1-3 John - 1st John 2:1-2 Our Advocate with the Father
1 John 2:1-2 · Roger Henderson · Feb 20, 2011
1, 2 & 3 John, No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49262264622

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, well today we're going to start in Chapter 2. I'd like to actually go back and start reading in verse 5 of Chapter 1. Can I get a volunteer to be willing to read, starting in verse 5 of Chapter 1, read through Chapter 2, verse 2. This is the message we have heard from Him and announced to you that God is light. And in him there is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light and he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Thanks, Winnie.

OK, so as you notice when he read in Chapter 1, there's kind of a change. In Chapter 1 there, we have these series of if statements. If we say this, we say that. And then as we move to Chapter 2, it kind of changes. He changes his tone, John. He changes his tone here, and he says, my little children. He starts talking to the people. more intimately and more compassionately.

So it seems like that the first part is sort of a rhetoric, if you will, if you do this, if you do that, and he basically says, here's what this consequence is. If you say we have fellowship but walk in darkness, you lie and do not practice the truth. So for each of those rhetorical statements, he has a response to that.

But then it gets into chapter two, The focus in chapter 2 basically is that he doesn't want believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to sin. That's the bottom line. He doesn't want you to sin. So he's going to point out to you what Christ has done for you in verses 1 and 2.

But I see a change here, and we'll see more of that as we get into it, that he kind of changes from this if we say that, or maybe you're saying, well, what about this, and what about that? And also, you notice it changes from, he has we, he says, if we say, and then he says, I am writing. So he changes to even more personal.

I am writing this for a purpose, and we're going to see what happens with that. So, what I did in the handout, you'll notice, I have the verses we're going to cover, and then I actually have a little review section here on salvation. I thought it would be appropriate that we looked at this just for a little bit, and hopefully this is old information, but it never hurts to look at it again if we have questions, because we're going to see, as we go through here, we're going to see John talking about different aspects of salvation. And it's important to kind of in your mind understand what he's saying here.

So let's just look at this. So if you look through scripture, you'll see there's actually a past aspect of salvation, a present aspect of salvation, and a future aspect of salvation. And before you actually look at the charts, can anybody tell me the distinction between these three? just from what you've been taught in the past. What do you think is the difference between the past tense of salvation, the present tense, and the future tense?

What comes to mind? Or is this something that you haven't thought too much about? I think it's important that when you look at a verse of scripture, you say, well, is this addressing what has already occurred? For example, Christ died for my sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day. Is that a past, present, or future aspect of salvation? It's past.

All right. OK. Easy one. OK. It says, let's see. We're not giving them all away here. What's a future one? What's a future one? Will be. What's that? Will be. We'll be like him. We'll see him as he is, right? We'll be one with our Savior. Salvation is an all-encompassing work by God. And then, how about a present tense of salvation? That's probably the toughest. What's that?

Okay, okay, alright. And there's more details there. Okay, good. So I'm going to go through, actually I'm going to cover past, future, and come back to present. Because present is, we're in the present, right? Roger, and also adding to the past, if we consider Abraham's, the law at that time was past, was salvation. Okay, well then that's part of it. If you think about and focus on the church age, and there was a salvation for Israel, there's no doubt about that. We're going to do past, future, and present. Just because I want to focus on the present. We're in the present, we want to know what's happening in the present. What occurred in the past?

Salvation from the penalty of sin. You know, there's like the P words, you know, people like to do these things where they have the same words starting every, you know, if you listen to preachers on the radio, everybody has to start with the same letter. Anyway, so I don't know. And the penalty of salvation, okay, refers to salvation as being wholly passed. I want to have verses to kind of back these up. It's complete unchanging for the one who has believed. We're not concerned if it says Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. That's a completed action. Christ is not going to undie. That's not going to be undone. It's unchangeable.

So it's good to see we were saved from what to what? From eternal death. to eternal life, right? We were dead in trespasses and sins, and now we're alive to God. And eternal life starts when? When we believe. So you guys are all in eternal life right now. You didn't know it, but you're already in eternal life. You're going to say, well, this eternal life doesn't seem too good right here right now. Maybe it's a little bumpy and rocky, and we have problems.

