When Adam and Eve sinned, the natural result was fear, guilt, and shame, which caused them to run from God and seek to hide themselves from Him. God immediately went after Adam and Eve—not to punish, but to save. Yet, because of the infection of fear, the natural/carnal/sinful human heart remains distrustful of God and continues to seek to run and hide from Him (Romans 8:7).

God’s plan of salvation, of healing and restoration, is the process of removing lies, fear, guilt, shame, distrust, and selfishness from our hearts and minds and restoring truth, love, and trust in order to bring unity with Him, in order to connect us back into intimate relationship, direct one-on-one fellowship and communion, real friendship with Him! God desires/seeks/longs to connect with each one of us individually, directly, without anyone in between!

• Before Adam sinned, God spoke to our first parents directly, without any other person in between (Genesis 2:15–20).
• After Adam and Eve sinned, God spoke to them directly without any other person in between (Genesis 3:9–19).
• Enoch walked with God, and God spoke with him directly, with no one in between, and eventually took him right into heaven (Genesis 5:22).
• Noah walked with God, and God spoke directly to Noah, with no one in between (Genesis 6:9, 13).
• God spoke directly to Abraham with no one in between and even discussed His plans with him (Genesis 12:1; 18:17–33).
• God spoke directly to Isaac with no one in between (Genesis 26:2).
• God spoke directly to Jacob with no one in between (Genesis 31:3).
• God spoke to Moses many times with no one in between. The Bible even says, “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exodus 33:11 NIV84).
• God will even meet and speak with rebellious people, anyone who will listen or talk to Him. He spoke directly to rebellious Cain, with no one in between (Genesis 4:6). And He met with Balaam and gave him a message to speak to the wicked king Balak (Numbers 23:16).

God’s desire is to speak with people directly, personally, to remove all barriers between us and Him, to remove the lies, fear, selfishness, guilt, shame, and distrust in order to bring us back into at-one-ment with Him.

The Great Divide

Satan is the divider, the separator, the alienator, the one who seeks to create barriers between us and God. Through his lies and distortions, Satan incited rebellion, distrust, and fear of God, which many choose to embrace and believe despite the direct and overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Despite the truth revealed by God that Satan has lied, that God is love, merciful, gracious, forgiving, and completely trustworthy, despite the evidence that God longs to talk to us, to connect with us, to bring us back into union with Him, the lie that we need someone in between lest we die persists.

This is powerfully documented through the events recorded in Exodus. God met and spoke directly with the people; the people actually acknowledged this for themselves, yet despite their own acknowledgement, they rejected the truth, embraced the fears, perpetuated a lie, and chose to distance themselves from God rather than to enter into union with Him. They requested a mediator, an intercessor—so God did what any loving person would do who doesn’t want to lose contact with those they love: He met them where they were and gave them the intercessory priestly ministry, because they insisted.

Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of the leaders of Israel went up the mountain and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was what looked like a pavement of sapphire, as blue as the sky. God did not harm these leading men of Israel; they saw God, and then they ate and drank together (Exodus 24:9–11 GNT, emphasis mine).

God met and spoke directly with the people, but rather than walking with God, rather than seeking closer intimacy as Moses did, rather than opening their hearts, rather than fixing their eyes upon the Creator, they allowed fear to cause them to reject intimacy, reject union, reject reconciliation, and request a go-between, request that God not talk to them directly.

They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Exodus 20:19 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Their fear, their false beliefs about God, their distrust of God, caused them to deny objective reality, the reality that God had come to them, had spoken to them, and it was not harmful. They rejected the evidence that God revealed, the evidence that He longs to speak directly, personally, with them, and that it was safe to do so. They rejected truth and instead believed the lies fueled by their emotions, their fear.

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. 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. 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. For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? 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” (Deuteronomy 5:23–27 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Again, despite the evidence, the truth, the facts, that they had seen and heard God for themselves and were not harmed, despite the reality that God demonstrated His desire to talk to the people directly, as He had been doing with people since Creation, the people chose to reject this evidence and act upon fear-fueled lies and requested that God not talk to them but assign an intercessor as a go between. So not wanting to lose contact with the people, God met them where they were and added the intercessory priestly ministry.

