We Have an Advocate

In the previous post, we saw that John summarized his message with the words, “God is light.” He also encouraged his readers to “walk in the light” or live with a desire for God instead of for darkness and sin. Walking in the light doesn’t mean moral perfection, and there will be times when Christians sin. John says that when we do sin if we confess our sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins as he grows us in our Christian walk.

As we study 1 John, we must remind ourselves that John was facing a crisis. Former church members were traveling around, teaching false doctrine, trying to lure some members into following them. One of the things these teachers were claiming is that they hadn’t sinned, and even if they had, it hadn’t impacted their relationship with God. John refutes that belief in 1 John 1:10 by saying that if we claim to have never sinned,  we’re lying and calling God a liar. 

It’s in this context that John writes one of the most profound passages in the Bible:

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. (1 John 2:1)

The Apostle desires that his readers won’t sin, but he knows they will, and when they do, they have an “advocate” in Jesus himself. The word for “advocate” is paracletos, and John uses it in John 14, 15, and 16 to refer to the Holy Spirit. He uses the word here to describe Jesus. 

Jesus stands beside us, acting on our behalf, helping us. We already know from Romans 8:34 that Jesus is praying for us. How incredible is that? The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 7:25 that Jesus “intercedes” for us. Jesus knows exactly what it feels like to be tempted, and he knows the struggle we face every day, so he performs the ongoing ministry of intercession on our behalf. 

And in 1 John 2:1, John says that Jesus is our “advocate” with the Father. Jesus stands beside us as our representative, proclaiming our eternal forgiveness. When we sin, all hope is not lost. At the moment of our salvation, we were justified. We don’t need another justification from our judge. We need forgiveness from our Father so we can continue to grow in holiness. That’s exactly what we receive. Jesus, the crucified and risen Son, acts on our behalf, and his very presence in heaven as the One who paid our penalty is his constant advocacy for us. The salvation which he secured is absolute. 

Please don’t get the idea that Jesus is pleading with a reluctant God to forgive us. God is not an unwilling judge who’s itching to condemn us. He’s not our judge at all; that was settled at our salvation. He’s now our Father, who, because of his incredible love for us, gave his Son on our behalf. 

John tells us more about what Jesus does for us:

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

The key here is the word “propitiation,” which means a sacrifice that changes God’s wrath into his favor toward us. It means to appease God’s anger. 

To understand propitiation, we first have to understand God’s wrath. God hates sin. He has a good and holy revulsion against anything that isn’t holy. We like that about God because we hate evil too and want God to hate evil. The only problem is that we are inherently evil. God is perfectly holy, so it’s just and right for God to hate sin. Since we have all sinned, God’s wrath falls upon us, and it must somehow be overcome if we’re going to have any relationship with him. 

This is what happened on the cross. Our sins were placed on Jesus, and all of God’s wrath was focused on his Son instead of on us. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin, and we are declared not guilty because the price was paid. 

It’s easy to get our thoughts confused here. We can’t think of Jesus as a loving, caring Messiah who stands before a vengeful, hateful God. Jesus isn’t begging a reluctant God to forgive us.

God didn’t have to be convinced. It’s God who took the initiative in the first place! It was God the Father who loved us so much that in eternity past he chose to make a way for his wrath to be propitiated. In his incredible love for us, God appeased his wrath against sin by bearing our sin himself in his Son. Our forgiveness is available only because God loves us.

Maybe there are times when you sin that you can almost hear Satan accusing you, telling you that you don’t deserve to be God’s child. When you feel that way, come back and read these verses. God loves you so much that he provided a way to overcome his righteous wrath over sin. Jesus is our advocate, our helper, and he died to take away your sins. Jesus silenced forever Satan’s accusations against you. If you’re a believer, know that you are now and will forever be a child of God.

But how can you know for sure that you’re a believer? The false teachers have created a lot of doubt about that in John’s church, so in this letter, he uses different “tests” or proofs to let his readers know that it’s they, not the false teachers, who are saved. He starts that here:

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. (1 John 2:3-5a)

How can a person know that he knows God? How can I know that I’m a Christian? It almost sounds as if John is saying that we can only have confidence if we are sinless, always keeping his commands. But we know that isn’t true, because John has just gone to great lengths to assure his readers that they are saved despite their sin.

So what is John saying? He’s saying that one way we can test ourselves is by examining our obedience. If we truly know God, we know that God loves us, so any command he gives us is only given out of love. His commands, then, must be good, no matter what our culture thinks about those commands. If you live a life of consistent disobedience, then maybe you don’t believe that God loves you and wants what’s best for you. Maybe you don’t know God. Why else would you consistently ignore what God wants for you? 

If you ever doubt your forgiveness, examine yourself. Have you asked God for his forgiveness and given your life to him? Go back and read 1 John 1:9 and 2:1-2. Meditate on those verses and how they speak of God’s incredible love for you. Then ask God to help you live how he wants you to, knowing he gives any rules out of love. Ask him to help you walk as Jesus walked.

By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:5b-6)

And how did Jesus walk? In obedience to God and service to others. If your lifestyle doesn’t fit into that framework, then you’ll lose the assurance of your salvation. You won’t lose your salvation, just the assurance of it. Who would want to live like that?

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