Deuteronomy 5: Obeying the Lord

Deut 5. This sermon was preached at CHBC.
the audio can be found here

People typically have a love hate relationship with law, and not just those who’ve had to study for law finals in the last few weeks…!

Aristotle insisted upon our need for law:
“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from LAW and justice he is the worst.”

The British Prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli was less positive:
“When men are pure, LAWs are useless; when men are corrupt, LAWs are broken.”

Martin Luther King took a middle ground of seeing law’s usefulness, but limitations:

“It may be true that the LAW cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.’

On the whole, though, our attitude to the law is much less principled and philosphical, and much more self-interested.

When we like the law, it isn’t usually because we think it is inherently good. We like it when it is on our side.

I don’t know if you are like me, but this attitude to the law shows up particularly clearly when I am behind the wheel of my car. When someone drives past me at some speed, I find myself saying, “don’t you know that there’s a 25mph speed limit.” However, when I’m in a rush, my words might be different: “25mph… that’s a ridiculous speed limit.”

We like the law when it is on our side. But at other times we like to think that we know rather better than the law.

I wonder, What’s your reaction to the idea that God commands our obedience?

He is not just a spiritual counsellor who gives us the Ten Suggestions to take or leave. He is the Sovereign Lord who gave his people the Ten Commandments to be obeyed.

I fear that our reaction to God’s commandments is often similar to our reaction to human laws.

We don’t think immediately about whether it is appropriate for God to demand our obedience. We merely think about whether we like the idea.

The bible is very well aware that the idea of a God who commands our obedience does not appeal to us. Yet we must not allow that which instantly appeals to us to be the judge of whether or not it is true or good. For the bible is also very clear that we have warped tastes. Like a child who wants that second bag of cotton candy, blindly following our desires will often seriously harm us.


It is probably a loving thing that I don’t allow my five year old the freedom to have that second bag of candy, or decide her own bedtime. She would use that freedom to harm herself. But I hope she will have the freedom to decide that for herself long before her wedding night!

There are two kinds of parents aren’t there: there are those who want to encourage their children to fly, and those who want to clip their wings. We understand the need for restrictive rules for young children. But shouldn’t we grow out of them?

But, throughout the bible God commands our total obedience.

Why?

Is he like a repressive parent who will not allow his children to grow up and make their own decisions? Does he want to limit his people’s fun and enjoyment of life?

No! he is completely the opposite. He is a loving God who knows what is good for us because he made us.

It isn’t appropriate that we go on laying down rules for our children for the rest of their lives, because in the end we are no different to them – we’re just a little older.

I am a sinful fallen creature like my children. I hope and pray that as they grow, they will look less and less to me for guidance, and more and more to the Lord himself, whose guidance I am trying to spoonfeed to them at the moment.

Why then is it so appropriate that God should demand our obedience? And not just children, but all of us?

To answer this question we are going to turn to the book of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy is a book full of the Lord’s commands, given to the people of Israel enter the Promised Land.
Lord willing, On three occasions over the summer we are going to look at the first three chapters of a long section of Deuteronomy that is largely comprised of the Lord’s commands.

And yet we will find that in the Lord who commands obedience, we don’t find a repressive parent who won’t let us grow to maturity. Instead, we will find that the maturity to which we are to grow is a mature understanding of who God is. We are created to know God.

And, once we realise who this God is, we will see just how appropriate, and in fact liberating obedience to him is.

As CS Lewis wrote in his autobiography,

If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, 'I am.' To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him. C.S. Lewis

This morning we are going to look at what is undoubtedly the most well known of all the times when the Lord commands his people’s obedience.

We are going to look together at Deuteronomy chapter 5.

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As we look together at God’s word from this chapter we will see three aspects of God’s character to which obedience is the only appropriate respond. We will see the Lord’s Loving rule, his Beautiful Character and his Absolute Holiness.

To each of these, our response must be to fall at his feet in humble obedient worship.

That will form the basis of our outline. Obedience to the Lord is appropriate because to obey god is

1. To recognise God’s Loving Rule (1-6)
2. To reflect God’s Beautiful Character (7-21)
3. To revere God’s Absolute Holiness. (22-33)

So, firstly, to obey God couldn’t be more appropriate because in obedience we

1. Recognise God’s Loving Rule (1-6)

1 Moses summoned all Israel and said:
Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. 2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 It was not with our fathers that the LORD made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. 5 (At that time I stood between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:
6 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
This is not in fact the first time that Israel had received the Ten Commandments. In verse 2, Moses reminds the people that the Ten Commandments were originally given at Mount Horeb, another name for mount Sinai.