The Lord told us it would be that way, though. Anyway. OK. Three verses here. For by grace, you have been saved. If you look at the verb tense, have been, you have been saved. Not you will be saved, you have been saved. He who believes has eternal life, has as a present possession, like I told you, eternal life starts now, the moment you believe, has passed out of death into life. And lastly, I kind of cut some of the parts out of the verse.

"...shall never perish, no one shall snatch me out of his hands." That's Christ speaking. Christ says a person who is saved cannot be removed from Christ's hands. I know some people teach that you can lose your salvation, but Scripture doesn't teach that. I mean, you have to do some fancy footwork to do that, in my mind. You can find some verses that you might question, but when Christ says, "...shall never snatch me out of my hand."

Go ahead, Pat. When you say it has passed in your Greek tense, is that a... completed, not going to go back, that type of thing. Actually, many times that will be expressed in what they call the Aorist tense, a past point fact, Christ died for my sins according to the Scriptures. Many times, if you look in the Greek and you can find the tense of that verb, you'll see what's called the Aorist, which is what's considered a past point fact, at a point in time, Christ died for our sins. So that's how that's expressed. I don't have the tense of the verb in the Ephesians passage, would think most likely it is, and I didn't actually do that to create this chart.

The other issue that comes up, and I think of Catholics, is you're forgiven for your past sins, but today's sins are a different issue because it's when the sin was committed. So when you're saved, you got saved from your previous sins, and then some may argue, well, the washing of the feet is, you know, And the scripture says, well, your body's clean, but your feet get dirty. Yeah, actually, we talked about that verse last week. I take that to be a different, I take that, we're back to our favorite topic of fellowship, which is what 1 John's all about. That washing the feet is for fellowship, not for, you know.

He says he's, we've been saved through faith, and we're actually going to see in our verses today that he, that how many sins did he pay for? I mean, you know, was it a few or was it all? And we see it in the mid-verses talking about paying for all our sins, past, present, and future. Yeah, because it gets back into the idea that you have to ask for forgiveness for that sin to be forgiven. And again, it brings up the Catholic idea. And that's verse 2. And the thing is, why do we need to confess for sins he's already paid for?

It seems inconsistent with that, but actually for fellowship it's consistent. Based on that premise, doesn't it seem like when you originally are saved, you'd have a really long list? Lord, I got another two pages to go. That's good. Just a second. Sure. Sure. On this one. We're talking about now. I got an old school. That's OK. I like I like old school school said about this advocacy. which is Jesus Christ. Can I have you hold that thought? We're going to talk about the Abbasid. on Bud all the time. He picks on me, so we have fun. Okay, so that's the past tense, or the past access aspect, why I have a hard time with that word, of salvation.

So let's look at the, I actually had Romans 8.1, there's now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And that would speak of the completeness, right? If there was a sin left over, Pat, right? Then you could be condemned for it, right? And he says, if you're in Christ, there's no condemnation for you, because Christ has taken it all.

Okay, future tense. So what occurred here, or what will occur here? Salvation, another P word, from the presence of sin, saved him to full conformity to Christ, yet to be revealed in the last time. So this hasn't happened yet, right? We haven't gone to be with our Savior.

From what to what? From the presence of the sin nature, to the absence of the sin nature. So that's really important. Remember last week we had the tree, we had the root and the fruit, right? If we're saved from the sin nature which is represented by that root there, we won't be producing any more fruit, right? Which is sins, right? So we will no longer have a sin nature. We'll get to this verse here in a month or so. It has not yet appeared, but we shall be.

When He appears, we shall be like Him. Protected for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last times. We will perfect it through the good works until the day of Christ Jesus. The day of Christ Jesus is a time period in scripture. with culminating when Christ comes again.

Okay, presence. So what's happening right now in the life of a believer? Okay, so another key word, power. We had from the peldi, we had from the presence, and now from the power. So God's desire is that we live a Christian life free from the reigning power of sin. And he's taken several steps to accomplish that.

We are to walk by faith, reckoning ourselves dead to sin. Not that sin is dead, but that we're separated from sin. Remember in Scripture, death means separation. We've been separated from our sinful nature. It's not dead, it's alive, but we've been separated from it. So from what to what? From the power of the sinful nature to being alive to God. And Romans 6 has just a lot to say about this topic. It says, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with.

