmological function, (2) a soteriological function, (3) a sacerdotal/intercessory

function, (4) an epistemological function, and finally (5) an ontological function. These will be

dubbed as (1) the mediation of sustenance, (2) the mediation of reconciliation, (3) the mediation

of intercession/aid, (4) the mediation of revelation (doctrine/teaching), and (5) the mediation of

union. I will use these terms interchangeably throughout the thesis to describe the five

mediatorial functions of Christ, arguing that the classical understanding of the munus triplex is

limited. The office of the mediator entails these five unique functions, and the traditional three-

fold function does not adequately explain the entirety of the office of divine mediatorship, but

they adequately provide subsections for these five understandings of mediation. This chapter

shall solely consider the cosmic function of divine mediation throughout Calvin’s writings,

Vision of God” in Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 257-278, and David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology:
The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,
1966), 130-131.

showing that Calvin implements this function as of prime importance to his opponents before

moving toward other facets of Christology. Observing how the mediation of sustenance

immediately parallels with questions regarding Trinitarian operations, God’s accidental vs.

essential attributes, the covenant of redemption, and Christ’s authority over the angelic realm

shall serve as a spring board into the next chapter, where the final four functions of mediation

shall be traced throughout the Reformer’s works. This is a start to the conversation that Calvin

only envisioned some of the functions of the mediatorial office ceasing in the eschaton, and not

the entirety of the mediatorial office.

Mediation in Conflict: Stancaro and Biandrata’s Mediatorial Objections

Before envisaging the importance of Calvin’s conviction that Christ must be a cosmic

mediator, it must first be observed that Calvin’s theology of mediation evolved over the span of

the theologian’s life.6 It is commonly acknowledged that Calvin edited his masterpiece of the

Institutes five times over the span of his entire life, the first edition being written in 1536, the

second in 1539, the third in 1543, the fourth in 1550, and the final in 1559. The first edition

consisted of only six chapters, the second seventeen chapters, the third twenty-one chapters and

the final version ended up being four times longer than the first edition, coming to a total of

eighty chapters in length.7 As Calvin’s Institutes developed over his lifetime, so did his theology

regarding the Son’s perpetual mediation.8 One prime difference to note between the early and the

6
Michael Horton has dubbed the journey of theology as “Pilgrim Theology” in his Pilgrim
Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2013).
Theology is a lifelong journey of being “on the way,” this language of a theological pilgrimage is suiting
for Calvin, especially since he describes this world as a place of exile, as we venture toward our eternal
home, longing for the city, “Who’s builder and maker is God.” (Heb. 11:10)
7
Keith Mathison. “The Institutes of the Christian Religion.” Ligonier Ministries, 6/30/10.
Accessed 2/13/20. https://www.ligonier.org/blog/institutes-christian-religion/. The stark detail to note is
that the Reformer added fifty-nine additional chapters to his life-long work during the span of ten years.
8
Byung-Ho Moon has brought this numerical count to my attention. It is quite interesting to note
that a majority of the time Calvin uses mediatorship terminology is in a cosmological sense. Although he

later Calvin is the number of times the term “mediator” is employed throughout the Institutes. In

the 1539 version, Calvin only uses the word mediator 19 times in its various forms,9 but twenty

years later, Calvin uses the term at least 96 times in his final edition.10 The concept of mediator

invades the final form of the Institutes, as well as his exegetical works and apologetic treatises.11

In Calvin’s commentaries and lectures on the Old Testament, the term appears in 129 passages,

and in at least 132 passages in the commentaries on the New Testament.12 In a rough estimation,

it seems that the entirety of the Reformer’s writings present us with at least 357 usages of the

term, if we only the note the direct uses of the terms mediatoris, mediator, mediatorem,

mediatore, mediatori, mediatores. The related terms such as medius, medium, and intercedente,

still need to be accounted for in future study of mediatorship terminology in Calvin.13 If one

considers the evidence provided, then there is sufficient reason to suppose that Calvin has

provided a lexical range in the usages of the term, in which Calvin has brilliantly constructed a

multi-faceted system of thought in considering Christ’s mediatorial office. It would be

academically misinformed to presuppose that Calvin’s entire theology of Christ’s mediatorship

can be guessed by observing one passage in which he employs the term, which is exactly what

employs various forms of the term to emphasize different functions of the God-man, the term “appears
mostly to denote Christ’s sole mediatorship…Sometimes the mediation of men and angels is mentioned,
almost unexceptionally, with the note that Christ is the chief Mediator who rules over them.” Byung-Ho
Moon. Christ the Mediator of the Law: Calvin’s Christological Understanding of the Law as a Rule of
Living and Life-Giving. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006). Calvin also uses the term representatively to
emphasize that Christ is the telos of mediation which the OT figures shadowed, modeled, and pointed to.
9
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 86, cf. 86n11.
10
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 86.
11
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 86.
12
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 86. In Calvin’s lectures on the Minor
prophets, 14 of these instances occur in prayers. Perhaps there is future work to be done regarding
mediatorship in the conversation of divine-human dialogue. If our Intercessor translates and delivers our
prayers to the Father, (Rom. 8:26-28, Heb. 7:25, 8:1-3) what should our theological reflection on Jesus’
mediatorial role in our prayer life look like?
13
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 86.

has been done.14 My first course of action in combatting this misstep will be by honing in on the

foundation of Calvin’s doctrine of mediation. Before Calvin would have us understand how the

anointed Messiah’s life and ministry direct us to embracing Him as our great Prophet, Priest, and

King, he calls us to reflect on the Son’s creative attributes He shares with His Father (Col. 1:15-

20, Jn. 1:1-5, 10, 5:26, 17:5, 24, 1 Cor. 8:6, 2 Cor. 4:5-6, Heb. 1:2-3). This reflection on the

Son’s divine status as Creator, like His Father, is the cornerstone in which Calvin steers us

toward His hermeneutical conviction, that Christ is our Cosmic Mediator. This confessional

adherence is of uttermost importance for understanding Calvin’s anthropology and eschatology;

Christ’s perpetual mediation is the bedrock upon which Calvin develops the connection between

God and man.15 Here is the crux of the issue that occupied the Frenchman’s debate with

Biandrata and Stancaro: the denial that the mediator of salvation is first of all the mediator of

creation.

There is no ascent without the prior descent of the Son of God to our realm of sin and
death, no Christology from below unless the man Jesus is confessed as the mediator of
creation also…The man, Jesus Christ, the mediator of salvation is first of all mediator of
creation so that finally he might be eschatological mediator, recapitulating, summing up,
all things in himself.16

14
Moltmann, Quistorp, and A.A Van Ruler have suggested Calvin has a shallow view of the office
of mediator, which I think is due to the fact they have assumed his entire doctrine can be found in
observing his comments on 1 Cor. 15:24-28. In exegesis, this fallacy is called “illegitimate totality
transference.” See D.A Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies: Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 1996). My beloved professor Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer implemented this terminology in the realm
of systematic theology, which he terms as “illegitimate doctrinal transference.” I am thankful for his insight
on this.
15
“It was necessary for the Son of God to become ‘Immanuel, God with us,’ and in such a way
that “his divinity and our human nature might by mutual connection grow together.” (cf. Calvin, Institutes,
edited by McNeill (version) II. 12, vol. 1, 464-74, cf. Colin Gunton, “One Mediator…The Man Jesus
Christ: Reconciliation, Mediation and Life in Community. Pro Ecclesia 11 no. 2 (2002): 151. Colin Gunton
stresses the growth in mutuality between God and man in Calvin’s writings. He states, “Calvin is a
theologian of union with Christ, and his theology of mediation serves that,” Ibid, 151.
16
Colin Gunton, “’One Mediator…the Man Jesus Christ’: Reconciliation, Mediation, and Life in
Community,” Pro Ecclesia II (2002): 158, cf. Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent
and Ascension, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 89.

Francesco Stancaro was an Italian of notorious reputation during the Reformation Era. He was

born in Mantua, Italy in 1501, and earned a classical education in teaching languages, also

known as the humanities, in the northernmost part of Italy in Padua. After receiving his

education in Padua, he was ordained as a Catholic priest, while also remaining a lecturer at

Padua.17 In 1530, Stancaro published a Hebrew grammar in Venice, which was widely consulted

and held in high esteem by the academy during this time.18

Stancaro over the course of his life held professorial posts at the Universities of Venice,

Basel, and Köningsberg. During his academic career he published a second Hebrew grammar, a

treatise on the sacraments, and his Canones reformationis, which was a collaboration of fifty

articles on various subjects, such as the clerical state, divine service, sacraments, synods,

ecclesiastical discipline, etc.19

However, while Stancaro occupied the professorship of Hebrew in Köningsberg he had

begun a controversy with one of his fellow colleagues. This faculty member was the famous

Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander,20 who had taught at the University three years earlier

than Stancaro’s arrival. The controversy was over the doctrine of Christ’s office of divine

mediatorship. The conflict had gotten so hostile and adverse that Stancaro requested to relieve

17
John Patrick Donnelly S.J., Frank A. James III, and Joseph C. McLelland, “The Person of
Christ,” in The Peter Martyr Reader (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 1999), cf. 128n4.
18
Joseph Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” Calvin Theological Journal 8.1
(1973): 7n7. “He published a Hebrew grammar in Venice in 1530, and another one in Basel in 1547.”
Tylenda has not only provided important historical research on Calvin, but he has also translated Calvin’s
two replies to Stancaro “How Christ is the Mediator: A Response to the Polish Brethren to Refute
Stancaro’s Error,” and “The Controversy on Christ the Mediator: A Response to the Polish Nobles and to
Francesco Stancaro of Mantua by The Ministers of the Church of Geneva.” When I am citing Calvin from
Tylenda, it is Calvin himself speaking, otherwise, it will be clear when I am using Tylenda for historical
details.
19
Tylenda, 7n11.
20
Tylenda, 7-8. Osiander was the leading Reformer of Nuremburg with an extensive professional
background. He had participated at the Marburg Colloquy with Luther and Zwingli in 1521 and the
Augsburg Diet in 1530. He had moved to the Univeristy of Köningsberg in 1548 by Duke Albert’s
appointment, in which he became the “professor primarius of the theological faculty.” Ibid, 7-8n11.

10



his post at the University, but this did not put a halt to his influence. A year later Stancaro had

published his Apologia contra Osiandrum, where Stancaro publicly set forth the idea that Christ

was only a mediator according human nature, and not according to the divine nature, for that

would attribute to him a divinity inferior to the Father.21 This was due to Stancaro’s

interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God

and men, the man Jesus Christ.”22 This was the primary prooftext for Stancaro’s idea of divine

mediation, which was later dubbed as “Stancarism”23 across the Polish churches. For Stancaro,

this verse pointed out that only the man Christ Jesus was a mediator, hence only the human

nature of Christ could possess a mediatorial purpose. As Stancaro was combatting Osiander with

pen, he was also refuting a fellow colleague in the same city of Frankfort on the Oder, Andreas

Musculus, who was teaching Christ was a mediator as God.24 The people of Europe were

witnessing a similar story that had once been the center of theological discussion in the fourth

21
Tylenda, 5.
22
Emphasis added.
23
Tylenda, 8.
24
Tylenda, 8 “Christ the Mediator states that Musculus had been a professor in Frankfort since
1540, twelve years before Stancaro’s arrival. Two years later, he published his propositions on Christ’s
mediatorship. pp. 8n15. Calvin also disagreed with Osiander’s propositions, because Osiander asserted that
Christ is our righteousness according to the divine nature, and not according to the human nature. Osiander
says, “if the question be asked according to what nature Christ, His whole undivided person, is our
Righteousness, then, just as when one asks according to what nature He is the Creator of heaven and earth,
the clear, correct, and plain answer is that He is our Righteousness according to His divine, and not
according to His human nature, although we are unable to find, obtain, or apprehend such divine
righteousness apart from His humanity.” (Concordia Triglotta, ed. F. Bente and W.H. t. Dau (St Louis,
MO: Concordia, 1921), 156, quoted in James Weis, ‘Calvin versus Osiander on Justification’, Calvin’s
Opponents, vol. 5 of Richard C. Gamble (ed.), Articles on Calvin and Calvinism (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1992), 356. Calvin rejects this distinction of Osiander’s, and comments in 3.11.8-9 in his
Institutes that, “If Osiander should reject that this work, by its very excellence, surpasses human nature; and
for this reason can be ascribed only to the divine nature, I grant the first point; in the second I say that he is
grossly deluded…For even though Christ if he had not been true God could not cleanse our souls by his
blood, nor appease his father by his sacrifice, nor absolve us from guilt, nor, in sum, fulfill the office of
priest, because the power of the flesh is unequal to so great a burden, yet it is certain that he carried out all
these acts according to his human nature.” cf. “Calvin on deification: a reply to Carl Mosser and Jonathan
Slater,” by Yang-Ho Lee, in SJT 63(3): 274-275. To see Lee’s full analysis of Osiander and Stancaro, see
274-277. It seems that Osiander went to the opposite extreme to correct Stancarism, rather than rooting the
two natures in the theandric person of the Mediator. This controversy forced Calvin’s hand to reply, seeing
that Stancaro, Osiander, and Musculus were focusing on either the divine or the human nature when it came
to theologizing about divine action, salvation, and mediation.

11



century during the Arian controversy, the identity of Jesus was yet again being fixated on his role

and identity as mediator of creation and salvation.25 People seeking a resolution to this

controversy turned to Melanchthon, who had been requested by the Elector of Brandenburg to

respond to this understanding of the communication of idioms.26 It was during this time that

Calvin had caught wind of the reputation of Stancaro, and the controversies he was causing all

throughout Europe. Either Calvin heard about the entire debate through a minister in Leipzig,

Valentine Paceus in August of 1551, or from Francis Dryander in October of 1552.27 Dryander’s

exchange with Calvin described the recent work Melanchthon had written, which described the

“ravings and insanities” to which Osiander had succumbed, and that “some old Italian, Stancaro,

was creating confusion by maintaining that Christ was mediator only in his human nature.”28

After this brief history of exchange, it seems that things quieted down after Melanchton’s

involvement. Rumors had circulated the next year that Stancaro had died, which probably gave

25
Brian E. Daley, God Visible: Patristic Christology Reconsidered. (Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 2018), 94, 97. Daley states, “The controversy over the ontological status and identity of
the Savior, which occupied so much of the Christian Church’s political and theological energies in the
fourth century, has to be understood against this intellectual background, if it is to be understood at all. It is
really a controversy about mediation: about the way in which the Scriptural God, as the supreme and
infinite being, the source of all, is related to the world Christians confess he has created and redeemed
through Christ,” 96-97.
26
Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 8. Melanchton had written Responsio
Philippi Melanthonis de controversiis Stancari in 1553 on the Feast of St. John the Baptist. 8n16.
27
Tylenda, 7-9. My guess is that, since Valentine Paceus’s letter first mentions Stancaro, that
Calvin gradually pieced together the information from the exchange. In August of 1551, Calvin only knew
about the initial conflict with Osiander, it wasn’t until October of 1552 that he knew of the entirety of
Stancaro’s thoughts from Dryander, a Spanish student of Wittenburg , who had lived with Melanchton
during the time Luther’s successor was writing his response to Stancaro in Germany. Cf. Footnotes 6 and
17. Arnold Huijgen has written more on the exchanges between Stancaro and Calvin during this period, but
since it was published the beginning of this year, I did not have time to read his comments since writing
this. See “The Challenge of Heresy: Servetus, Stancaro, and Castellio,” in John Calvin in Context, edited
by R. Ward Holder. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 258-266.
28
Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 9. Melanchthon was probably referring
to the entire work Osiander published to combat Stancarism, entitled, Confession of the Only Mediator and
of Justification by Faith. 7-8n13.

12



Calvin relief, hoping that this would mean the end of the controversy, but little did the

Frenchman know that Stancarism would again rear its ugly head.29

After this period of controversy, we hear of the rise of another Italian that would later

prove detrimental to the Reformed churches of Poland and Transylvania, allying with Stancarism

to disband Trinitarian belief across Europe. Giorgio Biandrata was a trained physician, born in

Saluzzo Italy. Biandrata had studied medicine in Montpellier and Bologna, which led him to

occupy a relatively successful gynecological career. The exact period remains unknown when

Biandrata became interested in the Reformation, but Biandrata eventually left Italy and moved to

a small Italian refugee community in Geneva in 1557. He was greatly loved and admired by his

fellow countrymen, and his reputation as a brilliant physician only contributed to this high

esteem among his peers, which led to him being elected as an elder in their congregation.30

Biandrata’s curiosity in theological matters led him to converse with his pastor, Celso

Martinengo, about questions pertaining to Christ’s divinity. His pastor noticed the trajectory of

the nature of these questions, since he himself had formerly dabbled with Anabaptist ideas while

in the Grisons, some of which were antitrinitarian. After a few attempts of being unable to

dissuade Biandrata, Martinengo severed relations with him. The next person whom Giorgio

turned to was John Calvin, who had patiently spent long hours with the Italian’s questioning.

Biandrata posed the same questions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity to Calvin as he had

formerly done with his pastor Martinengo, but he pretended to be satisfied with Calvin’s

answers, only to later return to repeat the same performance again.31 After a few more visits with

the Reformer, Calvin analyzed the situation and came to conclusion that the visitor had no desire

29
Tylenda, 9
30
Joseph N. Tylenda, “The Warning that Went Unheeded: John Calvin on Giorgio Biandrata.”
Calvin Theological Journal, 12 (1977): 28
31
Tylenda, 28.

13



to be liberated from his confusion, and due to the Italian’s obstinacy, like Martingengo, Calvin

brought the relationship to an end.32 Shortly after this time, Biandrata became busy spreading his

antitrinitarian views among his fellow Italians. This was eventually noticed in the small Italian

community, and in May of 1558 pastor Lattanzio Ragnonge, Martinengo’s successor, decided to

bring Biandrata, Alciati and Tellio, two of Biandrata’s peers whom he persuaded, before the

Italian consistory. The consistory had allowed these men to continue to live peacefully, but this

was short-lived, when Biandrata eventually fled from Geneva in fear of undergoing further

discipline.

Biandrata and Stancaro soon started to cross paths, which made the theological terrain of

Reformation Europe more unsettled. After Biandrata had fled Geneva, he made headway towards

Transylvania. Calvin attempted to warn the churches that resided in the parts of Europe the

physician trekked through, explaining Biandrata’s character, blatant resistance to ecclesial

authority, and most importantly, the detrimental nature of his premature form of Unitarian

theology. Calvin demonstrated pastoral care for the Reformed churches of Poland by sending

letters to them, concerned about the future health of the Reformed Church in Poland.33

Unfortunately, this warning went unheeded, as Pierre Statorius and Lisamanini, ministers in the

Polish church, assured Calvin that Biandrata was a blameless man, having an upstanding

reputation in the Polish churches.34 They even suggested that Calvin apologize to Biandrata,

32
Tylenda, 30.
33
Tylenda, 30. Calvin sent a letter to Fracesco Lismanini, an Italian preacher to Queen Bora. He
was also one of the earliest patrons of the Reformation in Poland and had close ties to Geneva due to his
former residence there in 1554-1555. Ibid, 35n43. Lismanini was in conversation with Statorius. One could
say that the reply back to Calvin was from both Lismanini and Statorius, as they were the keynote
representatives of the Reformed churches of Poland.
34
Tylenda, 36. Pierre Statorius later become a student’s of Theodore Beza’s in Geneva. He had a
close relationship with Lismanini, and served alongside him to Poland. It is said that when he arrived in
Poland, he had brought Servetus’ writings with him. He was very familiar with the ideas and thoughts of
Servetus. Ibid, 36n45.

14



perceiving that he had done no wrong.35 This exchange would have been highly confusing for

Calvin, especially since he had written correspondences with Biandrata concerning the doctrine

of the Trinity, Christ’s deity, and the mediatorial office of Christ. Calvin responded back to the

Polish ministers Pierre Statorius and Lismanini after six months, and he made it very clear that

his delayed reply was intentional…he purposely held off sending the letter, knowing that it

would have been harsh and might have offended them.36 In the midst of all of these interesting

historical events that transpired, it seems like a detail that is often forgotten in Calvin studies is

the fact that these events were transpiring at the same time Stancaro rose again to the scene. It is

perhaps the occurrence of these simultaneous conflicts that strong-armed Calvin to write a

theological response concerning the doctrine of mediation.37 Failure to observe how the doctrine

of mediation informs Christology can lead to a misstep in understanding the testimony of

Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the authority Christ uniquely holds. In 1559, Calvin

received word from Statorius that Stancaro had arrived in Pinczow from Transylvania and was

creating a schism in the churches by his teaching on the mediator. Statorius stated, “[He is]

renewing the heresy of Nestorius, only giving it a new name. He teaches that the human nature

of Christ is the only mediator between God and men and that the divine nature has nothing to do

with it.”38 It was during this time that the Polish churches were spurred on to publish a

35
Tylenda, 36.
36
Tylenda, 38.
37
I have noticed that these two events occurring at the same time frame have largely influenced
the development of the doctrine of mediation for Calvin, which I think has been largely unnoticed in Calvin
studies. Theology is often birthed out of necessity, which seems to be the case regarding Biandrata and
Stancaro. This is often referred to as “occasional theology,” a theological error needs to be addressed when
the occasion necessitates it. Calvin’s replies to these two highlight the fact that when divine mediation is
overlooked, so many other threads of theology also begin to become unraveled.
38
Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 9. Oliver Crisp comments that
Stancaro earned the opprobrium of a number of the Reformed for whom such teaching was tantamount to
Nestorianism.” Cf. “John Calvin (1509-1564) on the Motivation for the Incarnation,” in Revisioning
Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition,(Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2011): 38.

15



confession of faith on the mediator, and which in response Stancaro had the audacity to attack as

proposing Arianism.39 Calvin’s astute theological discernment makes the link between

Stancaro’s and Biandrata’s works, seeing that Biandrata questioned the validity of Trinitarian

dogma in conjunction with doubting the mediation of Christ at creation. In a letter Biandrata

wrote to Calvin, the Italian raises the validity of needing a mediator in his theology of prayer. He

states:

When we pray to God directly and without a mediator, we seem to be acting in vain, for
he will not hear us without Christ, according to the saying: ‘Without me you can do
nothing.’ When we pray to the Father, do we pray to the true God? The true God is the
Trinity, the Father is one person. Do we invoke the Father, God, in the name of the Son
who is also God, or in the name of the Son who is only man, as it has been said, if I
remember correctly. And how did Christ exercise the office of mediator before the
Incarnation? And now that he is God and man by an indissoluble union, why can he not
pray for us as God…Here [I] desire to know whether Christ is invoked as mediator or as
author and beginning of all things, and as God himself?40

Not only does Biandrata question the position of Christ being our medium between God and

man, but he also questions Christ’s occupation of the office of mediator before the Incarnation.

Although Stancaro was not antitrinitarian,41 Calvin was concerned that the Polish church was

overlooking Biandrata’s intent of his teachings. They were being blinded by their acceptance of

Biandrata and his promotion within the church.42 In reality, Stancarism was used by the

antitrinitarians to spread their views in Hungary and Poland.43

39
Tylenda, 9-10.
40
Joseph N. Tylenda, “The Warning that Went Unheeded,” 53. Emphasis added. One can observe
the confusion Biandrata had concerning the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ, as he is
vacillating between Chalcedonian definitions and his own questioning of the validity of praying to Christ,
thus espousing Unitarianism.
41
Tylenda states that Stancaro recognized Biandrata’s goal, writing to Calvin that “the difficulties
in the Polish church were not with himself and his opinions [Stancarism], but with the Arians who were
teaching three Gods.” Ibid, 41.
42
Tylenda, 41.
43
John Patrick Donnelly S.J., Frank A. James III, and Joseph C. McLelland, “The Person of
Christ,” in The Peter Martyr Reader, 128n4. According to Tylenda, there also seems to have been a divided
party among the antitrinitarians. While some used Stancarism to their defense, others seized the opportunity
to conceal their unbelief in Trinitarian dogma by attacking Stancaro’s ideas. “The antitrinitarian-Biandratist

16



To add more complications to the matter at hand, Stancaro had written to Calvin

commenting on the confession of faith produced by the Polish church on the office of Christ’s

mediatorship. Stancaro gives Calvin two options concerning the dilemma:

This heresy and madness, not to say blasphemy, they affirm and proclaim in public and in
private to be your teaching, and that you are one with them in this doctrine…We ask you
not to be reluctant to write your opinion to us; either you approve the faith of those
Arians, or you approve our faith on the Trinity and mediator. There is no middle
ground!44

This accusation that Stancaro penned to Calvin essentially states that Arianism was being

broadcasted in Poland under the auspices of Calvin’s approval.45 For Stancaro, if Calvin chose

not to respond to him, he would be willingly permitting Arianism to spawn freely in Poland. This

forced Calvin’s hand to respond, defending the doctrine of divine mediation in a theological

landscape that was tumultuous.46

The Mediator of Sustenance: The Role of the Cosmic Christ in Calvin

John Calvin developed an ingenious maneuver during this time of theological necessity in

Reformation Europe, particularly by expanding Christ’s mediatorial office to encompass His act

as Creator. As Biandrata was questioning the deity of Christ, and while Stancaro was attributing

group kept begging the Swiss Reformers for help in their fight against Stancaro, always insisting that their
Trinitarian teaching is the solution to Stancaro’s errors. While the antitrinitarians were crying out against
Stancarism, voices began to rise against the antitrinitarians.” Cf. Tylenda, “The Warning that Went
Unheeded,” 46. It seems that the Biandratist group used this to their advantage, the deception could spread
under the guise of “dying on the right hill,” while the Polish church attempted to criticize what wasn’t’ their
own. The polish church was divided into three groups: “those who follow Stancaro, those who follow
Biandrata and Lismanini, and lastly those who are faithful to Reformed principles.” Ibid, 47
44
Paul Cumin, “John Calvin and the Problem of a Logos Asarkos: When Creation and Revelation
Collide (An Ontological Concept of Mediation),” in Christ at the Crux: The Mediation of God and
Creation in Christological Perspective. 98 (cf. Joseph N. Tylenda, “The Controversy on Christ the
Mediator: Calvin’s Second Reply to Stancaro,” Calvin Theological Journal 8.2 (1973): 143)
45
Cumin, 98n6. Cumin suggests that Stancaro believed Arianism was being permitted under
Calvin’s oversight due to some forgeries being circulated in Poland under Calvin’s name.
46
Due to the forgeries that were circulating under Calvin’s name, it seems that Calvin was placed
in the position to write an immediate response that reflected his genuine theology on the matter.

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a narrow function of mediation to sacrifice and intercession, Calvin expands the scope of

mediation wider than the function of expiation.47 Calvin responds to Stancaro in the appendix to

his treatise, “On the True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper,”

intending to show that the divine nature is essential to the office of the Mediator.48 The

Frenchman of Geneva highlights the chief error of Stancarism, by arguing that the Son was a

mediator before there was a human nature of Christ at all.49 The mediatorial activity of the Son is

something God does primally as Creator and not simply something he does subsequently as

Redeemer. Mediation is not an effect of the incarnation, but vice versa.50 This twofold nuance

can be observed in the following statement by Calvin:

But we maintain, first, that the name of mediator suits Christ, not only by the fact that he
put on flesh, or that he took on the office of reconciling the human race to God, but from
the beginning of creation he already truly was mediator, for he always was the head of
the Church, had primacy over the angels, and was the firstborn of every creature (Eph.
1:22, Col. 1:15; 2:10). Therefore, we conclude that not only after Adam’s fall did he
begin to exercise his office of mediator, but since he is the eternal Word of God, both
angels as well as men were united to God by his grace so that they would remain
uncorrupted. . . We add, then, that although he was predestined by God after man’s
alienation to restore the lost human race to life by expiating sin, nevertheless, in the role
of mediator he is no less head of the angels than of men. This can be seen from the first
chapter of Colossians which is by no means appropriate to human nature alone. It thus
becomes clear that whoever denies that Christ is mediator, with regard to his divinity,
takes the angels away from under his command, and detracts from his supreme majesty,
before which every knee should bend in heaven and on earth (Phil. 2:10).51

47
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension, (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans 2010), 55.
48
Joseph Tylenda. “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 11. The title of his appendix is,
“How Christ is the Mediator: A Response to the Polish Brethren to Refute Stancaro’s Error.”
49
Paul Cumin, Christ at the Crux, 105.
50
Cumin, 105. Here it can be noted that Calvin makes distinctions in the mediation of creation and
the mediation of redemption. If mediation is not an effect of the incarnation, it can be properly stated that
the incarnation is another function of the divine Mediator. Although the Logos was mediating before He
assumed flesh, Cumin can rightly say that when the Son clothes Himself in human flesh, he is fulfilling
another aspect of the office of the Mediator. The divine status of the Logos has not suffered change, or
subjected Himself to an inferior rank, but rather, the Logos asarkos (Word without flesh) has become the
Logos ensarkos, the Word enfleshed. (John 1:14). Christ has always been the Mediator, but now He is
eternally our theandric Mediator.
51
Joseph Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 12-13.

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Here, Calvin is quite clear that Christ’s mediation did not originate with sin,52 for Christ

exercised his office as mediator before Adam’s fall. There are a few things worth unpacking in

this precise defense of a cosmic mediator. First, Calvin bifurcates two purposes of a divine

mediator in this passage, the mediatorial need for the redemption of sinful man, and the

mediatorial need for the existence of creation, which depends upon its Creator. David Willis, in

his work, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in

Calvin’s Theology, is perhaps the first to describe the role of the Mediator’s cosmic function as

the “mediation of sustenance.” He comments:

Calvin here subjects the idea of mediation on two different nuances: mediation as
reconciliation and mediation as sustenance. As reconciler, the Mediator was ordained
because of the Fall to restore the broken relationship between God and man. As sustainer,
the Mediator always was the way creation was preserved and ordered.53

David Willis is correct in claiming that the Cosmic Christ is the One that sustains the entire

created order, and He can rightly be called the Mediator of sustenance.54 Calvin implements what

is commonly known as the extra calvinisticum to explain the cosmological function of the

Mediator, in that he can say with confidence the second person of the Trinity can do things extra

carnem, that is, outside of the flesh of Christ. Christ is uniquely and specially present in His

incarnation, (Jn 1:14, Col. 2:9, 1 Jn 1:1-3), but according to the divine nature, He continues to

exercise the attributes of omnipresence,55 in other words…he fills all of heaven and earth while

52
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension, 55.
53
David E. Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 70, cf. Julie Canlis,
Calvin’s Ladder, 55-56.
54
In my final chapter, I argue that the Son is not only the sustainer of the first creation, but He also
continues exercising His meditorial office in sustaining and ushering in the new creation. He will always be
the Mediator of Sustenance. (Col. 1:15-20, Jn. 1:1-5, 10, 5:26, 17:5, 24, 1 Cor. 8:6, 2 Cor. 4:5-6, Heb. 1:2-
3)
55
I would like to thank Dr. James Arcadi for pointing me to his article, “God is Where God Acts:
Reconceiving Divine Omnipresence,” in Topoi 36:631-639 (2017) in my Fall of 2018 semester at TEDS.
This has helped me understand distinctions between God’s special, manifest presence that Arcadi likes to
understand as “concentrated presence,” and God’s general omnipresence. If we think of God being able to

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also being the Incarnate Son; the flesh of Christ does not exhaust Christ’s power to be present.56

Perhaps Calvin’s most famous statement on the doctrine of the “extra,” is the following in the

Institutes, wherein the boundless essence of God cannot be bound in the narrow tenement of an

earthly body:

Another absurdity which they obtrude upon us, i.e., that if the Word of God became
incarnate, it must have been enclosed in the narrow tenement of an earthly body, is sheer
petulance. For although the boundless essence of the Word was united with human nature
into one person, we have no idea of any enclosing. The Son of God descended
miraculously from heaven, yet without abandoning heaven; was pleased to be conceived
miraculously in the Virgin’s womb, to live on earth, and hang upon the cross, and yet
always filled the world as from the beginning.57

When Calvin states that the Son “filled the world as always from the beginning,” and “Although

the whole Christ is everywhere, yet everything, which is in him, is not everywhere…our whole

Mediator is everywhere,”58 this echoes what he says in his reply to Stancaro, namely that Christ

was “already truly mediator from the beginning of creation.”59 Calvin is implying that Christ’s

mediatorial office is should not be excluded to the function of expiation, for mediation is not

exercise his presence in “degrees,” such as theophanies being a more concentrated, manifest presence of
God and His general omnipresence, this framework fits well in understanding the doctrine of the extra,
seeing that the incarnation is the full concentration of God’s presence, while the Son is also able to be
located everywhere at once according to the divine nature. See also James Gordon’s The Holy One in Our
Midst: An Essay on the Flesh of Christ (Minneapolis, MN; Fortress Press, 2016) and Andrew McGinnis’s
The Son of God Beyond the Flesh: A Historical and Theological Study of the Extra Calvinisticum (London,
UK: T&T Clark, 2014).
56
Perhaps the “extra” can explain particular passages of Scripture, such that Christ saw Nathaniel
under the fig tree when Philip called him, (Jn 1:48-50) when Christ addresses the Pharisees’ erroneous
claim to be sons of Abraham when they do not possess the faith of Abraham, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
(John 8:58) Or also, when Christ says to the thief on the cross, “This day you shall be with me in paradise.”
(Luke 23:43) Matthew Emerson, in his work He Descended to the Dead: An Evangelical Theology of Holy
Saturday, argues that Sheol or Hades has three tiers in ANE tradition, Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4), where the fallen
angels are bound (Jude 6), Hades, where the unrighteous went, and Paradise, which he equivalates with
Abraham’s Bosom, where the righteous saints of the OT went prior to Christ’s resurrection. I disagree with
Emerson in that I do not think there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Abraham’s Bosom is the same
place as Paradise, seeing the lexical range of the word throughout the rest of the NT (2 Cor. 12:3, Rev. 2:7).
However, he does offer a very persuasive argument from ANE resources and work in the LXX.
57
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge. (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2015), 308. See also Inst. 4.17.30
58
Calvin, Inst. 4.17.30
59
Joseph Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 12-13.

20



only necessary for the purpose of the redemption of sinful man, but Christ must be cosmic

mediator because of the Creator/creature distinction. The notable Calvin scholar Mark Thompson

best describes the implication that the mediation of sustenance plays in demarcating the

Creator/creature distinction, and the additional role the mediation of redemption plays in its

overarching theme in Calvin’s works.

Another important effect of this placement is to underline Calvin’s insistence that

the work of Christ, even as the Mediator, does not simply begin with the
incarnation but is a feature of the Old Testament as well. It remains true that the
language of mediation is best suited to the redemptive activity of the incarnate
Christ. Nevertheless, it has an even wider application. Calvin can speak of our
need of a Mediator simply because we are creatures. We have always been too
lowly to reach God without a Mediator.60

Calvin insists that Logos was always mediating even in His pre-incarnate state,61 even though the

incarnation is a necessary part of Christ’s mediatorial office, it is not distinctly the only part of

his office, which is the mistake that Stancaro had made. Calvin roots the cosmological function

of Christ’s mediation not simply in his human nature, but in his person, for “those things which

apply to the office of the Mediator are not spoken simply either of the divine nature or of the

human nature.”62 It is the person of Christ who is the Mediator.63 Even though Willis and

Thompson are the first to coin the terminology of this doctrinal development, it is important to

note that Calvin draws upon this “sustainer/reconciler distinction himself.”64 In his commentary

60
Mark D. Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” in Engaging with Calvin: Aspects of the
Reformer’s legacy for today (Nottingham, England: Apollos, 2009), 114.
61
Thompson, 116.
62
Inst. 2.14.3, cf. Mark Thompson, 118.
63
Mark D. Thompson Engaging with Calvin, 118. This shall be revisited when I explain the
ontological function of mediation below, for the cosmic function and the ontological function share a link.
The person of the mediator chooses to unite the human nature to the divine nature for all eternity in the
hypostatic union. The mediation of union teaches us that the person of Christ will be our theandric
Mediator for all eternity.
64
Paul Cumin. Christ the Crux, 106.