But God’s design, His intent, His plan, His goal, the desire of His heart, is intimacy, friendship, union, to be known, loved, and trusted by His creatures. God wants direct person-to-person interaction with Him. He wants His friends, like Abraham and Moses, to be His “priests,” His go-betweens, envoys, the ones who go throughout the world bringing others who don’t yet know God the knowledge of God.

We are called into personal fellowship with God to be the priesthood of believers (1 Peter 2:5) with the mission to introduce others to God so that they can make their choice to trust Him and form their own one-on-one relationship, friendship, intimacy with God. This is God’s desire. God wants to talk to each of us directly, individually; He wants us to be reunited in friendship with Him, to go to Him directly and have conversation with Him.

This is why He sent His Son! Jesus came to “take away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), to remove fear, selfishness, distrust, and rebellion from hearts and minds. He came to destroy the power (lies) of Satan (Hebrews 2:14) and to destroy death (2 Timothy 1:10) in order to remove the barriers that stand between us and God, in order to open a new and living way back into God’s presence (Hebrews 4:14; 10:20). Because of Jesus, each one of us can go directly to the Father with confidence and talk with Him and have our own personal intimate relationship with Him!

Our Intercessor? God Himself

If someone objects and says, “But we do have an intercessor, Jesus, our heavenly high priest,” just remember, who is Jesus? Jesus is God! Jesus is the child that was promised.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6 NIV84, emphasis mine).

As Jesus said,

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9 NIV84).

“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30 NIV84).

When we speak with Jesus, we are speaking with God. When we connect with Jesus, we are connected with God. When Jesus lives in our heart, God lives in our heart. And Jesus is working to remove all lies from every heart and mind, ultimately leading us back into unity with His Father, to remove the lie that the Father needs Jesus to plead to Him. As Jesus prayed,

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (John 17:3 NIV84).

This is the knowing of a husband and wife: “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain” (Genesis 4:1 NKJV). This is the intimacy of two becoming “one,” in heart, mind, love, trust, devotion, loyalty, and friendship. Just a few verses later, Jesus prays for this exact intimate union between us and God:

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:20–23 NIV84, emphasis mine).

It is God’s plan, God’s goal, God’s desire, God’s preference, that there is no one between God and man. We are all to be at-one with Him. We are all to be united with Him. The bride (church made up of humans) is to be married to Jesus—God the Son—and the two will be one. God wants direct union with each one of us. He does not want anyone in between you and Him.

How much of church history has been corrupted by the false belief that God can’t or won’t talk to us directly? That God requires someone in between to propitiate His wrath, assuage His anger, pay our sin debt, plead to Him, satisfy His justice, beg Him for pardon?

The idea that God needs someone in between is a lie of Satan, based on the lie that God’s law functions like human law. God is the Creator, the God of love, the source of life, not death; the source of redemption, not condemnation; the source of grace, not disgrace; the source of forgiveness, not imposed punishment; the source of restoration, not deformation. Satan is the source of lies, fear, guilt, shame, selfishness, and death. It is Satan and sin that cause separation; lies break down trust; fear undermines love; guilt inflames fear; shame incites isolation and dishonesty with oneself and others. It is sin infecting the heart that causes us to believe our own fears over the weight of evidence God has provided. It is time for us to choose the truth, for the truth will set us free, and the truth about God!

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. [Christ Jesus is also interceding for us! In other words, Jesus is interceding in ADDITION to the Father! The Father is, and has always been, interceding for you and for me! It is the Father who sent His Son to intercede with sin and save us from it! (John 3:16, 17).] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–39 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Don’t listen to the fear, reject the lies, and choose to believe the overwhelming weight of evidence that God is for you and He longs to speak with you if you will only be still and listen. So quiet your mind, spend time reading His Word, and listen as He speaks to you—and choose to believe the truth that God is always for you! If you do, you will know that He loves you with an infinite love, and when you open your heart in trust, you will be reunited into union with Him.