And that actually isn't probably the best translation, because it seems like it's poof, it's gone. But a better translation is to render inoperative, or put in idle, take offline. You can still put it in gear if you're an old manual transmission guy. You know, you put it in neutral and you can pump the accelerator all you want. It's not going to go anywhere. So you can put the sin nature into action, but you have a choice. You can walk with the Lord and not put that sin nature in gear, so to speak.

And then Romans 6.11, even so consider yourselves to be dead. Once again, sin is not dead. Separated to sin, to the sin nature, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

And these collection of truths are called collectively the identification truths. And they have a lot to say about the present aspect of salvation. And this is a whole class unto itself. And we do this class occasionally. So anyway, so hopefully that's going to help as we get into these verses. Donna, go ahead.

Well, and Roger, wouldn't you say that these three tenses of salvation have to do with conditional rather than positional? Well I would say that obviously the past aspect of salvation, I mean for each believer it occurred conditionally at a point in time, right? But it's a true, I mean the fact that Christ died and that we're in him is a positional truth, right? So I guess there's a conditional aspect and a positional aspect maybe of think about this a little bit well actually in the future tense right condition and position they're going to be one in the same so for that one for the future one it's one in the same for the past and the present there's both aspects I think of positional and conditional and positional remember is who we are in Christ. Sometimes we picture that as being seen with Christ in the heavenly. Scripture talks about all these truths about us with Christ. And then the conditional part is how do we live out those truths in this world? How do we... So I think... Go ahead.

Because there's some aspects of, you know, once you believe, sin, you're in Christ. Exactly. So it's kind of a done deal. It is, it is, absolutely. From that aspect. Right. And actually in the present tense we're talking about here, that's exactly how the Lord wants you to see. He wants you to see yourself with Him, see you with Christ in the heavenlies, and operate from that viewpoint. So both position and condition are in play there. So actually, we could do a subset. That's actually a good thought for a future chart maybe. You could do a conditional positional aspect of this. That would be good.

Thank you. So now, we're going to start into the verse here. My full children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. So right off the bat, he said, I'm writing this so you may not sin. That's his goal. And we're going to see as we go through here, we're going to elaborate. We're going to take each of this like three chunks here. Little children. So little children is this word, technon in the Greek.

It's a term of affection by a teacher to his disciples under circumstances requiring tender appeal. And it's used, you know, John is a primary, he uses this, it actually is related to this word to give birth. And some have rendered it, which I think is translated, little born ones. You could say, my little born ones. And you think about talking about little children, little babies. you know, the tender affection you have for a young child, especially your own, or your grandkids.

That's the greatest thing. When Bonnie gave birth to our first son, it's just like, wow, I mean, it just seems like a miracle. And this is sort of, you know, John has that same kind of, my little children, he's just so excited about them that they know Christ.

And he wants to tell them about the sin issue. And so he's appealing to them. So I think it's instructive here if you look at There's a bunch of other verses that use the same phraseology. So let's just look at a few of those. And there's actually one in Galatians. Actually, Paul uses it one time. But John is a primary person that uses this little phrase, little children. So let's look here at chapter 2. Let's look at verse 228. And it says, and now little children, same word here. Abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from him in shame at his coming. So, all these appeals, my little children.

Then 3.7, 1 John 3.7 says, little children, let no one deceive you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. We're going to cover all these down the road. There's more in 1 John, but let's go back to the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John chapter 13. Can someone read 13.33 for us?

Go ahead. I am with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to you, Jews, now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. Right. So basically Christ was talking about his departure, and he's talking to, and he calls them little children. He's concerned about them. They're his spiritual children, if you will. And then Paul actually uses this. Let's look in Galatians. So this is the total usage of this word and script in the New Testament. That's the number of times it appears. We didn't read them all, but Galatians chapter 4 and verse 19. Can someone read that for us?

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. Yeah, I always think this is just a really tender verse. I mean, it's like he's there, just like I did Lamaze with my wife, and I was there supposedly coaching her. It reminds me of how bad this is. You're the coach, you have the easy job.