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on John 1:5, he says these are the distinct powers of the Eternal Son’s mediatorial activity from

the very beginning:

For there are two distinct powers of the Son of God. The first appears in the architecture
of the world and in the order of nature. By the second he renews and restores fallen
nature.65

Not only does Calvin describe the Logos as the sustainer of the universe, but also this motif of

“sustenance” is prevalent throughout the entirety of Calvin’s writings as it pertains to the Triune

God. Namely, he ascribes the Spirit as a participant of the role of sustenance within creation.66 In

his commentary on Romans 8:14, he states:

But it is right to observe, that the working of the Spirit is various: for there is that which
is universal, by which all creatures are sustained and preserved; there is that also which is
peculiar to men, and varying in its character: but what he means here is sanctification,
with which the Lord favors none but his own elect, and by which he separates them for
sons to himself.67

We ought to consider all of God’s acts as Trinitarian acts, and although the second Person of the

Trinity bears the title of Mediator, it must be asked what the role of the Spirit plays within

Calvin’s doctrine of the Trinity, particularly mediation as it pertains to Spirit-Christology. If the

cosmological function of the Mediator is connected to the Son’s title as Creator, perhaps it could

be argued that the filioque would not be an obstacle to a pneumatologically robust Christology;68

the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Mediator, the Son. Does this mean that the Holy

Spirit’s activity and ministry can be likened in some way to that of the Son? Although the Son

has particular aspects of the office of mediator that are proper and unique to His person, it can be

65
Wyatt’s New Testament Commentaries, cf. Cumin, 106n27.
66
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 56n9.
67
Calvin, Comm. Romans 8:14, https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom38/calcom38.xii.iv.html
Date accessed 3/7/20.
68
Ty Keiser, “Is the Filioque an Obstacle to a Pneumatologically Robust Christology? A
Response from Reformed Resources,” in JRT 12 (2018): 394-412.

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said that the Holy Spirit can mediate in some ways.69 It should be no surprise that cosmic

Christology has huge ramifications for cosmic pneumatology.70 The way the Spirit is viewed in

69
The Savoy Declaration states that Christ the mediator exercises mediation by His Word and by
His Spirit. In Chapter 8, part 8 in Of Christ the Mediator, the signatories stated: “To all those for whom
Christ hath purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same;
making intercession for them; and revealing unto them in and by the Word, the mysteries of salvation;
effectually persuading them by his Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by his Word and
Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom, and in such manner and ways as
are most consonant to his most wonderful and unsearchable dispensation.” It seems that in the Reformed
tradition the Holy Spirit shares aspects of mediation with the Son, particularly that the Son mediates
revelation by the illumination of the Spirit, and Christ also governs them “by his Word and by his Spirit.”
Savoy Declaration, “Chapter 8: Of Christ the Mediator.” https://www.the-
highway.com/savoydeclaration.html#8, Accessed 3/9/20.
70
Within studies on the Holy Spirit’s role in creation, what I would like to categorize within the
field of pneumatology as “Spirit cosmology,” it seems that this doctrine needs more attention in regard to
divine mediation. On one extreme, proponents of Deep Incarnation like to advocate for an over-realized
immanence of the Spirit in creation that collapses the Creator/Creature distinction. A famous proponent of
this view is Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann, who argues that the Spirit is experientially, “in, under,
and with each everyday experience of the world, if God is in all things, and if all things are in God, so that
God himself ‘experiences’ all things in his own way.” (Jürgen Moltmann. The Spirit of Life: A Universal
Affirmation. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 34. This cosmic pneumatology doesn’t have the anchor
that the cosmic mediatorship of Christ can provide, seeing that Calvin develops the doctrine of divine
mediation to prevent the absolving of the Creator/creature distinctions in dialogue with Stancaro. Perhaps
another issue lies in how Moltmann articulates the communication of idioms in the “extra Calvinisticum”
versus “ubiquity of the flesh” debate. Moltmann’s cosmic Christology and cosmic pneumatology lead him
to believing that Christ is, in some way, “incarnate in all things.” This is noticeable in how he interprets
Joel 2:28, that the Spirit would be poured out on “all flesh,” including animals, birds, creeping things, etc.
If Christ’s human nature has ubiquitous powers without the clarification that the Spirit would only be
poured out on human flesh, it leads to kenotic panentheism. I tend to think of Calvin’s view of the human
mediatorship of Christ in connection to the “bond of the Spirit by which Christ effectually binds us to
himself.” This is more faithful to understanding the God/World relationship of classical theism…the
binding of the Spirit is identified to the flesh of Christ, not “all flesh.” I would label this as an ethical
immanence for God…if God becomes one with sinful, unredeemed creation, it would seem this would
violate his holiness. If we speak of God having ontological and ethical reasons for being transcendent, why
can we not suggest that God has an ethical immanence? There is also the tendency to possess an under-
realized view of pneumatic involvement within the providential care of God’s creation as we know it.
Cosmic mediatorship and cosmic pneumatology is an area of study that needs more theologizing. For more
on this issue, see Niels Henrik Gregersen, Incarnation: On the Scope and Depth of Christology.
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015) and Denis Edwards, Deep Incarnation: God’s Redemptive
Suffering with Creatures. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019). This study in Christology intersects
discussions on the God-world relationship, immutability, and divine passibility. I think there is a way to
answer this question by tackling the doctrine of the extra Calvinisticum. More theologizing needs to be
done in regard to the doctrine of the extra, namely distinctions between “weak” and “strong” views of the
extra. James Gordon makes a passing comment of these two variants of the doctrine in his book, The Holy
One in Our Midst. On page one in the first footnote, he says the weak version of the extra “is agnostic
about the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the Son’s life extra carne.” (cf. Holy One in our Midst, 1. See also page
209 where he references Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology.) For
Gordon, it technically is possible to hold to a weak view of the Reformed doctrine of the extra and believe
in divine passibility while rejecting a Thomistic view of divine simplicity. A “strong” view of the extra
necessitates divine impassibiilty and Thomistic simplicity. It would seem that there is a spectrum within
Reformed theology that guards believers within that tradition from the deep incarnation doctrine. Since the
doctrine of the extra is an essential to Reformed theology, Moltmann’s Christology cannot be called

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creation has immediate consequences for the doctrine of eschatology; particularly the way the

Spirit is viewed in perfecting the current creation and bringing about a new creation. For Calvin,

the Spirit of God is explicitly apprehended and conceptualized as the source of human life and

the source of all natural gifts; in other words, his view on common grace is cosmically and

pneumatically charged.71 Depending on if one understands the munus triplex of Christ as three

separate, unique offices, or one trifold office, will add another layer to this discussion on the

Spirit’s mediating activity in conjunction with the Son.72 The Spirit applies the benefits of Christ

to believers, via illumination, and the Spirit sustains the universe as Creator with the Son. Just as

the Son and the Spirit are both referred to as the παρακλητον in Scripture, (Jn 14:16-20, 25-26,

15:26, 1 Jn 2:1), and due to the multifaceted lexical range of this term, meaning “Advocate,” (1

Jn 2:1) such as the Son’s mediatorial activity as our defender/intercessor, or “helper,” to teach,

witness, glorify Christ, and lead us into all truth as Our illuminator; it would seem that the

Reformed in this respect, since he abandons the doctrine and instead utilizes the Lutheran understanding of
the two natures, advocating for a modified communicatio. See The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as
the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, 227-235. The Lutheran believer has a challenge in this
respect, namely that it doesn’t have the same guardrail as the Reformed tradition does as it pertains to
Christology. Lutherans are left with the task of redeveloping the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum,
unless the gaping hole to deep incarnation remains open within cosmic mediation, cosmic Christology, and
cosmic Pneumatology. For more on this, see Steven J. Duby’s, “Atonement, Impassibility and the
Communicatio Operatum,” in IJST 17.3 (2015): 284-95, and Stephen R. Holmes, “Reformed Varieties of
the Communicatio Idiomatum,” in The Person of Christ, ed. Stephen R. Holmes and Murray A Rae,
(London: T&T Clark, 2005), 70-86.
71
Paul S. Chung, The Spirit of God Transforming Life: The Reformation and Theology of the Holy
Spirit. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan), 29. Calvin says that the Spirit “maintains the beauty of the
world by His invigorating power…which is transfusing vigor into all things, breathing into them being, life,
and motion, is plainly divine.” (Inst. 1.13.14) Calvin again makes this distinction for the Spirit’s role in
sanctification and general preservation, advocating for a creation conservatio view of the Spirit’s activity
rather than a creation continuata perspective, “He quickens and cherishes us (the Church) not merely by
the general energy seen in the human race and other animals.” Ibid. For Calvin’s interpretation of Paul, it is
very clear that the distinct life of the “quickening Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) that Christ breathes into His people
is different than the life given to animal life and the reprobate.
72
I personally advocate for the munus triplex as a trifold office. The five functions of mediation
are subsets of the Prophet, Priest, and King office, the Spirit participates in some of these functions, as are
appropriate for His person, but not all of these functions. It would be highly problematic for the Spirit
inhabit the mediatorial functions which are only unique to the Son, seeing some of the Son’s functions are
held because of His human nature.

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Paraclete refers to a divine office that is shared by the Son and the Spirit in some respects,

particularly here in Calvin’s understanding of God’s sustenance of the created order.73 Calvin

73
I would like to thank Dr. Edward W. Klink III for highlighting this aspect of the Spirit’s shared
office with Christ, particularly in his paper presentation at the annual meeting of the Evangelical
Theological Society in San Diego, 2019. “The Meaning and Ministry of the Paraclete.” I would also like to
thank my friend Olle Larson for reminding me of this session at ETS, and for being a great dialogue partner
as I’ve been working on this project. I think this framework of the two person’s mutual sharing is the way
forward for NT studies in regard to the doctrine of mediation, and it particularly seems promising for
theological interpretation of Scripture in Johannine studies. The mediatorial activity of the Spirit always
points us back to the one that bears the title of the Mediator. Not only is Christ our chief intercessor,
according to the author of Hebrews, but the Spirit is also our intercessor. Hence, we have an intercessor in
heaven, and an intercessor on earth. (Rom. 8:26, Heb. 7:25) For more on mediation type language in
pneumatology studies, see John V. Taylor’s The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christian
Mission. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1972). See more below for the Spirit’s role in mediating knowledge
to us. We particularly see this aspect of the Spirit’s mediating/connecting us to the Person of Christ in
Calvin’s theology of the Eucharist, it is no wonder that Calvin is often nicknamed the “theologian of the
Holy Spirit.” For more on mediatorial actions of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist, see Byung-Ho Moon’s
Christ the Mediator of the Law, 208-209. “Calvin suggests that the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit working
through his mediatorial works.” 209. Ruth Sheridan, in her article “The Paraclete and Jesus in the
Johannine Farewell Discourse,” describes the shared paracletic office/functions of the Holy Spirit and
Jesus. She claims that the Holy Spirit as Paraclete mediates the risen presence of Christ to Jesus’ disciples.
“The language of ‘mediation’ is not explicitly used in John 14-16 to describe the Paraclete’s task of
rendering the risen Jesus present to his disciples. I find the term particularly helpful because it expresses a
balanced position in terms of the Jesus-Paraclete relationship; the word ‘mediate’ suggests the manner in
which the Paraclete communicates the presence of the living Jesus (Jn 14:16-17, 18-20) and the way he
‘declares’ what is ‘from’ Jesus (John 16:14), significantly in his role as ‘teacher’ and ‘reminder’ (Jn 14:26).
My argument that the Paraclete thereby ‘mediates’ Jesus’ ongoing presence on earth is to be understood as
a more nuanced stance than arguing the Paraclete (in John’s gospel) is Jesus.” Ruth Sheridan, “The
Paraclete and Jesus in the Johannine Farewel Discourse,” Pacifica 20 (June 2007), 128. I think Sheridan’s
categories of mediation could work in a theological interpretation of the gospel of John, however, I’m
hesitant when she describes the Spirit as the “successor-mediator” prior to this section. The Holy Spirit
does not replace Jesus; Jesus in His person occupies the unique title as “mediator,” but the Spirit does share
mediating functions in conjunction with the Son. If the Spirit mediates the presence of the risen Christ to
the Church, then this mediator theology builds a stronger case for the doctrine of real presence in the Lord’s
Supper. Perhaps those that do not adhere to the real presence doctrine do not have a robust enough mediator
theology. Also, the Paraclete’s role in John 16:8-11 is given the functions of “convicting the world
concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.” Not only does the Spirit share the mediation of revelation,
intercession, and sustenance with the Son, but perhaps it could be argued that the Spirit mediates judgment
with the Son. The Spirit shares these aspects of the prophetical and kingly office with Christ. Depending on
how one translates the word for “conviction” ελεγχω, it could be argued that the Spirit plays a role in
carrying out judgment with the Son. The Spirit may mediate conviction through the lives of believers (1
Cor. 14:24-25, 1 Peter 4:17), or the Spirit may be doing this convicting function apart from believers. I am
thankful for John Aloisi’s article “The Paraclete’s Ministry of Conviction: Another Look at John 16:8-11,”
in JETS 47/1 (March 2004), 69 for making this connection, and for my friend Olle Larson for bringing this
to my attention. The idea conveyed here is that the Spirit may function as a type of prosecuting attorney,
convicting the world, and Christ levels that judgment that the Spirit has presented in His case. For more on
this motif, see Andrew T. Lincoln’s “ The Preparation of the Disciples for Testifying and the Role of the
Paraclete (15:26-16: 15; cf. also 14:16, 17, 26)” in Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel.
(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019), 110-122. The Church may play a role in mediating that conviction in
its Spirit-empowered ministry, because Jesus said that his disciples “will also bear witness,” just like the
Paraclete. (John 15:27) See also D.A Carson’s “The Function of the Paraclete in John 16:7-11,” JBL 98/4

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acknowledges that the works of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit toward creation are

indivisible.74 Julie Canlis emphasizes that Calvin’s “Trinitarian structure of mediation must be

noted from the start,” primarily due to the fact that it echo’s Calvin’s later distinctions between

the efficient cause of the Father, the material cause of the Son, and the instrumental cause of the

Spirit.75 David Willis calls this interlocking motif in Calvin a “Filioque-Christology,”76 for the

Spirit energizes Christ to perform later functions of the office of reconciliation, and preserves the

genuine humanity of Christ.77 This pneumatic spectacle is a prime key in understanding Calvin’s

mediator theology;78 the Spirit has chosen Christ as His seat, so that from him might abundantly

flow the heavenly riches of which we are in such need.79

The Possibility of Primordial Mediation: The Implicit Pactum Salutis in Calvin

In Calvin’s response to Stancaro, the Frenchman raises another puzzling aspect of divine,

cosmic mediation that needs to be addressed. Mentioned above, the Reformer of Geneva has said

in passing “from the beginning of creation he already truly was mediator…as the eternal Word of

God.”80 Is Calvin trying to illuminate a pre-temporal confession of the person of the Mediator

prior to the creation of the cosmos? Let us examine more of Calvin’s response to the Italian’s

deviant mediator theology:

(1979): 547-566 and Thomas Tops “The Orientation of the Teaching of the Paraclete in the Gospel of John:
Retrospective or Prospective?” in New Test. Stud. 66 (2020): 68-86.
74
Ty Keiser, “Is the Filioque an Obstacle?” 397.
75
Julie Canlis, “Calvin’s Ladder,” 58n19. See also Inst. 3.14.21 and 4.15.6. Canlis highlights the
sustaining activity of the Triune God in creation. She says, “The creation of the world reveals the
fatherhood of God, the mediation of the Word, and the ‘tending’ of the Spirit.”
76
Ty Keiser, 398, cf. Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology, 82-83.
77
Keiser, 398-399.
78
Keiser, 399. Cf. Inst. 2.15.5
79
Keiser, 399. Keiser highlights another aspect of Calvin’s Trinitarian framework of mediation,
for Calvin states, “To the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the foundation and wellspring of
all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is
assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.” Cf. Inst. 1.13.18.
80
Joseph Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 12. See page 19 for full
quotation.

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It must be set down that he (Christ) was endowed with the same divinity as the Father in
order to be our director and guide to the Father, which properly pertains to the office of
mediator. Similarly, he could not fulfill other aspects of the office unless by his divine
power: it was not within man’s capability to overcome death and the devil, nor could man
alone win righteousness, give life, or grant all the benefits which we receive from him.81

This question is also raised in Calvin’s second reply to Stancaro in March of 1561, where he

refers to the eternal Logos’ divine nature to argue “what the word mediator means.”

In what pertains to the matter at hand we must first see what the word mediator means.
Certainly, the eternal λογος was already mediator from the beginning, before Adam’s fall
and the alienation and separation of the human race from God. In this sense, unless we
are mistaken, he is also called by Paul the firstborn of all creatures; and when John says
that life was in him, he indicates the mode of communication from which otherwise
hidden source, the grace of God flowed to men. Therefore, since Christ was head of
angels and men in the still innocent state of things, he is rightly considered the mediator
whom the elect angels even now see and acknowledge. It was man’s rebellion that
brought it about that expiation was necessary to reconcile us to God, and so Christ should
be regarded as mediator with his sacrifice, by which he appeased God’s anger and
restored us in the hope of the blessed life from which we were barred. We indeed teach
that he is the mediator, not with regard to one nature alone, but inasmuch as he is God
revealed in the flesh.82

81
Tylenda, 13-14.
82
Joseph N. Tylenda, “The Controversy on Christ the Mediator: Calvin’s Second Reply to
Stancaro,” in Calvin Theological Journal Vol. 8, No. 2, (November 1973),147. Emphasis added. It is
important to note historically that this is Calvin’s second reply to Stancaro. The first reply was written on
June 9th, 1560. The second reply was written in March of 1561. When Stancaro disagreed with Calvin’s
first reply, Calvin had to write back in order to tie up some loose ends in his first exposition of the doctrine
of mediation. The second reply to Stancaro erased any doubts regarding the doctrine during this time
period. Calvin’s second reply was satisfactory in providing an account of the Mediator to the Polish
churches, and the rest of the churches in the Reformation. Tylenda states, “The second response is twice as
long as the first. Where the former limited itself to a discussion of scriptural proofs for the need of divinity
in the mediator, the second not only repeats these in a different way and adds to them, but it includes
patristic citations as well.” Ibid, 144 This is primarily due to the fact that Calvin had his opponent’s
detailed argumentation before writing his second reply, but when the Reformer had constructed the first
reply, he only had an encapsulated, fragmented form to work with. Calvin cites the second with patristic
quotations because Stancaro claimed his position of human mediatorship was Augustine’s position.
Tylenda also raises an additional exchange that Calvin had written to S. Pech, but this source has been lost.
It might have been a personal letter with a refutation of one or two paragraphs, or it might have been a
second answer altogether than these two replies. This has been traced because Lusenius had written a letter
to Calvin on May 14th, 1560, asking for a “more ample” response than the one sent to Pech. We know that
Calvin was addressing the error in mediation theology happening before these two public responses, but it
is unknown exactly what was written. Ibid, 131n2.

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Here, Calvin confronts us with the theological question of the attribute of divine mediation…is it

an accidental one or an essential one? Was Christ an eternal Mediator or is the word mediator a

relational attribute, which would imply that Christ became a Mediator at the beginning of time?

This is a tricky question, seeing that in one respect, it seems that there is nothing to mediate

before creation existed. Why would God mediate prior to the existence of creation? What would

need to be mediated? Can mediation be a pre-temporal activity if it seems like it is a way of

relating to creation?83 It seems as if once God creates the world, He seems to enter new relations

as Creator and Sustainer.84 K. Scott Oliphint tends to make distinctions between God’s

essential/absolute attributes, which are eternal attributes, and God’s relational/covenantal

attributes, which are temporal attributes, to answer this question. He states:

God freely determined to take on attributes, characteristics, and properties that he did not
have, and would not have, without creation. In taking on these characteristics, we
understand as well that whatever characteristics or attributes he takes on, they cannot be
of the essence of who he is, nor can they be necessary to his essential identity as God.85

Oliphint presupposes that God possesses omnitemporal86 capabilities and suggests that Christ’s

incarnation gives us understanding as to how God can be both eternal and temporal. Just as the

Son is eternal according to His divine nature and temporal according to His human nature, so

83
This theological question of divine mediation and its relationship to God’s creatorhood is
contingent on how one thinks about the doctrine of divine simplicity, and God’s relationship to time.
84
James Dolezal, All That is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical
Christian Theism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Press, 2017), 91. Dolezal calls this the threat
of theistic mutualism, which is why he sets out to write this book to defend the Thomistic model of the
doctrine of divine simplicity.
85
Scott Oliphint, God with Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God, (Crossway,
2011), 110. Cf. Dolezal, All That is in God, 94.
86
If one defines omnitemporality by suggesting that God can be both present outside and inside of
time, I could possibly comply. My skepticism arises when one suggests omnitemporality models that
suggest God, according to His omnipresence, is currently present at all times (past, present, and future) and
is currently experiencing all times. If God is present at all times and experiencing all times, this would
mean that Christ is infinitely suffering in a different dimension for all eternity, when the biblical witness
says that He “has suffered,” and “suffered once.” According to the biblical witness, Christ said he is the
“One who was, and is, and is to come,” not the One who was, and is, and will be. I have my former
professor and theological mentor Dr. Samuel J. Youngs to thank for this observation.

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Oliphint insists God is eternal in His essential character and temporal in His covenantal

character.87 In other words, Oliphint believes that God can take on temporal properties without in

any way ceasing to be essentially eternal.88 The fact that he is Creator means that he is now

related to something ad extra to which he was not related before.89 For Oliphint, “creatorhood is

a new and thus temporal property in God that is really distinct from what God is as essentially

infinite and eternal.”90

Herman Bavinck, famous Dutch Reformed theologian and contemporary of Abraham

Kuyper’s, wrestles with this problem as well. “Relative names, such as ‘Lord,’ ‘Creator,’

‘Sustainer,’ ‘Savior,’ and so on, belong to God only on account of and upon the coming into

being of, the creation,”91 but Bavinck also thinks that these names by which He relates to His

creatures92 “definitively denote something in God that exists in him absolutely.”93 But, the

question remains, how can the Mediator be the Sustainer if this belongs to God on account of the

genesis of creation? Would this make an aspect of God contingent upon creation, and make

creation necessary? James Dolezal tends to think so. He states the following:

If being Creator should be something temporal that God becomes, it would seem to
follow that His actions in and toward the world as Creator are not properly the actions of

87
Dolezal, All That Is in God, 95, cf. Oliphint,13n8. It is this reason that makes me wonder how
temporal properties can exist with the eternal God, via the hypostatic union, outside of temporal space, for
all eternity, that makes me question the atemporality perspective.
88
Dolezal, 95.
89
Dolezal, 95. cf. Oliphint, God with Us, 188
90
Dolezal, 95.
91
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.133-34, cf. Dolezal, 99.
92
Dolezal, 99.
93
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:134, cf. Dolezal, 99. Dolezal states that many Reformed
theologians point to Augustine, arguing that he makes similar argumentation as that of Bavinck.
“Accordingly, that which is first said of God in time, and was not said of him before, is manifestly said of
him relatively, yet not because of some accident in God, as though something happened to him, but plainly
on account of some accident of that with reference to which God begins to be called something relative.”
(Augustine, De Trinitate, V, 16, cited in Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:134, cf. Dolezal, 99) It would
seem that if one holds to the Thomistic variety of the doctrine of divine simplicity, that God doesn’t earn
relative attributes throughout history, for these are already in God’s essence, but these titles which God
receives are recognized by creatures, and are ascribed to Him in time. This is the argument Dolezal makes
as one that holds to the classical eternalist, or atemporality argument of God’s relationship to time. See
Dolezal, 98.

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God as divine. A creatorhood that begins to be cannot be regarded as an aspect of God’s

divinity as such, but, ironically, must be considered as a creaturely property.94

In one sense, I agree with Dolezal concerning the danger of adding on eternal attributes to God

or making creation necessary for His being. There is always the danger of anthropocentricity, or

idolatry, wherein we make God like us.95 Where I would disagree with Dolezal is that, “if God

should require the acquisition of new properties in order to mediate His activity toward and in

94
Dolezal, 97.
95
I have appreciated Dolezal’s work in emphasizing the traditional, classical theistic view of
divine simplicity from a Thomistic perspective, which is the maximal view of the doctrine. His work has
been helpful in the field of systematic theology, primarily due to the fact that he is calling out the
inconsistencies that Reformed theologians have had in claiming to uphold ontological divine immutability,
and the traditional account of the doctrine of divine simplicity. He commends Reformed theologians such
as Wolterstorff, who deny belief in ontological immutability and divine simplicity. (Dolezal, 97) However,
I disagree with his final conclusion that he comes to after critiquing other evangelical Reformed
theologians. “But this strategy of denying essential change while admitting nonessential change in God is
not available to those who claim to hold to a classical conception of immutability or divine
simplicity…Modern evangelicals who offer a model of God as both essentially immutable and
nonessentially mutable have effectively abandoned the doctrine of God’s simplicity.” (Ibid) It is true that
these “soft theistic mutualists,” he critiques are unaware, and inconsistent with the classical Thomistic
explanation of the doctrine of divine simplicity. However, Dolezal is wrong in suggesting that all of these
evangelicals have abandoned the doctrine of divine simplicity. They might have abandoned the doctrine of
divine simplicity as it pertains to the Thomistic variety. Dolezal seems to suggest that classical theism is
equivalent to the maximal, Thomistic version of the doctrine of divine simplicity. For a while, I was willing
to swallow that bullet, and would have advocated for being a neo-classical theist. R.T. Mullins, in his
article “The Difficulty of Demarcating Panentheism,” Sophia 55, (2016): 325-346 claims that neo-classical
theism does not hold belief in ontological immutability, atemporality, impassibility, or divine simplicity.
He says that neo-classical theists advocate for “divine unity,” over “divine simplicity.” It is very possible to
be a conservative evangelical and be a neo-classical theist. However, there is a spectrum of views on divine
simplicity within the Christian tradition, which is what Dolezal has failed to account for. Oliver Crisp, in
his article, “A Parsimonious Model of Divine Simplicity,” attempts to reconstruct a toy model of the
doctrine, which removes the notion of pure act that Aquinas implements within his doctrine of divine
simplicity. He argues that there are “minimal views,” of the doctrine, such as that of Anselm’s, and the
maximal view of the doctrine, such as Aquinas’s. Even Thomas McCall, in his chapter contribution
“Trinity Doctrine, Plain and Simple,” in the book, Advancing Trinitarian Theology, organizes the
development of the doctrine of divine simplicity. He gives the spectrum of weak views of the doctrine of
divine simplicity, starting with Gregory the Great, who implements the doctrine to describe Trinitarian
theology against the heretics. Anselm develops a view higher than this, then Dun Scotus and Aquinas
develop the “strong views” of the doctrine of divine simplicity. If this is the case, then it would seem that
one could still claim the title of “classical theist,” as long as they hold to one of these views of the doctrine
of divine simplicity. More theologizing needs to be done in this area, seeing that there is such a wide range
of views on divine simplicity. For more on this topic, see Thomas McCall, “Trinity Doctrine, Plain and
Simple” in Advacing Trinitarian Theology: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, edited by Oliver Crisp
and Fred Sanders. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2014): 42-59 and Oliver Crisp’s “A
Parsimonious Model of Divine Simplicity,” in Modern Theology 35:3, July 2019. 558-573.

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the world, then He could not act in the world as divine, as God.”96 According to this argument, it

would seem that we could eschew the necessity of the incarnation in providing atonement.

Throughout Calvin’s writings, he talks about the necessity for Christ to clothe Himself in flesh so

that He may “fulfill the office of Mediator,” for us, and achieve our reconciliation.97 When we

consider the redemptive historical narrative, it seems that the incarnation is necessary in order to

fulfill particular aspects of mediation.98 It is in the assumption of human nature the Son also

starts to mediate as incarnate Redeemer.99 Paul Wells has a more agreeable articulation of the

necessity of human flesh to mediate. “The person of the mediator is tied to a temporal economy

that is incomplete without incarnation.”100

96
Ibid, 98. For more information concerning this topic in regard to whether Christ was an eternal
Mediator, or became a Mediator, it is helpful to read Dolezal’s nuance of the traditional classical theist
account. See Chapter 5, “Eternal Creator,” in All That is in God, 79-104.
97
Calvin states, “Christ was presented to us by the Father with this proclamation, in His coming
forth to fulfill His task of Mediator, that we might rely on this pledge of our adoption and without fear call
God Himself our Father. The title of Son truly and by nature belongs to Christ alone, yet He was revealed
as Son of God in our flesh, that He who alone claimed Him as Father by right, could win Him for us also.
So, God, in introducing our Mediator with words that praise him as the Son, declares Himself to be a Father
to us all. This is exactly the aim of the word beloved, for as in ourselves we are hateful to God, His fatherly
love must flow to us in Christ.” Comm. On Matthew 3:17.
https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom31/calcom31.ix.xxx.html. Date Accessed 4/2/20. Although Christ was a
Mediator prior to the incarnation, He did not have the office of priest until He assumed flesh. “As priest,
Christ is also, ‘the altar of God, and on Him we must offer, if we wish that God should accept our
sacrifices.’” (cf. Paul Wells, “The Person and Work of Christ” in John Calvin: For a New Reformation
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019) 362, cf. Isaiah 60:7)
98
Stephen Edmondson comments on Calvin’s motivation for the incarnation, and the necessity for
Christ to fulfill, or take on additional roles of mediation, in order to obtain redemption for mankind. He
states, “From the beginning, Christ, as God’s eternal Son, has executed his office as king or head, whereby
he serves as the fountain of God’s grace and the source of unity for both humanity and the angels with God.
It is only with Adam’s fall that he took on an additional role as priest, to reconcile humanity to God, and
that he exercised also a second aspect of his royal office, through which he conquers death and the devil
and leads a dispersed and fearful humanity back to God.” (Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, 144) For
Calvin, cosmic mediation is a subset of Christ’s role as King in the munus triplex, but Christ takes on an
additional role as priest by assuming flesh, which was a role He did not have before a particular moment in
the narrative of historical redemption. Christ also exercises another aspect of kingship by overcoming death
as the Priest-King.
99
Stefan Lindholm, “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate Had Adam Not Fallen?: Jerome
Zanchi (1516-1590) on Christ as Mediator,” in JRT 9 (2015), 32.
100
Paul Wells, “The Person and Work of Christ,” in John Calvin: For a New Reformation.
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 360. Even Calvin states that “Thus, too, the prophets, in discoursing of
him, foretold that he would be the Mediator between God and man.” Inst. 2.12.3., 299, trans. Beveridge.
Here, we see that Christ would become a human, priestly mediator.

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Stephen Edmondson, a notable Calvin scholar, has written a work observing the

Christology of the Reformer. He has argued that Calvin believes Christ is eternally the Mediator

between the Godhead and all of creation, and that Christ’s particular role as the Mediator of

salvation is consequent upon the decree to create a world in which the fall takes place.101

However, what is Edmondson suggesting in saying that Christ is a Mediator “between the

Godhead,” before the existence of creation? What is there to mediate, and what would it mean to

mediate between the members of the Godhead? Edmondson clarifies what he means concerning

divine mediation by saying, “Christ’s work begins with our very election, and the history of his

mediation, insofar as it is tied to our election, is, thus, founded on this primal mediatory

work.”102 Here, it seems that Edmondson is suggesting that, the person of Christ is eternally the

Mediator between the members of the Godhead, before all of creation, but also creation is an

additional aspect of that mediation. Julie Canlis has recognized the tricky nature of this doctrine

that Edmondson, and others like him, have proposed, “Although this doctrine of Christ’s eternal

mediation is not without its pitfalls, its purpose is to build communion into the structure of

things.”103

Perhaps recent work on the pactum salutis, or the covenant of redemption, could help us

out on this front concerning the possibility of eternal mediation, and the “communion” it offers

between the relationship between God and His creatures. The covenant of redemption is a

doctrine within the Reformed tradition that pertains to covenant theology. However, there is an

in-house debate within the Reformed tradition as to how many covenants there are. Most

Reformed theologians advocate for two covenants, a covenant of works, and a covenant of

101
Oliver Crisp, Revisioning Christology, 26, cf. Stephen Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, 143-
151.
102
Stephen Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, 151, cf. Crisp, 27
103
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 57

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grace.104 The pactum salutis, or the covenant of redemption, is the eternal intra-trinitarian

covenant to appoint the Son as covenant surety of the elect and to redeem them in the temporal

104
The covenant of works, according to the Westminster Confession of Faith, is “the first
covenant made with man…wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition
of perfect and personal obedience.” (WCF 7.2)
http://www.covenantofgrace.com/westminster_chapter7.htm, accessed April 22, 2020. Westminster cites
Genesis 2:17 as the first mention of that covenant which God made with Adam, telling him the conditions
of the covenant, with the sign being the tree of life. Many have rejected this idea of an Adamic covenant
because the word “covenant” does not occur in the text, but the priestly language God gives to Adam to
“tend” and “keep” the garden, with a negative command to “not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil” is the exact kind of language God gives at Mt. Sinai with the negative commands in the
Decalogue. Many have believed the covenant of works to be a 16th century development that is foreign and
imposed on the message of Scripture, but Scripture testifies to this event as a covenant in Isa. 24:5 and Hos.
6:7. “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the
everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt.” (Isaiah 24:5-
6a, ESV) “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.” (Hosea 6:7,
ESV) Many debate the Hosea proof text for the covenant of works, seeing three different interpretations of
the verse, is “Adam” the residents of the city of Adam (Josh. 3:16), the original man, or is the term
referring to all men generically? This reading would be “But like men they transgressed the covenant,” but
I think even intertestamental literature favors Adam to be speaking of the original man in the garden. In
Sirach 14:17, we read, “All flesh becomes old like a garment, for the covenant from eternity is, ‘By death
you wil die!’” Again, in Sirach 17:11-12, when the author is speaking about the order in creation, the
Creator and Judge, he says, “He (God) placed knowledge before them, and he gave them the law of life as
an inheritance. He established an eternal covenant with them and he showed his judgements to them.”
(Sirach 14:17, 17:12-13, The Lexham English Septuagint, Second Edition. Bellingham, WA: Lexham
Press, Logos Bible Software) I am thankful for J.V Fesko for this observation; he has made his public
lectures on the covenant of works he gave at RTS available for online access.
https://www.jvfesko.com/video, accessed April 22, 2020. Since the author of Sirach is a Jew, and has stated
in 14:17 the command “by death you will die,” which is the language God gives to Adam and Eve, as a
“covenant from eternity,” then there is strong Second Temple Jewish evidence for suggesting this doctrine
of the covenant of works is not a 16th century development, but is explicit within ancient Jewish
commentary and understanding about the creation account of Adam and Eve. In contrast to the covenant of
works, the covenant of grace is the second covenant that the Lord was pleased to make with man, seeing
their inability to be perfect in personal obedience. (WCF 7.3, 5)
http://www.covenantofgrace.com/westminster_chapter7.htm, accessed April 22, 2020. I find that covenant
theology makes the best sense in grasping a hermeneutical understanding of the parallels/differences
between the two covenants in the canon. Covenant theology provides us with the conviction that there is
more continuity between the two testaments rather than discontinuity, which is what dispensationalism
argues for. Classical dispensationalism argues for at least seven distinct dispensations, and while
progressive dispensantionalism argues for less, seeing more continuity between the canon than classical
dispensationalism, I find that any form of dispensationalism finds more discontinuity than continuity
between Scripture. Covenant theology helps me to see the biblical theological thread of covenant between
the testaments, allowing me to read the Bible in a more unitestamental fashion. I think that John Jansen
puts it well, in suggesting that God has made one covenant with his people that is historically mediated by
Christ in both testaments. (Paul Wells, 349) “This covenant may vary in its administration but is
substantially one in its gracious content. Both Old and New Testaments have the same three promises:
eternal life, a covenant based on unmerited grace, and a knowledge and possession of Christ as the
Mediator. Although the promises are the same, however, their administration is quite different, for the New
Testament leaves the shadow and figures of the Old for the direct contemplation of God’s grace through the
gospel.” (cf. Wells, 349-350, see footnote.) However, there is a very fine line that covenant theologians
should take heed in crossing. Although the covenant of grace is described and promised in the Old
Testament, some in the Reformed movement have advocated for “federal visionist,” theology, arguing that

