MEDHURST, WALTER HENRY: Missionary, sinologue, and lexicographer; b. in London Apr. 29, 1796; d. there Jan. 24, 1857. He studied at Hack ney College, embarked for China as a missionary printer, 1816; was so successful as a student of languages and as a preacher that he was ordained at Malacca, 1819, and labored in Penang and Batavia; returned to England, 1836, but again went out to his work in Java, 1838; on the opening of Shanghai as a treaty port in 1842 he settled there

and remained until the year of his death. He was accomplished in the Javanese, Chinese, and Japanese languages. With the cooperation of friends he produced what is known as the "Delegates' Version" of the Bible in Chinese. Among his other works may be noted: English and Japanese Vocabulary (Batavia, 1830); Dictionary of the Hok-%_bn Dialed of the Chinese Language (Macao, 1832); China, its State and Prospects (London, 1838); Chinese and English Dictionary (2 vols., Batavia, 1842-43); Chinese Dialogues (Shanghai, 1844; new ed. by his son, 1861); and Dissertation on the Theology of the Chinese (1847).

Bibliography: H. O. Dwight, H. A. Tupper, and E. M. Bliss. Encyclopedia of Missions, pp. 444-445, New York,

1904; DNB, xxxvii, 202-203.

MEDIATOR: A title applied to Jesus Christ in relation to his work as intermediary between God and the world and between man and God. The New Testament presents Christ as mediator in two aspects, the cosmic and the redemptive. The prin cipal passages bearing on the cosmic or universal mediation are I Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 15-17; Heb. i. 2-3; John i. 3-4. As the image or Logos of God the son is the sole mediator of the divine creative activity. Eternal preexistence is affirmed of him. Through him the universe is a consistent unity, and progressively realizes the divine purpose. In him is seen the rational explanation and final aim of all things. This type of thought has its Jewish as well as Greek background. In the Jewish doo trine of Angels (q.v.), of wisdom (Prov. viii.), and of the Spirit of God (q.v.), the idea of mediatorial agencies between God and the world is made famil iar. Greek thought represented the Platonic-Stoic logos both as immanent reason and as expressed will. Josephus described the law as given by angels (Ant. XV., v. 3), a view repeated in Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; and Heb. ii. 2; cf. Jubilees, i. 27-29, and Assumption of Moses, i. 14. PhiTo gathers up the lines of both Greek and Jewish development in his doctrine of the Logos: the Logos is the mediator between the immortal God and the sinful human race (" Who Is the Heir "). The New Testament teaching culminstes in the unique and unshared mediation of the eternal Christ.

The other aspect of mediation-the redemptiveis more fully represented in the New Testament (Matt. xi. 27-28; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 11-27; John, passim; Acts xvii. 31; Eph. i. 10-21; Col. i. 20; I Tim. ii. 5-6; I John ii. 1-2). Mediation before Christ's earthly existence is armed in I Cor. x. 4; I Pet. i. 11; and John i. 11-12. For Paul the mediation consists of vicarious suffering and death in behalf of sin, continues after death in his intercession (Rom. viii. 34) and gift of the Spirit (Rom. viii. 8-11), and in manifold saving activities until his return to judgment, the destruction of the last enemy, and the glorification of the saints (I Thess. iv. 16-17; I Cor. xv. 24-28,50-57; Phil. iii. 20-21). The mediatorship of Jesus is the special theme of the epistle to the Hebrews. He was qualified for this task by the experiences of his earthly life. He was superior to the angels, to Moses, and to the priests. The latter was evinced by the fact that he was appointed not by men but by God, that he

270

offered not an external sacrifice but himself, through the eternal Spirit, the effect of which was spiritual and everlasting. He has opened for men the heavenly world, where as priest-king he continues his mediation of the new covenant.

In successive periods of the Church the Christian doctrine of mediation reflects the changing doctrine of God and of man; it has therefore been identified in part with the various theories of the Atonement (q.v.). By the Church Fathers, Christ is designated as mediator, since he reconciles God and man, by uniting in his own nature the divine and the human which had become mutually estranged through sin (Cyril of Alexandria, Dial. i., " Concerning the Trinity"; Theophylact on Gal. iii.; Chrysostom, Seventh Homily on 1 Tim.). Since Gerhard, who followed the lead of many of the Fathers (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. I., iii.), Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin, the mediatorehip of Christ has been divided into three aspects. (1) The prophetic: during his earthly life Christ revealed God's purpose of redemption. (2) The high-priestly: Christ fulfilled two functions, satisfaction and intercession. He satisfied God's justice through his active and passive obedience in his earthly life and death, to which the worth of his person and the intensity of his suffering lent an infinite value. As exalted he continues his high-priestly work through his intercession for the redeemed. The mediation of Christ was conceived by the Lutherans as meritorious and as related to all men; by the Reformed, as instrumental and as confined to the elect. (3) Christ's royal office, concealed during his earthly life, was assumed at his exaltation; as king he maintains and governs (a) all creatures (regnum potentice), (b) believers here below (regnum gratice), and (c) the church triumphant in heaven (regnum glori,ce). Ritschl modifies the traditional view by substituting vocation for office in Christ's mediation, by emphasizing the likeness of the community to Christ as respects the vocation, by conceiving of the royal function as fundamental, expressing itself in relation to God in the priestly, in relation to man in the prophetic, activity, and by affirming that the priestly and prophetic vocation extends into the state of exaltation. Christ mediates his forgiveness first to the community and then to individuals according as they become members of the community. The individual believer is brought into communion with God not through the living but through the historical Christ. In many of the popular sermons and hymns of the last two centuries Christ is set forth as mediator between an angry God and the condemned sinner, pleading with God for mercy, at the same time receiving the divine wrath into his own bosom and thus averting from the sinner the consequences of his sin. With the ethicizing of the character of God this view is yielding to a more adequate idea of Christ's mediation, as consisting in the revelation and communication of the life and love of God to men. The intercession of Christ, relieved of its picturesque features, signifies that the relation between God as gracious and man as sinful, established once for all in the life and death of Christ, is permanently valid in the changeless relation of Christ to the Father, and made effective for men through the influence of Christ's Spirit in their lives.

C. A. Beckwith.

Bibliography: G. Steward, MediatoriaL sotiv, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1883; W. Symington, Measiah, the Prince, or, the MedfaWrial Dominion of Jesus Christ, New York, 1881; P. G. Medd, The One Mediatr, London, 1884: W. Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly PrieeAood of our Lord. London, 1892; M. s. Terry, The Mediation of Jena Christ, New York, 1903; sad the treatment of Christ se priest and of his offices in the works on dogmatic theology.