So he says, you know, my children, with whom I again in labor until Christ is formed in you. So this term, my children, or my little children, is a very endearing term that he uses in this context here. Okay, so that's the first part of that verse. So let's go on to the next part. I am writing these things to you.

You know, it's good, I mean, this is just, you know, when you look at scripture, It's just really helpful. Scripture explains Scripture. And it's just so helpful. And there's many aids out there to help you to find the same phrases. So you can look through. You can search by words or by phrases in most cases. So when I go prepare for a lesson, I just look through it. So this is not rocket science. I look through and I try to find the same phraseology and say, can I learn something from the same phraseology in another passage of Scripture that will shed light on this passage?

So he's saying, here, I'm writing these things to you. It turns out that John uses this ten times in 1 John, the same phrase, I am writing these things to you, approximately. Now, in chapter 1, he says, this is where we kind of change, we write, whereas in chapter 2 he says, I am writing to you little children, to fathers, I am not writing to you, I have written to you, and we'll look at some of these, but it depends upon the context. Sometimes you say, I'm writing to you, this for a certain purpose. I'm writing to the fathers, which are, and John typically means those who are older in the faith, who are more mature Christians, so to speak, whereas little children may be just young believers. It seems like that's the kind of, and we'll see that idea later on. And sometimes he says, I'm not writing to you for this purpose, I'm writing to you for that purpose. Or I've written to you because I don't want bad things to happen, or there's some danger that might occur. So let's look at a few of these.

1 John chapter 2 again. Could someone read verses 7 and 8 in chapter 2 of 1 John? Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which we had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which he hath heard, and from the beginning. Again a new commandment is brought unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shone. So here actually he basically says I'm not writing a new commandment and then he says I am writing a new commandment.

So it seems like we'll have fun with that first. First John is actually one of the most straight forward. He just says things black and white. He says A plus B equals C. And he just says it, and you think, man, it seems there's no wiggle room in these verses. You look at that and think, man, that seems, how are we ever going to interpret some of those things? But I think you can. I honestly think you can interpret this, and we can get the right answer. So some of these are challenging.

But he's writing all these wonderful things to us. How about some other verses? How about look down at 13 and 14? Because I'm going to read 13 and 14 for us in chapter 2. I write unto you fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you little children, because ye have known the father. So you see, he's writing to different believers in terms of fathers, children, And so on.

So he tells you who he's writing to. And the last one, let's look at chapter 5. I'll read this one. Chapter 5, 1 John 5, verse 13. He says, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. in order that you may know that you have eternal life.

That was one that's just, that's one that's probably December, not exactly, probably maybe October, something like that. But anyway, here's a verse he writes, I want you to know that you have eternal life. Isn't that wonderful? He doesn't want you to say, I got eternal life, I don't know how it happened, it's the one day I was walking down the street and I got eternal life, you know. He wants you to know how you have eternal life. I'm being a little silly. God wants you to know what you have and understand it. And that's one of those neat verses that we'll get a chance to study down the road here in a little bit.

So he writes for a variety of reasons. But in this case, he's writing for, that's the next part of the verse, so that you may not sin, which is a pretty important reason for writing, right? If you had to choose, as a believer in Christ, you don't want to sin. That's the bottom line. But we do sin. So he wants to talk about that. So that introduces what they call a purpose clause.

And you may not sin. It might be better translated, you may not commit an act of sin. And it seems like it's focused more on, it's not like you're, and verb tenses here are kind of helpful. If it was like in the present tense, it would be like, you're continually sinning, you're in continual sinning. This is talking more about an act of sin. You may have sinned, and he's concerned about each and every sin. So he says, you may not commit an act of sin. More focused on a sin by sin, and it's an act of sin.

So this is God's intent in our Christian life. And there's several verses that talk about this. In Scripture, you know, it's Scripture's desire and it's God's desire through Scripture that we should not sin. So let's look at Romans. Sure, go ahead. It seems to me, I mean, he says his purpose is that he's writing this whole passage. He's talking all about sin and all the bad things we've committed and how to get out of it.