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execution of the covenant of grace.105 In other words, it is a covenant the Father and the Son

make before the foundations of the world to carry out the plan of redemption, or the installment

of the Son’s office as the Mediator…Christ’s mediatorial kingdom was given to Him according

to the terms of the eternal covenant of redemption.106 According to J.V Fesko, the Reformed

there is only one covenant…the covenant of grace, wherein they tend to collapse the discontinuities of the
various administrations of the covenant in their view. This has huge ramifications for one’s eschatology.
Although it’s true that all postmillenials are not federal visionists, or theonomists, all federal visionists are
postmillennial, and tend toward theonomy. For helpful introductory resources on the covenant theology and
dispensationalism conversation, see Michael Horton’s, Introducing Covenant Theology, (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker, 2009), Phillip D. R. Griffiths, Covenant Theology: A Reformed Baptist Perspective, (Eugene,
OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016), Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum’s, Kingdom through Covenant: A
Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd Edition, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018),
Stephen J. Wellum and Brent E. Parker’s, Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course Between
Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies, (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016) Robert L. Saucy’s, The
Case for Progressive Dispensationaism: Between Dispensational and Non-Dispensational Theology,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2010), J. Steven Wilkins and Duane Garner, The Federal Vision,
(West Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004), and Guy Prentiss Waters, The Federal Vision and Covenant
Theology: A Comparative Analysis, (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006).
105
J. V. Fesko, The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception, (Bristol, CT:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, 2016). 15 This doctrine has its chief Scriptural foundation primarily in
Luke 22:39. Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza, translated the word διατιτθεμαι (Latin dispono) as “I
therefore covenant to you, just as my Father covenanted to me, a kingdom.” Traditionally, this Scripture
has been translated as, “Just as the father assigned a kingdom to me, so I assign a kingdom to you.”
Calvin’s successor was one of the prime movers in this doctrine in the Reformed tradition, and not only did
it have huge ramifications for the doctrine of mediation in the ages to come, but we could possibly suggest
Beza received some of his insight from his theological mentor, Calvin, and his mediator theology, formally
and informally. (See Fesko, 39) The Luke passage is not the only passage to defend the doctrine of the
covenant of redemption, but also Psalm 89:3-4, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one,” Zechariah
6:13, wherein YHWH and the Branch of the Lord speak of a covenant, or “the counsel of peace that shall
be between them both.” We also mustn’t forget Psalm 2:7, whereby the eternally begotten Son is given the
nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession by fiat of the divine decree. There have
also been some interesting parallels in the theological interpretation of this doctrine in the gospel of John.
See Father, Son, and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel, by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R.
Swain, series editor D.A. Carson, (Downers Grove, IL: Apollos, 2008), 168-173. For more introductory
resources to the covenant of redemption, see J.V. Fesko’s, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption,
(Fearn, UK. Christian Focus Publications, 2016 Kevin). DeYoung. TGC, “Theological Primer: Pactum
Salutis,” February 15th, 2019. Accessed 3/11/20. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-
deyoung/theological-primer-pactum-salutis/ For more in depth study, see The Promise of the Trinity: The
Covenant of Redemption in the Theologies of Witsius, Owen, Dickson, Goodwin, and Cocceius, by B. Hoon
Woo. (Bristol, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, LLC, 2018) and Covenant of Redemption in the Trinitarian
Theology of Jonathan Edwards: The Nexus between the Immanent Trinity and the Economic Trinity,
(Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019). One of the critiques of the covenant of redemption is that it is
sub, or bi-trinitarian, and loses a pneumatological focus. Where is the role of the Holy Spirit in this intra-
trinitarian covenant? For more on this topic, see “The Holy Spirit’s Role in John Owen’s ‘Covenant of the
Mediator’ Formulation: A Case Study in Reformed Orthodox Formulations of the Pactum Salutis,” by
Laurence R. O’Donnell III. PRJ 4, 1 (2012): 91-115.
106
Joel R Beeke. and Mark Jones. A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI:
Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 357

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tradition has been able to utilize the covenant of redemption to account for Christ’s incarnation,

obedience to the law, satisfaction, and the application of His work to the elect, but it also

provides an account for Christ’s appointment as mediator.107 This has been seen in John Owen,

wherein he refers to the pactum salutis as “the covenant of the Mediator,” or the “covenant of the

Redeemer.”108 Owen has described it as “that compact, covenant, convention, or agreement that

was between the Father and the Son, for the accomplishment of the work of our redemption by

the mediation of Christ, to the praise of the glorious grace of God.”109 John Downame (1571-

1652), an English clergyman and a partner of the Westminster Assembly, has rooted the office of

Christ’s mediatorship in the divine decree, by suggesting the Father equips Christ with the

necessary gifts and graces to discharge, or fulfill, His mediatorial office.110 He states:

But albeit his Office of Mediation in Gods appointment were before all eternitie, yet
actually it beganne upon Adams fall coming after the Covenant of works, which was from
the beginning, as soon as Angels and men were made, when as yet the purpose of God to
save us through Christ, lay hid within himself, which first he revealed in Paradise as
soone as man had fallen: The seed of the woman shall breake the head of the Serpent.
Hereupon wee finde him inserted into the place, not onely after he had taken flesh, when
a voice came from Heaven, saying, This is my welbeloved Sonne, in whom I am well

107
Fesko, J.V. The Covenant of Redemption, 45.
108
Laurence R. O’Donnell III, “The Holy Spirit’s Role in John Owen’s ‘Covenant of the
Mediator’ Formulation: A Case Study in Reformed Orthodox Formulations of the Pactum Salutis,” PRJ 4,
1 (2012), 92.
109
O’Donnell, 92n4, cf. Works, XII:497; cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life 25n6.
This has also been seen in the theologies of John Downame, James Durham, Edward Reynolds, Edward
Fisher, Thomas Goodwin, David Pareus, and William Ames. See Fesko, J.V. 41-45. Thomas Goodwin
writes concerning the role of the covenant in redemption and the eternal mediation of Christ in Book 1 of
his Of Christ the Mediator, entitled, “Chapter VIII: Christ’s acceptance of the terms which God the Father
propounded to him. His willingness in the undertaking, whence it proceeded. The elect redeemed by Christ
first God the Father’s, and by him given to Christ to save them,” “Chapter IX: Upon Christ’s accepting this
agreement, God the Father engages to bestow all the blessings which he should purchase to those redeemed
by him. All these blessings promised to us in Christ from all eternity,” and “Chapter XI: Upon the
conclusion of this covenant of redemption, the greatest joy in heaven.” See Goodwin, Thomas. The Works
of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., Sometime President of Magdalene College, Oxford: Vol. V. Edited by Rev.
Thomas Smith. (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863). This seems like an area of mediator theology that has
been lost within discussions of the mediatorial functions of Christ in contemporary Christology. Fesko
claims that this is a helpful link in the conversation of the economic/immanent trinity discussions, seeing
that the Westminster divines were able to make sense of the economic subordination of the Son because of
the divine decree, without suggesting an eternal subordination within the immanent trinity. (Fesko, The
Covenant of Redemption, 45)
110
Fesko, The Covenant of Redemption, 41.

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pleased (Matt. 3:17), but before his coming into the World, by him that sware, Thou art a
Priest for ever, after the order of MELCHISEDECH (Psa. 110:4; Heb. 5:6): And againe,
Thou art my Sonne, this day begate I thee (Psa. 2:7).111

Note the similarities in what Edmundson has suggested, particularly that Christ’s mediation is

rooted in the electing purposes of God. Downame has suggested his readers to think

theologically about Christ’s office as mediator in a very profound way! Christians are to view the

Father inserting Christ into the office, “inserted him into the place,” in a similar manner as we

confess and view the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son.112 For the Westminster

divines, one doctrine necessitated the other. According to Downame, this office is uniquely the

second Person’s, because the scriptural language used to describe the eternal begotten language

of the Son is similar to the tone that the Father declares the Son to be “a priest forever, after the

order of Melchizedek.” Edward Fisher, David Dickson, and James Durham, all Westminster

divines, have perceived mediation as eternal due to the pactum salutis doctrine. Christ has

received his office “by order, decree, investiture from his Father.”113 The Reformed tradition

made key developments alongside of Calvin’s mediator theology. Edward Reynolds defends the

claim for belief in this intra-trinitarian covenant.114

111
Downame, Summe of Sacred Divinitie, II.i (280-281), cf. Ibid, 41-42.
112
For more on the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, see Retrieving Eternal
Generation, edited by Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017) and The
Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology by Kevin N. Giles
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2012). I by all means am not suggesting that one must believe in the covenant of
redemption to believe that Christ was eternally begotten, and not made. I am just pointing out that within
the Reformed tradition, many saw one doctrine necessitated the other.
113
Fesko, The Covenant of Redemption, 44, cf. Reynolds, Explication, 6.
114
Although Fesko states that Edward Fisher’s theological and exegetical argumentation was
strongly influenced by Calvin, it must not be ignored that many of the Westminster divines were all
informing one another concerning their doctrines in this unique shared time in history and social location. If
we are to suggest some, such as John Owen, only was aware of Calvin’s theology for penning their
mediator theologies, then we are denying the role Calvin implicitly played in developing the Westminster
confessions, along his influence he had on William Ames, Thomas Goodwin, and John Owen. In chapter
four, I discuss that since Thomas Goodwin was friend’s with John Owen, a fellow signatory of the Savory
Declaration, it is very possible that Thomas Goodwin came across many of Calvin’s ideas through Owen,
since he translated many of Calvin’s commentaries. I also suggest that it is very likely Isaac Ambrose came

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The sum of the Covenant of Redemption is this, God having freely chosen unto life, a
certain number of lost mankind, for the glory of his rich Grace did give them before the
world began, unto God the Son appointed Redeemer, that upon condition he would
humble himself so far as to assume the humane nature of a soul and body, unto personal
union with his Divine Nature, and submit himself to the Law as surety for them, and
satisfie Justice for them, by giving obedience in their name, even unto the suffering of the
cursed death of the Cross, he should ransom and redeem them all from sin and death, and
purchase unto them righteousness and eternal life, with all saving graces leading
thereunto, to be effectually, by means of his own appointment, applied in due time to
every one of them.115

As can be observed, the Covenant of Redemption has supplied the link in Reformed theology for

the claim that Christ has possessed the office of mediator by fiat of the divine decree, before the

foundations of the world (Rev. 13:8). Jesus is described as “God the Son appointed Redeemer,”

in the same manner as Downame described him as inhabiting the office, appointed by God, from

all eternity. Edmondson can make the claim that Christ’s work of mediation begins with our

election, probably because this is how the Reformed tradition has understood Calvin, through the

pactum salutis. Richard Muller, another Calvin scholar, agrees with Edmondson’s observation.

He points out in the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Book 2 of the Institutes; “Calvin begins

the discussion of the office of mediator with specific reference to the divine decree.”116 Muller

thinks that, “Calvin sets forth Christ not as a simple enactor of the decree but as its author

together with God the Father.” He states:

The mediator reveals the truth of God because he himself is God. Christ witnesses
faithfully to the election of all believers eternally in God since he himself is one with the
Father who had chosen the elect in eternity. Yet as mediator he is designated to the work.
As mediator Christ is subordinate to the decree while as Son of God he is one with the

across these ideas, since prestigious universities such as Cambridge and Oxford were exchanging ideas in
England during this time period.
115
Fekso, 45. Cf. The Summe of Saving Knowledge, With the Practical use thereof (Edinburgh:
George Swintoun, and Thomas Brown, n. d.), II.ii.
116
Richard Muller, Christ and the Decree, 28, cf. Paul Wells, “The Person and Work of Christ,” in
John Calvin: For a New Reformation, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 351.

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Father and in no way subordinate. The Son as God stands behind the decree while the
Son as mediator is the executor of the decree.117

According to Richard Muller, Christ was designated by the Father for the work of mediation

according to the decree. As the Son of God, he accepts the terms of the Father, but is in no way

subordinate in the divine, immanent life of the Trinity. Christ not only accepts the terms of the

decree, but He is also the executor of the decree by fulfilling its office in the incarnation. In the

person of the mediator, both eternal election and historical accomplishment are expressed as

complementary axes.118 According to this reading of Calvin, this would mean that the Son

occupies a primordial mediation, one that lies beyond the bounds of time and space and that

expresses the eternal grace of God in election.119 This would make sense in light of Calvin’s own

words in his commentary on Exodus 28:42, wherein he commands believers to diligently

“beware of departing from the pure institution of Christ, if they desire to have Him for their one

and eternal Mediator.”120 From Calvin’s own writings, we see an acknowledgement that the

person of the Mediator is an eternal Mediator in some sense, so any future confusion between the

person of the Mediator’s being and acts must be held in this regard, with this interpretive tension.

Since the doctrine of the covenant of redemption can be implicitly traced back to Calvin, it must

be acknowledged that eternal mediation has existed within Reformed communities because of its

117
Richard Muller, Christ and the Decree, 37-38, cf. Ibid, 351-352, italics mine for emphasis. Paul
Wells says that Muller references Calvin’s commentary on John 6:38 and 17:6-8 for his eternal decretive
support of the office.
118
Paul Wells, John Calvin: For a New Reformation, 351.
119
Paul Wells, 352.
120
John Calvin, Comm. Exodus 28:42, https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom04/calcom04.iii.iv.i.html
Perhaps even Calvin implicitly references the pactum salutis in his commentary on Matthew 17:5
at the mountain of transfiguration. He says, “This is my beloved Son…There are two titles here bestowed
upon Christ, which are not more fitted to do honor to him than to aid our faith: a beloved Son, and a
Master. The Father calls him my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, and thus declares him to be the
Mediator, by whom he reconciles the world to himself.” This sounds similar to the language used in
Hebrews 5:5-10. If Calvin means that these titles were bestowed on Christ due to His Sonship, or by nature
of His eternal generation, then Calvin here is suggesting that Christ was the Mediator before the foundation
of the world.

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shared interpretive tradition.121 This is most evident in Calvin’s commentary on Galatians 3:16,

“However, I say this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant

previously established by God toward Christ and thus do away with the promise.”122 Calvin

notes that the singular “seed” indicates Christ, and that Christ is “the foundation of the agreement

between God and Abraham.”123 Although the term pactum salutis is not explicitly found here in

this quotation of Calvin, it can be seen here implicitly. According to Calvin’s interpretation of

Galatians 3:16, it is clear that the covenant promise was made with respect to Christ as mediator

and its eternal foundation;124 the ground of the Son’s eternal mediation is in the pactum.125 This

covenant promise was dually made to Abraham and to Christ, to Abraham at a specific time, but

it is a result of the eternal promise God made with His Son according to His decree.126 In the

very words of Calvin, “before all ages, he was foreknown as the Redeemer…in the counsel of

the Father,”127 and “Since from the earliest age, even before the Law was promulgated, there was

never any promise of a Mediator without blood, we justly infer that he was destined in the

eternal counsel of God to purge the pollution of man.”128 In addition to all of these things, Canlis

emphasizes that Calvin’s point in his extrapolations on the person of the mediator is that “Christ

did not have to become human to enjoy preeminence in all things; he already was by virtue of his

121
Woo B. Soon, The Promise of the Trinity: The Covenant of Redemption in the Theologies of
Witsius, Owen, Dickson, Goodwin, and Cocceius. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 78.
122
Calvin, Comm. on Gal. 3:16, cf. Woo B. Soon, The Promise of the Trinity: The covenant of
redemption in the theologies of Witsius, Owen, Dickson, Goodwin, and Cocceius, V&R 2018.)
123
Woo B. Soon, The Promise of the Trinity, 77-78.
124
Woo B. Soon, 78.
125
Laurence R. O’Donnell III, “The Holy Spirit’s Role in John Owen’s ‘Covenant of the
Mediator’ Formulation”, 99.
126
See N.T. Wright, “The Seed and the Mediator: Galatians 3:15-20,” in The Climax of the
Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology, 1st Fortress Press (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).
Wright claims that Χριστος in Gal. 3:16 refers both to “Jesus of Nazareth and to the unified people of God
at the same time.” Which is known as the “incorporative” meaning of Christ.” Cf. Ibid, 80-81n248
127
John Calvin, Inst. 2.14.2, trans. Beveridge, 310.
128
Inst. 2.12.3. Emphasis added.

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eternal mediation.129 Therefore, the doctrine of eternal mediation has precedent in Calvin studies

because of the Person of the mediator, the nature of election and the office’s establishment

within the divine decree. “God solely of his own good pleasure appointed him Mediator to obtain

salvation for us.”130

Adam’s Cosmic Mediator: Communion and the Issue of ‘Incarnation Anyway’

Before the other four functions of divine mediation can be observed, two more aspects of

cosmic mediation must be briefly explained. In Calvin’s statements against Stancaro, we

particularly notice that Adam needed a Mediator in his pre-fallen state, and Christ’s role of

mediation by nature of His authority over the angelic realm. In regards to Calvin’s anthropology,

we see that Calvin has stated in his response to Stancaro that the Logos “was mediator…before

Adam’s fall and the alienation/separation of the human race from God,”131 and “not only after

Adam’s fall did he begin to exercise his office of mediator,” but as the Eternal Word of God,

“men were united to God by His grace.” 132 Christ’s cosmic function of mediation is explained

by Calvin to be the necessary connection between God’s relations and dealings with men. Christ

is the medium through which this communion happens.133 In these two passages in the Institutes,

Calvin states the following regarding Adam’s relation with Christ:

I admit that Adam bore God’s image, in so far as he was joined to God (which is the true
and highest perfection of dignity)…Whatever excellence was engraved upon Adam
derived from the fact that he approached the glory of the Creator through the only-
begotten Son…Adam was advanced to this degree of honor, thanks to the only-begotten
Son. But I add: the Son was common Head over angels and men.134

129
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 82.
130
Inst. 2.17.1. See also Calvin’s commentary on John 6:38 and John 17:8 to see the Father’s
appointment to Christ’s office.
131
Inst. 2.11.1
132
Inst. 2.11.1
133
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 59
134
Inst. 2.12.6, cf. Paul Wells, 350.

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Our iniquities, like a cloud intervening between him and us, having utterly alienated us
from the kingdom of heaven, none but a person reaching to him could be the medium of
restoring peace. But who could thus reach to him? Could any of the sons of Adam? All of
them, with their parents, shuddered at the sight of God. Could any of the angels? They
had need of a head, by connection with which they might adhere to their God entirely and
inseparably…Had man remained free from all taint, he was of too humble a condition to
penetrate to God without a Mediator.135

It seems that Calvin thinks that humanity still would have needed a Mediator even if the fall had

never happened. God has no dealings with creation that do not pass through the Christ

connection.136 Oliver Crisp comments on the strange tension we see in Calvin’s statement

regarding the need for a Mediator, and the decree for an incarnate mediator.

On the face of it, this sounds like an appeal to some species of incarnation anyway
reasoning. For it implies that without the fall humanity would have required a Mediator,
although it is not clear from Calvin’s remarks why this would be necessary apart from the
rather sibylline utterance that even unfallen human beings are ‘too lowly’ to reach God
without divine intervention.137

The “incarnation anyway” belief is the idea that Christ would have needed to become incarnate

even if the Fall had never happened, because of the requirements of the divine decree, or, God

ordains Christ conceptually prior to his ordination of human creatures that will sin.138 Many

proponents of this view have advocated for these extra motivations for the incarnation in the

Reformed tradition and in the Scotist tradition.139 In other words, Christ actually came into the

world to save sinners does not necessarily mean that the only reason he came into the world was

to save sinners.140 Those that advocate for this position within the Reformed tradition are

135
Inst. 2.12.1, 297-298, trans. Beveridge.
136
Paul Wells, “The Person and Work of Christ,” 347.
137
Oliver Crisp, Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition. (Surrey, UK:
Ashgate Publishing, 2011), 27.
138
Oliver Crisp, Saving Calvinism: Expanding the Reformed Tradition. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP
Academic, 58.
139
Crisp, 58, cf. Linholm, “Would Christ have Become Incarnate Had Adam not Fallen?” 20-21.
Particularly, those in the Reformed tradition of the supralapsarian opinion.
140
Crisp, 56-57.

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typically of the supralapsarian conviction, for if the incarnation is ordained by God logically

prior to the creation of creatures who will fall into sin, there are valid “other reasons” for the

incarnation which supralapsarians typically point to.141 What might these other reasons be?142

Oliver Crisp describes the position for us best:

Suppose that God wants to create a world of creatures with whom he can be united
forevermore. Then suppose that in order to be united to these creatures God must find an
interface or hub that connects up the divine side of things with the human, so that such
union is possible in principle. In a similar way, we use wireless hubs to provide an
interface between our home computers and the World Wide Web, fed into our homes
through electrical cables. The hub is the interface between the Internet and our home
computers; it connects them up so that we can browse the virtual world of the web.
Perhaps the same is true with respect to God and his creatures. That is, perhaps God sets
up an interface between himself and human beings in the incarnation so that we can be
united to God through Christ. He is the ideal “hub” because in him is personally united a
human and a divine nature. Just as the electronic hub unites together our computers to the
World Wide Web, so Christ unites in himself divinity and humanity, so that we may be
united to God through being united to him. He is our interface, our hub, connecting us to
the divine.143

According to Oliver Crisp, this understanding of the incarnation being our means to bridge the

ontological gap144 between the finite and the infinite, irrespective of human sin, makes sense of

passages in Scripture that talk about us being united to God in Christ (Rom. 6:8, 8:1, 1 Cor. 6:27,

2 Cor. 5:17, 21, Gal. 2:20, 3:27, Eph. 5:32, Col. 2:11-12). Although these passages do not

require the idea that God intends Christ to be an interface between himself and humanity from

all eternity, Crisp sees these passages as commensurate with this notion.145 “If God creates the

world to be united with us, then surely this is a matter that is more fundamental in his purposes

than the redemption of human beings through Christ.”146 However, it seems that Calvin rejects

141
It should be noted that not all supralapsarians adhere to the incarnation anyway view.
142
Crisp, Saving Calvinism, 57.
143
Crisp, 57.
144
Stefan Lindholm, “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate Had Adam Not Fallen? Jerome
Zanchi (1516-1590) on Christ as Mediator,” in JRT 9 (2015), 32.
145
Oliver Crisp, Saving Calvinism, 57-58.
146
Crisp, 57-58.

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this “incarnation anyway” understanding of mediation, in his later objection to Osiander’s vain

speculations.

The principle on which Osiander founds is altogether frivolous. He will have it that man
was created in the image of God, inasmuch as he was formed on the model of the future
Messiah, in order to resemble him whom the Father had already determined to clothe
with flesh. Hence he infers, that though Adam had never fallen from his first and pure
original, Christ would still have been man. How silly and distorted this view is, all men
of sound judgment at once discern…147

Calvin not only says that this view is silly, distorted, and frivolous speculation, but he claims this

notion is “perverse curiosity,” and Paul lays a curb for interpreters from engaging in these

“foolish questions.”

He [Osiander] brings a charge of overweening confidence against those who deny that
the Son of God would have appeared in the flesh if Adam had not fallen, because this
notion is not repudiated by any passage of Scripture. As if Paul did not lay a curb on
perverse curiosity when, after speaking of the redemption obtained by Christ, he bids us
“avoid foolish questions” (Titus 3:9). To such insanity have some proceeded in their
preposterous eagerness to seem acute, that they made it a question whether the Son of
God might not have assumed the nature of an ass.148

Perhaps Calvin is referring to the medieval speculation of incarnation anyway theories that were

occurring in his day, and if Christ would have assumed a different form other than human nature

(the nature of an ass) because of the necessity of the decree. Paul Helm has perceived these

statements as an apparent inconsistency in Calvin’s understanding of the motivation for the

incarnation. He worries that “Calvin is guilty of indulging in precisely the sort of unwarranted

speculation that he condemns in his opponents.”149 Paul Helm provides a possible explanation

for Calvin, for “in the brief earlier passage [2.12.1] reference to a Mediator is reference to the

147
Calvin, Inst. 2.12.6, trans. Beveridge, 301.
148
Inst. 2.12.5, trans. Beveridge, 301.
149
Oliver Crisp, Revisioning Christology, 28, cf. Paul Helm John Calvin’s Ideas, 340.

43



Son of God unincarnated nevertheless taking on the role of a mediator.”150 Oliver Crisp adds the

qualifier that Calvin is making a comment about the relation between God the Son in his role as

Cosmic Mediator and the created order independent of his role as Redemptive Mediator.151

When Calvin addresses Osiander’s Incarnation anyway argument, he is not contradicting

himself in the space of a few pages. He is affirming that the role of the Second Person of
the Trinity as the God-man is a role that obtains not irrespective of whether or not the fall
obtains, but as a consequence of the fall. God ordains Christ’s mediatory role in the
salvation of some number of fallen human beings who are the elect logically subsequent
to his role as the Mediator through whom all things are created and sustained.152

Crisp is speaking of the tension here between infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism in

Calvin’s writings. Edwin Van Driel has made a similar claim, arguing that these inconsistencies

in Calvin’s understanding of the office of the Mediator are due to competing eschatologies in

Calvin.153 Van Driel interprets the “passing comment on the pre-lapsarian Mediator,” in Calvin

as a supralapsarian, eschatological mediation.154 He states the following:

The mediator’s task does not have simply to do with the calling forth and sustaining of
humanity: it rather suggests that human beings are set on a journey, an upward movement
towards God, and that the mediator’s role is to guide them onward toward that destiny.
Calvin’s comment is thus not concerned with creation or preservation; it is concerned
with eschatology.155

Van Driel thinks that Calvin has a supralapsarian, eschatological mediation in mind, which is not

one of divine identification with creatures; it is one of creatures being graced with divine life

150
Crisp, 28.
151
Crisp, 29.
152
Crisp, 30.
153
For more on this topic, see Edwin Van Driel’s Incarnation Anyway: Arguments for
Supralapsarian Christology, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008) Van Driel claims that Calvin
has two eschatologies…the original, essential goal for humanity as supralapsarian, and the dynamic of the
Fall, Incarnation, reconciliation, resurrection, ascension, coming and last judgement as infralapsarian,”
“‘Too Lowly to Reach God Without a Mediator’: John Calvin’s Supralapsarian Eschatological Narrative,”
in Modern Theology 33:2 (2017): 282. See also Stefan Lindholm, “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate
Had Adam not Fallen?: Jerome Zanchi on Christ the Mediator,” in JRT 9.1 (2015): 19-36.
154
Edwin Van Driel, “‘Too Lowly To Reach God Without a Mediator,’” 276, 284.
155
Van Driel, 282.

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flowing to them by way of the mediator.156 Van Driel thinks that the pre-lapsarian mediation that

began before the need of the incarnation is a supralapsarian story encased in Calvin’s driving

infralapsarian eschatology.157

The reformer John Calvin, however, left his followers a complicated heritage. He rejected
the notion that the incarnation is not contingent upon sin, but he did believe that Christ’s
mediatorship is not contingent upon sin. This led both to an almost unanimous rejection
among the Reformed of the supralapsarian position on the incarnation and to an extensive
discussion about Christ’s mediatorship. If Calvin was right, then what is the nature of
Christ’s supralapsarian, but non-incarnate, mediatorship?158

As convincing as this argument may seem, I disagree with Van Driel that Calvin limits the

mediatorial activity of the Logos to an infralapsarian purpose. I interpret these statements in

Calvin to be a mediatorial understanding of Christ’s assignment to the office according to the

Father’s plan, via pactum salutis, and that Calvin is speaking of man’s inability to reach God

because of the finite limitations that restrict him. Not only do we see this line of thought present

in Calvin, where he says man can only perceive God “as far as his capacities will allow,”159 but

we also see this pre-lapsarian mediation explained in similar Calvinian thought of the Reformed

tradition, particularly among one of John Calvin’s contemporaries, Jerome Zanchi (1516-

1590).160 Zanchi writes about the Mediator’s role for Adam’s pre-fallen state in his work De

Operibus Dei Intra Spacium Sex Dierum Creatis Orus (Created from the Works of God within

156
Van Driel. 284.
157
Van Driel, 291.
158
Van Driel, Incarnation Anyway: Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology, 173-174. cf.
Stefan Lindholm, “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate Had Adam not Fallen?: Jerome Zanchi on Christ
the Mediator,” in JRT 9.1 (2015): 21-22.
159
John Calvin, Comm. On 1 Peter 1:21
https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom45/calcom45.iv.ii.vi.html
160
Although Zanchi was an Italian Reformer, he was in the Reformed tradition at the same time of
John Calvin. He was born seven years after Calvin and lived twenty-six years after Calvin’s death. It is not
a stretch to suggest and make connections among similar veins of thought within the Reformed tradition
among contemporaries, especially when we see Calvin having correspondences with Zanchi. See Joseph N.
Tylenda’s “Girolamo Zanchi and John Calvin: A Study in Discipleship Through Their Correspondence,” in
Calvin Theological Journal 10.2 (Nov. 1975): 101-141. Zanchi was a prime mover in the development of
Reformed theology during the years following Calvin’s death.

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the Period of Six Days) in his work on the six days of creation, which was published after his

death in 1591.

We teach that even in the state before the fall the work performed by Christ the mediator
did not merely reconcile us to the Father and cleanse us from sin not yet committed but
through it we are preserved from sin and conserved in the grace before the Father…For
just as it is the office of the medical doctor not only to cure us but also to preserve us
from illnesses and keep us in good health so is also Christ’s mediatorial office. It does not
merely take away our sins and reconcile us to the Father but also preserves us from them,
conserving us in the grace of the Father. Adam also needed this mode of the grace of
Christ. This notion about Christ extends to the Apostle: “Without me you can do nothing”
and to all humans, as well as Adam in his [innocent] state. The reason is that since all
things were made through Christ it is not even possible that there is anything that is not
constituted through Christ—indeed whatever its state.161

In this passage, Zanchi parallels Christ’s mediatorship to that of a medical doctor, who doesn’t

merely respond to illness, but acts in a prophylactic manner, in order to prevent human beings

from falling ill.162 According to Calvin’s contemporary, the Logos as Mediator had other things

to do than simply redeem fallen humanity. Presumably, had Adam not fallen, the Mediator

would have continued to exercise his mediating activity in “preserving” and “keeping” Adam in

his innocent state.163 Even in the Garden of Eden, Adam received life not from God simpliciter

but from Christ.164 Not only does Calvin’s contemporary implement this language to describe

mediation in the Garden of Eden, but Calvin states that Christ “was the mid-point [medium]

161
De operibus Dei intra spacium sex dierum creatis in Operum Theologicorum (Heidelberg,
1613), vol. III, 699-700, cf. Lindholm, Stefan. “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate Had Adam Not
Fallen?” 24-25. This passage brought me great comfort in writing my thesis during the Coronavirus
pandemic. It is of great comfort to know our Great Physician still has power to preserve us from illnesses
and keep us in good health, as He is still our cosmic mediator. David reminds us, “Though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort
me.” (Psalm 23:4) God has promised His constant presence to us no matter the worst calamities we may
face. The rod and staff of our great King still lead us and provide us with comfort. The kingly function of
mediation brings me comfort during this time, knowing that the Lord is my Protector, Shield, and
Defender. He is our caretaker. As our mediator, He also, “ever lives to make intercession for us,” (Hebrews
7:25) during this time many of us face the plague.
162
Lindholm, 25.
163
Lindholm, 25.
164
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 59.

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between God and creatures, so that the life which was otherwise hidden in God would flow from

him.”165 Calvin states in his commentary on Genesis 3, “Previously, direct communication with

God was the source of life to Adam; but, from the moment in which he became alienated from

God, it was necessary that he should recover life by the death of Christ, by whose life he then

lived.”166 Here, Calvin states that Adam’s life was dependent upon the cosmic mediation of

Christ in the Garden. “Calvin makes the point that human life is maintained only by participation

in God but then he more pointedly embeds this in the Mediator…we do not have an ‘in’ to God

except through Christ.”167 Throughout Calvin’s writings and among his contemporaries, a

Christological differentiation can be discerned at play in the creation.168 Not only does Calvin

agree with Zanchi on the necessity of Adam’s mediation in the Garden, but Zanchi goes further

in specifying three distinctions between Christ’s work and action as Mediator: one that is before

the foundation of the world, the second “in” and “after” the foundation of the world before the

incarnation, and the third after the incarnation.169 Zanchi, like Calvin, grounds Christ’s

mediatorial office in the divine decree, “to be Mediator is a function that is unique to the Son

165
Joseph Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator:Calvin Versus Stancaro” 13, cf. Canlis, 59.
166
John Calvin, Comm. Gen. 3:22, cf. Canlis, 59, emphasis added.
167
Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, Ibid.
168
Canlis, 59. Although the Reformed tradition has a multi-variagated nature, I have attempted to
argue that some streams of Reformed thought can be called “Calvinian,” especially if Calvin’s works
influenced key Reformed theologians. Although we must be careful not to lump all in the Reformed
tradition as Calvinian, seeing that there is much diversity in the Reformed tradition that developed theology
independently of, or unaware of Calvin’s contributions. However, I have argued in FN 159 that Calvin had
significant impact on Zanchi, and possibly vice versa, due to their correspondences with one antoher.
Richard Muller has written an excellent work in highlighting the multi-variagated nature of the Reformed
tradition in his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy,
ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003). Perhaps it is better stated that there is
Reformed theology that is of the Calvinian stream, while there are also those outside of the Calvinian
stream in other Reformed theologies.
169
Stefan Lindholm, “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate,” 29.

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and, it seems, ultimately grounded in the intra-trinitarian decree and will.”170 From eternity,

Christ was “destined” and “consecrated” to be the Mediator.171

For Christ the Mediator is also Mediator as the LOGOS, and not merely as human. And
he was therefore destined to this office before the constitution of the world from the
decree and will of the Father and his Holy Spirit.172

If Zanchi, an Italian contemporary of Calvin and Beza’s, here in some sense refers to Christ’s

function as mediator before the incarnation as Logos, due to the pactum salutis, then it is

possible to suggest that Calvin is speaking similarly of the need for a Mediator because of the

creator/creature distinction, and because of the need for accommodation. If Christ the Mediator

has other functions than merely to redeem humanity from sin, it has to be made clear that this is

not the same as to say that the incarnation would have happened independently of Adam’s fall.

The imagery of Christ as a medical doctor does not entail incarnation without the fall even if it is

consistent with it.173

Since from the earliest age, even before the Law was promulgated, there was never any
promise of a Mediator without blood, we justly infer that he was destined in the eternal
counsel of God to purge the pollution of man, the shedding of blood being the symbol of
expiation.174

Here, we see Calvin’s incarnational theology is likewise in agreement with Aquinas’s, and he

rebukes Osiander’s vain speculations of his particular theory of incarnation anyway.

Independently of the fall, the incarnation could happen because God is powerful enough to bring

170
Lindholm, 29.
171
Lindholm, 29.
172
Zanchi, De Tribus Elohim, 479. Cf. Lindholm, 28.
173
Lindholm, 26.
174
Inst. 2.12.4, trans. Beveridge, 299. Notice here Calvin states that it is illogical to think there
would be a Mediator without the shedding of blood, and that Christ was destined to this redemptive role,
and installed into this office from eternity, in the counsel of God.

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it about without the fall, but there is no warrant that he would.175 Just because something is

possible does not mean that it would have been counterfactually true.176 This would mean that

Christ’s pre-incarnate mediatorial role can only function if it is one that is solely performed

incarnationally.177 Christ works and acts after the constitution of the world and before his

assumption of human flesh, which includes the calling of the church and His pre-incarnate

appearances in the old dispensation (1 Cor. 10:9).178 Before other functions of mediation can be

discussed, such as the mediation of revelation, we must deal with the final purpose of the

cosmological function of mediation, Christ as cosmic mediator is the mediator of angels.

Mediator of the Angels: What Hath Christology to Do with Angelology?

The last aspect of Calvin’s understanding of the cosmic Mediator that must be discussed

is that of Christ’s mediatorial activity of the angels. Earlier, we saw that Calvin stated that the

angels “had need of a head,”179 and “had primacy over the angels, and was the firstborn of every

creature (Eph. 1:22, Col. 1:15; 2:10).”180 Similar to the language Calvin used to describe Adam’s

need for life, and the statement that man could only penetrate to God through the Christ

connection, we see a similar activity of conservation in conjunction with Christ’s mediation of

the angels. “Therefore, we conclude that…both angels as well as men were united to God by his

[the mediator’s] grace so that they would remain uncorrupted.”181 The Mediator’s cosmic role

175
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 1, a. 2, resp. cf. Stefan Lindholm, “Would Christ Have
Become Incarnate,” 26.
176
Lindholm, 26.
177
Lindholm, 26 I would agree with Lindholm’s critique of Oliver Crisp, namely that his
misconstrual of Calvin favoring an incarnation anyway argument “is rooted in a neglect of the distinction
between Logos incarnandus and the novel way in which Calvin applied the term Mediator.” Christ was
Mediator by way of being the one destined to the incarnate Logos, before he was incarnate at the fullness of
time. (Gal. 4:4-5) Cf. Ibid, 36n42.
178
Lindholm, 29.
179
Inst. 2.12.1 and 2.12.6.
180
Tylenda, Joseph. “Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 12.
181
Tylenda, 12.

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includes within its ambit Christ’s headship over the angels.182 Just as Christ “preserved” and

“kept,” Adam, Christ keeps the angels from corruption. This is probably a reference in

contradistinction to the angels that are listed as “fallen” in Scripture (Matt. 25:41, James 2:19, 2

Pet. 2:4, Jude 6).183 When Calvin responds to Stancaro, he claims that the Mediator’s divine

nature entails that Christ is a mediator of the angels. “It thus becomes clear that whoever denies

that Christ is mediator, with regard to his divinity, takes the angels away from under his

command, and detracts from his supreme majesty, before which every knee should bend in

heaven and on earth.”184 Calvin indirectly references Philippians. 2:10 and 1st Peter 3:22 for a

defense of the mediator’s authority over the angelic realm, but he directly references Colossians

1:20, and oddly enough, the book of Job.

