Do you believe in the Virgin Mary? Do you entertain the idea that some one must intercede with Christ for you? Do you fear to come, as it were, directly into the presence of Christ and God?
Many readers of the REVIEW will no doubt be surprised to have such questions asked them. You are sure that you do not believe in the necessity of having the Virgin Mary, some saint, or any other person, to intercede with Christ in your behalf. The great truth of the mediatorship of Christ has been so terribly perverted in these last days that many congratulate themselves on being free from these errors of Catholicism, etc., who are daily bringing to themselves much perplexity and spiritual darkness because of the fact that they are not free from the erroneous principles that cause the Virgin Mary to occupy the place she does in the Catholic mind.
This entire system of “intercession” has its origin in the perverted and distorted ideas that are entertained of God and of Christ. In the average mind, the name of God causes thoughts of a great, stern, arbitrary personage, who is ever watching for an opportunity to accuse man, and get him into trouble, and then punish him for the trouble he has got into. By the average mind, God is not understood to represent all that is good, and merciful, and lovely. He is thought to be an austere ruler. And it is because of these wrong ideas about God that we have come to think of Christ as a mediator to intercede with God in behalf of men.
This is one of Satan’s colossal errors and masterly deceptions. Christ did not die to make God willing to save men. Read Rom. 3:25, 26. “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” This clearly indicates that Christ died to make it right for God to save men, and not to make God willing to exercise his own infinite attribute of love in behalf of the sinner.
Supposing the Son to be like the Father, men have come to look upon Christ in the same way that they have regarded his Father, —as unsympathetic, exacting, and unapproachable. Consequently, this view of God and Christ necessitated the provision of the Virgin Mary and the various other associated ideas, in order for men to be able to approach Christ, whom the Bible represents as man’s mediator with God.
The practical question for each one is this: Do I believe with my whole heart and accept the great truth that Christ alone stands between me and God? or do I have something in my theology, or in my experience, which practically and literally stands between me and Christ. Is it my own good works that I have come to regard as my intercessor with Christ?
Do you feel that you can not come just as you are, when you have sinned, or have discovered iniquity in your heart? Do you feel that you must get rid of your sinful nature, fix it up as it were, and get right with God, before you can come to Christ? Do you not see that depending upon anything but simple faith, makes that thing, whatever it may be, to occupy a place in your religion identical with that which the Virgin Mary occupies in the Catholic religion? Do not allow your good works, so called, to get between you and Christ.
Many regard and depend upon the prayers of righteous persons with the same reverence that Catholics look upon the Virgin Mary. They feel that if Brother or Sister So-and-so could only pray for them, all would be well. They doubt that Christ hears their own plaintive plea, but they are sure that the prayer of another will open the ears of Christ to their need. Oh, no; they don’t believe that it is necessary for the Virgin Mary, or some canonized saint who is dead, to intercede in their behalf; but they do believe that some saint who is alive is a real necessity in order to have Christ interest himself in their need or distress.
Dear reader, do you see this? Do you not see that if you recognize not the divine right and privilege of every one of God’s creatures to come directly to him at all times, and under all circumstances, you admit the principle of the necessity of man’s having an intercessor to intercede with Christ in man’s behalf? The infinite mind is eternal—changeless. Of him it is written, “With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Prayer changes the one who prays, and thus brings him into harmony with the divine mind, making it possible for God to bestow his blessings upon the praying one without compromising his own character or that of his government.
Brother, sister, permit nothing to come between you and Christ. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus; and when you pray, realize that it is the merits of Jesus, and Jesus alone, that make it right for you thus to approach the living God. And always remember that it is not because of God’s hatred of you that it is necessary to approach him through Christ. God loves you, although he hates your sin. In Christ we have a sinless representative, who is fully acquainted with every human need, temptation, and trial. Jesus needs not that any one should tell him of man’s trials and difficulties. He himself walked upon this earth in the likeness of sinful flesh, and learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Permit nothing, then, for any reason whatever, to come between you and the Son of God, our elder brother. In coming to God we are simply to believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
So, do not allow either your supposed good works or the good works of any other person, saint or sinner, to come between you and Christ, who is man’s only mediator.