Just as the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life had been the signs of the covenant with Adam, so the tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them were to be the centrepiece of the covenant that God made with his people at Sinai, what is sometimes called the Mosaic covenant, and sometimes called the Old Covenant.

Because they are at the centre of the Old Covenant, there has been some debate amongst Christians as to how we are to read them this side of the cross of Jesus, as members of the NEW covenant.

What is certainly clear is that the New Testament repeats 9 of them (all but the commandment concerning the Sabbat, and applies them without much modification to New Covenant believers.

Some have suggested that they are timeless laws given to all people, as they are written by God himself onto the tablets – they are a summary of the timeless law of God.

I’m not sure that this is entirely right, as there are aspects of the Ten Commandments that locate them very clearly in Israel’s historical context.
V6, shows that they are given to the nation who had been slaves in Egypt.
Well, my only experience of Egypt has been the tansit lounge of Cairo airport. They seemed quite happy to let me go.

Second, even those who would think that there is still a Sabbath for Christians would almost all agree that the Sabbath is no longer Saturday. And thus there is something at least that has changed in the way that we see the law as New Covenant believers.

The Ten Commandments are a the centre of how Israel was to relate to God. Thus, most of the Ten Commandments we can see as a timeless reflection of the character of God, but there are also within them three aspects that point to who Israel was as God’s Old Covenant people
There are three defining events of the nation of Israel woven into the Ten commandments.

The exodus from Egypt (6, 15), the promised land in which they would live (16), and the weekly Sabbath (12-15)by which they would be constantly reminded of their call to be a distinct and holy nation.

So, when we take away the national markers of exodus, land and Sabbath, the ethical force of the Nine remaining commandments remains unchanged.

And Hebrews 4 Tells us that the Sabbath command is fulfilled by recognising our identity as the New Covenant people of God who find their rest in Christ, and will one day rest with him in heaven. If you want to read more about how to read the law as New Testament believers, I suggest you find a copy of Christopher Wright’s book, “Old Testament Ethics for the people of God.”

The embedding of the Ten Commandments within this national framework is significant. The Commands of God are not merely expressions of his character, but express his relationship with us: real people in real time and space in a real relationship with God

That is, God’s rule comes to us in the form of covenants which he has worked in history. Have a look at verse 1-2.

1 Moses summoned all Israel and said:
Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them.

2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

The one who gives his law is the Covenant Lord. That is, he is the Lord whom we are made to relate to as king.
God is the one who made us, and so he alone knows what we were made for. We were made to enjoy serving him, worshipping him, honouring him as king.
Have you ever wondered why life sometimes seems so empty and purposeless? We try to look for things to give us purpose. But they don’t satisfy. There is a good reason for this. God designed us to find true satisfaction only in him. He is infinite in his beauty, in his love, in his perfection. Of course anything but him will not do.
He calls us to relate to him in a covenant: a covenant where he is Lord, and we enjoy being his creatures.
And he has gone to enormous lengths to bring this covenant about.
6 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
God had performed extraordinary miracles to rescue his people…
On the night before God brought them out he sent down his judgement onto Egypt. Every firstborn son was killed. But in the houses of Israel, God had told them to spread the blood of a lamb upon the doorposts. Wherever the blood was seen that house was passed over, and the son would live. That was just one of many miracles that the Lord used to bring them out.
The bible is clear that we all have a far worse slavery than the brutal slavemasters in Egypt. We have an internal slavery to sin. In our foolishness we imagine that our disobedience towards God is an exercise of our freedom. It is a terrible slavery that we cannot escape without our loving king rescuing us.
If you are not a Christian today, perhaps you think that this language of slavery is a little too strong. My friend, look at this world. Look at the evil that we are all capable of. Think of the people you most love in the world. Have you ever wondered why we are incapable of loving each other without ever hurting each other. It is because we are enslaved to our own selfishness. The only people we don’t hurt are those we don’t allow to get close enough to us to experience our malicious nature.
But praise God, as surely as he brought Israel out from slavery in Egypt, he is bringing a people out of slavery to sin.
But the covenant he calls us into is not the covenant that he forged by bringing his people out of slavery in Egpyt by the blood of a Passover lamb.
Christians are all still sinners. But we have become opposed to our sin, rather than partners with it. And one day our rescue will be complete.
As William Cowper’s hymn put’s it,
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
If we doubt that the Lord’s commands are for our benefit, we need only look at what the Lord has done for us so that he might bring us into the joy of obeying him.
The Ten commandmets are not the restrictive commands of a Despot to His mistreated subjects. They are the Loving Commands of the Great Redeemer King.

