TUESDAY 7th
1 John 2:1–2
‘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. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.’
We are returning to the same verses as our previous devotion as I want to take the word advocate and share something from it.
John says ‘we have an advocate with the Father’, this is good news, and what makes the news even better is that the advocate is none other than Jesus the righteous. The advocate that we have with the Father is his very own Son! Why is this good news? Well it is such because the advocate was obedient to the will of his Father even to the point of death as we read in Philippians 2:8 and as a result of his obedience he procured or provided everything necessary to make the way to God to be opened up for us.
Jesus became our advocate or received the right to become our advocate by dying in our place and he now stands in the presence of God on our behalf and as the Father looks upon his Son he sees the One who took upon himself our sin so that in its place he could impute upon us his righteousness. He is our advocate in the realm of salvation. There is a well-known hymn ‘Arise my soul arise’ that has the following words
Five bleeding wounds He bears,
Received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers;
They strongly speak for me.
Forgive him, O forgive, they cry,
Nor let that ransomed sinner die!
But the good news continues, Jesus is also our advocate in the presence of God for our ongoing daily needs, he is our great high priest. This is how it is put in Hebrews 4:14-15 ‘Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.’ Our advocate has been where we are, he has lived in this unholy world just as we do, he understands everything about what it is like to live here on planet earth, therefore as the Hebrew writer continues ‘Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’ We don’t have to struggle through life as believers, we have a great high priest who is more than willing to give us the grace and the strength that we need to get through to the other side.
Thirdly can I add, that if the enemy of our souls comes to taunt and to try to cause you to doubt, remind him that you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous, remind him that God has accepted what the advocate has done on your behalf and remind him that you know without any shadow of doubt that your future is secure in Christ Jesus, remind him that Jesus won and he has lost.