It was…necessary that angels, also, should be made to be at peace with God, for being
creatures, they were not beyond the risk of falling, had they not been confirmed by the
grace of Christ…There is not on the part of angels so much of righteousness as would
suffice for their being fully joined with God. They have, therefore, need of a peace-
maker, through whose grace they may wholly cleave to God. Hence, it is with propriety
that Paul declares that the grace of Christ does not reside among mankind alone, and on
the other hand makes it common to angels. Nor is there any injustice done to angels, in
sending to them a Mediator, that they may, through his kindness, have a well-grounded
peace with God.185

Furthermoore it behooveth us to mark well howe S. Paule sayth, that Jesus Christ is come
to gather together the things that are in heaven and earth. And therby he sheweth, that the
Angells have their steadfastnesse in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, forsomuch as he
is the mediator between God and his creatures. True it is that Jesus Christ redeemed not
the Angels, for they needed not to be ransomed from death whereunto they were not yet
falne: but yet he was theyr mediator. And how so? To the intent to joyne them unto God
in all perfection, and afterward to mainteyne them by his grace, that they may be
preserved from falling.186

182
Oliver Crisp, Revisioning Christology, 40.
183
A helpful resource in understanding if the Ezekiel 28:11-19 passage is a reference to the King
of Tyre or the falling of Satan, see Hector M. Patmore’s Adam, Satan, and the King of Tyre: The
Interpretation of Ezekiel 28:11-19 in Late Antiquity. (Boston, MA: Brill, 2012).
184
Joseph Tylenda, “Calvin Versus Stancaro,” 13.
185
John Calvin, Commentary on Colossians, 156, cf. Crisp, Revisioning Christology, 33n25.
186
John Calvin, Sermons of Maister John Calvin, upon the Booke of Job, trans. Arthur Golding
(London, 1574 [Facsimile reprint Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1993]), 74, cf. Crisp, 33n26.

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In these passages, Calvin suggests that, although angels did not need to be ransomed,

they still had need of a peace-maker, their steadfastness was contingent on the grace of Christ,

and the Logos maintained them by His grace to preserve them from falling.187 Interesting

enough, Calvin is a forerunner in this time of the Reformation by making these Christological

connections with the angels.188 Calvin is not wrong in highlighting Christ’s mediatorial activity

with the angelic realm, seeing that angels are often in the service of Christ in the biblical

witness.189 Angels come into view throughout the entire earthly ministry of Christ, particularly at

the beginning and the end.190 At Christ’s nativity, the Savior is angelically announced (Luke 1-

26-27, 2:8-11).191 After Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness with Satan, the angels attend to him.

(Matthew 4:11)192 In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus once again reminds us of his mediatorial

authority by having authority over legions of angels, and His Father has given this superiority to

Him193 (Matt. 26:53, Heb. 1:3-14). Angels announce Christ’s victorious resurrection,194

187
In Calvin’s commentary on Matthew 17:5, he states, “There is a difference, no doubt, between
our condition and that of the angels; for they never were alienated from God, and therefore needed not that
he should reconcile them; while we are enemies on account of sin, till Christ procure for us his favor. Still,
it is a fixed principle that God is gracious to both (men and angels), only so far as he embraces us in Christ.
For even the angels would not be firmly united to God if Christ were not their Head.” Cf.
https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom32/calcom32.ii.liv.html, accessed April 2, 2020.
188
I state that Calvin was a type of forerunner in this aspect of mediatorial theology because, as far
as is known, nobody else in the Christian tradition prior to Calvin connects the mediatorial office of Christ
as having any relevance to angelology. Luther didn’t seem to suggest that Christ was a mediator of the
angels, so it seems that Calvin is the first to suggest this notion.
189
Moon states, “Christ’s kingly office is especially denoted when he is described as the chief of
the angels, who rules angels and menservants. This office does not seem to belong to any specific type of
mediation, but to the whole process of mediation.” cf. Christ the Mediator of the Law, 99.
190
Graham Cole, Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons, 60.
191
Cole, 60.
192
Cole, 60.
193
There is also the controversial passage in Luke 22:43, which does not appear in the earliest
manuscripts of Luke due to research in textual criticism, “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven,
strengthening him.” I only mention this because if one takes this to actually have occurred, it happened in
the Garden of Gethsemane.
194
Cole, 60.

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(Matthew 28:5-6) accompany the return of Jesus to heaven195 (Acts 1:10-11) and are described as

being sent by the Son at the time of the second advent of Christ196 (Matt. 13:41-42, 1 Thess.

4:16, 2 Thess. 1:7-8). Christ as mediator of the angels has authority to send angels. An intriguing

thing to consider is that in a parallel sense, the Old Testament states God has his angels in the

same way the Gospels affirm that Jesus has his angels.197 Let us observe some of this continuity

from the scriptural witness:

“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the
place that I have prepared…when my angel goes before you and brings you to the
Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the
Jebusites…you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars into pieces.” (Ex.
23:20, 23-24 ESV)

“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him,
all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!” (Ps. 148:1-2, ESV)

“The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes
of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.” (Matt 13:41-42, ESV)

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches.” (Rev.
22:16, ESV)

“…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,
inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the
gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2 Thess. 1:7-8, ESV)

Notice the way the New Testament echoes the Old Testament, Jesus, like YHWH, states he “sent

my angel,” and Jesus, like YHWH, has his angels. No other biblical character speaks of his or

her angels other than God Himself.198 The fact that Jesus says he can send an angel shows that

his authority is great,199 and further yet, Calvin intentionally implemented this theological truth

195
Cole, 60.
196
Cole, 160.
197
Cole, 160.
198
Cole, 160
199
Cole, 161, cf. Leon Morris, Revelation, TNTC (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1987), 248.

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in his treatise to Stancaro, knowing that this evidence would show both Biandrata and Stancaro

that Jesus is God and not merely human.200 The Logos possesses the cosmic mediatorial rights

over the angels because of the divine nature. The mediator is not a mere human. Calvin also

states that Christ is the “head,” of the angels, often calling Him their Chief. This is primarily due

to Calvin’s understanding of the mysterious “angel of the LORD,” in Scripture, because he

believes these occurrences are Christophanies.201 Let us observe a few passages where Calvin

talks about the Mediator being the lead angel.

The mystery which some of the ancient writers have endeavored to elicit from this act;
namely, that Abraham adored one out of the three, whom he saw, and, therefore,
perceived by faith, that there are three persons in one God…For we have before said, that
the angels were so received by the holy man…As to his having saluted one in particular,
it was probably done because he excelled the other two. For we know that angels often
appeared with Christ their Head; here, therefore, among the three angels, Moses points
out one, as the Chief of the embassy.202

Moreover the angels, to whom is committed the guardianship of the human race, while
strenuously applying themselves to their office, yet do not communicate with us in such a
way that we become conscious of their presence. It is Christ alone, therefore, who
connects from heaven down to earth: he is the medium through which the fullness of all
celestial blessings flows down to us, and through which we, in turn, ascend to God. He it
is who, being the head over angels, causes them to minister to his earthly members…For
the similitude of a ladder well suits the Mediator, through whom ministering angels,
righteousness and life, with all the graces of the Holy Spirit, descend to us step by step.203

He so joins the Angel to God as to make him his equal. Truly he offers him divine
worship, and asks the same things from him as from God. If this be understood
indifferently of any angel whatever, the sentence is absurd. Nay, rather, as Jacob himself
sustains the name and character of God, in blessing his son, he is superior, in this respect,
to the angels. Wherefore it is necessary that Christ should be here meant, who does not
bear in vain the title of Angel, because he had become the perpetual Mediator…He was

200
Cole, 161.
201
For more on this, see Graham Cole’s Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and
Demons, 64 and Charles A. Gieschen’s Angelmorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence Waco,
TX: Baylor University Press, 2017.
202
John Calvin, Comm. on Genesis, 18:2, translated by John King, 469-470 italics mine.
203
John Calvin, Comm. on Genesis Volume Second, 28:12, translated by John King, 113-114,
emphasis added.

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therefore the Angel, because even then he poured forth his rays, that the saints might
approach God, through him, as Mediator.204

For he calls himself captain of the Lord’s host, a term which may be understood to
comprehend not merely his chosen people, but angels also…Accordingly, he is
indiscriminately called an angel, and distinguished by the title of the eternal God. Of this
fact Paul is a competent witness, who distinctly declares that it was Christ. (1 Cor. 10:4)
And Moses himself embraced God as present in the person of the Mediator…It was thus
a special pledge of the divine favour that the Captain and Head of the Church, to whom
Moses had been accustomed, was now present to assist. And indeed the divine adoption
could not be ratified in any other way than in the hand of the Mediator…We have said
that in the books of Moses the name of Jehovah is often attributed to the presiding Angel,
who was undoubtedly the only-begotten Son of God.205

But it may be asked, How was he the eternal God, and at the same time an angel? It
occurs, indeed, so frequently in Scripture, that it must be well known to us, that when the
Lord appeared by his angels, the name of Jehovah was given to them, not indeed to all
the angels indiscriminately, but to the chief angel, by whom God manifested himself…It
then follows, that this angel was truly and essentially God…There must be then some
person in the Deity, to which this name and title of angel can apply…Because Christ, the
eternal Wisdom of God, did put on the character of a Mediator, before he put on our
flesh. He was therefore then a Mediator, and in that capacity he was also an angel…But
Christ, though he was God, was also a Mediator; and as a Mediator, he is rightly and
fitly called the angel or the messenger of God, for he has of his own accord placed
himself between the Father and men.206

There was one more eminent than the rest, and in this there is nothing unusual; for when
God sends forth a company of angels, he gives the lead to some one: and this is the
reason why one is described here as more illustrious than all the others. If we regard this
angel to be Christ, the idea is consistent with the common usage of Scripture; for Christ,
we know, being the head of angels, ever exercises such dominion over them, that in
obeying God they do nothing but under his authority. It may be then that one angel
assumed here a pre-eminence over the rest, that the Prophet might think of the Redeemer,
who exercises power over angels and the whole Church.207

204
John Calvin, Comm. on Genesis 48:16, 429. Italics mine. Here, I cannot help but see the
everlasting continuity of Christ’s office of Mediator if Calvin here calls Him the perpetual Mediator, even
before the incarnation.
205
John Calvin, Comm. on Joshua 5:13-14, trans. Henry Beveridge, 87-88, emphasis added.
206
John Calvin, Comm. on Hosea 12:4-5, trans. John Owen, 421, emphasis added.
207
John Calvin, Comm. on Zechariah 1:7-11, trans. Beveridge, 33, emphasis added . See also
Comm. Exodus 3:2, 14:19, 23:20, Comm. Zechariah 1, 18-21, 3:3-4.

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In these passages, we see Calvin ascribing Christ the role as the lead angel, because, as Mediator,

he is the “angel or messenger of God.”208 In this line of logic, one can say the angel of the Lord

can be understood to be “the messenger of the Lord,” because ανγελλος and ‫ מלאבא‬can be

translated as “angel,” or “messenger,” depending on its context in Scripture. Jesus is the direct

revelation of God, so it would make sense for Calvin to think that, if angels are subject to Christ,

and He is the ultimate messenger, the other angelic messengers are sent in His service, and He is

their head. Calvin also does not commit the heresy of Arianism by suggesting that the pre-

incarnate Christ has the power to accommodate into an angelic form for the purpose of

delivering messages, or displaying God’s power (Ex. 3:2-4, Acts 7:30-33, Jn. 8:58). He, unlike

Servetus, does not suggest Christ was “from the beginning an angel.”

But we must, on the other hand, refute the delirium, or the diabolical madness of that
caviller, Servetus, who imagined that Christ was from the beginning an angel, as if he
was a phantom, and a distinct person, having an essence apart from the Father; for he
says, that he was formed from three uncreated elements. This diabolical conceit ought to
be wholly discarded by us.209

Calvin preserves the creator/creature distinction and does not say that Christ was a created being.

He believes that our Mediator was revealing himself as the presiding angel to Abraham at the

Oaks of Mamre,210 to Jacob during his heavenly vision of the ladder, by whom the angels

descend and ascend from the Son of Man (Jn 1:51),211 Jacob also recognizes this as the angel

“who redeemed him,” (Gen. 48:16) and who “speaks to us” (Hos. 12:4-5). Calvin also firmly

208
John Calvin, Comm. on Hosea 12:4-5, 421.
209
John Calvin, Comm. on Hosea 12:4-5, 421.
210
It’s interesting to see Calvin depart from the ancient tradition that suggested this was a tri-
ophony, a theophany of the entire trinity. Instead, he sees Christ as the lead of two other ordinary angels.
211
John Calvin, Comm. on Genesis 28:12. See also Calvin’s commentary on John 1:51, where he
states this benefit of ours, “that they may be ministers of God’s kindness to us,” is received in Christ. “Now
we must acknowledge that this benefit was received in Christ, because without him the angels are our
deadly enemies rather than offering us caring friendship. They are said to ‘ascend and descend’ on him not
because they minister to him alone, but because for his sake and in honor of him they include the whole
body of the church in their care.” Comm on John, 48.

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believed that Christ revealed himself as our Captain and the Host of all of heaven to Joshua, and,

like Abraham, Zechariah sees the vision of the angels with Christ being the lead angel in the

vision.212 These connections get really interesting in regards to Calvin’s understanding of the

giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. In Scripture, we are told that the Law was given, or “mediated”

by the hands of angels. (Acts 7:38, 53, Galatians 3:19, Hebrews 2:2) Calvin understands Christ

to have mediated the Law as the chief angel, because He is the “Mediator Legis,” the Mediator

of the Law. His prime text for this argument is Galatians 3:19, “Why then the law? It was added

because of transgressions…and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.” Here, we

see Calvin’s interpretation in his Commentary on Galatians:

Hand usually signifies ministration; but as angels were ministers in giving the law, I
consider “the hand of the Mediator” to denote the highest rank of service. The Mediator
was at the head of the embassy, and angels were united with him as his companions.
Some apply this expression to Moses, as marking a comparison between Moses and
Christ; but I agree rather with the ancient expositors, who apply it to Christ himself. This
view, it will be found, agrees better with the context…Mediator does not, as they
imagine, signify here one who makes reconciliation—but an ambassador employed in
promulgating a law…and this he intended to state expressly, for the purpose of informing
the Galatians, that he who is the foundation of the covenant of grace, held also the highest
rank in the giving of the law…Christ is not the Mediator of one, because, in respect of
outward character, there is a diversity of condition among those with whom, through his
mediation, God enters into covenant…As Christ formerly reconciled God to the Jews in
making a covenant, so now he is the Mediator of the Gentiles.213

212
I find these connections interesting, but I am hesitant to call every instance of the angel of the
Lord a Christophany. In the places it seems that OT saints bow and worship the angel, it is safe to assume it
is a Christophany, because the NT tells us that angels do not receive worship. In many places of Scripture,
“the angel of the Lord and God himself are sometimes indistinguishable.” G.K Beale, Revelation, 183. See
also Judges 6:11-18 and 13:1-24. Additionally, I interpret Hosea 12:4-5 as a Christophany, because Hosea
states concerning the Genesis 28 event that God met Jacob at Penuel, and we can consider this even a
Trinitarian act. God speaks to His church, and to corporate Israel, through this event. We, along with the
prophet, can rightly say “Jacob met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us.” See also Matthew 22:31,
where Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for “not reading what was spoken to them by God,” in Exodus. I have
my former professor, Dr. Graham Cole, to thank for this connection.
213
John Calvin, Comm. on Galatians 3:19-20, trans. William Pringle, 101-103. It is also
interesting to note that Calvin recognizes the word “Mediator,” can possess different functions…it can
mean “reconciliation,” as it does in 1st Timothy 2:5, and the “promulgator of the Law,” as in Galatians 3:19.

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Although Calvin admits the diversity of opinion on the word μεσιτου, usually translated

“intermediary,” Calvin interprets it to be referring to the Mediator, Christ. Calvin also recognizes

the interpretation that this passage could be speaking of Moses’ role in being an “intermediary,”

or occupying the role of an under-mediator to the people of Israel, but Calvin begs to differ. His

angelology necessitates that Christ be the head of this embassy, and although Moses is ascribed

in Scripture as giving the Law (Jn. 1:17), Calvin sees no contradiction in believing that our

Mediator, God Himself, handed us the Law.214 Calvin believes he is in continuity with the

ancient church regarding his interpretation, and he recognizes that Christ made a covenant with

the Jews, and a covenant with the Gentiles.215 He believes that the Law has a diversity of

condition(s) to those whom it is mediated to, but nevertheless, God enters into this covenant with

Israel. In Calvin’s Sermon on Galatians 3:19-20, Calvin makes it more explicit that there is

continuity of Christ’s mediatorship in the Old and New Testament, and that Christ mediates them

both.

If we consider how our Lord Jesus Christ was the mediator in the publishing of the law: it
showeth unto us that if he be our advocate at this day, it will be a good and sufficient
discharge for us: insomuch that although God have pronounced his sentence of cursing
against us, yet we must not be dismayed at it…but assure ourselves that our Lord Jesus
Christ will very well agree to both twain, that is to wit, both make us ashamed that we
may learn humility, and therewithal also make us sure of our salvation. And therefore let
us learn, that whensoever we be beaten down, there is none other means to raise us up
again, but to know that the selfsame person which was ordained to be the mediator for the
publishing of the law, is now manifested unto us at this day with the same commission,
and will make us to perceive it by experience.216

In this sermon of Calvin’s, there are a two primary things to note: first, Calvin claims that this

aspect, or function, of Christ’s mediation does not change between the two covenants, for Christ

214
For more on this topic, see Andrew S. Malone’s God’s Mediators: A Biblical Theology of
Priesthood.
215
Byung-Ho Moon. Christ the Mediator of the Law, 89.
216
John Calvin, Sermon on Gal. 3:19-20 (454-5, CO 50.543) cf. Moon, 89n26.

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is “the selfsame person which was ordained to be the mediator…of the law, [who] is now

manifested to us at this day with the same commission.” (Heb. 13:8) Second, Calvin is

suggesting that there is a theological use of the law for justification, and a normative use of the

law for sanctification.217 In the Reformed tradition, this is commonly referred to the “third,” use

of the law.218 For Calvin, Christ is able to teach us and bring us life through the Law, because his

commission does not change, and He is the One who gave it. Although some may object to this

Christological interpretation of the passage that Calvin spreads out, and even if one holds to a

different understanding of the “angel of the Lord,” which Calvin unapologetically thinks is

Christ, Calvin’s theological framework of mediation can still be utilized. In regards to

angelology, we have seen above that Christ has “his angels,” and they are subject to His service.

One can believe that if Scripture says angels mediated the Law, Christ was involved in the Mt.

Sinai event in some Trinitarian fashion. The angels can have mediated the Law because the

Logos sent them, and it is stated in Scripture that God gave this covenant to Moses. Calvin

argues that with Christ’s mediation of the law before the incarnation, the law served not only to

represent Christ but also to reveal the presence of Christ as the Mediator in the Old Testament.219

Christ was revealed to be the substance, soul, light, truth of the law, and the end of the law, even

for the people of the Old Testament.220 There is a versatility and continuity of Christ’s

mediatorship that started before the time of the Old Testament and has been in operation ever

217
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 89.
218
For more on this topic, see “Law and Gospel,” in Between Wittenburg and Geneva: Lutheran
and Reformed Theology in Conversation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), by Robert Kolb and
Carl R. Trueman, and God’s Two Words: Law and Gospel in the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), edited by Jonathan A. Linebaugh. The first use is the ceremonial use, the
second the use to bring conviction and judgment, and the third use in the Reformed tradition is a normative
use for sanctification.
219
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 88.
220
Moon, 88.

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since.221 Christ’s headship of the church to the people of the Israelites is often called the ancient

church in Calvin’s writings.222 He continued to reveal Himself to the saints of the Old Testament,

and He continues to reveal Himself to us. This leads us to observe the other four functions Calvin

had in mind for the mediatorial office, in the subsequent chapter, starting with the mediation of

revelation.

221
Moon, 88.
222
Moon, 89. See also Calvin, Comm. on Genesis 17:13, Ex. 23:20, Jos. 5:13-14, Matt. 11:2, and 1
Cor. 10:9, cf. Moon, 89n24.

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CHAPTER 3: CHRISTUS MEDIATOR DOCTRINAE: EXPLORING REVELATORY

MEDIATION1

As it was briefly alluded to in the previous chapter, Calvin suggests that particular mediatorial

functions of Christ’s office do not change between the covenants, especially the revelatory

function. Calvin throughout the Institutes and his commentaries suggests that the Old Testament

saints, “both had and knew Christ the Mediator.”2 Even from the time of Abraham, before the

existence of the Law, “Christ, even then, was the only Mediator.”3 The person of the Mediator is

the same unitestamentally in the metanarrative of Scripture, although the NT saints have the

blessing of knowing Him more fully (Rom. 16:25b-26, Eph. 3:9-12, Col. 1:26-28). Here, the

primary aspect of revelatory mediation that shall be explored is how Calvin understood the Son

always participating in every giving of revelation.4 Christ is the message and the messenger of

this revelation,5 and as the rightful interpreter of Israel’s Scripture, He is rightfully called our

Mediator of all teaching.6 Special revelation will take the forefront in this section, but aspects of

the Son’s mediatorial, revelatory role within creation, and within the Church, shall also briefly be

touched upon.

As it was demonstrated above, Calvin understood Christ to be the mediator legis and the

angel of the Lord, which gives him a unique place on the stage of redemption as a prime speaker

and actor. T.F Torrance7 follows in the tradition of Calvin’s Christology by suggesting that there

1
Term comes from Byung-Ho Moon’s comments on Calvin’s mediation of revelation, Christ the
Mediator of the Law, 102.
2
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. trans. By Henry Beveridge. (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2015): 2.10.2.
3
Calvin, Comm. on Genesis 20:7, Vol. 2, trans. John King, 526.
4
Troy Manning, “Christ’s Mediatorial Function in God’s Giving of Verbal Revelation to Man
Throughout All Ages,” Biblical Viewpoint 39 (2005): 92.
5
Manning, 92.
6
Calvin, Comm. on Galatians 3:19.
7
T.F Torrance has coined the terminology of “mediation of revelation,” in his book The Mediation
of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983).

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is a stark continuity of Christ’s mediation within the Old Testament, given to Israel, who had the

oracles of God (Acts 7:38, Rom. 3:2 16:26). He calls us to reflect on what it meant for Israel to

have a unique role in the mediation of divine revelation.8

The fact that Israel was called to be the people ‘entrusted with the oracles of God’, which
it could not be without embodying those oracles in its way of life, brought upon Israel
intense suffering, physical and mental, in its relations with other peoples. But Israel had
to suffer above all from God, precisely as the chosen medium of his self-revelation to
mankind, for divine revelation was a fire in the mind and soul and memory of Israel
burning away all that was in conflict with God’s holiness, mercy and truth.9

Torrance suggests that Israel has occupied a unique and peculiar role in this mediation of

revelation. Israel embodied the oracles of God, inhabited the space of being the chosen medium

of God’s self-revelation, and was a people that lived in this vocation in its relations to other

peoples.10 In one sense, Israel was unknowingly a forerunner to the message of reconciliation

that would one day penetrate the hearts of other nations. (Acts 2:37) God used Israel to mediate

divine revelation.11 Martin Davis sums up Torrance’s thought well regarding Israel’s occupation

of embodying this particular task, namely that Israel was charged to be the bearer of divine

revelation.12

God chose Israel, the children of Abraham, not only as the medium of divine revelation
in space-time history, but also as the medium of his redemptive acts leading throughout
history to the fulfillment of his promise of salvation. The mediation of revelation and the
mediation of reconciliation are intertwined in God’s interaction with Israel. For Torrance,
“Revelation and the reconciliation belong together,” so that we cannot think out the
mediation of revelation apart from the mediation of reconciliation.13

8
T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 18.
9
Torrance, 18.
10
Israel, like the Church, the new Israel, was a “sign-act,” of God’s saving activity to the world.
11
Martin M. Davis, “The Pre-history of the Incarnate of Jesus Christ in the Christology of T.F.
Torrance,” In die Dkriflig 50(1) (2016): 6.
12
Davis, 6.
13
Davis, 4.

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For Torrance, the “Word of God was at work preparing the matrix for the final mediation of

divine revelation to mankind,”14 in the Old Testament. The primary sense is this; the particular

histories of the Old Testament saints mediate God’s divine self-revelation to us.15 Both the Old

Testament and the New Testament present the Son of God as the divine mediating agent of all of

God’s verbal revelation to man throughout all ages, beginning with His pre-incarnate state in the

Old Testament.16 Just as the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of the New Testament saints

mediate God’s saving revelation,17 we should not expect anything less for those in the old

covenant. Calvin extends the office of Christ’s mediatorship to encompass this activity to the

ancient fathers, while also distinguishing different functions for the office of Mediator.

We are thus to understand, that, since the beginning of the world, God has held no
intercourse with men, but through the agency of his eternal Wisdom or Son. Hence Peter
says, that the holy prophets spake by the ‘Spirit of Christ,’ (1 Pet. 1:12) and Paul makes
him leader of the people in the wilderness. (1 Cor. 10:4)…As he is the Mediator of
reconciliation, by whom we are accepted of God, --the Mediator of intercession, who
opens up a way to ‘call on the Father,’ (1 Pet. 1:17,)—so he has always been the
Mediator of all doctrine, because by him God has always revealed himself to men.18

Here, Calvin states that intercourse with men was not possible except through the agency of the

Son. According to Calvin’s interpretation of 1 Peter, Christ enabled the prophets to speak by

mediating knowledge to them. According to Calvin, he interprets Paul saying that Christ was the

leader of the people of Israel in the wilderness, “they drank the same spiritual drink from the

same spiritual rock…that rock was Christ.” In the same manner, we must not “put Christ to the

14
Davis, 4.
15
Gerald O’ Collins. Revelation: Towards a Christian Interpretation of God’s Self-revelation in
Jesus Christ. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 61
16
Troy Manning. “Christ’s Mediatorial Function in God’s Giving of Verbal Revelation to Man
Throughout All Ages,” 89.
17
O’Collins, Revelation: Towards a Christian Interpretation, 68.
18
John Calvin, Comm. on Gal. 3:19, translated by Pringle, 102. It is important to note that Moon
highlights that some translations word the phrase “mediator of all doctrine,” as “mediator of all teaching.”
Byung Ho- Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 98.

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test, as some of them [the OT saints] did and were destroyed by serpents” (1 Cor. 10:9). Calvin

makes no qualms on Paul’s interpretation of the tenth chapter to the first epistle to the

Corinthians, for “these things were written down for our [the NT saints] instruction” (1 Cor.

10:11). Additionally, Calvin here makes distinctions here between an epistemological function of

mediation, an intercessory function of mediation, and a reconciliatory function of mediation, and

cites passages in defense of the munus triplex, and the various activities that the office entails,

but the mediation of teaching is the focal point here. Calvin states that the epistemological

function of our pre-incarnate Mediator is inspiring the prophets, and that this mediation relates to

his prophetic office. Moon states it better:

Calvin relates the prophetic office of Christ to the mediation of teaching in view of the
fact that “the prophetic dignity in Christ leads us to know that in the sum of doctrine
(summa doctrinae) as he has given it to us all parts of perfect wisdom are contained.”
(Inst. 2.15.2)

For Calvin, Christ’s mediation ranges through the whole process of the Law (and before) in

regard to its creation, publication, interpretation, and use.19 Calvin states that Christians ought to

perceive more continuity than discontinuity between the Testaments, for:

Hence we ought to conclude that they held the same doctrine, were joined with us in the
true unity of faith, placed reliance on the one Mediator, called on God as their Father, and
were led by the same Spirit. All this leads to the conclusion, that the difference between
us and the ancient fathers lies in accidents, not substance. In all the leading characters of
the Testament or Covenant we agree: the ceremonies and form of government, in which
we differ, are mere additions. Besides, that period was the infancy of the church; but now
that Christ is come, the church has arrived at the estate of manhood.20

Although Christ was not yet manifested as the priestly Mediator, he had already

undertaken his mediatorial office effectively to reveal and instruct the truth of the law as its

19
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 99.
20
John Calvin, Comm. on Gal. 4:1, trans. Pringle, 115.

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interpreter.21 Christ was present in the OT as a figura mediatoris, the ancient people believed

him to not only lead his people but also to teach them a rule of living in accordance with the

specific historical environment in which they were living.22 According to Calvin, the “fathers

who lived under the Law had the same hope of eternal life set before them as we have.”23 Let us

examine other places Calvin describes the Mediator’s function to interpret God’s word for us as

our great Hermeneute and Exegete.

As he had before inferred the excellency of the covenant from the dignity of the
priesthood, so also now he maintains that Christ’s priesthood is more excellent than that
of Aaron, because he is the interpreter and Mediator of a better covenant.24

What the Scripture sometimes relates, as to the inquiries made by Urim and Thummin, it
was a concession made by God to the rudeness of His ancient people. The true Priest had
not yet appeared, the Angel of His Almighty counsel, by whose Spirit all the Prophets
spoke, who, finally, is the fountain of all revelations, and the express image of the Father;
in order that the typical priest might be the messenger from God to man, it behooved him
to be invested with the ornaments of Christ. Thus even then believers were taught in a
figure, that Christ is the way by which we come to the Father, and that He also brings
from the secret bosom of His Father whatever it is profitable for us to know unto
salvation.25

This is my beloved Son…There are two titles here bestowed upon Christ…The Father
calls him my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, and thus declared him to be the
Mediator, by whom he reconciled the world to himself. When he enjoins us to hear him,
he appoints him to be the supreme and only teacher of his Church. It was his design to
distinguish Christ from all the rest…and that he alone is appointed to be our Teacher, that
in him all authority may dwell…For though Christ came to maintain the authority of the
Law and the Prophets, yet he holds the highest rank…Christ is as truly heard at the
present day in the Law and in the Prophets as in his Gospel; so that in him dwells the
authority of a Master, which he claims for himself alone, saying, One is your Master,
even Christ. (Matt. 23:8)26

21
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 163.
22
Moon, 163. See also Comm. on Luke 1:32. Date Accessed 3/2/20. See
https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom31/calcom31.ix.vi.html.
23
John Calvin. Comm. on Hebrews 8:6, trans. Owen, 185.
24
Calvin, Comm. On Heb 8:6, 184.
25
John Calvin, Comm. on Ex. 28:4-8, cf. Moon, 104.
26
John Calvin, Comm. on Matt. 17:5. https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom32/calcom32.ii.liv.html

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In these passages, Calvin has proclaimed Christ’s office as Mediator is one in which he is the

interpreter of the better covenant, the fountain of all revelations, the one who unfolds the secrets

from the Father’s bosom the things to know that are profitable for our salvation, and our teacher

that speaks to us in the present day in the Law, the Prophets, and in the Gospels.27 Christ has

energized the messages of the prophets as the Mediator of all teaching, for Calvin has said that it

is by this Priest’s counsel that the prophets spoke. Jesus as the epistemological mediator “opens

our eyes,” to understand the things that are written about Him, explains the way of the Father to

us, and gives us His Holy Spirit to “teach us all things and bring to our remembrance all that

Christ has taught us.” (Matt. 11:27, Luke 24:27, 31-32, Jn. 1:18, 3:32, 14:26, 2 Cor. 3:14-17)

Jesus is our great interpreter, our ultimate illuminator, and our qualified mediator of all teaching.

It is only through Him that the veil of understanding is lifted up, and the mysteries of the

kingdom are known (Matt. 13:11, 16-17).28

Another aspect of this epistemological function of the Mediator that must be given

precedence is the staunch parallel to Calvin’s doctrine of divine accommodation.

As noted above, one of the primary reasons for man to need a mediator was due to the

ontological gap that existed between the finite and the infinite. Or, as one theologian puts it,

“Even before the Fall man needed revelation beyond what he observed in the universe and in his

own person to understand the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable being of God.”29 Man could not

apprehend the infinite unless God stooped to him to allow his finite capacities to see infinite

27
Calvin also comments on Christ’s prophetic function in Inst. 2.15.1-2.
28
Moon makes an interesting connection to Christ’s teaching ministry on the Sermon on the
Mount in Matthew 5-7. Not only is Jesus seen in some way as a “new law giver,” likened to Moses, but
“When Christ teaches the original meaning of the law in the Sermon on the Mount and several narratives
related to its authority and validity, he actually reveals himself, that is, his person and office as the
Mediator.” Moon, 174. For more on Christ likened to Moses on the Sermon on the Mount, see Hughes, P.E.
“Moses,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000): 672.
29
Troy Manning, “Christ’s Mediatorial Function in God’s Giving of Verbal Revelation to Man
Throughout All Ages,” 89.

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goodness. According to Byung-Ho Moon, “God’s accommodation is revealed by Christ’s

mediation by which we are taught the knowledge of God and have access to God’s majesty.”30

This is explicit in Calvin’s commentary on 1st Peter 1:20, where Calvin demonstrates the

character of Christ as the Mediator along with divine accommodation.31

Since God is incomprehensible, faith can never reach to Him, unless it had immediate
regard to Christ. There are two reasons why faith cannot be in God, unless Christ
intervenes as a Mediator. First the greatness of the divine glory must be taken into
account, and at the same time the littleness of our capacity. Our acuteness is very far from
being capable of ascending so high as to comprehend God. Hence all thinking about God
without Christ is a vast abyss which immediately swallows up all our thoughts…It is
evident from this that we cannot believe in God except through Christ, in whom God in a
manner makes Himself little, in order to accommodate Himself to our comprehension.32

According to Calvin, God’s accommodating act is the intervention, or mediation, of Christ as our

Mediator.33 It is in Christ whom God “in a manner makes Himself little,” in order that we may

believe and have access to ascend to God. For Calvin, this is why Christ chose to “take the

person of the Mediator…[so that] He could descend from the bosom of the Father and from

incomprehensible glory that he might draw near to us.”34 Hans Boersma calls this aspect of the

epistemological mediation “pedagogical accommodation.”35 Boersma interprets Calvin’s

Christological accommodation as a type of discipleship program, or training ground, to prepare

us for the life to come when we see God as He is. “For Calvin, God reveals himself

sacramentally in Christ throughout salvation history so as to train us in our face-to-face vision of

him, in order that after the resurrection we may be able to see the reality of the divine majesty (or

30
Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 112.
31
Moon, 112.
32
John Calvin, Comm. on 1 Peter 1:20, cf. Moon, 112n123.
33
Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 112.
34
Inst. 2.15.5, cf. Moon, 113.
35
Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in the Christian Tradition, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2018), 261.

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essence) directly or openly.”36 God relates to his people as father and as teacher, and this requires

that he accommodate himself to them.37 In other words, “God assumes the face which we are

able to bear.”38 Arnold Huijgen, another Calvin scholar, describes Christ’s epistemological

function in the following manner:

God’s accommodation relates to changing times, and circumstances; thus, it also has a
history itself, in which it progresses toward the pedagogical end of raising God’s people
to further knowledge of God.39

Huijgen goes farther in his pedagogical program. In his understanding of Calvin’s statement,

“the saints never had any communication with God except through the promised Mediator,”40 he

believes that “every theophany, or presence of God in the OT took place through Christ the

Mediator.41 It could be rightly said that for Calvin, mediation has a pedagogical function in order

to accommodate to our senses. Just as Calvin believed that God never revealed himself to the

fathers but in his eternal Word and only begotten Son,42 the same remains true today; we see God

ever only in Christ.43 Christ mediates through the Old covenant as pedagogue, through creation

as cosmic mediator,44 and today, through the Church. All human beings are faced with this

cosmic and special revelation of God.45 If God has been described to possess mediatorial activity

36
Boersma, 261. This topic shall be visited in the last chapter in Calvin’s understanding of the
Mediator’s role in the beatific vision.
37
Boersma, 263.
38
John Calvin, Comm. on Exodus 33:20, cf. Boersma, 263.
39
Arnold Huijgen, Divine Accommodation in Calvin’s Theology: Analysis and Assessment,
Reformed Historical Theology 16 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 208. Cf. Boersma, 263.
40
John Calvin, Comm. on Exodus 3:2, cf. Boersma, 266.
41
Arnold Huijgen, Divine Accommodation, 238, cf. Boersma, 266.
42
John Calvin, Comm. on Isa. 6:1, cf. Boersma, 267.
43
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 267.
44
Gerald O’ Collins, Revelation, 57-59. He states, “All human beings are offered the revelation of
God mediated through the beautiful and orderly works of creation.” Elsewhere, he also states, “A healthy
theological view of creation and a deep concern for the environmental crisis can sometimes overemphasize
revelation mediated through creation at the expense of revelation through history.” This is true, and we
must not let general revelation take precedence over special revelation.
45
Gerald O’ Collins, Revelation, 58.

