Sermon Tone Analysis

Advocacy and Example

A sermon on 1 John 2:1-6 preached at Christ the King Church on 11~/6~/05

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*Prayer:  *Father in heaven, as we come now to listen to your Word explained and applied, help us by your Spirit to recognize in Jesus, our Lord, both His advocacy and example.

We ask this in His name.

Amen.

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*Introduction:  *A few weeks ago I received an invitation to attend a conference at a so-called ‘Christian’ seminary in Chicago.

The title of the conference was /To Preach the Word in an Interfaith World.

/Now, besides the talks and workshops that focused on this topic of religious diversity, the brochure I received also touted two interfaith worship services, which made the obvious claim that people of different faiths can still worship the same God.

Inside this invitation I discovered this seminary’s purpose statement, which fit well the theme of their conference:  “We are a community in the presence of God [which] attracts pioneers in thought and deed.

We are men and women exploring our own spiritual frontiers- pushing boundaries and creating new maps for faith’s journey.

This is [our] bold legacy of curiosity, exploration and action.

We are scholars and spiritual explorers- because faith’s journey never ends.”

/      /*  *

Now, that purpose statement epitomizes the world we live in, a world of religious exploration, a world that indeed is pushing the boundaries and creating new maps (maps other than the Bible) maps for our personal journey, a journey of faith that never ends, a journey that never settles, a journey that never arrives, because truth is too elusive, too slippery, too unobtainable.

Well, this morning, as we open God’s Word, we will, thankfully, find none of this postmodern mush for the postmodern mind.

No, today as we look again into 1 John we will hear a message that cuts against the grain of today’s religious pluralism.

For you see instead of pushing the boundaries of Christian theology and ethics, John defines them.

He marks out the marks of faith.

By focusing on the person and works and teachings of Jesus Christ, the apostle gives us an old map with real boundaries, boundaries that cannot be pushed aside if we are to reach the destination of faith’s journey.

In 2:1-6 John highlights three points of direction, three characteristics of basic biblical Christianity.

In v.1 he talks about /who Christ is, /in v.2 about /what Christ has done, /and then in vv.3-6 about /what Christ commands./[1]/

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!! Who Christ Is

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Now, please open your Bibles with me, and let’s begin with /Who Christ Is.  /In v.1, John writes, *“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”*

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You may remember the story from the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel about the woman caught in adultery.[2]

The scribes and the Pharisees brought this woman before Jesus in order to test Him, saying, *“Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Now in the Law of Moses *we are *commanded to stone such women.

So what do you say?”*  Well, our Lord, in His typical fashion offers a brilliant reply, a reply that is faithful to the just and merciful intent of the Law, *“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.…”

*One by one the stones dropped to the ground, and one by one all these ‘righteous’ men walked away.

And then as Jesus stood before this woman, He said, *“Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?”  *She said,* “No one, Lord.”  *And then Jesus said,* “Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more.”

*And then in the next verse (v.12), Jesus apparently turns to His disciples and says those famous words, *“I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”*

Now, I cannot think of a better cross-reference to illustrate the point of the first verse in Firs John, Chapter Two.

For in this Gospel story John highlights three things.

First, he highlights the /sinfulness of all mankind/, from the most pious Pharisee who drops his stone to the abhorrent adulterous, who bows her knee.

Second, John highlights the wideness of God’s mercy in and through Christ’s intercession, a forgiveness that extends even to crimes punishable by death.

And then third, John highlights Christ’s righteousness (His lightness) and the necessity of those who follow Him to walk in that light, or in His own words, to *“sin no more,”* to live a life free from the dominion and domination of sin.

Well here in 1 John we find these same three themes in a slightly different order.

First, we have John’s version of Jesus’ *“sin no more.”*

This is how John begins v.1.

*“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

*You see, with a mix of fatherly tenderness, pastoral comfort, and apostolic authority, he wants these Christians, his spiritual *“children,”* those under his elderly oversight, to avoid sin.

Yet, like Jesus, John next recognizes the sinfulness of all mankind, even Christians.

And so He writes of God’s mercy in Christ.

Look at the second half of v.1.

It picks up these two themes, *“But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”*

So note here the balance.[3]

It is the same balance we find in the story about the woman caught in adultery.

Here we find a serious, realistic, and merciful view of sin.

Sin is evitable but not excusable!

Sin is evitable, not excusable, and yet forgivable!

