The Gospel in Action

The Doctrine that Leads to Holiness

1 John 2:1 NASB95

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

The purpose of John’s focus on the gospel is precisely that this heavenly doctrine of Christ, so rich and pure, so powerful and transformative through the ministry of the Spirit encourages and effects holiness. It both vivifies and mortifies so that the result is a desire to flee from a life of sin and living in unrepentant sin.

This is the reason for these Spirit-inspired words which exemplifies the power of the life-giving Word, strictly speaking here it is the Spirit working through the message of the gospel, giving us Christ (why we refer to Scripture as the “chief means of grace,”) which evermore transforms and conforms our entire being into the image of the radiant Son.

The Sinner’s Focus

1 John 2:1 NASB95

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

If we sin - we will continually fight against our sin because we still possess our sin-nature and its corruptible remnants and elements with which we will struggle until the end of our journey. John knows we will sin, but the great comfort he gives is to call the sinner throughout all their toils and failures not to fixate on they dying away of the old man but to place their minds on the most lofty of truths of the gospel, namely the person, work, and exalted status of Christ Jesus which is continually enlivening the new man and bringing rest.

Christ our Advocate

1 John 2:1 NASB95

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

Christ our Advocate. He is pleading and defending our case. The following truths show us exactly what that means.

With the Father, not only is He highly exalted executing His Kingly and Priestly office in power, majesty, and glory but the will of Christ to redeem is perfectly matched by the will of the Father to save us and to give us Christ to that end. This reminds us of the firm covenant of grace we have with God because of the intra-trinitarian covenanting before time to redeem a people.

His Righteousness

1 John 2:1 NASB95

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

What is ever before the Father?

Christ’s righteousness. His absolute perfect obedience and submission to the entirety of God’s law every single moment of His earthly existence, in times of strength and weakness, through the greatest of difficulties and sufferings, combined in all of His life and death, giving to God perfect obedience, with perfect motives and paying the penalty of the law which we deserved. He did all this for us so that now what is His is ours. He did it as a representative person, He carried us on His chest, and rendered perfection so that we might receive the fruit of his work.

His Satisfaction

1 John 2:2 NASB95

and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

He is the propitiation. He fully exhausted the wrath of God for our sins which were upon Him. He fully satisfied God’s justice, the absolute demands of the law, even its curse. The virtue and efficacy of this perfect sacrifice and atonement is ever before the Father and effectual for our salvation.

His death on the cross, His substitutionary atonement, those who believe and receive the gospel by faith in all the world, are forgiven for their sin, they are acquired, justified - As if they have always obeyed and never sinned.

The Efficacy of His Office

1 John 2:2 NASB95

and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

Because He is with the Father we have the presentation of glorified humanity in the presence of God almighty in the most holy of places. This confirms that every single sin has been perfectly atoned for and now He intercedes without interruption and in the highest place of exaltation rules us in grace and might to complete the salvation He has begun.

Our Confidence