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in theophanies, why would it be any less so now if we believe the Church to be a Christophany?

Louis Berkhof connects the continuity of the prophetic office quite well to Christ’s union with

the church. He says,

And after the incarnation He carries on His prophetical work in His teachings and
miracles, in the preaching of the apostles and of the ministers of the Word, and also in the
illumination and instruction of believers as the indwelling Spirit. He continues His
prophetical activity from heaven through the operation of the Holy Spirit.46

As the body of Christ, the church is the presence of God to the world. Quite literally, the church

is an extension of Christ’s body due to our one flesh union with Him by faith. In Acts 9:1-5; it is

observed that Jesus’ response to Saul is a passage that highly communicates the bond Christ has

with His church. Jesus takes Saul’s actions as direct persecutions against him, “Saul, Saul, why

are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4) Christ has distributed a type of theophanic power to the

church through the Holy Spirit. Our Lord has said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am

sending you.” (Jn. 20:21) Jesus commissions His body with the same task His Father gave

Him;47 the Church has been empowered to be a witness to the world (Jn. 14:12) and God is

causing the church to bear signs and wonders to the world by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

(Hebrews 2:4) As a result of our union with Christ, the church has become the prophetic sign-act

to the world.48 In Calvin’s own words, we see the church in a way analogously entrusted with the

46
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 359.
47
Troy Manning, “Christ’s Mediatorial Function in God’s Giving of Verbal Revelation to Man
Throughout All Ages,” 102. Manning suggests that the Church continues in Christ’s mediatorial work in
some sense, and that Christ mediates Himself to the world through His body. “The New Testament reveals
that Christ would continue to accomplish His prophetic work through the Spirit, the Word, and His
followers.” Ibid, 101.
48
Here, I am borrowing Zimmerli’s language of Old Testament prophets functioning in an
analogous sort of way in performing sign-acts; this is a play on words from the “speech-act” theory that
took precedence in theological studies. I first came across the theological terminology of “sign-acts” from
Todd Billings’ usage of it in elaborating his doctrine of the Eucharist. See more in Billings, in “Does God
Really Act Through the Sacraments?” in Remembrance, Communion, and Hope: Rediscovering the Gospel
at the Lord’s Table,” (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018).

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task to live into the munus triplex vocation after its Savior (Eph. 2:6, 1st Cor. 6:3, 1st Peter 2:9,

Rev. 20:4-6, 22:5). Calvin states, “He unites the offices of king and pastor toward believers,

who voluntarily submit to him.”49 Christ makes us priests by virtue of His priesthood. Again,

Calvin says, “Christ now bears the office of priest...but also admit(s) us into this most honorable

alliance,”50 although we are ourselves polluted, in him we are priests (Rev. 1:6).51 I think Paul

Wells comments on this thought of Calvin’s nicely, “Christ receives us at his side ‘as his

companions in this great mediatorial office.”52 In the embodied sign-act of the church, God

causes His people to function as a sort of “incarnational” ministry to the world.53 Through the

evangelizing activity of the Church, the nations are extended the good news of divine

revelation.54 The saints offer the pedagogical sign55 of the kingdom to its neighbors by living into

its vocation. In other words, the church functions as ‘lesser’56 or ‘subordinate’ mediators57 in the

service of its Captain, the Chief Mediator, Jesus Christ.58 The Church is tasked with mediating

the knowledge of its Savior as “under-mediators” under the Head Mediator of revelation, for

God continues to make his appeal through us to the world as His ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

This analogy is promising in further work on the mediation of revelation, but it must not be

49
Calvin, Inst. 2.15.5
50
Inst. 2.15.6
51
Inst. 2.15.6.
52
Paul Wells, “Person and Work of Christ” in John Calvin: For a New Reformation, ed. by Derek
W.H. Thomas and John W. Tweeddale. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019): 365, cf. Inst. 2.15.6
53
Samuel Terrien, The Elusive Presence: Toward a New Biblical Theology. (Eugene, OR: Wipf &
Stock, 1978) 242-243.
54
Levering, Matthew. Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation, 56, cf. Gerald O’ Collins, Revelation,
59.
55
O’Collins, Revelation: Towards a Christian Interpretation, 72n25.
56
O’Collins, 73.
57
O’Collins, 145.
58
In Edward Litton’s Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, he states that Christ continues to
exercise his prophetic ministry mediately through human ministers. Introduction to Dogmatic Theology,
edited by Philip E. Hughes. (Bristol, UK: James Clark & Co., Ltd, 1960). 220. This idea was present in the
Reformers, who believed they occupied a unique ministerial office as under-shepherds in service of their
Chief Shepherd and Bishop, Christ. (1st Peter 5:4).

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pressed too far, for Calvin calls us to recognize that, even though this reality is true in Christ, we

are still “polluted,” in and of ourselves. I think Wayne Grudem puts it wisely, “Therefore for all

eternity, we shall forever function as subordinate prophets, priests, and kings, yet always subject

to the Lord Jesus, the supreme prophet, priest, and king.”59 We are not mediators of salvation to

our neighbors, and Calvin would not like us to stretch this analogy, for creatures are insufficient

mediators. All of these signs and figures are intended to point us to the true and ultimate

Mediator.60

Soteriological Mediator: Observing the Mediation of Reconciliation

As the epistemological and cosmological functions of mediation have already been

discussed as a central part to Christ’s continuing activity of mediation, it is now time to see how

the incarnation “fulfills” the office of the Mediator. For Calvin, in various places in his

commentaries and the Institutes, describes the appointed mission of the Son that the Father gave

Him, and although He was always in His person the Mediator, the incarnation expounded his

mediatorial role as a priest.61

But in Christ the actual presence of God with his people, and not, as before, his shadowy
presence, has been exhibited. And certainly he would not be a properly qualified

59
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1994), 630.
60
For more material on the church’s lived vocation and participating in the threefold office of
Christ, see Paula Jean Miller’s Members of One Body: Prophets, Priests and Kings: An Ecclesiology of
Mission. (Staten Island, NY: Alba House Publishing, 1999) Marty E. Steven’s Leadership Roles of the Old
Testament: King, Prophet, Priest, Sage. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012) Benjamin L. Gladd’s From Adam
and Israel to the Church: A Biblical Theology of the People of God. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,
2019) Richard P. Belcher’s Prophet, Priest, and King: The Roles of Christ in the Bible and Our Roles
Today (Philadelphia, PA: P&R Publishing, 2016), and Tom Greggs “Ecclesial Priestly Mediation in the
Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” in Theology Today Vol. 71(1) 2014, 81-91. For particularly theophanic
language describing the prophetic office, see Terrence Fretheim’s “Prophet, Theophany, and the Suffering
of God,” in The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1984):
149-166.
61
Oliver Crisp, Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Surrey, UK:
Ashgate Publishing): 27.

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Mediator, if he did not unite both natures in his person, and thus bring men into alliance
with God.62

In this passage of Calvin’s, it can be noticed that Christ’s presence in the Old Testament was

likened to that of a shadowy presence. This shadowy presence would not be the only way the

Mediator interacted with his people, for Christ could not have been a “qualified,” Mediator

unless He chose to assume flesh. Mediation was not complete until “the word became flesh”

(John 1:14). Not only did the incarnation provide the opportunity for God himself to atone for

our sins so that men could be brought “into alliance with God,” but the hypostatic union of

divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ had vital implications for the

knowledge of God.63 Man can now reach to God because there is now a propitiatory and

epistemological significance in the humanity of Jesus Christ.64 In Jesus Christ, God speaks in a

human voice, in human language; thus, it is possible for us to know him – the very humanity of

Jesus Christ constitutes the act of revelation in a means accessible to humankind.65

The case was certainly desperate, if the Godhead itself did not descend to us, it being
impossible for us to ascend. Thus the Son of God behooved to become our Immanuel,
i.e., God with us; and in such a way, that by mutual union of his divinity and our nature
might be combined; otherwise, neither was the proximity near enough, nor the affinity
strong enough, to give us hope that God would dwell with us; so great was the
repugnance between our pollution and the spotless purity of God.66

Calvin shows us that it was necessary for the Logos to become our Immanuel, and that

the shadowy presence was a proximity that was not near enough in order to give us hope and

take away our filthy stains. Here, we see the cosmic mediator became the redemptive mediator,

62
John Calvin, Comm. on Matthew 1:23.
63
Marin M. Davis, “Kataphysical inquiry, onto-relationality and elemental forms in Torrance’s
doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ,” In die Skriflig/ in Luce Verbi 47(1): 4.
64
Davis, 4.
65
Davis, 4.
66
Calvin, Inst. 2.12.1, trans. Beveridge, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), 298.

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for “there was never any promise of a Mediator without blood.”67 Calvin elsewhere describes

that Christ had to take on and fulfill the office of the priest. Although we see the Logos

exercising his prophetic and kingly roles of mediation in His pre-incarnate state, the assumption

of flesh was necessary in order for him to take on the additional role of a priest.

Indeed, the apostles, with one consent, lead us back to this fountain; and assuredly, if he
had not come to reconcile God, the honor of his priesthood would fall, seeing it was his
office as priest to stand between God and men…he would be stripped of all the titles with
which Scripture invests him. Nor could Paul’s doctrine stand.68

If Christ had not come to fulfill his mission, “his priesthood would have fallen.” Expiation had to

necessarily intervene, the priest had to be employed to appease God’s wrath and reinstate us in

the favor of God.69 Christ now bears the office of priest,70 because He has assumed our flesh, and

has taken it to be His forever (Hebrews 6:16, 24).

He is God, being of the same essence with the Father; and Mediator, having already
undertaken his Mediatorial office, though not clothed in our flesh, so as to become our
brother, for the Church could not exist, nor be united to her God without a head.71

Throughout Calvin’s writings, we see that the differentiation between the doctrine of the law and

the gospel derives from varying economies of Christ the Mediator in accordance with different

dispensations in history.72 Although Christ had already undertaken an aspect of the mediatorial

office before creation, “He always performed the office, but he had not yet appeared in human

flesh,”73 he needed to come clothe Himself in human flesh in order to become our brother, and

the Mediator of the Gentiles.

67
Inst. 2.12.4, trans. Beveridge, 299.
68
Inst. 2.12.4.
69
John Calvin, Inst. 2.15.6, Beveridge, 322.
70
Inst. 2.15.6.
71
John Calvin, Comm. on Zechariah 1:18-21.
72
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 205.
73
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 26:67-27:10.

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Christ is not the Mediator of one, because, in respect of outward character, there is a
diversity of conditions among those with whom, through his mediation, God enters into
covenant…As Christ formerly reconciled God to the Jews in making a covenant, so now
he is the Mediator of the Gentiles…Christ brings those who formerly differed among
themselves to one God, and makes them unite in one body. 74

Although Christ was already a Mediator to the Jews, He needed to come and unite us in his one

body, by providing a covenant to the Gentiles, so that He could become the Mediator of the

Gentiles. Calvin says this in his commentary on Exodus 23:20, “He was not yet the Incarnate

Mediator, but as often as He appeared to the ancient people He gave an indication of His future

mission.”75 There was a future mission promised in the Scriptures that Christ would take on an

additional role of mediation. In some mysterious respect, the priestly mediatorial role of the God-

man was dependent on the ordination of the fall.76 The Son has been mediating between God and

man since the beginning of creation, but His incarnate mediation brought it to visible

manifestation and historical fulfillment.77

It was man’s rebellion that brought it about that expiation was necessary to reconcile us
to God, and so Christ should be regarded as mediator with his sacrifice, by which he
appeased God’s anger and restored to us in the hope of the blessed life from which we
were barred. We indeed teach that he is the mediator, not with regard to one nature alone,
but inasmuch as he is God revealed in the flesh.78

According to Calvin, Christ must be regarded as a mediator with his sacrifice, in regard to his

human nature as well, since He is God revealed in the flesh. The error Stancaro had in suggesting

Christ was only a human mediator was an insult to Calvin, for this bifurcation was not giving the

divine nature of Christ the full weight it deserved. “[Although] dying is proper to the human

74
John Calvin, Comm. on Galatians 3:20, 103.
75
John Calvin, Comm. on Exodus 23:20.
76
Oliver Crisp, Revisioning Christology, 38.
77
Troy Manning, “Christ’s Mediatorial Function in God’s Giving of Verbal Revelation,” 97.
78
Joseph Tylenda, “Calvin Versus Stancaro”, 12.

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nature…we will not separate the natures in the act of dying, since atonement could not have been

effected by man alone unless the divine power were conjoined.”79 Our Lord overcame death and

provided redemption for our weary souls by coming to fulfill the office of the priest.80

For he brings his feelings into obedience to God in such a manner as if he had exceeded
what was proper. Certainly in the first prayer we do not perceive that calm moderation
which I have described; for, as far as lies in his power, he refuses and shrinks from
discharging the office of Mediator.81

Calvin understands the passion narrative in the Garden to be a trial for Jesus to forsake the office

of mediation. Christ overcame this temptation, refused, and did not shrink in the face of death

from discharging (or fulfilling) the office of Mediator. One thing that is curious, and important

to note, is the varied language Calvin uses to describe Christ fulfilling the office of Mediator, and

still remaining our Mediator, at and after the cross. We see this at play particularly in his Sermon

on Matthew 27:45-54.

St. John speaks here more distinctly, for he says that Jesus Christ, knowing that all things
were fulfilled, said that He was thirsty, and thereupon He pronounced once again, “It is
done, all is fulfilled.”…This, then, is how we must take this passage: it is that our Lord
Jesus declared that nothing more was lacking for our redemption except to depart from
the world, which He was ready and prepared to do, and to surrender His soul to God.
Seeing, then, that He had acquitted Himself of His whole duty as Mediator, and that He
had done all that was required to appease the wrath of God toward us, and that the
satisfaction for our sins was accomplished, He was willing to ask for this drink.82

What does Calvin mean here when he speaks of Christ “acquitting Himself of His whole duty as

Mediator?” Why is there this inconsistency in Calvin, when we saw earlier in the Institutes that

he says Christ “now bears the office of priest?”83 Perhaps the answer to our question lies in the

79
Ibid, 15.
80
Stephen Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, 208.
81
John Calvin, Comm. on Matthew 26:39.
82
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 27:45-54. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Accessed April
2, 2020. http://www.ccel.org/ccell/calvin/calcom31.html.
83
Inst. 2.15.6

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sermon that he preached prior to this one. In his Sermon on Matthew 26:36-39, he states the

following:

Let us bring a true faith knowing why our Lord Jesus was sent to us by God His Father,
what His office is, and how He is still today our Mediator as He always was…Let us have
mutual concord and brotherhood together, since He has sustained and borne the
condemnation which was pronounced by God His Father upon us all.84

Calvin here reminds us that Christ’s mediatorial office is still operative for today, and that we

must come to the knowledge of true faith in understanding what this office is for us today. This

would seem to make sense in light of the statements where Calvin has told us that we are to cling

to Christ’s revealed priestly office if we would have him as our eternal mediator and understand

Him as our perpetual mediator. Whatever Calvin has said in the previous section must be held in

the tension of these clear statements of his. When Calvin discusses the acquittal of Christ’s

mediatorial office, he is probably attempting to emphasize the reality that our salvation has been

completed, and our redemption has been accomplished, when Jesus utters the words, “It is

finished,” on the cross. In one sense, He has fulfilled the whole duty of the Mediator to which

everything in the metanarrative of Scripture points us toward. This is the height of the ultimate

fulfillment; Christ has given us the real benefits of salvation now, just as Scripture also tells us

that we have a future salvation and a coming redemption at the second coming of Christ (Rom.

8:23, Rom. 10:9, Rom. 13:11 Eph. 1: 3-5, Eph. 2:8-9, 1 Thess. 5:9-10, 1 Pet. 1:5, 9, 13). Both are

true, we are saved and we are “being saved,” but Jesus accomplishes redemption and paves the

reality for us to have the present experience of that redemption, and live into it, while it is also

the Mediator’s task to “reconcile all of creation” (Col. 1:20). The Mediator of reconciliation has

reconciled us, and He will reconcile us completely to God at the renewal of all things, when he

84
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 26:36-39. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Accessed April
2, 2020. http://www.ccel.org/ccell/calvin/calcom31.html.

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ushers in His new creation. We have considered one of the aspects of the twofold office of the

priest, now let Calvin’s understanding of the mediation of intercession inform us more in the way

that Christ is “still today our priest.”85

Mediation of Patrocinii: Christ’s Mediation of Intercession86

As it was noted succinctly above, Christ’s priestly office possesses a twofold function,

one for reconciliation and one for intercession. These must not be extrapolated apart from the

priestly function of Christ, for the earthly ministry of Christ enables the qualification for the

heavenly ministry of Christ. The words of John Murray place this twofold function very

harmoniously, “The intercessory aspect of the priestly function must never be divorced from the

propitiatory. The intercession is based upon the atonement.”87 It is Christ that died…who also

makes intercession for us (Rom. 8:34).88 We are too quick to move beyond meditating on all of

the benefits that come to us from our high priest that we neglect to appreciate the continuity and

inter-dependence of our Lord’s earthly and heavenly ministries.89 According to Calvin scholar,

Paul Wells, “Mediation cannot be limited to the work of Christ on earth; Christ is mediator both

before and after this time. Calvin’s view of mediation is broader and, one might even say, all-

embracing.”90 Calvin is careful to remind his readers of this distinction as well regarding the

mediatorial office in his writings, calling the Son of God Christus Mediator Patrocinii, which is

roughly translated Christ the Mediator of Intercession, aid, or protection.91

85
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 26:36-39.
86
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 101.
87
John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, Volume One: The Claims of Truth, 56.
88
Murray, 56.
89
Murray, 49.
90
Paul Wells, “The Person and Work of Christ,” in John Calvin: For a New Reformation, 346.
91
The Latin term patrocinium, which this word is derived from, has the meanings ranging from
“the services of a patron, especially defense in a court of law” or “one that provides defense or protection.”
Christ is our representative that stands before God on our behalf. He presents our case to the Father, and He
proves to be our ultimate Intercessor. Cassell’s Latin Dictionary ed. D.P. Simpson, (Macmillan Publishing

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As he is the Mediator of reconciliation, by whom we are accepted of God,--the Mediator

of intercession, who opens up for us a way to “call on the Father,” (1 Peter 1:17)—so he
has always been the Mediator of all doctrine, because by him God has always revealed
himself to men.92

Christ’s mediation as our Intercessor, according to Calvin, is the only way we can call upon the

Father. Citing St. Ambrose in his Institutes, Calvin makes the connection that “Christ is our

mouth by which we speak to the Father…Save by his intercession neither we nor any saints have

any intercourse with God.”93 Christ’s mediation as the eternal intercessor is represented most

notably in his priesthood, to purify and nourish his people into the perfection of life.94 Calvin

states the purpose of Christ’s perpetual intercessory mediation for us in the context of a Geneva

that is burdened with a theology of insufficient mediators.

For if Paul were a mediator, so would also the other apostles, and thus there would be
many mediators, and Paul’s statement could not stand, “There is one God, and one
Mediator…” We imagine not that he [Christ] throws himself before his Father’s knees,
and suppliantly intercedes for us; but we understand with the apostle, that he appears in
the presence of God, and that the power of death has the effect of a perpetual intercession
for us; that having entered into the upper sanctuary, he alone continues to the end of the
world to present the prayers of his people, who are standing far off in the outer court. In
regard to the saints who having died in the body live in Christ, if we attribute prayer to
them, let us not imagine that they have any other way of supplicating God than through
Christ who alone is the way, or that their prayers are accepted by God in any other
name.95

As Christ pleads before the Father for his children, they ought to know that He is doing so as

they remain in the “outer court,” until Jesus presents them complete in the sight of God. For

Calvin, there is a continuity between the phase of the process of redemption which is complete

Company, New York, NY: 1959), 427. I am thankful for my friend Everett Meadors for providing me with
this dictionary during the quarantine period of the COVID-19 crisis of 2020.
92
John Calvin, Comm. on Gal. 3:19.
93
John Calvin, Inst. 3.20.21.
94
Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 102.
95
John Calvin, Inst. 3.20.20-21.

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and the phase that is still unfolding itself. The mediation of Christ is not suspended, and

intercession is but one concrete aspect of that mediation.96 In practicing this sacerdotal function

in the heavenly places is how the Frenchman of Geneva can tell us the current reality of “what

his office is, and how He is still today our Mediator.”97 Calvin tells us that, unlike the priests in

the Old Testament, there is no death to prevent Christ from carrying on his priestly office, for

“he alone is a perpetual priest.”98 Christ’s peculiar office of the mediation of intercession is one

that he still performs today in heaven, wherein He “stretches out his hand to us that He may lead

us to the Father.”99 Christians get to partake of the fruit of that Christ’s eternal priesthood has

offered us, our salvation.100 It is only through Christ that Christians are well pleasing in the sight

of the Father (Eph. 1:3-6); Christ has made this adoption possible for us, and as our elder brother,

He causes the Father to delight in hearing our requests (Ps 17:6, 116:2, Zech. 3:17). Louis

Berkhof follows Calvin’s trajectory of the Reformed tradition’s line of thought regarding the

benefits of Christ’s continual intercession in his mediatorial office, particularly Christ’s

“protective” role as our Intercessor.

It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our
prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not
present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He
prays for our protection against the dangers of which we are not even conscious, and
against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our
faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end.101

All of this is in Christ alone, who enables us to approach the throne room so that we may offer

our requests in our time of need, since He has gone before us into the heavenly sanctuary. As our

96
John Murray, Collected Writings, 53.
97
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 26:36-39.
98
John Calvin, Comm. on Hebrews 7:23-25, 174.
99
Calvin, Comm. On Hebrews, 174-175.
100
Calvin, Comm. On Hebrews, 174.
101
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 403.

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perfect high priest, he continually leads us into God’s presence102 (Heb. 4:14-16, Heb. 6:19-20,

Heb. 10:19-22). As we witnessed earlier with the mediation of redemption, Calvin seems to

oscillate between the eternality of the priestly office and its end. Just like Calvin described Christ

“acquitting the whole duty of the Mediator”103 at the redemption achieved on Golgotha, so he

says so regarding the intercessory function of the office of priest.

Let us, therefore, regard it as the key of true interpretation, that those things which refer
to the office of Mediator are not spoken of the divine or human nature simply. Christ,
therefore, shall reign until he appear to judge the world, inasmuch as, according to the
measure of our feeble capacity, he now connects us to the Father. But when, as partakers
of the heavenly glory, we shall see God as he is, then Christ, having accomplished the
office of Mediator, shall cease to be vicegerent of the Father, and will be content with the
glory he possessed before the world was…Christ’s own Godhead will then shine forth of
itself, whereas it is now in a manner veiled.104

Although contextually Calvin is talking about Christ’s kingly office, we must remember that

when Calvin refers to the “whole office of Mediator,” he often has different functions in mind to

describe the entirety of Christ’s mediatorial work. Calvin states that, when Christ connects us to

the Father, we shall be full partakers of the heavenly glory, so then He will no longer need to

pray for us standing in the outer court, for we shall be fully with God. All of creation shall be

reconciled at this point when we are in the eschaton, and intercession shall cease. Christ will still

continue to exercise the cosmic function that He did with the Father primordially. He will be

“content with the glory He possessed before the world was.” Calvin shows us that our Priest-

King will have accomplished the work that He came to fulfill, “because the office of Christ, in

102
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 626. For more on the significance of the neglected
doctrine of the ascension, and what Christ is doing now in his heavenly ministry as Mediator, see Douglas
Farrow’s Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology
and Christian Cosmology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), Edwin Van Driel’s What is Jesus Doing?:
God’s Activity in the Life and Work of the Church (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020) and Gerrit
Scott Dawson’s Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation (London, UK: T&T
Clark, 2004).
103
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 27:45-54.
104
John Calvin, Inst. 2.14.3, trans. Beveridge.

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defending the church, shall then have been completed.”105 How can it be certain that Calvin is

talking about this? Due to the various multi-faceted functions Calvin subscribes to the office of

the Mediator, we know that he is talking about the completion of the priestly function when he

says, “his reason for assuming the office of the Mediator was, that descending from the bosom

and incomprehensible glory of the Father, he might draw near to us.”106 This is in the same

section Calvin is talking about “completing the office of Mediator,” so we know that the

redemptive motivation is in mind here for Calvin. This also makes sense in light of the

incarnational “veil,” language that Calvin implements to describe Christ’s flesh in various

places,107 which he says moves into the background in the eschaton. In his commentary on 1

Corinthians, 15:27, he describes the glory of Christ’s priestly office, which he achieved in his

human nature, being transferred to the divine nature.

But Christ will then restore the kingdom which he has received, that we may cleave
wholly to God. Nor will he in this way resign the kingdom, but will transfer it in a
manner from his humanity to his glorious divinity, because a way of approach will then
be opened up, from which our infirmity now keeps us back. Thus then Christ will be
subjected to the Father, because the veil being then removed, we shall openly behold
God reigning in his majesty, and Christ’s humanity will then no longer be interposed to
keep us back from a closer view of God.108

The focus of Christ’s mediatorial office shall then be the ways that He has changed the

administration of the mediatorial office. “In that perfect glory, the administration of the kingdom

105
John Calvin, Inst. 2.15.5, trans. Beverdge.
106
Inst. 2.15.5.
107
In his commentary on Isaiah 52:14, Calvin states that Christ’s “glory lay hid under the humble
form of the flesh… the greater part of men did not see it, but, on the contrary, they despised that deep
abasement which was the veil or covering of his glory.” Additionally, in Calvin’s commentary on Matthew
17:9, he states that, “even during the time he emptied himself, (Phil. 2:7), he continued to retain his divinity
entire, though it was concealed under the veil of the flesh” (317, Harmony of the Evangelists). In the
eschaton, Christ will no longer “retain,” his divinity, since it shall shine forth in and of itself. Calvin might
be advocating for a type of kryptic Christology here, and the beatific vision is the greatest act of
“unveiling,” or “de-krypsis,” on Calvin’s part.
108
John Calvin, Comm. on 1st Cor. 15:27, 32-33.

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will not be such as it is now.”109 For Calvin, the epistemological function will cease, because we

shall “openly behold God,” and “see Him immediately” rather than mediately,110 and the priestly

function will be complete, even though Christ shall continue to wear the priestly robes of his

flesh.111 Christ will still be in his person the Mediator, and His ontology will not change, but the

administration of the mediatorial office, and the perceptions that we have of it now in defending,

interceding, and ushering us to God, shall be complete. Unfortunately, this section in Calvin’s

Christology has caused many theologians to scratch their heads at these ambiguous statements.

These statements raised issues, and needed developments, in the doctrine of divine mediation in

Calvin’s successors, which shall be observed in the next chapter. The problems of Calvin’s

interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15, and the various interpretations of his critics shall be observed

in the last chapter, where I will also discuss ways Christ will continue to mediate in the new

creation. It is here where I provided a different interpretation than Calvin’s critics, and I think

this interpretation makes more sense. This is the only way I can make sense of these statements

in Calvin, since he has described Christ’s mediatorial office as “eternal,” and “perpetual,” in

other areas. He was concerned with focusing on mediatorial divine action in the present, not in

the future.112 This inconsistency in Calvin’s thought was due to his attempt to magnify the

immediacy of the glory that the beatific vision would be one day, but in doing so, his

understanding of the Father’s immediacy swallowed up the possibility of any continual

109
John Calvin, Inst. 2.15.5, 321.
110
Calvin, Inst. 2.15.5, 321.
111
Mark Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” in Engaging with Calvin: Aspects of the
Reformer’s legacy for today, ed. Mark Thompson (Nottingham, UK: Apollos, 2009), 121. Mark Thompson
tends to agree with me on this aspect of the mediation of reconciliation being complete, even though the
administration changes. “What is clear, though, is that while Christ’s rule continues, it takes a different
form once the judgment is complete and his mediatorial work of reconciliation is fulfilled.”
112
Colin Gunton, “One Mediator…The Man Jesus Christ: Reconciliation, Mediation and Life in
Community,” Pro Ecclesia 11, no. 2 (March 1, 2002): 151.

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epistemological mediation of Christ in the new creation. Let us now observe the last aspect of

Calvin’s use of mediation, the mediation of union.

In Search of a Perpetual Mediator: The Mediation of Union

Although there remain more questions regarding the end of Christ’s priestly function in

the mediation of reconciliation and intercession, there is still an aspect of mediation that needs to

be considered regarding Calvin’s understanding of the communication of properties between

Christ’s human nature and divine nature. Whatever Calvin was teaching in his commentary on 1

Corinthians 15, it must be established that Calvin implied no alteration to the union of natures in

Christ’s person, but rather an alteration in the relation of believers to God and therefore to

Christ.113 A model of mediation grounded in the ontology of the person of Christ must be

explored.114 Calvin, in his second reply to Stancaro, described that the mediatorial office of

Christ should not be located in either nature alone but in the one person who is “God manifest in

the flesh.”115 It should be obvious that the theandric person of the Mediator should be in mind

when we talk about the personhood of the Mediator. When the God-man assumed flesh, it was an

act of mediation, and is still an act that he performs today. Calvin stated:

Christ offered himself as the price of redemption; he reconciled all things in his suffering
flesh; he is the lamb who takes away the sins of the world; he is our propitiator through
faith in his blood. Although he accomplished all this in his human nature it is not to be
concluded, therefore, that he is the mediator in this sole respect, because Christ did not
fulfill all the duties of his office by expiation and sacrifice. What does it mean to
overcome death? To rise in the power of the Spirit and receive life from oneself? To unite
us to God and to be one with God? Without doubt, these will not be found in Christ’s
human nature apart from the divinity, yet they do come into consideration when it is a
question of the mediator’s office.116

113
Richard A. Muller, “Christ in the Eschaton: Calvin and Moltmann on the Duration Munus
Regium” HTR 74:1, (1981): 48, cf. Mark Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” 122.
114
Trevor Hart, In Him Was Life: The Person and Work of Christ (Baylor, TX: Baylor University
Press, 2019) 188.
115
Mark Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” 119.
116
Joseph N. Tylenda, “The Controversy on Christ the Mediator: Calvin’s Second Reply to
Stancaro,” Calvin Theological Journal 8/2, (1973): 153.

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In this passage it seems evident that there are aspects of Christ’s mediatorial work that can take

place only because he is genuinely human, but it is as the one Christ, who is both human and

divine, that this is accomplished.117 Calvin is insistent throughout his writings that there is a

function of mediation that requires Christ to be both human and divine.118 This is highly

noticeable in the Institutes, “Those who despoil Christ of either his divinity or his humanity

diminish his majesty and glory, or obscure his goodness.”119 The doctrine of mediation is

designed to show that who Jesus is and what he does—what we call his person and work—are

inextricable.120 Christ is the Mediator between God and humanity in himself.121 This is the

ontological knot that prevents us from separating Christ’s work from His person,122 his humanity

is essential to his mediation,123 and in Calvin we see that he affirms the necessity of a continuing

humanity for Christ.124

Herman Bavinck provides assistance to this area of theologizing for us, especially as we

consider the role of the continuing incarnation of Jesus Christ for all eternity.

The difference can be easily resolved by saying that the mediatorship of

reconciliation…ends. God will be king and [thus] all in all. But what remains is the
mediatorship of union. Christ remains Prophet, Priest, and King as this triple office is
automatically given with his human nature, included in the image of God, and realized
supremely and most magnificently in Christ as the Image of God. Christ is and remains
the head of the church, from whom all life and blessedness flow to it throughout all
eternity. Those who would deny this must also arrive at the doctrine that the Son will at

117
Mark Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” 119.
118
Collin Gunton, “One Mediator…The Man Jesus Christ: Reconciliation, Mediaiton and Life in
Community,” 151.
119
John Calvin ,Inst. 2.12.2.
120
Collin Gunton, “One Mediator,” 151.
121
Sandra Fach, “The Ascended Christ: Mediator of Our Worship,” in The Person of Christ, ed.
Stephen R. Holmes and Murray A. Rae, (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2005), 169.
122
Fach, 169.
123
Fach, 168-169.
124
Fach, 170.

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some point in the future shed and destroy his human nature; and for this there is no
scriptural ground whatever.125

Bavinck states that the mediation of reconciliation ends at the new creation, but in Christ’s

person there will always be a mediation of union. I interpret this to mean that Christ’s action in

choosing to assume human flesh was an eternal, divine act, and that the flesh will always be in a

hypostatic union with the second Person of the Trinity. For anyone who denies that there is a

mediation of union, according to Bavinck, tears the hypostatic union away from the Son, and

necessitates that Christ cease to be human for all eternity. It is only through the connection of

Christ’s hypostatic union that we are able to participate in the divine life of the Trinity. In other

words, “the hypostatic union is the interface that joins humanity and divinity, Creator and

creature.”126 Only through Christ’s humanity do we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2

Pet. 1:3-4). The way forward in the conversation about mediation is that theologians continue to

affirm Christ’s continual humanity, even into the new creation.127 Christ is not one that ceased to

be human, but he continues to be the God-man for all eternity, the man through whom we come

to God.128 It is in this oneness that Jesus Christ is recognized as the Mediator, the Reconciler,

between God and man…He is in His person the covenant in its fullness.129 Martin Davis

describes the role this ontological significance plays in the eternal hypostasis of the incarnation:

The incarnate Savior embodies what he mediates, “for what he mediates and what he is
are one and the same.” As the “content” and “reality” of reconciliation, Jesus Christ
“embodies the Gospel of reconciliation between God and man and man and God in his
own Person.” He is the Propitiation for our sins; he is our Redemption; he is our
Justification…What he is is what he does.130

125
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, Volume Three, ed. John
Bolt and trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 482.
126
A.J Ollerton, “Quasi Deificari: Deification in the Theology of Calvin,” WTJ 72 (2011): 243.
127
Fach, “The Ascended Christ,” 181.
128
Fach, 181.
129
Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1960), 46-47.
130
Martin M. Davis, “Kataphysical inquiry, onto-relationality and elemental forms in T.F.
Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ,” 6.

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Mediation then, is not just something which Christ does but something which, in the specificities

of his personal identity, he embodies in himself.131 Christ will continue to wear the marks of our

redemption in His body for all eternity, for on the glorified body which He ascended into heaven

with still has scars132 (John 19:20; Rev. 5:6). Our Mediator will wear his priestly robes133 to

remind us that the “chastisement that brought us peace” is on him (Isaiah 53:5). He did not

merely give us this peace, He is our peace134 (Eph. 2:14). Bavinck is right in describing the

continuity of the office in Christ’s humanity, for He himself is the temple (Revelation 21:22),

and “that tabernacle shall never be folded up, never laid aside as useless.135 Christ the incarnate

Son will always be the mediator between us in our humanity and the Triune God, even in

glory.136 In short, although Calvin highlighted that the mediatorial work of Christ has a particular

131
Trevor Hart, “Mediation”, in In Him Was Life: The Person and Work of Christ, (Baylor, TX:
Baylor University Press, 2019), 178. Trevor Hart roots this comment in Paul’s statement in 2nd Corinthians
5:19, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” He says, “The reconciliation is actually in
Christ; it is not some state of affairs external to Christ himself…All God’s promises are yea and amen in
him, and nowhere else. He is the site, the locus, the reality of reconciliation between God and humanity. He
is not only ‘God with us,’ but also, and in the same incarnate integration of divine and human existence, ‘us
with God,’ granting us access to his father not just by what he does, but in his company, together with him,
in his name, in union with him, or, in Paul’s terse phrase, simply ‘in him.’”
132
For more on this topic, see Markus Muhling-Schlarpkohl’s “Why Does the Risen Christ Have
Scars? Why God did not immediately create the Eschaton: Goodness, Truth, and Beauty,” in the
International Journal of Systematic Theology 6.2 (2004), 185-193.
133
Thomas Watson, Beatitudes, 261, cf. Boersma, Seeing God, 336. Watson states, “Imagine what
a blessed sight it will be to see Christ wearing the Robe of our humane nature, and to see that nature sitting
in glory above the angels…If [the] transfiguration was so glorious, what will his inauguration be?”
134
Edward Klink III, John: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016), 867.
135
Suzanne McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and
the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision.” in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology,
edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones. (Great Britain, UK: MPG Books Group, 2012): 153, cf. John
Owen, Christologia, 271. John Owen writes a chapter in this work entitled “The Exercise of the Mediatory
Office of Christ in Heaven” that I didn’t have time to dialogue with, but it seems promising for future
study.
136
Suzanne McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ” 153.