I wonder whether you think that these two ideas of grace, that is undeserved love, and command can really go together. Can God’s commands really be a sign of his grace?

They can, because in sitting at his feet and following his commands, we learn more about what he loves, and who he is. We learn about what it means to be a human being made in his image.

If God gave us no commands we would be left with ourselves at the center, and we do not make good gods.

Yet God has given us commands, and called us to obedience, so that we might find our identity reflecting his beautiful character.

Reflecting his Beautiful Character 7-21

For those of you taking notes, that’s our second point:

To obey couldn’t be more fitting because in obedience we are
Reflecting the character of God.

We could easily have not just a sermon, but a whole series of sermons on each of the Ten Commandments. We are going to look at them all just in this one point of this one sermon. I hope that an advantage of doing this is that we will quickly see the beautiful display of character shine through his commands.

The ten commandments fall into two types: those discussing particularly our relationship with him, and those that show the outworking of our covenant with him in our relationship with others.

1. Honouring the way the Lord want us to honour him.

- Exclusive
7 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me.

- When we read, “You will have no other gods before me.” That doesn’t mean we’re allowed to have a few after the LORD. As long as the wife, the kids and the job remain a close 2nd, 3rd and 4th, that is fine!

No, we are to have no other gods in the LORD’s presence.
It’s like the husband saying to his wife, you may not have other lovers.

- Prescriptive… How? We may not worship God with images

8 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.


This means primarily that we will let God determine the shape of our relationship with God.

We must expect to find not only who we are to worship, but also how we are to worship in the bible.

That is why you can fairly easily predict what we will do in our Sunday morning services… we’ll do the things that the Lord commands us to do. Pray, read scripture, preach and a handful of other things.

But far more importantly, that is why it is vitally important that you put you faith in Christ alone.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except by me.”

I wonder if you like the idea of having a relationship with God, but react against any kind of organised religion. You’d have a lot of company. Spirituality is popular today. Christianity isn’t.

Yet do we think that we can set the terms on which we can approach God.

My friend, to think that we can approach God as we see fit is a dangerous delusion. He has said that only by faith in Jesus. If you are unsure why God would have us believe in Jesus, we are glad you are here, and I or pretty much anyone around you would love to talk with you about that afterwards.

We cannot worship God as we see fit. We are not created to live as we see fit. We are created to live our lives under God’s loving rule.
Those in the west often dismiss this command because we readily see the foolishness of consciously bowing down to a stone image. But I fear that much of our mocking of that kind of idolatry is that we have bcome such materialists that we think that any form of worship is ridiculous.
Those who bow down to wooden or stone idols at least recognize something about our nature as human beings that may be lost on us. We are creatures who are designed to worship. We cannot but worship. that which captivates us, we are worshipping.

How foolish we are in the west to worship things that we don’t even pretend to be gods. We worship our own fleeting ambition. We worship our appearance, we worship our own inner self, and call it spirituality. It is merely idolatry.

- Careful… What? We cannot worship without carefulness

11 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

When we think of taking the Lord’s name in vain, we often think about using God’s name as a swear word. This would certainly be an example of taking the Lord’s name in vain.

But name in Hebrew thought is more than just a word. It represents God’s character. Do you realise that every time you talk carelessly about God, you take His name in vain.

- Dependent… We cannot worship without dependence

12 "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

One of the key things about worshipping the Lord is to recognise that He is the provider of everything. We may not imagine that just because we earn a salary that somehow we provide for ourselves. The Lord provides.
This is freedom then: we do not need to feel that the Lord cannot provide for us unless we use all our resources – our time, our finances, our energy, in supplying our physical needs.

We are not slaves. We have been redeemed.

Those who have been rescued by Jesus Christ are no longer slaves to sin, or to this world. We belong to heaven, and the more of the Lord’s resources we invest in the Lord’s kingdom, the greater will be our joy. Our Sabbath rest is found in not thinking that we can provide our own righteousness, but trusting in the Lord’s provision in Christ.