And our sin, both before our conversion and after our conversion is forgivable because of Jesus’ constant intercession or advocacy, as v.1 illustrates, *“But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”*

There are nearly two hundred different names used for Jesus in the Old and New Testaments.

We think of titles such as Immanuel, King of Kings, Bread of Life, Alpha and Omega, Man of Sorrows, Root of David, Prince of Peace, Second Adam, Word of Life, Son of Man and Son of God.

Well here Jesus is simply called our *“advocate.”

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In the Greek the word is /parakletos /(paraclete)/.

/Now, that is likely a familiar word to us, for we recognize it in reference to the Holy Spirit, who in the Gospel of John functions as Jesus’ paraclete, the one who testifies “in favor of Jesus over against a hostile world.”[4]

Well, here in 1 John, in a similar fashion, “Jesus functions as our /parakletos./”[5]

Like a defense attorney in a court of law,[6] Jesus testifies before the throne of God in favor of us over against our sin and its due punishment.

So Jesus is our *“advocate.”*

/And/ He is, as John points out at the end of v.1, a good one, a righteous one, *“the righteous one.”

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Now, lawyers today are stereotyped as being selfish crooks.

And of course there is a bit of truth in every stereotype, for sadly some attorneys serve their own interests above that of their client, and some seek, through various legal technicalities, to escape the truth and justice of the law.[7]

Yet, here in our passage, John tells us that we Christians have been assigned “the best defense attorney in the universe,”[8] a lawyer who is perfectly righteous, a man without sin, one who every time we commit a crime against God, selflessly and justly, as Romans 8:34 so beautifully puts it, *“pleads” *our case.

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/“Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears; /

/The bleeding Sacrifice in my behalf appears.

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/Before the throne my Surety stands; /

/My name is written on His hands.”*[9]*/

It is a tremendous thought to think that Jesus, because of His love for us, died for our sins.

But a far more tremendous thought, I dare say, to know that Jesus “has never lost his interest in, or his love for,” us.[10]

That when upon the cross, He said, *“It is finished,”* that He was not yet finished with me.

That He was not finished interceding for our sins.

!! What Christ Has Done

 

So, /Who is Christ?

/He is our *“advocate.”*

And He has been given this eternal advocacy for our sin on the basis of His work on the cross.

Which is precisely the connection John makes as he moves us from v.1 to v.2.

For there, in v.2, he speaks of /What Christ Has Done.

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Concerning Jesus, John says (look at v.2), *“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”*

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You see, here the scene has changed.

We have moved from the courtroom (v.1) into the temple (v.2), from Christ being our advocate “who speaks in our favor in the presence of God despite our sins,” to Christ being the very propitiation or atoning sacrifice for those same sins.[11]

He is the lamb who was slaughtered on the temple altar.

The Greek word here translated as *“propitiation” *is used only twice in the New Testament, both in 1 John, here in 2:2 and then again in 4:10.

This word, as used in other ancient Greek texts, usually has to do with “the removal of God’s wrath.”

Now, there is certainly a sense of that here in our text.

However, if we looked at 4:10 and then back at 2:2, we would see that this word *“propitiation”* has something to do with Jesus sacrificing Himself for our *“sins”* in order to secure God’s mercy,[12] a mercy, as John goes on to say, that is as wide as the world.

Now look at the second half of v.2.

Here we find a statement that challenges Calvinists such as myself.

If I was the writer of this Epistle, I would have been content stopping with the first phrase, simply stating that Christ is *“the propitiation for our sins”- *the sins of the church.

But John doesn’t share my conservatism.

He goes on to say *“and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

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Now, I don’t want to spend too wrangling about this verse.

For this verse is not as difficult as theologians make it out to be.

Here’s the gist of it.

Here’s how you should think about it.

John loves talking about the bigness of the Cross event.

Do you remember what is said in his Gospel, in 1:29 where John the Baptist says of Jesus, *“Behold, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world,” *or in John 3:16, *“For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son…”* or John 12:32, where Jesus says of His death, *“And when I am lifted up … I will draw all people unto myself.”

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Now, here in 1 John 2:2 John again has the whole world in view, but not in a universalistic sense, but rather in a sufficiency sense.

“The phrase /the whole world /relates not to every creature God has made….

The word /whole /describes the world in its totality, not necessarily in its individuality.”[13]