The theme that has been occupying us recent
Sunday mornings, we propose to continue today because
it is so appropriate for the occasion that
brings us together to the Lord's table.
I would like to read, therefore, as the
basis of our short message before the Communion
itself, verses 1 and 2 in the second
chapter of the My little children, these things
write I unto you, that ye sin not.
And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
And he is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only, but also for
the sins of the whole world.
Now, we have already been recognizing in verse
10, which begins this brief section in the
epistle of John, that if any man claims
that he has not sinned, then he is
simply a liar and makes God to be
a liar.
And the truth, the word of God, simply
cannot be in that person.
To claim sinlessness, says John, is simply a
delusion, and it has serious consequences.
Even so, though none of us can claim
attainment, the apostle John makes it quite clear
that he is writing, writing his epistle, writing
his letter, in order that we should aim
at nothing less than abstinence from sin.
These things I write unto you, he says,
that you sin not.
We may not have achieved, but that does
not mean to say that we should not
aim at achievement.
On the contrary, all the machinery of the
soul should be geared to this one thing,
to have no truck with sin, to steer
our lives away from all semblance of evil,
to the glory of our God.
But the question remains, what happens when we
do?
Aiming at the ideal that is here set
out for us, we nevertheless miss the mark,
and that is, of course, the definition of
sin, one definition of sin in scripture.
Missing the mark, we fail.
What then?
Now, here is our message this morning, and
it's a very comforting one.
If you, if I, if we are found
together this morning among those who are ill,
and in process of so doing we are
found to fail and to fall, God has
made provision.
If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and
he is the propitiation for our sins.
Now, we spoke of the advocacy of Jesus
Christ last Sunday morning, and one thing remains
for today, the adequacy of his advocacy with
God.
And this is what I want to say,
this is the only thing I want to
stress this morning, it's the total adequacy of
our blessed Lord Jesus Christ to deal with
the exigency of sin in the life of
the believer, and to maintain peace and communion
with God.
Now, the first thing I want you to
notice in this connection is the position of
our advocate.
We have, says John, an advocate with the
Father, a place he occupies.
The moment you come to believe in God
as he is revealed in his Son, in
his word, and in his world, you need
no further argument as to the importance of
God's judgments.
Anybody that knows the judgments of God are
final.
He has the word of destiny in his
hand.
God is our judge.
To be right with God is to be
right.
To be wrong with God is to be
eternally wrong.
This is the most important issue in the
life of every creature, of every man and
woman everywhere, it's to be right with God
because his judgments are irrevocable and final.
Now, when a Christian sins, one thing that
happens is this.
He becomes increasingly conscious of the fact that
God is his judge.
Normally, as I believe we mentioned last Lord's
Day morning, normally in the Christian life, the
supreme awareness of all the people of God
probably is that of the fatherly care of
God.
We turn to him as our father.
We come to read our father's word.
We avail ourselves of his fatherly provisions.
This is essentially the main approach to scripture
and to God.
Normally, this is what we should be aware
of, the great fatherly countenance of our God
welcoming us, the fatherly care of God for
us and so forth.
But when a Christian sins, he senses that
the father has somehow become a judge.
And so often at that point, prayer ceases.
The heart becomes cold and the conscience tricks
and a sense of distance is created between
the believer and his God.
Now, this is right and this is wrong.
It is wrong in this sense.
God is not simply judge when we sin.
God is always judge and he's always father
to his people.
And it is wrong in this sense.
Though God judges our sins and will chastise
his people, he never ceases to become our
father at that point.
Whereas in our conscience, consciousness of God, we
tend to fear at any rate that he
ceases to become father when he looks with
anger upon our misdeeds.
Now, that is not so.
He is always judge and he is always
father.
He is judge even when he's father and
he's father even when he judges.
God is always and eternally unchangeable in his
fatherhood and in his capacity as the judge
of all men.
But we become aware of his justice and
aware of his indignation and this is the
point when we become afraid.
Now, listen to this word.
In the very presence of God, at the
very point where you sin and become aware
of your miserable failure, at that very moment
and in that very place, we, says John,
have an advocate.
There is one who is our paraclete.
He pleads for us.
He takes our side, as it were.
He represents our cause and he's there right
with the father.
Now, that's the first thing.
That's the scene then envisaged here this morning.
In the place where decisions are made, where
judgments are and sentences passed, we have an
advocate with the father.
The next thing is our advocate in his
person.
Who is he?
Every word here is significant.
It's not just the general truth that is
portrayed here but every word, every word is
meaningful.
I would suggest to every Christian here this
morning, you ought to remember this.
Passage.
You ought to memorize this.
What have we with the father?
We have an advocate with the father.
Jesus Christ, the righteous.
And every word, every designation is meaningful.
He's Jesus.
Now, we're familiar with the significance of the
name Jesus these days, especially at this season
of the year.
We remember it.
Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he
shall serve his people from their sins.
Matthew 1, 23.
