There isn’t a verb here…the, “there is” is implicit and understood without it being written! If you expect me to understand your meaning, why don’t you understand Paul’s meaning?
The gist of my argument is presently and actively saying/meaning that the meaning of a passage, be it explicit or implicit, is what we draw theological belief from! Whether the verb is there or not, the meaning of the verb is evident and necessarily present. If I understand what is being said, I can draw conclusions from the statement and correlate that conclusion with other conclusions to establish a overarching principle of belief.
Your argument is self-defeating because you employ the principal you’re seeing to disavow!
Doug
I keep wondering what makes this so difficult for you to understand. You seem to half get it.
Yes, for an English translation the "is" is needed to make the thought coherent in English, but that does not mean you can go back to the Greek and make doctrine based on the verb, when the verb does not exist there.
Again, why is this so hard to grasp?
Now if someone who was a Greek expert in subtle Greek communication, looks at the Greek statement in question and determines it is trying to express that the mediator is doing ongoing mediation, that would be different.
But from the beginning no one has addressed point # 1. What is a mediator, and what did Christ mediate and when?
Many here think the term is interchangeable with intercessor. including you. A mediator is not an intercessor. But like intercessor a mediator is a category of intermediary