Pulpit Commentary
Verse 5. - One... also for and one, A.V.; himself mar, for the man, A.V. For there is one God, etc. The connection of ideas indicated by γὰρ seems to be this: Pray to God for all men, Jews and Gentiles, barbarians, Scythians, bond and free. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of the one God, who is the God of all the nations of the earth. And God wills that all should come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, because Jesus Christ is the One Mediator between God and all men, by whom alone men can come to the Father, and who gave himself a ransom for all. One Mediator. The term μεσίτης ισ only applied to our Savior in the New Testament here and in Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:15: 12:24. In the only other passage where St. Paul uses it (Galatians 3:19, 20) it is applied to Moses the media-tar of the Old Testament. In the LXX. it only occurs in Job 9:33. Himself man. Surely an infelicitous and unnecessary change from the A.V. Even supposing that the exact construction of the sentence requires "Christ Jesus" to be taken as the subject and "man" as the predicate, the English way of expressing that sense is to say, "the man Christ Jesus." But it is very far from certain that ἄνθρωπος, standing as it does in opposition to Θεός, is not the subject, and must not therefore be rendered "the man." The man. The human nature of our Lord is here insisted upon, to show how fit he is to mediate for man, as his Godhead fits him to mediate with God.