When Christians Sin, Jesus Is Our Advocate
Here is one of the trickiest questions in the Christian life: how do Christians handle their ongoing sin?
Conservative evangelicals often have two big reactions to sin. Firstly, some Christians react to their sin in depressive terms. They stumble, and then cascade into shame, grief, and even despair. In spiritual terms, they lacerate themselves like the medieval monks with their flesh-tearing whips. Desiring in genuine terms to honor God after failing, they believe that they are supposed to descend into the pit of misery over sin, stay there for a long time, and live in a kind of mourning state. This they do until the fugue gradually dissipates, like fog in a spring morning. Life is a cycle of sin, then despair, then sin, then despair, repeating ad infinitum.
Other Christians respond to sin in transactional terms. They do something genuinely bad, and then they feel guilty. Their response is to ratchet up good works, acts of service, Bible reading, church attendance, and all the rest. Spiritual deeds that may be needful and good end up being something more than just living worship; they become living penitence that atones for evil. This system is quite similar to acts of satisfaction as found in the Catholic religion. Life is a cycle of sin, then works of penitence, then sin, then penitence, repeating ad infinitum.
It is right to feel deep sorrow over our sin. We should—always! God uses shame in appropriate doses (sometimes weighty ones) to wake us up and turn us back to himself. So too is it right to seek to honor God through a life of devoted, even dogged, service. But both of these approaches suffer from a common failing, and a big one at that.
Here is the shared failing: neither one has Christ at the center. Instead, man is at the center. To be more precise, we are the center. Our actions have center stage, and Christ is reduced to a bit player. He is a member of the cast, but he barely has a speaking part. He says very little, in truth, and only appears on stage for fleeting moments in the drama of our life. The shocking reality is this: in our spiritual practice, sin has the major role, really.
This is not a small imbalance. It is a big one. This is a consequential problem indeed. It leads to either despair or legalism. But here is some great news: the Scripture gives us a better approach to our sin. It is one that is firmly anchored in the finished work and ongoing intercession of Christ. To use my going metaphor, Jesus is the lead actor in the grand drama of our existence. He looms largest, not us, nor our sin.
Our life matters greatly to God; we all have our meaningful part to play in God’s unfolding story. But as the alpha and the omega, Jesus has center stage, and no one else comes close to his role. This is not my theological gloss on the matter; this is the express witness of 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.
Many Christians, I sense, know of this passage, but few of them put it front and center in their daily battle with the flesh. In what follows, I am going to list five glorious truths in brief form that this passage offers you and me as Christians. (Also, please note this very recent podcast episode on this very theme. I encourage you to subscribe to Grace & Truth—my podcast—on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple if you are able and so inclined.)
Five Truths About Christ Our Advocate
First, we want to avoid sin. That’s the whole point of this short section from John. He wrote to his beloved subjects—calling them “little children” (1)—so that “you may not sin.” This shows us that killing sin, or avoiding sin, is of great importance for believers. We are not indifferent to sin; we do not sin that grace may abound (Romans 6:1). Instead, we work against our sin, fighting it, and strategizing against it. This is not an optional upgrade to the normal Christian life; this is the Christian life.
Second, we all do sin. It’s right to hate sin and not want to sin. What a good instinct! Truly, such an inclination comes from the Spirit. But here’s the deal: John helps us see that we do sin. He puts it this way: “if anyone does sin” (1). This isn’t some super-unusual bug in the system. This is what happens to you and me every day we live.
We sin by intentional acts (sins of commission, they’re often called). We sin by simply not worshipping God with our whole being every minute we live (sins of omission, they’re often called). Yet sad as this is, the Bible does not plunge us into an existential crisis over this situation. The Bible does not lead us into a basement dungeon when we sin, lock the door, and offer no hope to us. In God’s Word, sin is not treated casually; it is, however, handled honestly.
Speaking in love, I fear that a good number of conservative evangelicals and Reformed folks falter here. They do not confess formal belief in their sinlessness, of course. They do, however, act as if they (or the people around them) should be functionally perfect, or pretty close. But I cannot say this enough: this is not an honest or biblically sound approach. John’s handling of sin is way better, frankly.
Third, when we sin, we are not our advocate. Here is where the plot shifts, and gloriously so. When we wrong God, it turns out that we are not the ones who plead our case before the Father. It is not our shame that we offer to God as an offering to atone for sin (though it is right to feel appropriate doses of shame over sin). It is not our good works that we offer to God as the acts of penitence to balance out our sin (though it is right and good and necessary to obey God).
From the quill of John, mark this, believer: you are not your advocate with the Father (1). This is true of atonement firstly. God does not expect you to atone for your sin. God does not ask you to atone for your sin. God knows you cannot atone for your sin. God knows you never will atone for your sin; you will never, even in just one single instance, clear your soul of wrongdoing.
This is true of advocacy secondly. You cannot advocate for yourself when you sin. You do not have standing in the courtroom of God. You have no credentials that will allow you to argue your case. As a sinful creature, you do not have the ability to enter the presence of Almighty God; left to your own merits, you could never enter the throneroom of the Most High God. God does not ask you to enter his dwelling-place, and God does not receive you as an equal in his place of justice.