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trajectory, he never suggested that the Son’s genuine humanity was simply a temporary

acquisition.137 Mark Thompson defends this mysterious aspect in Calvin’s beatific vision well:

He remains our Mediator at the end…Just as Christ did not shed his humanity either in
the resurrection or in the ascension, he retains his humanity on the other side of the
consummation of all things. The hypostatic union of divinity and humanity is not
dissolved in the end. Finally, the real and wonderful change that does take place involves
both knowing ‘fully…as I have been fully known’ (1 Cor. 13:12) and seeing Christ ‘as he
is.’ (1 John 3:2)138

In conclusion, the Reformer explicitly mentions a cosmic function for mediation, and implicitly

mentions its primordial implications in the divine decree before mediation happens in time at the

beginning of creation. Calvin also mentioned a mediation of reconciliation, a mediation of

intercession, and a mediation of all teaching in his writings, but the epistemological and

sacerdotal functions cease in the beatific vision. While Calvin also never explicitly employed the

term “mediation of union,” he implicitly described the mediation of union in 2.12.2 of his

Institutes and in his two replies to Stancaro “How Christ is the Mediator: A Response to the

Polish Brethren to Refute Stancaro’s Error,” and “The Controversy on Christ the Mediator: A

Response to the Polish Nobles and to Francesco Stancaro of Mantua by The Ministers of the

Church of Geneva.” He saw that the doctrine of the communication of attributes is essential for

Christ’s work as the person of the Mediator. Thankfully these functions have been noticed and

coined, and now it is up to theologians to implement these overlooked areas in biblical and

systematic theology, and to expand on contemporary notions of the munus triplex. Calvin

probably was hesitant to speculate on the Son’s perpetual mediatorial role because of his

uneasiness about speaking in unwarranted ways about the eschaton.139 This has been an

137
Mark Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” 12.
138
Thompson, 121-122.
139
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 260.

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overlooked area within Calvin studies, and hopefully historians can utilize these ideas in Calvin

to inquire why Calvin lacked clarification of the mediatorial office in the beatific vision.

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CHAPTER 4: TOWARD A SEMPER MEDIATOR: A SURVEY OF REFORMED

MEDIATION THEOLOGIES1

In the previous chapter, groundwork was laid regarding terminology that is necessary to

understand the office of the mediator within the Reformed tradition. It was ascertained that

Calvin exhibits a curtailed understanding of the mediatorial work of Christ as relates to the

beatific vision.2 The purpose of this chapter is to explore whether this particular curtailment is

unique to Calvin,3 or whether, and in what form, it shows up in the thought of subsequent

theologians in the Reformed tradition. I will specifically observe the developments of the

doctrine of mediation among Isaac Ambrose, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, Francis Turretin,

Jonathan Edwards, and Abraham Kuyper. Surveying excerpts from these key figures will

highlight the reality that the doctrine of mediation, ambiguous at times in Calvin, is often

likewise just as abstruse in post-reformation theologians. While avoiding the impulse to

automatically assume that all these men were explicitly interacting with the works of John

Calvin, particularly when not directly evidenced by history, it is nevertheless impossible to

ignore similarities in language between a number of these figures. Regardless of direct influence,

or lack thereof, this study will prove beneficial in understanding how theologies of mediation

have morphed throughout a variety of contexts.4 These theologians have gone before us in the

1
Stefan Lindhom, “Would Christ Have Become Incarnate Had Adam Not Fallen? Jerome Zanchi
(1516-1590) on Christ as Mediator,” JRT 9 (2015): 32. In De Incarnatione Dei Jerome Zanchi stated that
Christ was a Semper Mediator (always a Mediator).
2
Simon Francis Gaine, “The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,” in An
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology, Vol. 2.2 (2018): 127.
3
Particularly, Calvin saw the mediation of reconciliation, the mediation of intercession, and the
mediation of revelation ceasing in the beatific vision. This chapter challenges the presupposition of the
mediation of revelation ceasing. Some in the Reformed tradition will argue for ways that the office of the
Mediator will continue to perpetuate, some borrowing from Calvin’s thought and adding categories he
lacked, and others expanding in an entirely different direction.
4
Although there is not direct evidence suggesting that figures such as Jonathan Edwards or Isaac
Ambrose were completely aware of Calvin’s contributions to theology, I am pretty convinced that a few of
these figures were. John Owen translated quite a few of Calvin’s commentaries, and he was a signatory of
the Savory Declaration with Thomas Goodwin. Just as John Owen did not directly quote Aquinas in his

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task of attempting to disentangle and clarify what exactly Christ’s mediation entails. Some have

used language that very closely mirrors that of Calvin, attempting to make better sense of

Christ’s mediatorial office particularly as it pertains to the beatific vision. Similar to Calvin, they

suggest that various functions of mediation will perpetuate for eternity, yet they differ by

painting the beatific vision as more Christocentric than Calvin’s understanding of it might

suggest. In essence, “Mediation is not just a this-worldly phenomenon, but it will also

characterize our relationship with God in the hereafter.”5 Others, however, have only further

obfuscated the doctrine by leaving Christ behind in the beatific vision for the purpose of giving

way to the complete, immediate, unqualified view of the essence of God,6 treating the

mediatorial office of the incarnate Son as merely a temporary measure to be discarded.7 This

chapter will highlight the importance of the doctrinal conversation concerning Christ’s

mediatorial activity. It is an ongoing conversation that has needed, and continues to need,

revisioning. I have decided to chronologically survey the aforementioned theologians in order to

emphasize the development of thought regarding the doctrine of divine mediation.

works, history has told us that he was very familiar with Aquinas’ works, and he employed his theological
contributions in his own writings from memory. It is hard to ignore that Francis Turretin studied in the
Geneva Academy within less than a century after Calvin and Beza’s death, and he was probably familiar
with the Calvinist heritage of his own institution. Abraham Kuyper was definitely familiar with Calvin’s
theology, seeing that he is the father of Dutch neo-Calvinism in the Netherlands, and often delivered
lectures on Calvinism.
5
Hans Boersma, “The ‘Grand Medium’: An Edwardsean Modification of Thomas Aquinas on the
Beatific Vision,” in Modern Theology 33:2, (April 2017): 201.
6
Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in the Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2018): 326.
7
Suzanne McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and
the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology,
edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones. (Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, 2012.), 149-150.

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Isaac Ambrose (1604-1663?): “His Mediatorship Shall Cease”8

Isaac Ambrose was an English Puritan who was installed as one of Charles I’s four

preachers in Lancashire. Due to his commitment to Presbyterianism, he was considered a

nonconformist by the Church of England during this period, and was one of the many ministers

influenced by the Great Ejection.9 He was a part of the faculty of Cambridge University for two

years, and is the author of several works, the most famous being Looking Unto Jesus. Isaac

greatly steered the doctrinal development concerning the office of Christ’s mediatorship during

his lifetime, and he must be credited duly a prime mover, especially since he lived so close to the

death of Theodore Beza (d. 1605).10 Isaac Ambrose understood Jesus’ installation to the office of

the mediator to be before the foundation of the world, because of the pactum salutis, which the

Father made with Him in the divine decree. He says, “there was a designation and appointment

of Christ from all eternity, to the office of mediatorship: whence Christ is said to be sealed by the

Father”11 (Jn. 6:27, Isa. 42:1). This was a promise from the Father to the Son, which the Father

covenanted with Him.12 Christ accepted this office, for he did not take this office of mediatorship

upon himself, but the Father called him to it.13 As we observed in the last chapter concerning the

covenant of redemption, it was commonly held within the Reformed tradition that the office of

the Mediator was likened to the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son.14 “Observe how the

church of God is given to Christ, as a reward of that obedience which he showed in accepting of

8
Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1986), 646.
9
Stephen Leslie, Dictionary of National Biography. (London, UK: London, Smith, Elder & Co,
1885), 350-351. Date accessed:
3/28/20.https://archive.org/details/dictionarynatio43stepgoog/page/n364/mode/2up
10
Theodore Beza was John Calvin’s successor in Geneva. Although Isaac Ambrose had a different
context in England, he is still considered important for tracing the Reformed tradition’s understanding and
development of the doctrine.
11
Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 72.
12
Ambrose, 72.
13
Ambrose, 73.
14
J.V. Fesko, The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception. (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016),, 45.

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the office of a surety for us.”15 According to Ambrose, the Son was given this office of surety

(mediatorship) from all eternity.

Isaac not only promoted the view that Christ was given the office of the Mediator

primordially before the foundation of the world, but he also described the prophetic office of

Christ as a mediation of revelation. “Thus Christ is a Mediator…and…by him it is that the mind

and will of God is imparted to man”16 (John 1:18). Through Christ, God imparts his knowledge

and ways to man. Christ unfolds the secrets of the Father’s bosom to us. “Christ Jesus is a

Mediator, a middler an interpreter, an intermessenger betwixt God and his people.”17 Christ’s

mediation of revelation is, according to the English divine, not only delivered to his people in his

own person, but Christ delivers the message of His Father’s will “by his servants the

ministers.”18 Ministers of the gospel are given words from the great Shepherd to mediate the

knowledge of God’s truth to the people.19 The Mediator, through the preaching of His Word and

the working of His Spirit, “opens the eyes of the mind,” to see and hear Christ speaking to the

heart.20 However, the puritan sees an end to Christ’s mediatorial work in the new creation, he

penned and dedicated a whole chapter to this idea in his work Looking Unto Jesus, which came

out to sixteen pages describing the cease of the office of the mediator.21 In Of Christ’s

surrendering, and delivering up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, he piggybacks off of

Calvin’s notion of the end of Christ’s priestly office, but takes it a step farther. Here, he describes

15
Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 62.
16
Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 251.
17
Ambrose, 251.
18
Ambrose, 251.
19
Ambrose, 253.
20
Ambrose, 252-253.
21
For the entire section, see Book V, Chapter I, Sect. VIII-X in Looking Unto Jesus, 643-659.

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the last presentation22 that Christ gives to the Father, the church, and the removal of the office,

but from the perspective of the Son.

O my Father! See what a number I have brought home to thee; thou knowest what I have
done, and what I have suffered, and what offices I have gone through to bring these
hither; and now my mediatorship is done, I resign all my charge to thee again; see what a
goodly troop, what a noble army I have brought thee home; why all these are mine, and
“all mine are thine, and all thine are mine, and I am glorified in them, all that thou gavest
me I have kept, and none of them is lost,” John. 17:10-12.23

Here, it seems that although Ambrose believed that Christ was commissioned by his Father to be

a mediator from all eternity,24 he understands that all of the offices of mediatorship Christ took

on, “what offices I have gone through to bring these hither,” were solely for a redemptive

purpose, to bring the saints to God.25 “Thus Christ having discharged all his offices imposed

upon him, now the work is finished, he leaves his function, by delivering up his commissions to

his Father.”26 This motivation for the office of the Mediator is stagnated on Ambrose’s part due

to his interpretation of 1st Corinthians 15:24-28. He understands that when the Son gives

everything over to the Father, that God might be all in all, this must mean aspects of the office

that come from Christ’s human nature.

The Arians hence inferred, that the Son was not equal with the Father, because he that is
subject must needs be inferior to him whose subject he is. But the answer is easy, Christ
is considered either as God, or as man, and Mediator betwixt God and man; Christ as
God, hath us subject to him, and is subject to none; but Christ, as man and Mediator, is
subject to his Father, together with us…Christ delivers up his kingdom as man, and as

22
Ambrose, 644.
23
Ambrose, 644.
24
Ambrose, 644.
25
Isaac Ambrose probably understands the munus triplex to be three separate offices rather than a
trifold office. He says that “He was a Mediator virtually and inchoatively from the fall of Adam, then did
he undertake the great negotiation of reconciling God to man…and actually he was a Mediator after his
incarnation…[although] he did act that part visibly on earth, which before he had acted secretly and
invisibly in heaven, then he discharged his prophetical and priestly office here on earth, which having done,
he entered upon his kingly administration in heaven.” Ibid, 644. Here, we see he makes distinctions
between the prophetical, priestly, and kingly offices, and he states that he practiced these aspects of these
offices secretly and invisibly in heaven, but they didn’t have their full manifestation until his earthly
ministry, in which they were visible.
26
Ambrose, 644.

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Mediator betwixt God and man: in these respects (as we have heard,) must reign no more,
at that day his mediatorship shall cease; and by consequence, in respect of his
mediatorship, or in respect of his humanity, he shall that day be subject to the Father.27

Ambrose perceives the risen objections to this statement, “was not Christ always subject to his

Father as a man?”28 His only answer in reply to this objection is, “At that day we shall more

clearly see the subjection more manifested than it ever was before.”29

Then he shall lay aside all his offices in the view of all; so that thenceforth God shall not
reign by the humanity of Christ, but by himself; nor shall we thenceforth be subject to
God through a Mediator Christ, but immediately to God himself; nor shall we have Christ
himself reign over us as a Mediator any more: for the very glory of his majesty shall
become so illustrious, that all eyes shall see how transcendently eminent the Deity of
Christ is above all creatures, even above the humanity of Christ himself…Thus it is with
God and Christ, now it is God reigns over us, but only by Christ as Mediator; God’s
immediate reign we discern not so clearly for the present, but when the end shall come,
and Christ shall surcease his office of mediatorship, then shall the glory of Christ’s
divinity appear more eminently, not only above all creatures, but above the brightness of
Christ’s humanity itself; and in this respect Christ then shall be subject, if not by a new
subjection, yet certainly by a new declaration and manifestation of his subjection, so as
never was before.30

Isaac Ambrose avoids the criticism of Arianism in regard to the beatific vision, but he throws out

the human nature of Christ as having any mediatorial function in the beatific vision. He neglects

the notion that Christ’s humanity is the instrumental efficient cause of graces in creatures.31 Like

Calvin, he states that the administration of the kingly office will change, and God will reign

27
Ambrose, 645-646.
28
Ambrose, 646.
29
Ambrose, 646. Although there is no historical evidence suggesting that Isaac Ambrose was
familiar with the writings of John Calvin, one cannot help but notice this language sounds very similar to
that of Calvin’s in 2.15.5 of the Institutes. There will always remain the possibility that copies of the
Institutes could have been circulating around England. If Ambrose did not come across this directly from
Calvin, there is a possibility he gleaned it from his other colleagues in the Reformed tradition. Since he was
a contemporary with Thomas Goodwin, he might have received it from scholarly circles exchanging ideas
between Oxford and Cambridge. We do know that Thomas Goodwin was a signatory of the Savory
Declaration with John Owen, and John Owen did translate a few of Calvin’s commentaries.
30
Ambrose, 646..
31
Simon Francis Gaine, “The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,” 123.

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mediately, yet differs in suggesting that the immediacy of the beatific vision will swallow up the

mediating function of Christ’s flesh, and other functions, within the new creation. And while

Calvin believed that Christ would be an “eternal” and “perpetual” mediator in certain capacities,

Ambrose employed terminology to imply that Christ would not be a mediator in any respect. The

focus in this eschatological vision of God is the perception of the immediate view of God’s

essence. Isaac Ambrose’s view sounds too Pater-monic at this point. He makes the goal of the

eschaton the ability to see the Father, while it seems that Christ’s human nature just shuffles to

the side.32 “It is now our highest happiness to have some glimpses of [the Father’s] glory shining

on us…when God shall be our all in all, we shall have as much of God as our souls can hold, we

shall have the glory of God poured in, till we can receive no more.”33 Christ’s mediation is a

necessity until we are brought into the presence-chamber of the father.34 The minister detects this

objection, “if God be all in all, what then becomes of Christ? Is not this derogatory of Jesus

Christ?”35 Ambrose does not think so, for “It is not the Father personally and only,” that will be

all and all, “but the Deity essentially and wholly that is our all in all…for the whole Godhead is

‘all in all.’”36 Ambrose makes the maneuver by suggesting that Christ will be “all in all,” not by

way of the human nature, but from the divine nature of Jesus Christ.37

It is not derogatory to Christ, but rather it doth exceedingly advance Christ in the
thoughts of all his saints; while it was necessary Christ veiled his Deity, and when his
work of mediation is fully finished, Christ then shall reveal his Deity to his saints more
than ever before.38

32
Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 647
33
Ambrose, 648
34
Ambrose, 648.
35
Ambrose, 650.
36
Ambrose, 650.
37
Ambrose, 650.
38
Ambrose, 650.

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Perhaps Ambrose is suggesting we only saw Christ by nature of His accommodation, but when

we can see the unveiling of the divine nature, we will have a different perception of Christ than

we do now pre-eschaton. However, there is some inconsistency on Ambrose’s part. He states

that, “the manhood of Christ shall still remain,” even though his “mediatory office shall wholly

cease.” 39 He also says that the eternal “body or humanity of Christ shall not hinder the breaking

forth of all his divine glory,” even though the mediatorial office will be discharged.40 Ambrose

did not have the terminology to describe Christ’s continual flesh as a “mediation of union,” like

we do today, but he did not think it inconsistent to suggest that the beatific vision will be an act

of de-crypsis for the incarnate Son, when we see the theandric Mediator in all of his glory. If one

wants to believe that Christ’s eternal mediation will extend forever, it seems that one must read

the event of the beatific vision in this regard: “the glory of the saints is eternally dependent on

Christ’s humanity, and Christ’s beatific vision will be the source of ours, forever.”41 There also

remains another inconsistency on Isaac Ambrose’s part when it comes to the future revealing

activity of the Son.

Oh the wonders of heaven!...Surely it is enough for the saints and angels in heaven to
study Christ for all eternity; it shall be their only labor to read Christ, to smell Christ, to
hear, see, and taste Christ, to love, joy, and enjoy Jesus Christ forever and ever.42

Although Ambrose did not utilize the category of mediation to describe the Son’s future

revelatory activity, it is there implicitly in his writings. He states that the prophetical office

ceases, but in actuality he believes that “Christ is the only means of all communication that the

elect there shall have.”43 Due to the development in the tradition, Ambrose chooses to borrow

39
Ambrose, 652.
40
Ambrose, 652..
41
Simon Francis Gaine, “The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,” 121-122.
42
Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 657.
43
Ambrose, 645.

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categories from Calvin, and refrain from describing Christ’s future activity as mediation, because

he desired to have his readers meditate more on the immediacy of this glorious event.

Unfortunately, the immediacy of the beatific vision belittled the person of the Mediator’s future

mediatorial acts.

Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680): Christ Should Be a Mediator of Union44

Thomas Goodwin was another English Puritan during the time of the Great Ejection in

England. Due to his dissatisfaction with the terms of conformity in 1633, he became a separatist

preacher in London during the years of 1634-1639. In 1639, it was too dangerous for him to

maintain his post, so he fled to Holland and became the pastor of an English church at Arnheim.

He became one of the signatories of the Westminster Assembly in 1643. By the year 1650, he

became the president of Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1658, he also was invited to draw up a

confession in Savoy with his friend, John Owen. This set Goodwin apart from the classical

Presbyterian dissenters, due to his hand in writing the Savoy Declaration, which was a Reformed

confession that advocated for a Congregationalist church polity rather than a Presbyterian one.45

Goodwin, a contemporary of Owen and Ambrose, was another key figure regarding the doctrine

of Christ’s mediatorship, due to the new terminology he employed in his day, and the

distinctions he made in his work Christ the Mediator. Like Ambrose, Goodwin implemented the

doctrine of the covenant of redemption to discuss the appointment of Christ’s eternal office.

Jesus Christ as mediator, is all and wholly of him the Father, and by his appointment.
Whatsoever he is or hath as mediator, is ordained to him by the Father. Therefore Christ
is said to be his king: Ps. 2:6, ‘Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.46

44
Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. V: Of Christ the Mediator, edited by
Thomas Smith. (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), 19.
45
Stephen Leslie, Dictionary of National Biography. (London, UK: London, Smith, Elder & Co,
1885). 148-149. Date accessed: 3/29/20.
https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati22stepuoft/page/148/mode/2up
46
Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. V: Of Christ the Mediator, 10.

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Goodwin informs his readers that “whatever Jesus is or has as a mediator,” it was given to him

by the Father’s appointment. He cites Psalm 2 to defend this pretemporal appointment of the

mediator. Goodwin is perhaps one of the first to describe the role of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s

appointment as mediator, seeing that the pactum salutis is usually lacking in pneumatologically

descriptions of the doctrine.

The other two persons have other distinct offices in the work of reconciliation. The Son
he is to transact the part of a mediator, as the person by whom reconciliation is to be
performed; and the Holy Ghost, he is to make report of that peace an atonement made,
and shed abroad the love of both [the Father and the Son]. Rom. 5:5 “And hope maketh
not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which is given unto us.”47

According to Goodwin, the Holy Spirit has a specific role in communicating the love of

the Father and the Son in the atonement Christ achieves for us. His understanding of the

covenant of redemption is an invitation to experience the triune love of God. What is interesting

is that, he describes this function of the Holy Spirit as an “office,” in communicating the work of

reconciliation. Even in the Reformed tradition, we see the Holy Spirit sharing the function of

illumination, or revelation, in mediating the truth of Christ’s work and person to us. Thomas

Goodwin also expands upon the functions of Christ’s mediation, specifically by adding

categories other than reconciliation and intercession to the Mediator’s office.

But suppose that mystery had been made known, as some say it was, to the angels, that
Christ in our nature should be a head, a mediator of union, the stomaching of which, say
some, was their fall; yet to have imagined him a mediator of reconciliation, and that he
should satisfy God for us, and be made sin and a curse, they would have trembled to have
thought it, if God had not first said it.48

47
Goodwin, 8.
48
Goodwin, 19.

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Here the English Puritan is perhaps the first to describe the person of the Son, and his future role

in assuming human flesh, the mediator of union. Like Calvin, Goodwin made distinctions in the

Mediator’s functions, particularly between a “mediator of reconciliation,” and a “mediator of

union.” According to Goodwin’s description, this mystery of Christ becoming the Mediator of

reconciliation and union by uniting the two natures to himself was “from the beginning of the

world which hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.”49 Here in Goodwin,

we see a cosmic function, a union function, and a reconciliation function all a part of the pactum

salutis. However, Goodwin describes the mediatorial activity, or lack thereof, during the time

which God made the “covenant of works,” with man prior to the Fall.

Because as creation is attributed to the Father especially, so the covenant of works, the
law, the covenant we were created under, being a covenant made especially with the
Father in the name of rest, therefore sin, which was the transgression of that covenant, is
said to be, as it were, especially against him; for in the dispensation of that covenant he
ruled immediately.50

Although Goodwin has said that Christ participated in a creative activity with the Father in some

way,51 God, before the fall “in the dispensation of that covenant,” ruled in an immediate fashion

rather than in a mediate way through Christ. Although we cannot be entirely sure what Goodwin

meant here, we see that he believes that Christ started to mediate in a different fashion after the

Fall, if God ruled immediately prior to it.

The sins against the second covenant are said to be in a more especial manner against
Christ and the Holy Ghost, so those against the first, which occasioned the performance
of reconciliation, are said to be against the Father. Because therefore the transgressions of
the first testament…are especially said to be committed against him, therefore he takes
upon him as the person especially grieved, and so the reconciliation is said to be made to
him.52

49
Goodwin, 20.
50
Goodwin, 8, emphasis added.
51
Goodwin, 20.
52
Goodwin, 8.

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Although it is not entirely clear why God chose not to reign immediately after the Fall, Goodwin

says that the Son has to achieve reconciliation between the two parties, because reconciliation

has to be made to God because of man’s Fall. Goodwin leaves this ambiguity unresolved

throughout the rest of his works, but what he does acknowledge is that Christ as the Mediator

does not cease to be Mediator when he ushers in the new creation…he only accepts a change in

the administration of the regal office. Citing Philippians 2:9-10, Goodwin states the purpose of

this in the coming ages.

And the reason of all this is that which is given there, even “the glory of the Father.” The
end of Christ’s great name, and all that honour we are to attribute to him is “to the glory
of the Father,” ver. 11. Though Christ hath a name above every name, which we are to
magnify and adore, yet all this his name is to the glory of the Father, who hath the
revenue of all. And therefore when the Lord Jesus Christ gives up his dispensatory
kingdom to his Father, as mediator, God shall be ‘all in all:’ 1 Cor. xv. 28, “And when all
things shall be subdued unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in
all.” Why? Because all was originally from him, therefore all shall end in him, and he
shall be all in all.53

I interpret Goodwin’s understanding of Phil. 2:9-10 and 1 Cor. 15:28 to mean that Christ, as the

mediator, gives up his dispensatory kingdom, but as mediator, He will continue to reign under a

different form of administration. All of creation shall be reconciled, and God will be “all in all.”

I’m assuming this exitus et reditus, procession and return, type of language is the restoration of

God’s immediate rule which he exercised prior to the Fall in Goodwin.54 In short, Goodwin has

supplied his readers with an understanding of Christ’s hypostatic union of the two natures in

terms of a “mediation of union,” and describes Christ maintaining his mediatorship even after he

53
Goodwin, 11.
54
For more on this motif of exitus et reditus, that the cosmos proceeds from and returns to the one
God, see James M. Arcadi’s “Homo adorans: exitus et reditus in theological anthropology,’ in Scottish
Journal of Theology 73, (2020): 1-12.

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delivers all things to the Father. Let us now examine what his friend and contemporary said

about the mediatorial office.

John Owen (1616-1683): Pondering the Mediation of Glory

Owen was another famous English Puritan, a nonconformist like Thomas Goodwin and

Isaac Ambrose. Owen served as a pastor in Fordham, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University

in 1652, Dean of St. Mary’s Church in Oxford, and toward the end of his life, went back to the

pastorate in London in 1673. He, along with his friend Thomas Goodwin, was one of the

signatories for the Savoy Declaration. He is most known for his works Communion with the

Triune God, The Mortification of Sin, and his seven Volumes on The Exposition of the Epistle to

the Hebrews.55 Due to the vast amount of material Owen penned regarding the book of Hebrews,

and other works on Christology he’s written, one would do injustice to ignore what the

Englishman has said regarding the mediatorial office of Christ. His contribution to the doctrine

of divine mediation shall be observed.

Calvin rejected an epistemological, eternal mediation by Christ within the beatific vision,

leaving Owen dissatisfied with what he perceived to be a Christological deficit in Calvin’s

thought. This unease drove Owen to construct a theological account of Christ being an

epistemological medium in the beatific vision such that this would cease to regard the Visio Dei

as purely immediate in an epistemological sense.56 Owen was quite bothered with a Christology

that seemed to give way, and as a result, be swallowed up into an immediacy of the Father’s

55
Wilbur M. Smith, in John Owen’s The Glory of Christ ed. by Wilbur M. Smith. (Chicago, IL:
Moody Press, 1949), 14-19.
56
Simon Francis Gaine, “The Beatific Visio and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,” 127.
Although Owen does not immediately cite Calvin in his works, we do know that he was familiar with
Calvin’s works due to his translation of many of Calvin’s commentaries. I think Gaine is right in Owen’s
unease in Calvin’s description of the end of Christ’s mediatorial function in the eschaton.

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divine essence,57 which led him to the Christological drawing board. Owen starts with Christ’s

glory, and informs us that, “the glory of Christ is the glory of the person of Christ.” What Owen

means by this is the glory of the Second person’s hypostatic union.58 Owen, like Calvin, sees

magnificent benefit for the Christian to reflect on the future life, and the benefits that derive from

meditating on the beatific vision.59 This is what Owen says regarding the lack of reflection on the

future, heavenly vision.

There are some who regard not these things at all, but rather despise them. They never
entertain any serious thought of obtaining a view of the glory of God in Christ—which is
to be unbelievers…The manifestation of all the holy properties of the divine nature…as
he is the image of the invisible God, in the constitution of his person and the discharge of
his office, are things they regard not; yea they despise and scorn what is professed
concerning them…these conceptions of men’s minds are influenced by that unbelief of
his divine person which taketh havoc of Christianity at this day in the world.60

If Owen’s conviction is correct that Christians who fail to reflect on obtaining the future glory of

God is to make them “unbelievers,” then it is wise for the reader to lend an ear to this urgent

message. For Owen, the telos of the Christian life is to behold Christ’s glory demonstrated to us

in the gospel. Owen scholar Suzanne MacDonald emphasizes the well-placed urgency the

Puritan desired to communicate. “We behold the glory of Christ in his divinity and humanity,

through the mirror of the Scriptures.”61 Let us consider the aspects Owen places regarding the

person of the Mediator, and his role in the beatific vision. As it was demonstrated in chapter two,

the pactum salutis was highly implemented in Owen’s Mediator Christology throughout his

writings. He has referred to the covenant of redemption interchangeably, often referring to it as

57
Gaine, 127-178.
58
Suzanne MacDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and
the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision,” in Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, 146,
cf. Meditations, 293.
59
MacDonald, 146.
60
MacDonald, 147, cf. Meditations, 302.
61
MacDonald, 149.

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“the covenant of the Mediator,” or the “covenant of the Redeemer.”62 For Owen, the Father’s

eternal love is prior to and hence the ground of the Son’s mediation in the pactum rather than

vice versa.63 Specifically, the covenant of redemption explains the eternal origin and ground of

Christ’s priestly office, within the very council of God.64 It was Owen’s understanding of the

pactum which allowed him to develop categories of divine mediation that were not solely

motivated by the plan of redemption. John Owen, in his The Glory of Christ, states two different

functions, or “heads” of Christ’s mediation.

We may…behold the glory of Christ with respect to His office, in the actings of God
toward Him after His discharge of it in this world, in his own exaltation…These are the
two heads of the mediation of Christ and His kingdom, and this is their order which they
communicate to the Church—first sufferings, and then glory.65

It is the nature of this very passage which communicates Owen, like Calvin, had a multifaceted

view of the purpose of Christ’s mediation. On the one hand, he sees that the mediation of

reconciliation shall come to a halt, because it will be discharged. Quoting 1 Corinthians 15:24-

27, Owen explains that, “at the end of this dispensation, he [Christ] shall give up the Kingdom

unto God even the Father, or cease from the Administration of his Mediatorial Office and

Power.”66 On the other hand, he leaves open a gap in describing a second head of mediatorial

activity as a “mediation of glory.” But what is meant by the mediation of glory? This is the very

reason why Owen occasionally struggles with the notion that Christ’s mediation will pass away

when God is all in all, with reference to 1 Cor. 15:24-28.67 But what is meant by the mediation of

62
Laurence R. O’Donnell III, “The Holy Spirit’s Role in John Owen’s ‘Covenant of the Mediator’
Formulation: A Case Study in Reformed Orthodox Formulations of the Pactum Salutis,” PRJ 4, 1 (2012):
92.
63
O’Donnell III, 99.
64
O’Donnell III, 100.
65
John Owen, The Glory of Christ, 123.
66
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 325, cf. Christologia, 315.
67
Suzanne MacDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ,” 150.

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glory? For Owen, it seems to be connected to the human nature of Christ.68 Suzanne McDonald

summarizes this point well in Owen.

So, for example, he will state that “This beholding of the glory of Christ given him by the
Father is indeed subordinate unto the ultimate vision of the essence of God”: and yet in
the same breath remind us that the vision of Christ in glory “hath such an immediate
connection with it (i.e. the ultimate vision of the essence of God)…as that without it we
can never behold the face of God…For he is, and shall be to eternity, the only means of
communication between God and the church” Owen will also insist in fact we cannot
behold the essence of God in an unmediated way, but only through Christ: “God in his
immense essence is invisible unto our corporeal eyes and will be so to eternity; as also
incomprehensible to our minds. For nothing can perfectly comprehend that which is
infinite, but what is itself infinite…Wherefore the blessed and blessing sight which we
shall have of God will always be “in the face of Jesus Christ.”69

What I postulate as to why Owen oscillates between these two conflicting ideas is because he

sees these two heads of mediation, and the mediation of glory is functional for us to experience

the glory of the beatific vision. The Son has an instrumental role for creatures to experience the

beatific vision. “Christ himself is intrinsic to the essence of the vision itself.”70

All communications from the Divine Being and infinite fullness in heaven unto the
glorified saints, are in and through Christ Jesus, who shall forever be the medium of
communication between God and the church, even in glory. All things being gathered
into one head in him, even things in heaven and things in earth…this order shall never be
dissolved…And on these communications from God through Christ depend entirely on
our continuance in a state of blessedness and glory.71

Owen suggests that God will not change the way in which he reveals himself at the

consummation of all things, as if making himself known in the person of the incarnate Son were

merely a temporary emergency measure to be discarded.72 This medium of communication,

68
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 322. Boersma states, “Whether the object of the vision is the
hypostatic union or Christ’s work of mediation, it is clear that for Owen, the beatific vision that the saints
already enjoy in heaven does not just consist of them looking at Jesus with the eyes of the soul.”
69
Boersma, 322, cf. Mediations 292, 386-387.
70
Boersma, 322.
71
Boersma, 322, cf. Mediations 414, emphasis in original.
72
Boersma, 149-150.

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according to Suzanne McDonald, “will be part of God’s glory, and our glory too. The one who

has glorified human nature by assuming it to himself will be the mediator of our knowledge,

love, and adoration of the Trinity...just as he is the mediator of all of those things while we are

still pilgrims in via.” If McDonald is correctly understanding Owen here, then she is suggesting

that Owen believes Christ will still be the Mediator of revelation and the mediator of union,

because, in Owen’s terse phrasing of “the mediation of glory,” Owen sees there is no change.

This would mean that Owen is absolutely and radically insistent that in the vision of God in

heaven will be mediated to us through Christ, for, in Owen’s words, “he is, and shall be to

eternity, the only means of communication between God and the church.”73 It is the continuing

humanity of Christ that is brought to the fore when Owen asks us to reflect on what the heavenly

vision will entail.74 Suzanne McDonald gives us three reasons as to why Owen considers the

continuing humanity of Christ will be central to the vision of God in glory.75

First, the significance of Christ’s glorified humanity will continue for all eternity, because
Christ sums up in himself and holds together in himself the whole glorified creation: “the
person of Christ, in and by his human nature shall be for ever the immediate head of the
whole glorified creation. God having gathered all things unto a head in him, the…centre
of that connection [i.e., the humanity of the Eternal Son] shall never be
dissolved…Secondly…Owen maintains that Christ will be the means of communication
between God and his glorified saints eternally…”they shall be all made in and through
the person of the Son and the human nature therein. That tabernacle shall never be folded
up, never laid aside as useless.” Christ the incarnate will always be the mediator between
us in our humanity and the Triune God, even in glory…The third reason for the centrality
of the glorified humanity of Christ with regard to the beatific vision and the life of glory
is that “The person of Christ, and therein his human nature, shall be the eternal object of
divine glory, praise and worship…the person of Christ is the eternal object of worship
with the Father and the Spirit, the human nature in the Son [is] admitted into the
communion of the same glory.76

73
Boersma, cf. Mediations, 386-387.
74
Boersma, 153.
75
Boersma, 153.
76
Boersma, 153.

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For Owen, it is important that the glorious vision of Christ retains an element of direct

comprehension. The visio dei shall be “immediate, direct, and intuitive,”77 but the ascended,

glorified humanity of the Son must be at the heart of the being of God; it is intrinsic to the glory

of the Triune God. It is fitting that the Triune God receive worship for this particular reason, that

the eternal Son has assumed flesh for us and for our salvation.78 In conclusion, it is important to

consider that Owen thought the person of the mediator, who maintains His hypostatic mediation

of union, is the basis of maintaining us, and the entire creation, within the eschaton. The

tabernacle of His flesh shall not be folded away, and that continuing humanity itself is an act of

divine mediation.79

Francis Turretin (1623-1687): The Mediatorial Office Will Be Perpetual80

Francis Turretin was a Reformed scholastic theologian born to Italian parents in Geneva.

After studying theology in Geneva, Leiden, Utrecht, Paris, and Samur, he returned to Geneva to

take the chair of Philosophy at the Geneva Academy. He is most famous for penning the

Helvetic Consensus, and for publishing his three volume Instituio.81 His unique contribution

largely impacted the tradition, and he became one of the leading voices concerning the office of

the mediator among Reformed thought. Let us observe some ways he diverged and expanded

upon the doctrine of divine mediation.

77
Boersma,, 323.
78
Suzanne MacDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and
the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision,” in Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, 153.
79
John Owen, Christologia, 271, cf. MacDonald, 153.
80
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume 2: Eleventh Through Seventeenth
Topics, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing,
1994), 493.
81
Matthew McMahon, A Puritan’s Mind. “Francis Turretin (1623-1687).” Date Accessed 3/30/20.
https://www.apuritansmind.com/puritan-favorites/francis-turretin/

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Turretin, in his Institutes of Eclenctic Theology describes two senses in which the name

“Mediator is applied to Christ.” Christ can be viewed as a mediator either in relation to his

person, or to his office. In regards to the personhood of the mediator, Turretin refers to this kind

of mediation as a “substantial mediation,” by which Christ Himself is the medium between God

and man.82 The second sense of mediation is described as “efficacious and operative,” by which

Christ performs the duties of the office that were entrusted to Him by the Father.83 “The former

marks the state of his person; the latter his operation. The former designates the union of natures;

the latter the execution of the office in the person.”84 From the origin of Turretin’s foundational

understanding of the mediatorial office, we see he has necessarily made distinctions between the

mediator in his person (essence) and the mediator’s operations. For Turretin, we are to properly

understand the mediator through the twofold lens of who He is in act and being.