But what in this passage is is keeping us not from sinning. He hasn't gotten to the rest of it. There's another part to this verse. Well, yeah, but it's still... I don't know. If you start back in chapter 1, right? He had all this dialogue. If we say this, if we say that. He also had a positive one there. He said, if we say the same thing that God says about our sin, He forgives us our sin? Right, but that's not the same as He may not sin. It seems like this whole passage is focusing on when you do sin, what do you do about it?

Right. This is preemptive, right? He wants you to be ahead of the game. This is what I was talking about last week. Do we want to already have sinned and always play and catch up? Is that what we want to be in our Christian life? Or do we want to be before the curve, or ahead of the game, saying, OK, do I really want to go there? Do I really want to go down that path?

I have a favorite example. We all relate to this. I'm driving down the road, and somebody does something crazy. At that moment in time, I have a choice. I can do something crazy. Or I can say, it's OK, Lord. He can be crazy, but I'm not going to go there. And that's a situation we find ourselves multiplied hundreds of times.

So it's Marilyn talking about preventing. I don't see what he's saying in here that will help us. It's coming in the greater context of the chapter. This is like the intro statement, like when Roger starts the lesson, he might start with a couple sentences, but the full revelation of what he means.

So I have to be patient. Actually Marilyn, in my mind, I think the next part of this verse, the rest of this verse, and the next one, should, and their positional truths, and this is why it's important, should be a foundation for our approach to preventing sin in our life. I'm just looking at the rest of the verse and it talks about if anybody does sin. I'll be patient.

Well, why isn't that kind of a verification? The fact that Adam is still within our nature and it's more of a warning sign. But the advocacy there remedies that. Well, and he's going to show us, this is what God has done about the situation. He hasn't, we may have said, well, okay, boy, since you're a serious problem, good luck guys, you know. Tell me how it turns out, you know. No, he's proactive. Okay, so go ahead. Just one other thing that might help here, I don't know if it will. You've got it right there.

This is God's intent for a Christian mind. And he's right, he's showing us My little children, I'm telling you this so that you will stay away from sin. He's giving us an indication of God's perspective of us. It is possible for us to stay away from sin. Exactly.

And it's going to be, as Don pointed out, this is where position and condition are pretty important. It's going to be us knowing something about who we are. If we don't know who we are, then we're going to have a difficult time judging ourselves rightly and acting in this walk, doing our Christian walk. We're going to have a hard time staying away from sin because we're going to view ourselves differently. If we see who we are in Christ, that's going to give us a tremendous advantage in human terms. That piece of knowledge, knowledge is power, that piece of knowledge is going to be very beneficial and that's what he wants us to know, to know these things.

So let's just look at Romans 6.12. He doesn't want us to sin. And he's going to basically say it in a little bit different way.

Romans 6.12. And he says, Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lust.

And that's just not a suggestion. That's actually, I believe, an imperative as a command. So how do we do that? Actually, if you look back in verse 11, it's a pretty good key. Look back in verse 11 in Romans 6. It says, Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So let me ask, I'll kind of flip this around. How would that help us? How would that help us live the Christian life and not sin?

Isn't it? Believing that we are because of his work, obviously, and based on his grace. Right. Right. It's the Holy Spirit actually enabling that. Right. But we, by faith, believe it. Right. So, once again, it says that, you know, that's a great one. It says we're to consider or reckon, we're to to account, it's an accounting term, to account as true, remember death of separation, that we're separated from sin. If I told you that, let's see.

Okay, imagine you're in Saddam Hussein's control or whatever. And what if, I can write an example really good. Well, what I'm trying to say here is that Death is separation, right? If Saddam Hussein, if you're in his control, if he dies and he has no henchmen, he can't control you anymore.

So what this is saying in Romans 6-11 is that you're separated from that source of sin. You've been separated from that source of sin. That's the piece of information you need to know to live a life without sin. That I've been separated from that. I don't have to be, I'm not a slave to sin anymore, right? So that's the piece of information you need to know not to sin.

I'm just thinking that it seems like all this has to do with my reckoning in regard to which reckoning am I focusing on the most? Am I reckoning the most of the time on the fact that I'm dead to sin and therefore I'm occupied? with the things that I'm tempted to do or I wish I could do or I have opportunity to do overt and mental and otherwise type sins. But if I'm reckoning more on who I am in Christ and the fact that I am truly alive to God now.

