How Does Jesus Advocate for Us?
This week we’ve examined the doctrine of Jesus our advocate. Thus far we’ve answered four questions: what is an advocate?, who has an advocate?, who needs an advocate?, and who is our advocate?. Today let’s answer a final question: how does Jesus advocate for us?
Jesus is like a defense attorney, defending His sinning Bride in the presence of a relentless Accuser and a holy Judge. But how does He defend us? On what basis does He plead for His saints?
He doesn’t deny the sin. He doesn’t minimize the sin. He doesn’t look for legal loopholes. He shows the Father His scars. Considering the verse two verses of 1 John 2 together helps us see the entire picture:
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.
Jesus advocates for those who believe in Him on the basis of what He has already done on their behalf on the cross. Because we have Jeuss as our substitute we have Him as our advocate. In his book, The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate John Bunyan puts it this way: “[Jesus] grant[s] and confesse[s] whatever can rightly be charged upon us; yet so as that he take[s] the whole charge upon himself, acknowledging the crimes to be his own. "O God," says he, "[You] know my foolishness, and my sins"; my guiltiness "is not hid from [You]" (Psa 69:5). And this he must do, or else he can do nothing. If he hides the sin, or lessen[s] it, he is faulty; if he leaves it still upon us, we die. He must, then, take our iniquity to himself, make it his own, and so deliver us.”
Almost three hundred years ago, Charles Wesley wrote a hymn that explains Christ’s advocacy this way:
Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears
Before the throne my surety stands
Before the throne my surety stands
My name is written on His hands
[By the way, a surety is a person who pays another person’s debt in court]
Five bleeding wounds He bears, received on Calvary
They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me
“Forgive him, oh forgive,” they cry
“Forgive him, oh forgive,” they cry
“Nor let that ransomed sinner die!”
The Father hears Him pray, His dear Anointed One
He cannot turn away the presence of His Son
His Spirit answers to the blood
His Spirit answers to the blood
And tells me I am born of God
My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear
He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear
With confidence I now draw nigh
With confidence I now draw nigh
And “Father, Abba, Father” cry