It speaks of his saviorhood, yes, but it
speaks of his saviorhood as the one who
has become the babe of Bethlehem, the man
of Nazareth.
That's the significance.
And the one who now represents us with
the father then is not an angelic being
who doesn't know anything about our human situation,
but the one who became man in order
to become our savior and who from within
his experiences, man knows our temptations, knows our
problems, knows everything that he needs to know
about us in order to represent us there
with the father.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews
puts it, as you will remember very well,
when he says, we have not a high
priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses or cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities, in the King James Version,
but one who in every respect has been
tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
The one who pleads our cause in the
presence of the father is Jesus, who knows
your life from the inside, who's been in
our circumstances, who's walked our way, knows our
problems, knows our needs.
Where high the heavenly temple stands, goes the
paraphrase, the house of God not made with
hands, a great high priest our nature wears.
Oh, it's a very precious thought to remember
that it is no angel great as the
angels are that represents us there with the
father, but one who is tempted in all
points like as we are, Jesus, but is
Jesus Christ.
Now, the designation Jesus Christ does not simply
mean that he was chosen and anointed of
God, but it does mean that, of course,
that's the basic thing.
But the emphasis is sometimes put on this,
that he was anointed of God, and that
thought has a very real significance here.
Jesus is the Christ, the man Christ.
Jesus is the anointed of God, not of
men.
We didn't choose him.
The father chose him.
Oh, this is exceedingly precious.
God the father chose him to become the
babe of Bethlehem, to become the Christ of
Calvary, to become the intercessor for his people
in his own immediate presence.
God anointed him for that.
You see, Jesus Christ is not there to
plead with an unwilling God, to try and
persuade an unwilling father to forgive us, not
on your life.
That's a complete fabrication of the whole biblical
truth, because God ordained that you should be
there.
God ordained him, it is said again in
the epistle to the Hebrews concerning the high
priests of old.
No one takes this honor unto himself, but
he is called by God just as Aaron
was, so also Christ did not exalt himself
to be made a high priest, but was
appointed by him, that is Bible father.
However, he is Jesus Christ just.
Our advocates' moral character is consistent with the
nature of God, because God is said to
be just in chapter 1 and verse 9,
and we know that the same truth, of
course, emerges in many other places.
And he is therefore concerned for what God
requires of his people.
Jesus the Christ is righteous.
He's not going to plead that the case
against us should be minimized or forgotten.
He's righteous.
He's our advocate, but he's a righteous advocate.
He's there to trust the fast one on
the almighty, perish the righteous one.
We may sum up what we have noted
thus far.
The Christ of old, by the place he
occupies, no one else has ever ascended to
that high place.
And the Christ, he was appointed by the
father to stand there, and he is the
righteous one.
Nothing can go wrong.
No unrighteousness will emerge because he, the righteous
one, is there with the righteous father to
secure righteous judgment.
You'll never be wronged at the throne of
God.
If God sends you to hell, it will
be unrighteousness.
If God receives you to heaven, it will
not be without righteousness.
But now, it all comes to this focal
point.
We turn from the place he occupies and
the person he is to the propitiation he
has made and is.
And he there is the propitiation for our
sins.
And not for ours only, of course, but
for the sins of the whole world.
Now, what's the meaning of this?
Pardon me for a moment.
I have to say a word about this
because I think it's important.
You can't appreciate the wonder of this if
you're equivocating about its meaning.
In some of your translations, you will find
not the word propitiation, but another word, and
very often the word expiation.
Now, that word expiation does not mean propitiation.
The difference is this.
When we use the word, or rather when
the Bible uses the word propitiation, it envisages
a situation where God has been dishonored, displeased,
and is righteously indignant.
In other words, God's anger, God's wrath against
sin has been aroused.
Now, when the word propitiation is used then,
it refers to that which appeases the anger
of God so that he ceases to be
angry, righteously indignant.
Now, the word expiation has no reference to
anger.
It is true insofar as it goes because
what it means is this.
Sin has such an effect upon us that
it needs to be purged away.
It needs to be purged.
It needs to be forgiven.
We need to be conserved.
We need to be purified and cleansed on
account of it.
But you see, there's a world of difference,
and this is the division, the theological division
underlying the usage of the two words.
It's not a matter of scholarship.
It's a matter of understanding the Bible.
It's a matter of interpretation.
Those who use the word propitiation believe that
the word implies that God is angry with
sin at all times, and God judges sin
and sinners just as he judged people in
Romans chapter 1 and gave them up to
this and gave them up to that.
So it will be that God in his
judgment is giving up nations and giving up
individuals to their own ways, and that's a
token of his wrath, as Paul says, the
wrath of God revealed from heaven against unrighteousness
and ungodliness.
The word propitiation then has that in mind,
that there are those who don't like the
thought of the anger of God.
One of our British theologians was probably at
the head in leading against this, namely Dr.
C.
H.