Fourth, when we sin, Jesus is our advocate. The preceding truth was a bit of bad news for you and me, admittedly. Here is glorious good news for us: Jesus can enter the Father’s presence. Jesus is the one the Father sent to be the “propitiation” or satisfaction for our transgressions (2). As noted, the Father didn’t send you to the cross, nor did the Father send me. Nor has the Father asked us to be our own advocate. This is Jesus’ role, and Jesus’ role alone.
This has great cash value for our ordinary struggles. When you sin, believer, don’t turn inward. Don’t lock yourself in the dungeon for four days, gloomy and despairing, unable—and unwilling—to function. You will feel real and deep sorrow as you come to terms with your failings. But then, like a kite sent rocketing into the sky by a sudden blast of wind, you must look to Christ. You must fix your eyes on him.
You must see that he is there with you in your just shame and just guilt. He is not just sitting there beside you, though. He is an active Savior. He is an interceding Lord. He is a compassionate Advocate. He is an effectual Mediator. He is a willing friend. He will not forget your cause, leaving you in the basement like Joseph. No, he knows your name. He loves to take up your plight. This is not an incovenience to Jesus; he is not checking his Apple watch as you draw near to him, tears flowing like rivers on your face, agony clutching your heart in an iron grip.
All that comes to sweet relief in the presence of the “gentle and lowly” Jesus (Matthew 11:29). Jesus does not in any way affirm your sin, but he lived the life you could not live so that you would not have to do so, and Jesus has died the atoning death you could not die to secure your forgiveness. This mattered in your initial conversion, absolutely. But here is a second remarkable truth: this matters now.
Jesus died to plead your case now. He is not a Savior sufficient only for the initial moment of saving faith; he is the Savior sufficient for this moment. He finds great joy in pleading your case to the Father; it is quite literally what he came to earth to do. Jesus is the one who—in never-breaking love—intercedes for us with the Father. Jesus, unlike us, is fitted for this role.
Jesus, you must remember, is the God-man. Jesus is the warrior-savior. Jesus is the greater David. Jesus is the great high priest. Jesus is the slain lamb. Jesus is the Father’s beloved Son. Jesus is our elder brother, strong and attentive, mighty in kindness, the watchman on the wall who keeps the night shift as the storm rages all around him so that we can sleep soundly in our beds. Jesus is our peace; Jesus is our hope; Jesus is our continual Sabbath rest. There is no end to the goodness and mercy of Jesus.
For these reasons and many more, when you sin, Christian: don’t look to yourself. Look to Jesus.
Fifth, Jesus is our advocate through our loving Father’s appointment. We must be very careful here. If we are not watching ourselves, we might think that Jesus is loving, yes, but the Father is wrathful toward his wayward people. We might wrongly conclude that the Father has appointed Christ to be our advocate so that the Father can have his Son talk the Father—foaming with wrath and blustering in rage—off the ledge. This is deeply wrong, though it is a common vision of the Father.
God the Father is magnificent in his love and kindness toward his chosen. We only have Jesus as our perfect mediator and intercessor because of the Father’s will, plan, and commissioning (Ephesians 1:3-14). This explodes the common falsehood that the Father is a raging God who loves nothing more than attacking his wayward children. That is completely wrong, and I do not write that lightly.
It is wrong from biblical start to biblical finish. All the way back in Exodus 34, Yahweh presented himself not as quick to anger, but slow to anger (v. 6). Instead of delighting to pour out vindictive justice on his straying people, Yahweh delighted to show them steadfast love (7). Even as Israel left their deliverer, choosing paganism over the pleasures of God, the Lord said this to his exilic people: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jeremiah 31:3).
God will definitively judge the wicked and unrepentant. This the Bible teaches from cover to cover, and strikingly so. Yet we cannot miss that the dominant message of the Scripture is the love of God. This is true of all three Trinitarian persons. God the Father has acted in love to give us Christ; God the Son has acted in love to die for us; God the Spirit acts in love to minister to us on a minute-by-minute basis. We are loved by the three-in-one God; we could not be loved anymore than we are, in sum.
Our sins grieve God (Ephesians 4:30). We must fight our sin and strive in the power of grace to be holy. No one will see God without holiness (Hebrews 12:14). Yet our heavenly Father does not hate us when we sin. This is a common failing of conservative evangelical theology and spirituality. Our heavenly Father has lovingly summoned Christ to advocate for us—to plead his blood afresh—when we disobey him.
You could say it this way: all the provision we need has been given us by the one we have offended.
Conclusion
We all sin, sadly. In doing so, we are reminded that we are not yet home. We seek the heavenly city; here we have no lasting city (Hebrews 13:12-14). We long to be rid of our sin; here we sin on a daily basis. We yearn to be clean forevermore; here we must continually claim the righteous life and cleansing blood of Christ. What we could not do, Jesus did, and thereby made a way for us to obey God in spirit and in truth. It is not our performance in the grand drama that has center stage; it is the work of Christ that looms largest.
In the simplest terms, when we sin, we must run to Jesus. There is nowhere else to go; there is no one else who can plead their perfect atonement for our iniquities. Mary cannot intercede for us; we cannot intercede for ourselves; no priest or pastor can intercede for us. But here is the good news, friend: the Son of God loves to advocate for us, and God the Father is glad to receive his pleas on our behalf.
In thankfulness and the relief of salvation, we must remember John’s words. We must cling to them every day we live, for they are good and true: if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
His name? Jesus Christ the righteous.