An advocate is one who is called along the side of another, for his comfort and help. He is a lawyer to plead our cause in court. The judge with whom our Advocate pleads is His Father and ours. A crime is urged against us, deserving the sentence of death. Now it is the place of our Advocate to plead for His clients. Behold, Jesus Christ, the sinner’s Advocate, as He pleads our cause in heaven.
The Sinner’s Advocate, 1 John 2:1, Used by Permission.
We are charged with sin and unrighteousness. Our Advocate cannot plead our innocence. He cannot plead the extenuating circumstances of our transgressions. But he does plead his own righteousness! He pleads for the non-imputation of sin on the grounds that we are clothed in His own righteousness.
The Sinner’s Advocate, 1 John 2:1, Used by Permission.
Many a good and righteous cause on earth has been lost by the death of its advocate. But our Advocate, as He is without beginning of days, is without end of years. As the tinkling bells of the High Priest’s vestments were heard by the crowd in the outer court, while he himself was ministering within the veil – the sound conveying to them the assurance that he was still engaged in the solemn act of intercession – so the ear of faith can still catch up the music of these sacred chimes – these silver bells in heaven – “Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!”
Clefts on the Rock – The Believer’s Ground of Confidence in Christ, 1874.
Christ is our attorney and His portfolio is His propitiation. He stands before His Father in heaven, and every time we sin, He doesn’t make a new propitiation. He doesn’t die again and again. Instead He opens his portfolio and lays the exhibits of Good Friday on the bench before the Judge. Photographs of the crown of thorns, the lashing, the mocking soldiers, the agonies of the cross, and the final cry of victory: It is finished.
Jesus Christ is an Advocate for Sinners, Sermon, February 10, 1985, www.DesiringGod.org, Used by Permission.
If we cannot claim to live sinless lives, then the only thing that can keep us from despairing before a holy God is that we have an Advocate in heaven and He pleads our case not on the basis of our perfection but of His propitiation.
Jesus Christ is an Advocate for Sinners, Sermon, February 10, 1985, www.DesiringGod.org, Used by Permission.
He who might have been placing a vial of wrath in the hand of every angel around His throne, with a commission to pour it out on this rebellious world until it was utterly consumed, is standing at the moment, at the altar of incense, presenting our prayers for mercy, and officiating there as our great High Priest.
Since then Christ is praying for us, whom should we fear? And since He has promised to make us more than conquerors, of whom should we be afraid? No, though an host of demons are lined up against us, let us not be afraid; though the hottest persecution should rise up against us, yet let us put our trust in God. Even though Satan, and the rest of his apostate spirits, are powerful, when compared with us; yet, if put in competition with the Almighty, they are as weak as the smallest worms. God has them all reserved in chains of darkness until the final judgment day. They shall only go as far as He permits them, and no farther.
Sermon, Satan’s Schemes, 2 Corinthians 2:11.
