“to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).
Hebrews 12:24 represents the third and final reference to Jesus’ role as a mediator within this epistle. These passages are important to contemporary readers of this letter, especially when we consider the variety of opinions that others hold regarding Jesus. For instance, let’s consider a question that seems relatively simple: “Who is Jesus?” That question might elicit many different answers, each with varying degrees of accuracy.
For example, some might acknowledge Jesus as a teacher, leader, mentor, or social reformer, but nothing more. Others may recognize Jesus as a great man of God, or believe that He showed us the way to live a better life. Finally, there are those who believe that Jesus was simply one person in a long line of others who attained a higher transcendental state.
With these beliefs in mind, we can say that our opinions of Jesus may spring from many sources. Some of those sources may be accurate, while others are less so. We must also contend with the natural human tendency to focus our view of Jesus through the lens of our personal experience.
The problem is that our opinion of Jesus may say little or nothing about the person He truly is. However, it does say much about who we are. Therefore, it is important to build our image of Christ upon the right foundation, lest He become a projection of our desires, influences, or opinions.
That foundation is the Jesus we encounter in the Biblical Scriptures. If our image of Jesus is based on something other than the Biblical record, then there may come a time when we are surprised to learn that He is someone who is very different from the person we expected.
This portion of Scripture thus reminds us that anyone who seeks to be accepted by God must approach Him through the mediator He has established. That mediator is Christ, as we’re told here in Hebrews 12:24. The Biblical epistle of 1 Peter explains how that mediation took place: “Christ also has suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).
Jesus accepted the death penalty associated with our sin and opened the way that enables us to approach God and establish a relationship with Him. As Jesus Himself once said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).