Secondly, the Reformer builds upon the munus triplex motif handed down to him from

Calvin. As a Prophet, Christ the Mediator is an “internuncius by reason of his doctrine inasmuch

as he was the interpreter of both parties and declared the will of God to men.”85 An internuncius

is a messenger between two parties. According to Turretin, Christ is the interpreter of God’s

work, since he is called the “angel of the covenant,” (Mal. 3:1) and the Counselor (Isa. 9:6).

Here, we see Turretin adhering to Calvinian belief that Christ was the mediator of doctrine. He

believes that Christ in the Old Testament was communicating the oracles of God to the people of

Israel. He understands Christ to be the mediator of the Law, like Calvin, because of his

interpretation of Galatians 3:19. “Here the law is said to have been given ‘in the hand of a

82
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume 2: Eleventh Through Seventeenth
Topics, 375.
83
Turretin, 375.
84
Turretin, 375.
85
Turretin, 376.

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mediator,’ [which] can rightly be referred to Christ.”86 Turretin’s reasoning for this is because

nobody else is given the name Mediator in Scripture than Christ, the lawgiver.

Nowhere else is the name Mediator given to any other than Christ…because Moses is
elsewhere (Acts 7:35) said to have been ordained a ruler and a deliverer of the people en
cheiri “in the hand” (by the authority and direction of an angel, of that one who appeared
to him in the burning bush, the eternal Son of God.)87

Turretin, like Calvin, believes that the law was delivered to the Israelites by the hand and

direction of Christ the mediator.88 Turretin also states that Christ, as a priest, is our mediator, and

“peacemaker.”89 “As a Priest, he was bound to satisfy divine justice perfectly for us. To intercede

for sinners, he must abolish death by his own death to reconcile us and unite us to him forever.”90

As King, he “rules the universal church by the scepter of his word, send(s) the Holy Spirit with

all of his gifts” and “effectually calls, opens hearts, bruises Satan, and places all the enemies of

salvation under his footstool,” on behalf of His elect, so that He may glorify his church.91

Turretin sees the two natures of Christ as crucial to understanding Christ’s mediatorial office.

“Scripture ascribes the mediation of Christ to both natures, “God purchased the church with his

own blood” (Acts 20:28) and “The Lord of glory was crucified” (1 Cor. 2:8).92 According to

Turretin, “all parts of the mediatorial work of Christ demand both natures,”93 and “He ought to

be a Mediator according to that nature in which he could work as Mediator even from the

beginning of the world, since he ought to be the same yesterday, today, and forever.”94 Turretin

believes in the doctrine of the extra Calvinisticum, because Christ was operating as a Mediator in

86
Turretin, 378.
87
Turretin, 378.
88
Turretin, 378.
89
Turretin, 376.
90
Turretin, 381.
91
Turretin, 381.
92
Turretin, 380.
93
Turretin, 380.
94
Turretin, 381.

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his divine nature, “before the beginning of the world,” and yet he believes Jesus became the

theandric Mediator by assuming the form of a servant.95 “The acts pertaining to mediation must

therefore be ascribed to the divinity as the formal principle, since Christ became incarnate that he

might be a Mediator.”96 According to Turretin, Christ is already recognized as an ontological

mediator, a cosmic mediator, a mediator of reconciliation, a mediator of revelation, and a

mediator of intercession.

However, although Turretin believes Galatians 3:19 to be Christ, and “the angel of the

Lord” is Christ according to his understanding of Gal. 3:19 and Acts 7:35, he does not believe

Christ is a Mediator of the angels. This is where his cosmic function slightly diverges from that

of Calvin’s understanding.

Some think that Christ can and ought to be called the Mediator of angels, but only of their
conservation and confirmation, not of their redemption…Although this opinion involves
no absurdity and seems to contribute to the amplification of the glory of the Mediator,
Christ, still the contrary opinion (which denies that Christ is the Mediator of the angels)
seems to us more true and agreeable to the sacred Scriptures. Thus if the angels were
confirms, they obtained this through a new grace of God and by the Son of God—not as
Mediator, but as Creator and Conservator, by whom and in whom all things are said to
subsist. (Col. 1:17)97

Turretin shows us that there was in-house disagreement among other theologians during this time

as to whether Christ was a mediator of angels or not. He states that although this opinion seems

to “amplify the glory of the mediator,” and emphasize his role in conservation and confirmation

of the creation, he is not willing to buy it. His reasoning for this is because “the Scriptures call

Christ the Mediator between God and men, but never between angels. There is no need of a

Mediator where there is no discord…yet there was no disagreement between God and the

95
Turretin, 381.
96
Turretin, 381-382.
97
Turretin, 384.

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angels.”98 Turretin’s hermenteutics lead him to reserve the title of Mediator to what pertains to

the new covenant. “All medicinal and liberating grace flows from the Mediator in the order of

redemption.”99 Turretin finds it improper in the testimony of Scripture to attribute this title to

Christ, because it is contrary to the order of redemption spelled out for us in Holy Writ. “Christ

was not joined with angels, but with men because he did not take on angels.”100 He also says,

“Christ is called the Mediator…but not of angels. Although they belong to the assembly of the

glorified (Heb. 12:22-23), they cannot be properly called members of the church.”101 For

Turretin, although Christ is the head and king of the angels, he cannot be their ‘vivifying head’

because this is only diffused by the Spirit’s regenerating work upon men alone. Although Calvin

implicitly gathers this cosmic function of mediation from Scripture, Turretin does not attribute

this quality to the Mediator, primarily due to his understanding of the reconciliatory motivation

for Christ assumption he sees reserved for the saints.

Lastly, Turretin sees the need to describe what Christ’s mediatorial office will consist of

in the eschaton. He realizes the controversial nature of the 1st Corinthians 15:24-28 passage, and

the fact that his predecessors have stated Christ will no longer continue to mediate when the

saints experience the beatific vision.

The second condition of Christ’s kingdom is its eternity, concerning which we have a
controversy with the Socinians. In order to impair the dignity and divinity of our
Mediator, they maintain that this kingdom will come to an end on the last day and its
ultimate act will be the judgment of the whole world; then his kingdom and regal
authority will be given up to the Father. With them agree (although with a different
feeling and intention) those of the orthodox who think that Christ’s mediatorial kingdom
will end with the world in order that a place may be given to his essential kingdom alone,
by which God will be all in all.102

98
Turretin, 384-385.
99
Turretin, 385.
100
Turretin, 385.
101
Turretin, 385.
102
Turretin, 490.

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Turretin sees the need for theologizing on this topic, seeing that “those of the orthodox agree

with the Socinians,” although with a different intention. This is how he replies to the issue, first

by bifurcating that the mediatorial kingdom of Christ can be viewed either as to its very

substance or as to the form and mode of administration.103 He further states what he means by

the explanation, “This can be either immediate and internal or external and mediate.” It seems

that the issue here lies with whether the mode of administration can be changed while the

substance of the kingdom remains.104

In this way faith (it is said) will be changed into vision, not as to substance of knowledge
(which always remains the same; yea, will be even more perfect), but as to mode,
inasmuch as faith will no longer rest upon the word and be attended with obscurity, but
will behold God himself face to face. The question here does not concern the mode of its
administration (which all confess will be changed), but only concerns the substance of the
kingdom (which some contend will cease). We hold that it remains forever.105

Turretin states that when the Kingdom comes in glory, the administration of faith will be

changed, because our “faith shall be turned into sight,” when we see “him as he is when he

returns in glory.” Our faith will no longer be attended with obscurity. Also, he critiques Calvin’s

rejection of the epistemological function of mediation. Our knowledge will not change, because

it remains the same, although it will be more perfect in the beatific vision. Also, the kingdom

shall remain forever. Turretin explains what mediation entails in the beatific vision:

Mediation includes three principal parts: (1) the acquisition of salvation; (2) the
application of it when acquired; (3) the conservation of it when applied. We are not
treating of the first and second, for Christ so performs them in this life that there will be
no more for them in the lie to come. In this sense, we readily grant that the mediation of
Christ will cease because there will be no more need of acquisition or of any new
application. But we treat of its conservation, in reference to which we contend that Christ

103
Turretin, 491.
104
Turretin, 491.
105
Turretin, 491.

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will perpetually conserve the blessings obtained for us and so will reign forever over his
church.106

Turretin found it vital to elaborate on the perpetual function of Christ’s mediation, even though

some of the functions as we know them today shall cease. He says that Christ performs the

functions of the acquisition of salvation and the application of it in this lifetime, and there will be

no more need of them in the age to come. However, there will still remain a need for Christ to

mediate the third function: the conservation of the blessings obtained for us. Turretin here is

describing that Christ will continue to be the mediator of sustenance in the eschaton, because

Christ will “perpetually conserve these blessings obtained for us and reign forever over his

church.” Just as Calvin contributed the cosmological function of the mediator to the kingly

office, so Turretin suggests that Christ will still continue to mediate in this way, because “his

kingdom shall last forever” (2 Sam. 7:12-13, Dan. 7:14, Luke 1:33, Heb. 12:28). Turretin also

sees other various functions of the mediatorial office perpetuating within the new creation.

Various functions of the mediatorial office were to be perpetual. As to prophecy because

it is said that he will illuminate the saints forever (Rev. 21:22-23)…and the Lamb shall
feed them and lead them unto living fountains of water (Rev. 7:17). As to the priesthood
by a perpetual representation of his sacrifice as the foundation of the glory we shall
possess that was not only to be purchased, but also conserved forever…Hence it is called
an “unchangeable” priesthood (Heb. 7:24). As to his kingdom, he will always reign in the
church as her head and surety by an indissoluble union; not surely as God only, but also
as Mediator. (Rev. 11:15, 12:10)…Since this should be eternal and indissoluble, it
involves the eternity also of the operation and relation of Christ as Mediator.107

Note the multifaceted model of mediation Turretin describes here work. Earlier, we saw that he

suggested Christ will continue to be the conservator of the new kingdom by way of His

mediation. Here, he describes the epistemological function of mediation perpetuating into the

106
Turretin, 491.
107
Turretin, 492.

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new heavens and the new earth. He understands that our Great Prophet Christ, as the mediator of

revelation, as will continue to “illuminate the saints forever,” and “feed them and give them

fountains of living water.” Due to the indissoluble union as Mediator, His fleshly body shall be a

perpetual representation, or a reminder to the saints of Christ’s sacrifice, which was purchased

and conserved forever. Christ will continue to be the embodied Mediator because, in His

resurrected and glorified body, He wears the scars of His victory for all eternity and stays clothed

in the priestly robes of His flesh (Isa. 53:5, Jn. 20:20, Rev. 5:6). As our King, He will always

reign as the Mediator, the ascended Lord. It is obvious here that Owen sees the mediation of

union, the mediation of revelation, and the mediation of conservation continuing within the new

Jerusalem. Turretin can make this claim due to his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:24-28. He

understands the subjection attributed to Christ not to refer to the person of the Son, because he

always was and will be equal to the Father, but rather it must be referencing Christ’s mystical

body, the church, which will then perfectly be subjected to God. Our Head, Christ, will be

subjected to God in the person of His members.108 The act described here is not the deposition of

Christ’s mediatorial office, but the subordination of it. God will no longer mediately

communicate to His saints through the Word and the sacraments, but face to face, but not to the

exclusion of Christ, who will always be the bond of our communion with God.109 “Although

Christ as Logos with the Father and the Holy Spirit will exercise an essential kingdom over the

saints, still this will not prevent him from reigning over them as God-man and as Mediator.”110 In

conclusion, Turretin believed Christ would still maintain the hypostatic union and reign as the

108
Turretin, 493.
109
Turretin, 493-494.
110
Turretin, 494.

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Mediator for all eternity. The immediacy of the beatific vision does not swallow up the perpetual

functions that Christ will continue to exercise.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): Christ the Grand Medium

Jonathan Edwards is perhaps the most famous out of all of these theologians. He has been

dubbed as “America’s theologian,” and started pastoring in colonial New England before the

founding of the nation of the United States. Toward the end of his life, he became president at

the College of New Jersey, which is later today known as Princeton University. Let us examine

the Edwardsian perspective of the Son’s continual mediating work within the beatific vision.

Edwards found the notion problematic that in eternity we will be looking at the essence

of God as our greatest bliss. For him, this implied leaving behind Jesus Christ as the ultimate

revelation of God.111 Here is how Hans Boersma interprets Edwards’ account of the beatific

vision:

Edward’s account of the beatific vision is an account that regards Christ—the ‘grand
medium’ of the visio dei—as the consummate theophanic appearance of God. And it is,
finally, an account that takes seriously the infinite progress of the vision of God,
beginning in this life, continuing in the intermediate state, and on into the eternity of the
resurrection.112

Jonathan Edwards thought that mediation would continue even with regard to the beatific vision,

primarily due to his understanding that the progression of the vision of God already begins in this

life. This is how he understand the theophanic appearances of God in the Old Testament, and he

believed that this progressive revelation would perpetuate forever in the eschaton.113 If Jesus

Christ is the ultimate revelation, the intensified theophanic presence of God, in whom “all the

111
Hans Boersma, “The ‘Grand Medium’: An Edwardsean Modification of Thomas Aquinas on
the Beatific Vision,” Modern Theology 33:2, (April 2017), 187.
112
Boersma, 188.
113
Boersma, 190.

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fullness of the Godhead dwelled in Him bodily,” (Col. 2:9) then it would seem unfounded to

suggest that Christ would have no mediatorial role within the new creation. Instead, Edwards

thought “the only creature that can have such an immediate sight of God is Jesus Christ, ‘who is

in the bosom of God.’”114 Only Christ knows God immediately. Other human beings have access

to God only by means of ‘manifestations or signs,’ and Jesus Christ is the ‘grand medium’ of

their knowledge of God (Matt. 11:27, Jn. 1:18, 6:46).115 Edwards saw everything as a type of

sign, or sacramental, communicating the grandeur of God. Humans have access to God’s essence

by these signs, because Edwards held to a sacramental ontology that suggested created things

participate as sacraments in eternal realities.116 God’s vision causes created things to participate

in his eternal being.117 This Neoplatonism stamped Edwards’s overall metaphysic of the created

order, and it carried over to his understanding of the intermediate state,118 and finally the beatific

vision.119 Let us examine how he perceived Christ to be the medium in the intermediate state, and

in the final beatific vision.

Jonathan Edwards preached the funeral sermon of his beloved friend, David Brainerd, a

missionary to the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. In this sermon, “True Saints, When Absent

from the Body, Are Present with the Lord, preached on October 12” he stated those who, like

Brainerd, who die in the Lord, “go to be with Christ” so as to “dwell in the immediate, full and

constant sight of him.”120 The reason why Edwards claims the saints have the full sight God only

114
Boersma, 200, cf. Jonathan Edwards, “Happiness of Heaven is Progressive, WJE 18.428.
115
Boersma, 200.
116
Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in the Christian Tradition, 355.
117
Boersma, Seeing God, 355.
118
Hans Boersma, “The ‘Grand Medium’: An Edwardsean Modification of Thomas Aquinas on
the Beatific Vision,” 188.
119
Boersma, “The ‘Grand Medium’”, 188.
120
Jonathan Edwards, WJE 25.229, cf. Boersma, “The ‘Grand Medium,’” 201.

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in Christ is because God’s essence is invisible, and as a result, “no one sees God the Father

immediately.”121 Hans Boersma explains this Edwardsean motivation very well:

Edwards, therefore—quite unlike Aquinas, holds that in some sense there will never be
an “immediate” vision of God or of the Father, never a vision of the “essence” of God.
For Edwards, such a vision of God would imply a natural, personal union of the believer
with God, an erasing of the distinction between Creator and creature. Only Christ, the
only-begotten Son of God, who is eternally in the bosom of the Father, has such a natural,
personal union with God. For the believer, the visio dei always remains a mediated
vision—mediated, that is, through Christ. Human beings, inasmuch as they are creatures,
are dependent for their knowledge of God on created signs, and the great sign is Christ
himself.122

For Edwards, we see that suggesting the complete discharge of mediation in the intermediate

state, or in the final vision of God, would mean collapsing the Creator/Creature distinction. The

reason being is because “to have an immediate and intuitive view of someone’s mind would

imply that an immediate perception of the ideas and operations of that person’s mind.”123 Such

an immediate and intuitive view would entail a ‘union of personality’ so that for all ‘intents and

purposes’ the two would be one and the same individual person.124 For Edwards, his vision of

Christ is truly a visio dei. The believer really does see God, but he sees in and through Christ. To

see God immediately is to see him in Christ.125

Likewise, in the beatific vision, Edwards sees some type of theophanic mediation, in the

form of Christ’s humanity, remaining in the eschaton. Mediation is not just a this-worldly

phenomenon. It also will characterize our relationship with God in the hereafter.126 For Edwards,

121
Edwards, 230, cf. Boersma, 202.
122
Hans Boersma, “The Grand Medium,” 202.
123
Boersma, 200.
124
Boersma, 200.
125
Boersma, 203, cf. Appendix III: Heaven is a Progressive State, WJE 8.699-700, Paul Ramsey.
126
Boersma, 201, cf. William M. Schweitzer’s, God is a Communicative Being: Divine
Communicativeness and Harmony in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards, (London: Bloomsbury, 2012),
136.

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all vision of God—even in the hereafter—is theophanic in character.127 This means that the great

eschatological vision will forever depend on God condescending to us in visible appearance,

particularly in the incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ.128 Hans Boersma describes how

Edwards perceived Christ to be the “grand medium” in the vision.

Christ may be the ‘grand medium’ of the vision of God, but in the eschaton, this medium
is no longer a sacrament. That is to say, although knowledge of God is always mediated
through Christ’s humanity in heaven the intimacy between Christ and the saints is such
that in and through his humanity they now immediately discern his divinity as well as the
glory of his redemption as the sacramental reality (res) to which they have been looking
forward. The beatific vision is a vision of the real presence of Christ: the merging of
sacrament and reality in him.129

Edwards believes that God will still continue to accommodate to us in some way in the eschaton.

Particularly, that way will be through a mediation of union, in the incarnate Son of God.

According to the perspective of America’s theologian, “it is the sight of Christ’s body with

bodily eyes that enables the eye of the soul to attain the beatific vision.130 Edwards retains a

sense that the eschatological vision will be “immediate” in character,131 but what he means by

this is that there is no longer any barrier or wall between God and the saint in regards to these

signs which mediate knowledge of God. In them, we see “through a glass dimly,” but our

ultimate union with Christ will remove the distance between us and God.132

This shall be an Immediate sight. It will be no apprehension of God’s excellency by

arguing of it from his works. Neither will it be such a sight of God as the saints have in
this world seeing of him in his word or making use of ordinances which is called a stein
through a glass darkly but then they shall see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12).133

127
Boersma, 205.
128
Boersma, 205.
129
Boersma, 203.
130
Boersma, 205.
131
Jonathan Edwards, “Pure in Heart,” WJE 17.64, cf. Boersma, “The Grand Medium,” 203.
132
Boersma, 204.
133
Boersma, 204n114. cf. Edward’s “Sermon on Romans 2:10, Dec. 7, 1535, L.43r.”

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In short, Edwards’ immediacy of the eschaton is preserved, along with the mediatorial office of

Christ in regard to the epistemological and union functions of mediation. Although we will never

have an immediate vision of the essence of God, through our “grand medium” we as finite

creatures will always desire to see more of God’s infinite glory in Christ in the consummate

vision.134

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920): Immediate Knowledge of the Eternal Being

Abraham Kuyper, the progenitor of Dutch neo-Calvinism,135 was a pastor, theologian,

scholar, journalist, educator, and statesman in the Netherlands during the late 19th century. He

established the Free University of Amsterdam and served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands

from 1901-1905.136 He also was a friend and colleague with Herman Bavinck. Kuyper is

probably best known for developing his principle of sphere-sovereignty within the Dutch

Calvinism. Kuyper believed that all of life is lived under God, but different spheres such as the

state, the church, marriage, and education have an independence of each other.137 This led to the

development of a Reformed worldview and social ethic, which he later called a Calvinist “Life-

System.”138 He is an important voice to study within the Reformed tradition, particularly because

his tradition (Dutch neo-Calvinism) develops a unique ethos regarding the various spheres of

life, in conjunction with the cosmos, sharing a similar journey toward the final consummation.139

In many ways he expands this Reformed framework, but in other ways he diverges starkly with

134
Boersma, 212.
135
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 338.
136
Kuyper College. “Our History: Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920).” Date accessed: 3/30/20.
https://www.kuyper.edu/about-us/our-history/abraham-kuyper/
137
John H. Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John
Knox Press, 1981), 78-79.
138
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 338n56. These works of Kuyper’s can be accessed at
kuyper.ptsem.edu.
139
Boersma, 339.

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the tradition of the Puritans regarding his vision of the consummation.140 Let it now be

understood how he perceived the final consummation, and the meditorial role of Christ in the

eschaton, or lack thereof.

Kuyper posited a sharp disjunction between the beatitude that the saints obtain

immediately after death, and glory that follows the resurrection of the body.141 Unlike Edwards,

who saw beatific revelation in a progressive nature, Kuyper finds beatitude characterized by

fellowship with Christ, and the beatific vision characterized by the eternal Being of God

himself.142 In other words, beatitude is only enjoyable in the intermediate state, after death, and

glory is only enjoyed at the resurrection of the body.143 According to his interpretation of

Revelation 6:9-11, where the souls of the saints cry from under the altar, asking when God will

bring vindication upon the shed blood of the martyrs, he sees the beatitude of separated souls is a

picture of the saints experience not yet one of perfect blessedness.144 This can only mean for

Kuyper that they have not yet been perfected in glory.145 When he reflects on the Pauline

contrast between today’s partial knowledge and the perfection of the future state (1 Cor. 13:9-

10), Kuyper interprets this to mean that we will not possess this full knowledge until the

resurrection of the dead.146 After the resurrection, our fellowship with God will be so

concentrated, that it will no longer be mediated through Christ.147

Until the resurrection from the dead, the blessed in heaven do not have direct communion
with the triune God, but only have communion through Christ, the mediator. According
to 1 Corinthians 15:24-28, at the consummation of all things, Christ will cease to be
viceroy and will deliver the kingdom to God the Father. Then also the Son himself will

140
Boersma, 340.
141
Boersma, 340.
142
Boersma, 340.
143
Abraham Kuyper, Van de voleinding, 1:220, cf. Boersma, Seeing God, 341.
144
Abraham Kuyper, “Overkleed te worden,” in In de schaduwe des doods: Meditati(e)n voor de
krankenkamer en bij het sterfbed (Amsterdam: Wormser, 1893), 285, cf. Boersma, Seeing God, 341.
145
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 341.
146
Abraham Kuyper, Dictaten Dogmatiek, 5:318, cf. Boersma, 341.
147
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 341..

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be subjected, to him who put all things in subjection under him. Then we will have direct
communion with the triune God, ‘that God (himself) may be all in all.’148

Unlike the Puritans that were formerly observed, such as Isaac Ambrose and John Owen, who

understood this passage to mean although Christ will discharge an aspect of his mediatorial

office, He will still be the “means” through whom the saints will see God, Kuyper understood

this very differently.149 Instead, after discussing the end of Christ’s kingship, he speaks about the

saints’ eternal, direct communion with the “Eternal Being”.150 Saints become partakers of the

divine essence rather than the glory of Christ. It is puzzling to decipher what Kuyper meant for

finite beings to see the infinite being of God. However, he did make later distinctions to explain

that this did not mean creatures would completely comprehend the infinite essence of God but

creatures would only apprehend that essence.151 Kuyper believed that the saints will be able to

see the Eternal Being immediately because they will come to know the direct essence of God in

some way.152 For Kuyper, Adam and Eve functioned in prophetic, priestly, and kingly roles

directly, without mediation, and once sin is left behind, our threefold office will again function

directly, without mediation.153 Kuyper’s very understanding of the created order denied the need

for a prelapsarian and future cosmic, eschatological mediation. For the statesman of the

Netherlands, the beatific vision is a concentrated vision of the essence of God that entirely leaves

the person of Christ behind.154

The blessed in their vision are not granted a knowledge acquired through means, but a
knowledge reached without means—immediate knowledge, through seeing [face-to-
face], as the apostle puts it.155

148
Abraham Kuyper, Dictaten Dogmatiek, 5:315, cf. Boersma, 342.
149
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 342..
150
Abraham Kuyper, Dictaten Dogmatiek, 5:315, cf. Boersma, 342
151
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 343-344.
152
Boersma, 345.
153
Abraham Kuyper, E voto Dordraceno, 1:287-288, cf. Boersma, 345.
154
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 345.
155
Boersma, 345. cf. Abraham Kuyper, Dictaten Dogmatiek, vol. 1, pt. I.76.

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For Kuyper, once Christ’s role as mediator is finished, what results is a direct access to God.

Although stated that the saints will not be able to exhaust the immediacy of the essence of God,

they will still be able to see it, which means the immediacy of God swallows up any future

activity for the Mediator.156 Even Louis Berkhof recognized this weakness of Kuyper’s:

Kuyper, however, argues that this kingship of Christ will cease when He has
accomplished the salvation of His people. The only passage of Scripture to which they
appeal is I Cor. 15:24-28, but this passage does not refer to Christ’s spiritual kingship, but
to His kingship over the universe.157

In conclusion, Kuyper denies the future cosmic mediation of the Son, the epistemological

mediation of the Son, and the sacerdotal functions of the Son, because the immediacy of God is

the direct focus of his perspective of the beatific vision. This corollary vision of God in his

156
In Abraham Kuyper’s Pro Rege: Living Under Christ’s Kingship, Volume 1: The Exalted
Nature of Christ’s Kingship, he states, “Until the end of history, the mediatorship will remain
indispensable. But once the end has come, the mediatorship will fall away and Christ will hand his
dominion over to the Father insofar as it flows out of his mediatorship; thus in the end every division will
be destroyed and God will be all in all [see 1 Cor. 15:28]. Then God’s authority will govern directly the
hearts of all without any intermediary, and in glorious harmony the world of men and of angels will
together form that spiritual creation in which the Triune God will have spiritual dominion. This does not
mean that Christ’s kingly dominion will fall away. After all, he remains the Son of God and the Head of the
mystical body. But the veil of his mediatorship will fall away; it will have borne its fruit; and the Father
through the Mediator, but in sweet communion we will be united with the Triune God in Christ.” (Kuyper,
Abraham. Pro Rege: Living Under Christ’s Kingship, Volume I: The Exalted Nature of Christ’s Kingship,
ed. by John Kok with Nelson D. Kloosterman and trans. by Albert Gootjes. Bellingham, WA: Lexham
Press, 2016. Logos Bible Software. pp. 324) For Kuyper, the mediatorship of Christ is only a temporary
function, and once the end comes, the Father will then govern the hearts of all without an intermediary.
Here, I think Kuyper has an inconsistency in his theology. He believes that Christ will continue to exercise
His kingship, or maintain His title as King, although the administration of his reign will be changed. It
seems he’s affirming a cosmological function of mediation, but he does not want to label this as a category
of mediatorship. This would imply, for Kuyper, that God does not have “immediate reign” as long as the
intermediary still bears the office of Mediator. One can also see he describes mediation as a veil, like
Calvin describes the flesh of Christ, but he does maintain that our communion with the Triune God will be
“in Christ.” I think Kuyper’s contemporary, Herman Bavinck, has a much more consistent category of the
office of the mediator. He recognizes the continuation of the mediation of union. Christ in his person will
always be the Mediator. For Kuyper, it seems that Christ will unite us to the entire Godhead, but the “veil
of his mediatorship” restricts that. Kuyper is wanting to have his cake and eat it too, but unfortunately he
ends up suggesting that mediation is only a temporary measure to unite us to God. He sees Christ as having
a role in the eschaton, but it is not a mediating role.
157
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972),, 410.

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essence, according to Bavinck’s critique, is the deification of humanity and the erasure of the

boundary between Creator and creature.158 Although Kuyper holds to future gradations of

knowledge from the essence of God, he melted the unique union the Mediator occupies. We

must not forget that based on the glory of Christ’s person, He will mediate God’s revelation to

His saints in heaven, be forever glorified by His people for His atoning and interceding work on

their behalf as faithful high priest, and continue as the king of all creation because of the

hypostatic union.159

158
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 35, cf. Reformed Dogmatics, 2:190-191.
159
Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, “The Puritans on Christ’s Offices and States,” in A Puritan
Theology: Doctrine for Life, (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Press, 2012), 358.

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CHAPTER 5: IMMEDIACY WITHOUT MEDIATION? EXPLORING MEDIATION TO

COME

In the preceding chapters of this study, it was noticed that Calvin’s theology of divine

mediation evolved over the span of his life, and that he envisioned five different functions for the

person of the Mediator, implicitly and explicitly. In the generations to follow, the theological

heritage he left behind to his successors was gradually developed, being tweaked with

progression and digression along the way. Unfortunately, recent theological critics of Calvin

were not familiar with the other functions of mediation Calvin implemented within the corpus of

his writings, nor were they acclimated with the tradition built upon his tradition. This led to

preventable theological consequences, unfounded criticisms, and severe misinterpretations of

various passages of Scripture as they pertained to the Son’s future role in ushering in the new

creation, and the maintenance of it thereafter by way of his mediatorial office. In this final

chapter, the various critiques of contemporary theologians such as A.A Van Ruler, Heinrich

Quistorp, Jürgen Moltmann, Richard Muller, Edwin Van Driel, and Hans Boersma regarding the

end of Christ’s mediatorial office within the Reformed tradition shall be traced. This dialogue

with current issues raised by contemporary theologians shall supply the reader with the necessary

prerequisite information that is needed before engaging the conversation. In reply to these

various theories and critiques, I shall respond with a Christological model of multifaceted

mediation. Through this lens I shall provide an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15:24-28, and suggest

that our immediate sight of God shall be secured by Christ and actualized only in union with the

eternal Mediator.1 Although we will behold this blessed immediate vision of the triune God, we

1
Steven J. Duby, God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology,
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 176.

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will behold Christ Himself as the eternally incarnate God-man.2 The suggestion that we must see

Christ the mediator in his economic glory in isolation from seeing the Triune God in his essential

glory is erroneous.3 I will then conclude by arguing that the mediatorial kingdom of Christ does

endure eternally in some ways.4 I will further discuss the manner in which the elect shall rely on

this everlasting mediation and examine the reality of unbelievers left apart from these gracious

mediations. Finally, I hope to touch on the possibility that Christ will mediate judgment.5

2
Duby, 176.
3
Duby, 176.
4
Duby, 176.
5
I have Yasmin Thomas to thank for her insightful conversations concerning the mediation to
come. She raised the question as to whether the future judgment of unbelievers entails an experience of
God’s holiness entirely apart from Christ’s mediation, or whether Christ will mediate that judgment to
unbelievers, since all of God’s acts are Trinitarian acts. I later came across Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s
understanding of the mediatorial office of Christ. As far as I currently know, Charles Spurgeon is the only
one in the Christian tradition to argue that Christ’s office as Mediator includes His role as Judge and
Savior. For Spurgeon, judgment is incumbent for the mediatorial office. In Spurgeon’s Sermons on
Revelation 1:18 and Acts 10:42-43, he discusses Christ’s function in mediating judgment. In his sermon on
Revelation 1:18, “Christ with the Keys of Death and Hell,” he states, “The key that shall bind up the dragon
in those blessed days of the millennial rest…will be achieved by Christ Jesus, the Man, the Mediator, our
Lord and God.” Spurgeon in this sermon not only referred to the Mediator’s role in binding Satan, but he
believed that since the Mediator held the keys of death and Hades, He has the power to release and keep
whomever He wills from the power of death and Hades. He mediates judgment to believers and
unbelievers. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/christ-with-the-keys-of-death-and-
hell#flipbook/, Accessed on April 23, 2020. More explicitly, in his sermon on Acts 10:42-43 “The
Mediator, Judge and Savior,” Spurgeon states that the divine mediator’s position involves two offices.
“Inasmuch as Christ has thus received mediatorial power in its fullness, there are two offices in it. The first
is that of Judge, and the second is that of Savior. First, Jesus Christ as mediator has become our Judge. ‘The
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.’ ‘To this end Christ both died, and
rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living, for we shall all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ;’ mark that—‘of Christ.’ Jesus of Nazareth has become ‘Judge of quick and dead.’
In this capacity he has judicial authority over all mankind…This is part of his work as Mediator between
God and man.” Later in the same sermon, he says, “It seems to me to be a very blessed though that the
same universality which pervades the Mediator’s dignified proceedings as judge, is to be seen in his
condescending operations as Saviour…” For Spurgeon, the Mediator has the “sovereign right of
condemnation or justification: the final judgment is with him…The powers of life and death are entrusted
to Jehovah Jesus, the Son of God..” Spurgeon’s mediatorial Christology hinges on Christ being the “just
and the justifier of those that believe. (Rom. 3:26) “His atonement has made it possible for him to do this
(grant pardon) in perfect consistency with his character as Judge: he pardons, and when he pardons it is as
just an act as when he condemns….See ye then, because Christ is the Interposer…he therefore takes upon
himself the double work of judging and pardoning. Let the two works dwell together in your minds: ‘He is
a just God and a Saviour.’” Spurgeon asked his listeners rhetorically, “What does Jesus do as Mediator? He
judges, but he also forgives.” For Spurgeon, the knowledge of the first office of the Mediator is necessary
for us to behold Him as a rightful Mediator in His second capacity, as a Savior. If we do not behold this
twofold office in tension, we are liable to a cheap grace understanding of the gospel. We will accept Jesus
merely as a Savior and not as Lord. “Dear hearer, if you do not believe in Christ as your Judge you never
will accept him as your Saviour.” Furhtermore, Spurgeon also believed that we now live under a

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He will Discharge the Flesh: Considering Contemporary Perceptions of Immediacy

Within the first chapter, it was seen that Calvin perceived an aspect of the mediatorial

office of Christ to cease when the new creation was ushered in, per his interpretation of 1st

Corinthians 15:24-28. I interpreted this to be a similar meaning that Calvin utilized in his Sermon

on Matthew 27:45-54, where he stated that Christ on Golgotha had “acquitted Himself of His

whole duty as Mediator.”6 Just as Calvin discussed the acquittal of Christ’s mediatorial office on

Golgotha because he was attempting to share the realization that our salvation has now been

completed, and the work and person of the Mediator had then inaugurated an aspect of

redemption, so the priestly functions of the Mediator are acquitted at the eschaton. But, the

number of interpreters concerning this controversial passage in Calvin is incessant. Here the

passage concerning the “end” of Christ’s mediatorial role in the Calvinist tradition is again laid

out.

For what end were that power and authority given to him, save that the Father might
govern us by his hand? In the same sense, also, he is said to sit at the right hand of the
Father. But this is only for a time, until we enjoy the immediate presence of his
Godhead…Let us, therefore, regard it as the key of true interpretation, that those things
which refer to the office of the Mediator are not spoken of the divine or human nature
simply, Christ, therefore, shall reign until he appear to judge the world, inasmuch as,

“mediatorial dispensation” under Christ’s reign, and not yet the immediate government of God, but
Spurgeon seemed to believe that Christ’s role as Judge is one that will perpetuate into eternity. “He is
impartial and unchanging, and sitting on the judgment-seat the highest and noblest qualities of humanity
and deity are conspicuous in him…Such an One as he whom God accounteth worthy to judge the sons of
men at the last great day, when he saith, ‘thy sins are forgiven thee,’ has not perverted judgment, nor turned
aside from right...If you have caught my thought, and seen the truth, it must tend to your comfort and
delight: all the pomp of judgment, all the authority of the throne, all the justice of the statute-book, all the
power of the mediatorial government, and all the holiness of the Judge himself are engaged to maintain the
verdict of his grace, and make it as firm as the sentence of his wrath, Herein is ground for quiet assurance.”
Spurgeon’s understanding of immutability necessitated a perpetual mediation of union of sorts…the
unchanging attributes of the Son of God are “qualities of humanity and deity which are conspicuous in
him” and his place “sitting on the judgment-seat.” Christ will always bear the title as Judge and Savior, and
He will maintain the verdict of his grace by the power of His mediatorial government for all eternity, even
though we shall live in the immediate government of God in the eschaton. There is definitely more work to
be done in the field of Spurgeon studies concerning his unique mediatorial Christology, and his
understanding of the munus triplex. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/unprofitable-
servants#flipbook/, Accessed on April 23, 2020.
6
John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 27:45-54. Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
http://www.ccel.org/ccell/calvin/calcom31.html. Accessed April 2, 2020.

