Christ, Our Advocate

Are Christians Sinless??

i. All have sinned

ii. you are made alive by the Holy Spirit, but you remain in your flesh which is wasting away.

iii. your sin nature still remains, but it is no longer your master.

iv. you are not your own, but you belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to God the Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

v. How is Christ our advocate?

vi. what is a propitiation?

What are His commandments?

What does it mean to advocate for somebody? There is much talk these days about being an ally or advocate for various causes, some noble; some misguided, some even wicked in their aims.

When you think of somebody who is a modern day advocate, who comes to mind for you?

What came to mind for me was the classic Dr. Seuss book, “The Lorax” wherein the once greedy old “once-ler” tells a young boy about the now missing and mythical Lorax. The Lorax’s job was to speak for the trees, “for the trees have no tongues”. The Lorax is someone who has the authority to speak for something that doesn’t have the ability to speak for itself. Why do the trees need the Lorax? Simply because they do not have any way to plead their cause or speak for themselves. when one tree is chopped down, the Lorax appears as its defence.

As we continue through the first Epistle of the Beloved Disciple, John, we come to what could be called the practical application of everything that John has written prior. If you will recall, John’s main purpose for writing was to assure his audience of the true humanity and true divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, opposing the teachings of the Docetists. John reassures his readers that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, that he heard his voice, he saw him with his own eyes, and he touched him and inspected everything for himself. Jesus was no ethereal spirit, but a real man; a crucified and resurrected man. In fact, Jesus Christ was the True Man and the Second Adam, not formed by the ground but by the Spirit of God in a virgin’s womb, but also existing from the beginning before all worlds.

In the verse verse of chapter 2, John tells us plainly why he has written, “so that you may not sin.” and immediately follows this reason with another, “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 2

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an dAdvocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;

So if John has written his letter in the hopes of keeping his audience from sinning, does that mean that christians are capable of living in perfect obedience to God? Well, not exactly. Again, we must consider the occasion for John’s letter and the matters that he is primarily addressing; those of heresy and apostasy. The sin that John is hoping to safeguard his people against is false teaching as well as the possibility of apostasy. He is telling them not to let themselves be led astray by false doctrine and false righteousness. Rather, as children of God, they are to walk according to the pattern set by the Lord Jesus Christ, a life lived in the light of the truth of God revealed in and through the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

So when John calls Jesus our advocate? what does he have in mind? well the word in Greek simply means someone who comes to the aid of another/ a helper or someone who speaks on another’s behalf. both are implied here. the Greek literally reads, “we have an advocate/ intercessor before the Father.” John uses the preposition, πρὸς meaning, “towards or in the presence of” in this case. This gives us the image of Jesus acting as our high priest who stands in the presence of God, offering sacrifices for our sins. only in this case, Jesus has given only one sacrifice, Himself. This is why John calls Him “the propitiation for our sins”