Dodd of Cambridge, and they have, of course,
gone out of their way to say that
the concept of anger is so often found
in pagan religions, and they say that this
is a pagan streak that is brought into
Christianity.
Well now, you cannot thus say in the
light of the Bible, because in the Old
Testament and in the New, from the lips
of prophets and apostles and of our Lord
Jesus Christ himself, we find that God is
angry.
Now Lord Jesus, in the end of Matthew
chapter 25, has no hesitation in saying about
these shall go into outer darkness.
This is because God is angry with the
evil of men.
Now what then is the message?
What is the message of all this?
He is the propitiation.
The message is this.
When a Christian fails, fails to maintain the
ideal of abstinence from sin and falls and
becomes aware of the judgment and perhaps of
the displeasure and of the anger of God
towards him, he need not forget that God
is his Father, and he certainly need not
lose communion with God as his Father, provided
he accepts the ministry of the intercessor at
God's right hand, confesses his sin, and gets
it resolved by the advocate.
We have an advocate with the Father, and
the advocate is the propitiation for our sins.
Now this is the message.
When Jesus Christ died, he did not simply
provide that which was necessary to bring forgiveness
of sins and cleansing from unrighteousness.
John has dealt with that.
But when Jesus Christ died, he so bore
the penalty of the sins of his people
that God can no longer be angry with
a sinner whose sin is covered by the
blood of Jesus Christ.
All this is present.
God has no argument when your sin is
covered by the blood of his Son.
And he is the propitiation.
He is the one who in his human
body died upon the cross.
Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place
condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his
blood.
Hallelujah, what a Savior.
He did that now in heaven.
He is the propitiation.
You notice the emphasis not upon the fact
that he made propitiation.
No, no.
He is the propitiation.
He doesn't need to plead anymore.
His presence is the plea.
He is, shall I refer to the Apocalypse,
the book of the Revelation?
He is in the words of Revelation, he
is the lamb in the midst of the
throne.
The lamb in the midst of the throne.
What does that mean?
Calvary and its merits are always there, embodied
in the person of our high priest.
And when our sins come up against us,
and we fall and we fail, the one
question is this.
Is Jesus Christ my Savior?
Is he my advocate with the Father?
Does he own me?
Do I put my arms of faith around
him so that he puts his arms of
concern around me?
Does he own me?
Does he plead for me?
If he does, no accusation of Satan, no
trouble within my own conscience, no fear, no
dread in my shit, need ever harass me,
because his advocacy is infallible.
He is the propitiation.
But it was God who set him forth
as such.
Here John tells us God has received him
as such.
And so he is eternally there, so that
all the sins of time and of all
men who own him may be dealt with,
and forgiven, and forgotten.
And the righteous anger of God appeased, and
we know him in the sweetness of his
Father.
Now there's one crucial thing to which I
can refer now before we turn to the
next part of our service.
John says we have him.
We have an advocate.
Someone was kind enough to tell me at
the end of the service last Sunday morning
of a blessing he had.
I believe it was in Germany.
Listening to someone in German repeating this, this,
this, these words, we have an advocate.
We have an advocate.
We have him.
He's ours.
Is Jesus yours today?
My friend, is Jesus Christ yours?
Is the Babe of Bethlehem within your grasp?
Have you put your faith around him?
Is he yours now?
Did he die for you, my Savior on
the cross?
Then I want to tell you, he's yours
as an advocate in the presence of God,
and he is the propitiation.
Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary.
Forgive him, O forgive thy cry, nor let
the ransomed sinner die.
His presence is the plea.
If he's not yours, I bid you make
him yours this morning.
If he is yours, I bid you in
his name.
Look as the prophet Micah did of old
into the face of your enemies, whoever they
be, and say, Rejoice not over me, O
my enemy.
When I fall, I shall rise.
When I sit in darkness, the Lord will
be a light unto me.
My Savior is alive forevermore, and he intercedes
for me.
I can need nothing more.
There is nothing greater.
If he pleads for me, I can need
nothing beyond his capacity to kill.
As we come to his table then, and
may the Lord give us a deep sense
of gratitude.
Oh, how full of thanksgiving we should be
today.
Oh, how full of praise we should be.
What a worshipping people we should be.
If we have tasted and seen and known
the goodness and the grace of God in
these things, only begun to do so, then
our voices should soar with the angelic host
and above them, with all the saints of
the ages unto him who loved us, and
has loosed us, washed us from our sins
by his blood, and has made us kings
and priests unto God and his Father.
To him be glory and dominion forever and
ever.
So let it be in our hearts to
his glory.
Just a moment's prayer.
Father, pacify every troubled conscience by
giving penitence and the grace to plead the
merits of the name of Christ and the
virtues of his blood.
Pacify every fear in every heart.
No, let us go dancing out into the
world, reminding ourselves that there in thy holy
presence we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous.
And he is, till the very end of
time, the propitiation for our sin.
We ask it in his name.