What do you think of this portrayal of God in the first four commandments?

I wonder what you think of that little word in the middle of verse 9: For I, the Lord your God am a Jealous God.

Can you see how even this jealousy is a beautiful thing. Jealousy is not like covetousness, that is prohibited in the 10th commandment. Covetousness desires that which does not belong to it. Our Jealous God desires that which is rightfully his.

Do you know that God desires you? He is a jealous God. He is rightly angered when you wander away from him to something that would rob you from him. He desires to pour out his love upon you, and hates to see you spurn him.

In his desire for you he has made a way for you to be rescued.
Verse 15: Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

I do not know what false gods would enslave you today. The Lord your God would rescue you, and bring you out. His hand is mighty. Whatever the state of your life, he is powerful to rescue you. His arm is outstrectched – however much you have spurned him, he is willing to rescue you. Will you rest your hand in his, turn from your slavery to sin, and put your trust in the strong arm of Jesus Christ?

We are to approach God recognising his character.

But we are also to reflect God’s character outwards in the way we relate to others.

- Respect for Authority

16 "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.


Some of us react against authority: “all authority is authoritarianism.”
But that was the lie that the serpent told Adam and Eve. There is such a thing as a right us of authority. God’s intention in parenthood is that the first people we are closest to will be models of loving authority.

God has woven authority/ submission relationships into the fabric of human society so that we could understand something of what it means that there is a God.

God is Father: we too have fathers.

God is leader: we have human leaders.

- The authority figures are called to model God’s authority
- The submission figures are called to model submission to the Lord.

Do we trust that the Lord is wise in asking us to obey the authorities he has put over us, even when those authorities may seem unwise to us?

- Respect for Life
17 "You shall not murder.

Human life is a great gift from God.

We are to treat every human being with dignity. Not because they are good, none of us are. In terms of inherent worth, we are all worthless rebels. (romans 3:10-12)

But every human is valuable because God assigns the value of being God’s image bearer.

Do we trust the Lord that even if we are repayed evil for good, then it is still good for us to show sacrificial love to all human beings, even our enemies?

- Respect for Marriage

18 "You shall not commit adultery.

Sex is a wonderful gift from God. It is like beautiful music. But imagine if we took a old vinal record of the most beautiful music and tried to play it using an old rusty nail.

That’s what sex outside of marriage is like.

We need to trust that the Lord knows what he has designed for. It is a physical picture of marriage vows.

Do we trust the Lord when he says that all sexual thoughts and behaviour should be directed towards our spouse, and if we do not have a spouse it will do us harm to indulge them?

- Respect for Property

19 "You shall not steal.

God gives people things. Ownership is something only human beings have, because we are God’s image bearers, and he is the great owner. So to rob someone else is to rob God. To treat other people’s property with no respect is to treat the Lord with no respect.

Do we trust that the Lord has been wise in not giving us things and giving them to others?

- Respect for Justice

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

The Lord is the ultimate just God. We may not say we love him, and seek to pervert justice, whether in the eyes of the law or of any person.

Who do we believe? Do we believe the Lord, that we should tell the truth whatever the consequences? Do we trust that his commands are good?

To obey the Lord is to trust His word. To trust that his commands are loving.


- Respect for Providence.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Do we trust that the Lord works all things for the good of those who love him.

If he hasn’t seen fit to give you a spouse, and you long for one, in the end that is for your own good. If he has seen fit to give you a spouse, trust that this one the best possible one for you, all things considered.

Whatever the Lord has or hasn’t given you is for your good – don’t look wistfully at what he has given others.
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Wouldn’t this be a beautiful world if we all lived like this, displaying to one another the character of God as we were designed to as his image bearers?

What a beautiful character God has that it is displayed in such wonderful laws.

I wonder where you look for beauty in your life… art? Music? The mirror!

All true beauty is derivative. It is merely suggestive of, or reflective of the beautiful character of God. A truly beautiful life is a life lived deliberately reflecting God’s character. A truly beautiful life is a life of obedience.

Is that the kind of life you want to live?

Thirdly…

Obdience is appropriate because to obey is to

3. Revere his Absolute Holiness

22 These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your elders came to me. 24 And you said, "The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? 27 Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey."
28 The LORD heard you when you spoke to me and the LORD said to me, "I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!
30 "Go, tell them to return to their tents. 31 But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess."
32 So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. 33 Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.