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according to the measure of our feeble capacity, he now connects us to the Father. But
when, as partakers of the heavenly glory, we shall see god as he is, then Christ, having
accomplished the office of Mediator, shall cease to be vicegerent of the Father, and will
be content with the glory he possessed before the world was…a temporary authority has
been committed by the Father until his divine majesty shall be beheld face to face. His
giving up of the kingdom to the Father, so far from impairing his majesty, will give a
brighter manifestation of it. God will then cease to be the head of Christ, and Christ’s
own Godhead will then shine forth of itself, whereas it is now in a manner veiled.7

Calvin understood there is a future immediate presence of the Godhead that is yet to be revealed.

“God is pleased, mediately, (so to speak) in his person to rule and defend the church.”8 For now,

God reigns mediately through Christ, but the Father shall rule immediately, once the

administration of the kingdom has been changed.9 However, not all have agreed with the

conclusion I have presented, but many have interpreted Calvin’s statement, which has also been

shared in other post-reformation theologians, that Christ will “have accomplished the office of

the Mediator,” to mean that Christ shall discharge his human nature, his flesh. A.A Van Ruler, a

Dutch Reformed theologian in the early twentieth century, understood this accomplishment to

mean that “Christ and his work are not the end itself but are only the means…the incarnation is

an ‘emergency measure.’”10 For him, the incarnation is only a temporary reality;11 the humanity

of Jesus only has a functional role that is necessary for substitution and redemption.12 A.A Van

Ruler elaborates his perspective on the temporary function of Christ’s flesh.

If Christ’s reign is his mediatorial and redemptive work, if the incarnation is for
redemption and for nothing else, what is the meaning of Christ’s delivering up his reign
at the end? The answer has already been suggested in the word ‘intermezzo.’ The
incarnation is an intermezzo, an emergency measure, for the redemption of the world.
One day the redemptive work will be accomplished. Great as were the messiah’s deeds in

7
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. by Henry Beveridge. (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2015). 2.14.3, 311.
8
Inst. 2.15.5, 321.
9
Inst. 2.15.5
10
J.F. Jansen, “1st Corinthians 15:24-28 and the Future of Jesus Christ,” Scottish Journal of
Theology 40.4 (1987): 565.
11
Jansen, 543.
12
Jansen, 567.

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his coming, cross and resurrection, great as his continuing work in the gift of the Spirit
and in his intercession may be, all these are not yet his greatest work. “This is the
ultimate and the highest that the messiah can do—that he ceases to be the messiah.” One
day the hiddenness of the kingdom in his flesh will be over. Then the intermezzo will
give way to the final glory when God is “all in all.” This is not pantheism, for the
distinction between the Creator and the creature will always remain—but all mediation
between God and the world will be over because it is no longer needed…The synthesis of
redemption with creation will only be reached in the eschaton when the incarnation
becomes undone and the indwelling [of the Spirit] ceases. Then all particularity of God
both in Christ and in the Spirit falls away. The triune God is then all in all.13

According to van Ruler’s understanding of the 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 passage, the incarnation is

laid aside in the eschaton.14 The greatest work of the messiah is that “the incarnation will be

undone. God is only in Christ in his particular form in order to bear the guilt of sin…the God-

man is an emergency measure on the part of God, and this form becomes superfluous once the

distress has been removed.”15 Van Ruler only sees mediation in terms of redemption and

intercession…there is no glory of the God-man in the age to come. How can we bear the image

of the man of heaven if he disappears, and redefines true, glorified humanity as we know it?16

A.A van Ruler tears the hypostasis from the Son, suggests that Christ will experience an

ontological change, and that the Son’s unique personhood shall dissolve into the very being of

God.17

A.A van Ruler was not alone in his suggestion that Calvin taught this. Although he

defended Calvin in an unprecedented way as his “proof-text,” for modern day Marcellianism,

Jürgen Moltmann agreed that Calvin was teaching this. He understands Calvin’s interpretation of

13
Jansen, 565-566.
14
Todd Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 82.
15
Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of
Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 260.
16
J.F. Jansen, “1st Corinthians 15:24-28 and the Future of Jesus Christ,” 569.
17
Heinrich Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, trans. by Harold Knight. (Richmond,
VA: John Knox Press, 1955), 170.

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1 Corinthians 15:24-28 to be a marked point in Calvin’s Christology at which divine rule is

transferred from Christ’s humanity to his divinity.18 For him, Calvin advocates for a purely

functional Christology that is primarily concerned with the problem of human sinfulness and

man’s inability to commune with God.19 The rule of the incarnate Christ is limited in time and

scope,20 the incarnation becomes “superfluous” at the eschaton,21 and the whole of redeemed

existence enters into the divine relationship of the unio personalis, the direct immediacy of

God.22 For Moltmann, not only must eschatology be Christological but also Christology must be

eschatological.23 Moltmann seems confused because Calvin seems to suggest the relinquishing of

humanity by Christ, when in fact Calvin affirms the recovery of humanity in Christ.24

Edwin Van Driel is in agreement with Moltmann and van Ruler’s assumptions. He states,

“Commentators debate whether Christ will lay down his human nature in the eschaton, but it is

clear, according to Calvin, that in the eschaton the Word’s human nature will no longer play any

mediatorial role.25 For Van Driel, this is because there are “competing eschatologies” within

Calvin’s definition of the beatific vision. “The original, essential goal for humanity is

supralapsarian, and the dynamic of Fall, Incarnation, reconciliation, resurrection, ascension,

coming and last judgment are infralapsarian.”26 Once the goal of leading the saints to God has

been reached, and when we safely are ushered into the presence of God, there is no longer any

18
Richard Muller, “Christ in the Eschaton: Calvin and Moltmann on the Duration of the Munus
Regium,” HTR 74:1 (1981): 31.
19
Muller, 32.
20
Muller, 48.
21
Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 257-259.
22
Richard Muller, “Christ in the Eschaton: Calvin and Moltmann on the Duration of the Munus
Regium,” 48 cf. Crucified God, 258-259.
23
Richard Bauckham, “The Future of Jesus Christ,” in Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology
16.2 (1983): 97.
24
A.J. Ollerton, “Quasi Deificari: Deification in the Theology of Calvin,”WTJ 72 (2011): 249.
25
Edwin Van Driel, “‘Too Lowly to Reach God Without a Mediator’: John Calvin’s
Supralapsarian Eschatological Narrative,” Modern Theology 33:2 (2017): 285.
26
Van Driel, 282.

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work for him to do in his human nature. The sin problem is taken care of.27 Van Driel propounds

that while Calvin adhered to the confession that Christ’s resurrection is evidence ours shall

come, embodiment plays no role in his eschatological vision.28 He also raises the issue that this is

due to Calvin’s negative view of the body. There are “internal tensions between Calvin’s

theological convictions and heritage on the one hand, and personal or cultural antipathies toward

the body on the other hand.”29 Heinrich Quistorp shares a similar sentiment to Van Driel’s

objection that Calvin holds to a weak theology of the body. He states,

The humanity of Christ which now mediates to us the knowledge of and communion with
God is yet a limitation which hinders perfect union with God. In the final consummation
it will no longer stand between us and God. For the humanity of Christ is a veil (velum)
in which God clothes Himselm in order to draw us near. But in eternity this will no
longer be necessary. Then the veil will be withdrawn and we shall see without further
mediation the glory of the God who rules in His kingdom; “the humanity of Christ will
no longer be the medium which prevented us from enjoying the ultimate vision of God.30

Quistorp thinks Calvin’s maintains a low theology of the body in these statements. “The

Son of God was made man only in order to effect the atonement, and when that redeeming work

is completed the flesh which He has assumed for the sake of humanity loses its significance.31

Although it is true that Calvin refers to the body as a prison,32 and he was tormented with

many bodily ailments in his own personal experience, one must wonder if his theology of the

body explains the ambiguous comments surrounded around in 1st Corinthians 15:24-28.

But Christ will then restore the kingdom which he has received, that we may cleave
wholly to God. Nor will he in this way resign the kingdom, but will transfer it in a

27
Van Driel, 282.
28
Edwin Van Driel, “His Death Manifested Its Power and Efficacy in us: The Role of Christ’s
Resurrection in John Calvin’s Theology,” Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018): 218.
29
Van Driel, 228.
30
Heinrich Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, 168.
31
Quistorp, 170.
32
John Calvin, Inst. 3.9.4, 467. “If heaven is our country, what can the earth be but a place of
exile? If departure from the world is entrance into life, what is the world but a sepulcher, and what is
residence in it but immersion in death? If to be freed from the body is to gain full possession of freedom,
what is the body but a prison?”

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manner from his humanity to his glorious divinity, because a way of approach will then
be opened up, from which our infirmity now keeps us back. Thus, then Christ will be
subjected to the Father, because the veil being removed, we shall openly behold God
reigning in his majesty, and Christ’s humanity will then no longer be interposed to keep
us back from a closer view of God.33

What does Calvin mean when he says our infirmity keeps us back from cleaving wholly to God,

and that Christ’s humanity will no longer interpose between us in order to inhibit us from

obtaining a clearer view of the divine? Quistorp understood these statements to mean that our

visual capacity to see God “will not be completed until we have quite laid aside our sinful and

transient nature, which like a veil hides us from the full vision of God which Calvin uses to

express the idea of the manhood of Christ limiting the perfect vision of God.”34 Richard Muller

understood these statements to mean that the changes here are epistemological, not ontological.

“Our infirmity now keeps us back from cleaving wholly to God.” The human nature of Christ

does not pass away—it simply no longer impedes perception for the elect.35 However, I think

two more concepts are worth observing: the first is the issue of human infirmitas, and the second

being the extra calvinisticum language that Calvin has employed here. Calvin has described the

flesh of Christ as a veil in other places throughout his writings. In his commentary on Isaiah

52:14, he says that Christ’s glory “lay hid under the humble form of the flesh,” which the

greatest men did not see, because “they despised the deep abasement which was the veil or

covering of his glory.”36 Similarly in the Institutes, Calvin says that when Christ assumed the

33
John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Volume
Second, edited by John Pringle. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translatio Society, 1849) 15:27, 32-33.
34
Heinrich Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of Last Things, 172-173.
35
Richard Muller, “Christ in the Eschaton: Calvin and Moltmann on the Duration of the Munus
Regium,” 37.
36
John Calvin, Comm. Isa. 52:14.

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form of a servant, he “suffered his divinity to be concealed under a veil of flesh.”37 This seems to

be a form of kryptic Christology, wherein the flesh of Christ conceals the divinity of God.38 If

one assumes Calvin to think Jesus Christ assumed a post-fallen human nature, then it would

make sense that the humanity keeping us from the final vision of the Godhead must step aside.

One must consider the consequences of believing this, especially since Jesus’ humanity is

glorified after the resurrection. This is one possibility in interpreting Calvin’s statements, if it is

literally the humanity of Christ that keeps us from seeing God.39 The other aspect of Calvin’s

statement has to do with his perspective on the extra Calvinisticum, where Christ will “transfer,”

the kingdom from his humanity to his glorious divinity. Daniel Lee interprets this to mean that

although the Son will not relinquish his humanity, the extra no longer serves its mediating

function because of humanity’s ability to experience the beatific vision. In other words, Lee

thinks that in the eschaton there will be no such thing as the extra, for insofar as Christ’s

eschatological rule is transferred from one nature to the other, the extra’s primary functions are

37
John Calvin, Inst. 2.13.2. See also Comm. on Matthew 17:9, where citing Philippians 2:7 he
says, “even during the time he emptied himself, he continued to retain his divinity entire, though it was
concealed under the veil of flesh.”
38
For more on this topic, see Andrew Ter Ern Loke’s A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2014).
39
For more on this topic, see Thomas G. Weinandy In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on
the Humanity of Christ, (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2006). See also Daniel J. Cameron’s Flesh and
Blood: A Dogmatic Sketch Concerning the Fallen Nature View of Christ’s Human Flesh. (Eugene, OR:
Wipf and Stock, 2016), E. Jerome Van Kuiken’s Christ’s Humanity in Current and Ancient Controversy:
Fallen or Not? (London, UK: T&T Clark, 2017), Oliver Crisp’s “Did Christ have a Fallen Human
Nature?” in ISTJ Vol. 6, 2004, 270-288, Rafeal Bello’s book Sinless Flesh: A Critique of Karl Barth’s
Fallen Christ, (Bellingham, Washington: Lexham Press, Forthcoming 2020) My theory regarding this
debate is that theologians such as Karl Barth have mistaken ontological categories by arguing in essentialist
vs. actualistic terms. Barth believes Christ assumed a sinful flesh even though He never actualized that
nature’s ability to sin. Thomas McCall helped me understand that sin is an accident, not a substance. If sin
is a substance, than God is the author of evil. See Thomas McCall’s book Against God and Nature: The
Doctrine of Sin (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019) It is possible to suggest that Christ can assume an unfallen
nature while it also has assumed defects. See also Lucas Stamps, “Did Jesus Ever Get Sick? Some
Thoughts on Christ’s Human Nature,” in CTR 13/1 (Fall 2015): 63-76, and Marilyn McCord Adams What
Sort of Human Nature?: Medieval Philosophy and the Systematics of Christology. (Milwaukee, WI:
Marquette University Press, 1999).

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undercut.40 In the eschaton the Mediator is no longer separated by space and time from

believers.41 However, I disagree with this understanding of the ending of the extra, especially if

the Mediator is sustaining other dimensions in his cosmic function (such as hell).42 I think that

Calvin is actually implementing too strong of a view of the extra Calvinisticum in his

understanding of the beatific vision. Just as in the first chapter it was discussed that there is a

spectrum of “weak” and “strong views” on the extra, Calvin here is advocating for one of the

strongest understandings of the doctrine. In fact, it sounds near Nestorian. Calvin does not think

that Christ’s ontology will change, but he is suggesting that the human nature cannot rule in an

immediate fashion like the divine nature can, which I think is a false bifurcation. If one

advocates for a weak version of the extra, then it will not try to suggest the “what,” and “how,”

of the Son’s mediatorial rule in the eschaton, and which natures will be operative.43 One starts to

veer on the path of Nestorianism if he/she starts asking which acts did Jesus performing in his

human nature and which ones were in the divine nature. Rather, the theandric God-man will rule,

and Calvin attempted to solve this mystery.44

Perhaps the closest one contemporary critic gets to understanding mediation at the second

coming of Christ is Hans Boersma. He understands Calvin to be suggesting at Christ’s return, all

teaching tools will be left behind. That will be the end of Calvin’s pedagogical program.45 I

understand what is happening is that Calvin’s view of divine accommodation comes to a halt in

40
James R. Gordon, The Holy One in Our Midst: An Essay on the Flesh of Christ, (Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress Press, 2016) 14, cf. Daniel Lee’s The Holy Spirit as Bond in Calvin’s Thought: Its Functions
in Connection with the extra Calvinisticum, 239.
41
Gordon, 14.
42
This only works if one believes in the traditional orthodox view of hell, eternal conscious
torment. If one believes rather in annihilationism, then it is possible to suggest that the extra shall cease.
43
Gordon, The Holy One in Our Midst, 1n1.
44
For more on the Extra Calvinisticum, see Andrew. M. McGinnis’s The Son of God Beyond the
Flesh: A Historical and Theological Study of the Extra Calvinisticum. (New York, NY: Bloomsbury T&T
Clark, 2014).
45
Hans Boersma, Seeing God, 271.

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the new creation. Since the epistemological function of mediation is connected to the doctrine of

divine accommodation, Calvin believes this mediatorial act will cease. However, Boersma

believes that Calvin thinks all of Christ’s mediation will cease.46 The incarnate Christ will no

longer mediate our vision of God. The ending of Christ’s role as mediator will ultimately render

the beatific vision of the divine essence possible.47 Boersma says that Calvin does not suggest

Christ’s human nature will disappear in the eschaton,48 but God will assume a new face we will

be able to bear.49 This is one of the purposes of Calvin’s doctrine of accommodation and

mediation, for Christ was training us to be able to see God’s ineffable essence one day.50

Although I think this is a valid point of Boersma’s for Calvin’s use of mediation, I do not think

this captures every understanding that Calvin had for the office of mediation. The grand

unveiling event that is being performed at the end is an act of de-krypsis. We shall be able to see

the Godhead more fully because of Christ’s completed and ongoing mediatorial work.

1st Corinthians 15:24-28 and the Possibility of Everlasting Mediation

Before offering an eschatological model of the multifaceted models of mediation, an

exegetical observation of 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 must be attended to. Just as so much

controversy surrounded the ontological status of the Son in the fourth century over Christ’s role

as a mediator,51 the same is true in the Christological deficit there is today within contemporary

perceptions of this passage. Eschatology must be Christological, and Christology must be

46
Boersma, 271.
47
Boersma, 272-273.
48
Boersma, 272.
49
Boersma, 265.
50
Boersma, 262-263. Boersma states, “God’s pedagogical program, therefore, necessitated
according to Calvin, that God manifest himself in a veil (velum) while at the same time God relates to his
people within this teaching program with increasing familiarity and shows himself more and more clearly
to them.”
51
Brian E. Daley, God Visible: Patristic Christology Reconsidered (Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 2018), 94-97.

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eschatological.52 The Nicene Creed ancient church supplies modern day interpreters with the

hermeneutics to enter the conversation, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the

dead, and His kingdom will have no end.”53 This creedal imperative must not be forgotten if

readers desire to be faithful interpreters, lest we run the risk of leaving Jesus Christ behind and

making the Father the most important member of the Trinity, or flattening the diversity-in-unity

and unity-in-diversity in eschatology. Christ’s mediatorial kingdom shall never end, even if the

administration is changed in a way beyond our perception can fathom.

The contextual backdrop of 1 Corinthians 15 is the apostle Paul initiating the

conversation concerning the bodily resurrection of the righteous and the wicked by first

reminding Christians of the gospel, addressing the issue of baptizing the dead, and the error that

there will not be a final resurrection. The greatest apologetic for Paul’s defense of the bodily

resurrection for the saints is by emphasizing Christ’s bodily resurrection as proof for ours. If this

truth is simply laid aside, then Paul is misrepresenting God, our sins are not atoned for, and our

faith is in vain. (15:12-18) But, the apostle reminds believers that Christ has risen, and that this

truth has apostolic credibility, the testimony of five hundred witnesses, and the experience of

Paul’s personal visitation with the risen Christ. (15:6, 8, 20) Let the doctrine of ongoing

mediation now be analyzed starting from verse 24, lest this doctrine be categorized as

“unbiblical,” and given a death knell.54

Verse 24. Paul has just stated that the “all that shall be made alive” in the second Adam

are those that “belong to Christ.” Paul finds it important to make this distinction, so that his

52
Richard Bauckham, “The Future of Jesus Christ,” 97.
53
Nicene Creed, in Our Faith: Ecumenical Creeds, Reformed Confessions, and Other Resources.
(Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2013), 14-16.
54
Matthew Emerson, He Descended to the Dead: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 22.

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readers would not assume universalism.55 “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to

God the Father after destroying every rule and authority and power.” (15:24, ESV) The end that

Paul has in mind is the end of the world.56 After Christ’s coming, He shall gather all those that

belong to Christ, and then the end shall come. The text informs its readers that Christ will

triumph over every rule and authority and power. This destruction of the “powers” refers to the

defeat of death by the supporting argument from Scripture that follows57 (verse 26). Paul

explicitly has spiritual, demonic powers in mind here58 due to the similarity of language he

employs elsewhere in his other epistles in Eph. 1:21, Rom. 8:38, Col. 1:16, 2:10, 15, Eph. 3:10

and 6:12.59 Christ will return victorious over all earthly and spiritual powers. The word used for

“destroy,” is καταργήσῃ, which typically holds a connotation that refers to the termination of

something, (Rom. 6:6) “to cause to come to an end” or “to pass away.”60 Some speculate that the

word “destroy” that is used here, verse 26, and Matthew 10:28 could be a proof text for

annihilationism. However, the context seems to suggest that the usage of the word here is

hyperbolic to describe the absolute overcoming of an enemy. Just as one would say they

“destroyed a football team,” when they won a Superbowl game, the sense here is used to convey

utter defeat. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 Jn

3:8) Christ already defanged and disarmed the enemy by making a public spectacle of the

principalities at the cross, and now He will administer the fatal blow. (Col. 2:15) After this

subjugation of all powers at Christ’s glorious coming is the “handing over of the kingdom to the

55
F.W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The New International
Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 364.
56
Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Logos Bible Software.
57
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the
New Testament (NICNT) (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 754.
58
Fee, 754-755.
59
Fee, 754.
60
Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains, (New
York, NY: Union Bible Society, 1989) Logos Bible Software.

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Father.” Now, what does this mean? This cannot mean that Christ’s kingdom will end once his

enemies have been put under his feet. Or, as St. Jerome understood it, “It is only then that he will

really begin to rule in the full sense of the word.”61 The Scriptures constantly teach that Christ’s

kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of his dominion there will be no end, so what must this

mean62 (Isa. 9:7, Luke 1:33, Dan. 2:44)? Paul must have a kingdom interchange in mind that is

related to his Christological soteriology.63 Charles Hodge interprets there to be a threefold sense

that Christ seems to rule as King. The first being as it pertains to His divine person, of which He

can never divest Himself, the second referring to His incarnate essence as the Son of God, and

the third describing the dominion which He was exalted to after his resurrection, when all power

in heaven and earth was committed to his Hands.64 (Matt. 28:19) Hodge understands the third to

be referring to Christ’s mediatorial character specifically. He says describes it this way:

He was invested with this dominion in his mediatorial character for the purpose of
carrying his work to consummation. When that is done…he will no longer reign over the
universe as Mediator, but only as God, while his headship over his people is to continue
forever.65

So far, Hodge follows in the Calvinian tradition to understand that Christ must transfer this

kingdom to his divine nature, and no longer rule as a Mediator. Although he suggests that Christ

will continue to reign in his divine person and continue to be the representative sovereign head of

his people, he belittles the continuity of Christ’s mediatorial office by suggesting that mediation

is only a this world phenomenon. “Christ cannot relinquish his dominion over the universe as

61
St. Jerome, in Ancient Commentary on Scripture: 1-2 Corinthians, edited by Gerald Bray and
Thomas C. Oden. (New York, NY: Routledge, 1999). Comm. On 1 Corinthians 15:24, (cf. Against
Helvidius 6, FC 53:18-19).
62
Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Logos Bible Software.
63
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 754.
64
Fee, 754.
65
Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Logos Bible Software.

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mediator until the end comes.”66 This passage must be observed in the light that a certain aspect

of mediation will end, because He will continue to mediate the Father’s revelation to His saints

in heaven, be forever glorified by His people for His accomplished atoning and intercessory

work, and continue as king of all of creation because of the hypostatic union.67

Verses 25-26. “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last

enemy to be destroyed is death.” Here, Paul is quoting Psalm 110:1, the most common OT verse

quoted in the NT in defense of the Messianic office of Jesus Christ. Paul is also alluding to

Psalm 8:6, which has a similar theme of the Father “placing all of Christ’s enemies under His

feet.”68 Paul is saying that Christ’s rule is currently in effect, and it must continue until Psalm

110:1 is fulfilled.69 The author of Hebrews confirms this understanding, “Yet now we do not see

all things subject to him” (Heb. 2:8). All things will be subject to Christ at the end, and the use of

this psalm suggests that the referent of “he has put,” is Father Himself.70 The Messiah is the one

who brings fulfillment to God’s intentions for humanity, and the “all things” that will be put

under his feet includes death.71 Death currently reigns from Adam to Moses, but it shall be

brought to an end. (Rom. 5:14), for “death shall be no more.” (Rev. 21:4) This would have been

a very profound statement in the first century, where God Himself is said to stamp His approval

on the Son and subject all rule and authority to Christ.

Verses 27-28. “For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says,

“all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection

66
Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Logos Bible Software
67
Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones “The Puritans on Christ’s Offices and States,” in A Puritan
Theology: Doctrine for Life, (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Press, 2012), 358.
68
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians. 754.
69
Fee, 755.
70
George H. Guthrie, “Hebrews,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old
Testament, ed. By G.K Beale and D.A Carson, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 745.
71
Guthrie, “Hebrews,” 745

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under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to

him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” Paul has continued to

state that the Father is stamping His approval on the Son, and has given Him authority over all of

the works of his hands. (Ps. 2:6-9, Jn. 3:35, 16:15, Heb. 2:5-9) Paul makes it clear that the Father

is not subject to the Son by supplying that statement that “it is plain that he is excepted” who did

the subjecting. Now, this next part has confused many commentators. Many have used this text

to argue for the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son. What they mean by this is that

the Son has ontologically been subordinate to the Father in the inner Trinitarian life and in the

same way Christ has been subordinate to the Father in His economic mission.72 Others have seen

this as the verse to suggest the end of Christ’s humanity, when the Son completes his work of

redemption.73 If one holds to a subordinationist Christology, then this hierarchy in the Trinity

encourages the notion that Christ must discharge his flesh. However, most commentators

distinguish between Christ’s functional and essential relationship to the Father.74 The

eschatological description does not address the ontological relationship between the Father and

Son in the being of God, but rather the incarnate Jesus’ mission as the second man.75 The Son is

not inferior in person or nature to the Father,76 but rather the language is functional.77 I think

Paul here is describing the end of Christ’s mediatorial work of reconciliation, and that Christ is

72
For more on this issue, see John V. Dahms “The Subordination of the Son,” in JETS 37/3
(September 1994): 351-364. See also Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower’s Trinity Without Hierarchy:
Reclaiming Nicene Orthdoxy in Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019) Dennis
W. Jowers and H. Wayne House’s The New Evangelical Subordinationism? Perspectives on the Equality of
God the Father and God the Son (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012) and Glenn Butner’s The Son
Who Learned Obedience: A Theological Case Against the Eternal Subordination of the Son (Eugene, OR:
Pickwick Publications, 2018).
73
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 756.
74
Lexham Research Commentary: 1st Corinthians, Logos Bible Software.
75
Lexham Research Commentary, Logos
76
Lexham Research Commentary, Logos
77
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 760.

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presenting this work of reconciliation as a gift to the Father. Turretin gives us insight into this

passage and puts it this way:

The “kingdom” which “Christ will deliver up to God the Father” can be understood in
two ways: either materially and subjectively for the church, the mystical body of
Christ…or it may be referred to the humanity of Christ, which (as created) ought to be
subjected to God forever; or to his office and mediation, according to which he should be
subjected to the Father in heaven…as inferior to him not by the deposition of his office,
but by a subordination of it.78

If the kingdom were understood as the church, then this would mean that Christ will bring the

church perfectly consummated and redeemed from all enemies. “Behold I, and the children

which God hath given me.”79 This makes sense with the textual variants in some translations that

suggest in verse 27 the phrase ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ “when it says,” (ESV, NIV, CSV, NRSV) means,

“when He says.” (NASB, KJV, NKJV)80 However, more evidence leans in the direction that this

is referring to the psalmists words, not Christ Himself as the subject speaking. Or, the very

substance of the kingdom is not changing, but the mode of its administration, which is concerned

with collecting, governing, and defending the church from her enemies, which will have no more

place after all of Christ’s enemies are defeated.81 The “end” does not pertain to the end of his

mediatorial kingdom, but the end of the world, and the end of all of Christ’s enemies.82 Or, if the

kingdom is referred to the humanity of Christ, then it must not be referred to the person of the

Son, because he always was and will be equal to the Father.83 This would interpret the verse to

be synonymous with Colossians 3:11, where the use says Christ is all in all like the Father.

78
Turretin, Institutes of Eclenctic Theology, Volume 2: Eleventh Through Seventeenth Topics,
trans. by Goerge Musgrave Giger and ed., by James T. Dennison, Jr. (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing,
1994), 493.
79
Turretin, 493.
80
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 758.
81
Turretin, Institutes of Eclenctic Theology, Volume 2: 493.
82
Turretin, 493.
83
Turretin, 493.

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This reading seems to do more justice to the distinctions of the persons of the Trinity.

The work of salvation will have been finished, and there will be no further need of economical

mediation that pertains to reconciliation and intercession, but Christ will continue to exercise an

essential kingdom over the saints. Christ will reign as the God-man and as the Mediator.84 Louis

Berkhof understands it in distinctions of two different kingships. The regnum potentia, by which

we mean the dominion of the God-man of Jesus Christ, over the universe, will not end, but the

regnum gratia, by which Christ exercises His spiritual kingship by means of his mediatorial

functions of reconciliation and intercession, shall end.85 Just as the Son is the mediator of the

first creation, He is also the author and mediator of the new creation.86 He is the mediator of both

creation and re-creation.87 As cosmic mediator Christ will continue to practice the mediation of

sustenance with the new created order. He is the builder and maker of the New Jerusalem, (Heb.

11:10) and He will continue to sustain the outer portion of those who dwell outside the gates of

the new city who have rejected Him. Just as He prepared a place for the righteous to dwell, (John

14:23) so He prepared a place for the wicked to endure His punishment (Isa. 66:24, Matt. 25:43,

Reve. 21:8, 27, 22:15). As cosmic mediator Christ will continue to mediate divine judgment to

those who dwell in the fiery lake. The wicked will not enjoy the peace of His kingly scepter like

the righteous, but they will endure the justice of that rod which He wields. They shall endure the

everlasting darkness of God (Isa. 11:14, Ps. 110:2, 5-6, Rev. 19:15).88 The saints will be given

84
Turretin, 494.
85
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972) 410.
86
Graeme Goldsworthy, The Son of God and the New Creation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015),
16
87
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed., by John Bolt
and trans., by John Vriend. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 363.
88
I gather this idea from the title of the book. Desire, Faith, and the Darkness of God: Essays in
Honor of Denys Turner, edited by Eric Bugyis and David Newheiser. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2015). There is a conversation regarding eternal conscious torment (ECT) as to what the
nature is of God’s action in hell. Is God excommunicating these people from the enjoyment of his presence

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authority over angels, enjoying the benefits that come from His cosmic mediation89 (1 Cor. 6:3-

4). As for the epistemological function, God will continue to accommodate knowledge to us in

and through Christ.90 He will be considered the mediator of knowledge even in the new

creation.91 Though believers will enjoy glorified existence, they will not reach omniscience and

so will continue to receive God’s revelation; the mediator will continue to perpetually mediate

revelation in the eternal state.92 The Son is the mediator of all human knowledge, even in the

eschaton.93 “In the coming ages He will continue to show us the immeasurable riches of His

grace,” (Eph. 2:7) and illuminate the saints forever (Rev. 21:22-23).94 It will only be in the

Mediator of revelation that we will be able to see God, for He will shine the light of God’s

knowledge on us in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6, Matt. 11:27). Christ will enable us to see

the essence of God only in and through Him. He will assume a face we will be able to bear, for

“we shall see His face”95 (Rev 22:3). Our immediate enjoyment at the sight of God will be

actualized in Christ. We will not behold the Mediator alone, but we will see God and the Lamb96

(Rev 22:3-4). Immediacy shall not swallow up mediation; we shall see God in Christ’s body.97

by retracting them from seeing and experiencing these acts, or is the darkness of God constantly acting
against them? In this sense, it would be the terrible presence of God’s holy presence.
89
Steven Duby, God in Himself, 177.
90
Todd Billings, Union with Christ, 85. Herman Bavinck says “every vision of God…always
requires an act of divine condescension.” Cf. Reformed Dogmatics, 2:190. This is true even of the final
vision.
91
Steven Duby, God in Himself, 175.
92
Troy Manning, “Christ’s Mediatorial Function in God’s Giving of Verbal Revelation to Man
Throughout All Ages,” Biblical Viewpoint 39 (2005): 103.
93
Todd Billings, Union with Christ, 85. Billings, in dialoguing with Bavinck, says, “Jesus Christ
will always be the mediator, enabling knowledge that is accommodated and derivative (ectypal), yet true
human knowledge of God.” Due to omniscience being an incommunicable attribute, we will continue to
learn God for all eternity. We will have constant ectypal knowledge, but never archetypal knowledge. For
more on this, see Michael Jensen’s “Theological Stuff You Should Know (2)-Ectypal Theology.” TGC,
7/6/16, https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/tsysk2/. Date Accessed 4/2/20.
94
Turretin, Institutes of Eclenctic Theology, Volume 2, 492.
95
Boersma, Seeing God, 265.
96
Steven Duby, God in Himself, 176.
97
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, 3b.92.2. newadvent.org/summa, Accessed April 2, 2020.

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The glory of the saints depends on Christ the heavenly mediator,98 our beatific vision will derive

from His.99 The mediator of union will cause us to participate in the divine life of the Trinity.

Christ will continue to wear the marks of our redemption in His body for all eternity. (Jn. 19:20,

Rev. 5:6) He will continue to wear the priestly robes of His flesh. “Imagine what a blessed sight

it will be to see Christ wearing the robe of our human nature, and to see that nature sitting in

glory above the angels!”100 The humanity of Christ will be everlasting, He Himself is the temple

(Rev. 21:22) and “that tabernacle of His flesh shall never fold away.”101 The hypostatic union of

the God-man will not be dissolved in the end. He will always be our Theandric Mediator.102 We

shall see Christ as He is, as He occupies this enduring hypostatic identity,103 and His mediatorial

kingdom will have no end (2 Sam. 7:16, Isa. 9:6-7, Rev. 7:7, 11:15, 12:10, 21:22-23).104

Concluding Remarks

In retrospect, I have presented a case that suggests we ought to perceive the office of the

mediator in five functions. These cosmological, epistemological, soteriological, sacerdotal, and

ontological facets help aid us in our understanding of the message of Scripture, the end of all

things, the nature of the glorious immediacy of the beatific vision, and the enduring nature of the

flesh of Christ. These contemporary critics could benefit in reading Calvin, and the rest of the

98
Simon Francis Gaine, “The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,” TheoLogica
2.2 (2018): 121.
99
Gaine, 118, 121-122.
100
Thomas Watson, Beatitudes, 261, cf. Boersma, Seeing God, 336.
101
John Owen, Christologia, 271, cf. Suzanne McDonald “Beholding the Glory of God in the
Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision,” in The Ashgate Research
Companion to John Owen’s Theology, edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones. (Great Britain, UK: MPG
Books Group, 2012). 153
102
Mark D. Thompson, “Calvin on the Mediator,” in Engaging with Calvin: Aspects of the
Reformer’s legacy for today. (Nottingham, UK: Apollos, 2009), 121-122.
103
Steven Duby, God in Himself, 171.
104
Duby, 176.

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post-reformation theologians, in their entirety in order to arrive at an understanding of these

implicit and explicit distinctions.

Areas of doctrinal improvement that exist regarding the nature of mediation theology,

and the everlasting mediation of the Son, seem promising. There still needs to be work done on

weak vs. strong distinctions of the extra calvinisticum, and whether the Son will still continue to

mediate according to this paradigm. I have said yes, because of Christ’s everlasting mediation of

the created order, including the place of judgment. More theologizing on the subject of the

covenant of redemption and mediation is needed, and also how one would understand everlasting

mediation if he or she does not adhere to the Reformed understanding of covenant theology.

Perhaps there are progressive dispensationalist mediation theologies waiting to be expounded

upon. This leaves the conversation open to others outside of the Reformed community. The

issues of the economic and immanent Trinity have yet been factored into this discussion, and

what it would mean for Christ to occupy the mediatorial office before creation. What is implied

by this confession? Calvin’s understanding of human infirmitas and fallen-nature debates in

Christology could benefit in dialoguing with this discussion. What would it mean for the

mediating function of Christ if it impeded our vision of God? There is more room for kryptic and

kenotic Christological discussion in the beatific vision. Will Christ continue or cease to perform

kenotic or functional acts, and will the kryptic nature of Christ’s flesh still be at play in the

person of the Mediator? Incarnation anyway theorists could also benefit in conversing on the

nature of mediation if Christ’s hypostasis was always intended to be the interface between us and

God. What does this mean for the future of supralapsarian Christology? Philosophical and

analytic theologians have the opportunity to step to the fore in parsing out immediate and

mediate acts of God, and scripturally defend them. There is also room to discuss the subordinate

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function that the Church plays in imaging Christ to the world as under-mediators. This

Christological eschatology has direct correlation with the inaugurated eschatology the Church

participates in. Also, there is more “protesting” to do in regard to the conversation of mediation

and imperfect mediators. Mary in Catholic tradition is called the mediattress and “mediator of all

graces,” and is this appropriate given the biblical witness of insufficient mediators? I would say

no, and there is room in discussing these possibilities. Lastly, I have suggested that to believe in

the eternal subordination of the Son implies disbelieving in the continuity of the mediatorial

office and placing the enduring hypostasis of the Son on shaky ground according to creedal,

scriptural, and traditional witness. May these wonderful mysteries lead us to magnify and adore

Christ our everlasting mediator and used for the service of equipping the saints to reach maturity,

attain unity in faith, and knowledge of the Son of God on this side of the eschaton (Eph. 4:13).

143



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