We cannot fault the law. The people standing before Moses recognised its goodness. It made them want to obey.

V27

27 Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey."

Obedience to the Lord is right and beautiful. How can we deny that?

Even God agrees.

28 The LORD heard you when you spoke to me and the LORD said to me, "I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good.

32 So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. 33 Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.
If we were to live like God commanded, we would live in harmony with each other and with him for ever.


But there is a problem.

Why do you think that we live in a world where God’s law isn’t honoured?

V29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!
It is now illegal to publish the Ten Commandments on the walls of many public schools. But we make a huge mistake if we think that this is the main problem in our society.

Our problem isn’t merely that our children don’t know what God wants. Ignorance is not the problem.

It is far more difficult to deal with than that. Our problem is in our hearts.

Within a generation we have the book of Judges – where Israel asts as if they have no God at all.

Within a millennium they are exiled.

The law can show us God’s goodness. But it will show us our rebelliousness. It can reveal God’s holy standards, but has no power to keep us from wandering away from him.

It’s like that sunlight that shines into a dusty room. It shows us that we were not as good as we thought we were.

Think through the Ten Commandments again. When we see what God loves it shows up how our hearts are not obedient to our great king.

The Lord loves undivided hearts that worship him alone.
We love to worship things that he has made.

The Lord loves right worship.
We love to think that we know better than him.
We love to think that we can impress him and boast before him.
We think and act as if our own abilities, many years of service of him, our self-sacrifical love, our sufferings all commend us to him.
In doing so we deny the sufficiency and beauty of the only way we can be put right with him – the cross of Jesus.
The Lord loves the honour of your name.
We talk casually about him as if he were only a man.
The Lord loves to provide rest
We work as if this world were all there was.
And our relaxation is too often rest from him rather than rest in him.
The Lord loves authority
We hate the authorities that our kind Lord has put over us. From childhood we have screamed at our parents when they led us in any way we didn’t want to go. This same attitude is still present in our hearts, whether it be with the government, with the elders of this church, with husbands, with employers.
The Lord loves life
We treat our own life as if it were ultimate, and others lives as if they were of little value. We do not grieve wasted life like he does.
You love marriage
We too often love adultery in our hearts.
You love your providential distribution of property.
We jealously love things that do not even belong to us, and we want to have them.
You love truth and justice
We love anything that makes us seem good in comparison to others. We love the lie that we are ultimately worthy of people’s praise.
You love contentment.
We love to imagine ourselves differently than you have made us; we demand different gifts, differently behaved families, different circumstances. We don’t trust that you are indeed loving towards us.

Before God’s law we stand guilty and condemned, and none of us could bear the punishment we deserve in all of eternity.

The people of Israel heard the law and, though they knew they should obey, they wanted to hide behind God. A God with such a pure and holy law would surely destroy them. For they were neither pure nor holy.

23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your elders came to me. 24 And you said, "The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? 27 Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey."

You go near God, Moses, but not us. We will surely die.

God is revealing to us today in his law that he is holy and we are not. We will one day stand before his presence with nobody to hide behind, and he should surely destroy us.

As jim Packer writes, “Men are opposed to God in their sin. God is opposed to men in His holiness.”

Did you know that God is being kind in revealing to us his coming Judgement? For when we know that we cannot stand before God, we will cast ourselves upon his mercy. And he has provided a place for us to stand. There is nobody for us to hide behind. But there is one in whom we may hide. There is a mediator.

In his book ‘Christ our mediator” CJ Mahaney’s writes,

“We’re quite familiar today in business and legal arenas with the process of mediation. Typically, two parties are in conflict, each feeling wronged or in imminent danger of being wronged by the other, but they share together a willingness to seek a solution through a neutral third party.
That picture is almost totally unlike the kind of mediation needed between God and humanity.
Both situations, it’s true, involve parties in opposition. But in the conflict between God and man, only one party has been offended. God has been profoundly and acutely aggrieved by the other party. He himself is fully innocent, entirely without fault or blame.
The other party (all of humanity) is undeniably, categorically, and completely guilty – yet this guilty party does not even care to be reconciled, but is locked in active hostility to the other party. In contrast, God is fully committed to resolution with the violators.
Yet the incredible news for us all is that there is someone to arbitrate between God and humanity. There is someone to touch us both.

The apostle Paul writes,

God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.

God in his kindness has given us his law, so that we might find our need for his Son, and find our rest in him.