Right, that's a good point. And I don't do it well. I don't reckon they're very well. And it's interesting that's in the same verse, right? I mean, he gives the whole package there. It's a package deal, right? I'm dead to sin. I'm separated from sin. But I move on. I don't stay there. Here comes a sin. Dead to that one. Dead to that one. We're not checking those off. I said I was dead to 400 sins today. Wow. Wonderful. No? I'm alive to God. I can walk in the light. He is in the light. That's an excellent point. Excellent point.

Okay, all right So let's let's move on here because I want to I want to get to the parts, you know These are corollary verses that point out God's intent the Christian not to sin, but let's see in the context What information does John want us to to remember?

He wants us to remember some things and this is gonna we're going to get to what's favorite one of his favorite topics here There's some things he wants to remember our Savior what he's done for us Okay Okay, and if anyone sins, so this is what he said here. We have another case where this is a it's a pot It's a probability right? It's a third they call third-class condition. It's it's probable He doesn't want you to sin, but it's probably you will sin and if anyone sins It's something he wants you with things. He wants you to remember now. I kind of want you to contrast that with back in in first John 8 through 10, you know, he we were he was saying it was this rhetoric and if I say this, if I say that, where he's kind of shifted from that, that kind of rhetoric to say, if anyone sins, here's the plan. And I want you to remember this. That's where he's going, that I see from this.

We have an advocate. An advocate is this Hera Kletos. It's literally, it's one who's called alongside It refers to any kind of legal advisor, pleader, a proxy, an advocate, who comes forward on behalf as representative of another. But what's really interesting here is, so this says that we have an advocate, and we see it from the top right, and it's going to be an advocate, and he's with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. It's interesting. This advocate, that little word with, is this word pros in the Greek and it's toward and this is when I remember how I was like how we're sitting here I think about this word it's face-to-face so so we have an advocate where's this advocate at right he's face-to-face with the father so if you can imagine this picture here's our Savior face-to-face saying Lord here's here's my here's my child And he's, you know, we don't know what the dialogue is.

There are glimpses in scripture where Christ prayed for people. We don't know what that dialogue is. But he is our advocate. He's face to face with the Father. And I think that's just such a beautiful, that little word with, which is pros, is a face to face with the Father. And also what's even more neat, And once again, not rocket science guys. You get out your concordance and you say, advocate. Where does advocate show up? And you'll find out this is the only place in scripture it's translated this way. Can anyone tell me how it's translated in the Gospel of John? I have them all down. Don't look quite yet. Don't look. Come on man, you can't look. So how is it translated in the Gospel of John? What are you thinking? Any thoughts?

Comforter. Good, okay. Helper. Helper, right. Helper, comforter. Who's it referring to there? Holy Spirit. Exactly. So think about this. We haven't looked at those verses yet, but this para-Platos is referred to as our Savior. The Holy Spirit is also the same functionality. He does the same thing.

So we have a double whammy, right? We got our Savior face-to-face with the Father and we have the Holy Spirit as our helper, as our comforter. Isn't that going to help you in terms of sins you might go down that path? Is he going to bring to your room? I think it fits in wonderfully. That's a tremendous advantage. We have our legal counsel there saying, I paid for it.

And we have the Holy Spirit saying, do you really want to do that? I don't know. So anyway, I hope I'm not getting too creative. Roger, can I interrupt with this? Sure, sure. Go ahead, bud. This is an old beat-up Schofield. That's why Mr. Schofield made remarks about that very point. And this is what a lot of us come to believe. Here's what it says here.

It says, Advocacy is that work of Jesus Christ for sinning saints which he carries on with the Father whereby Because of the eternal efficacy of his own sacrifice, he restores them to fellowship. In other words, it's a done deal. You don't have to worry about your loss or your salvation. That's a function of Jesus Christ in this role. And I know some religions abuse this by confession to the Father, you know, through the priest. Make sure you do all that.

That's not what this is saying. That's talking about who and what authority Jesus Christ has and the fact that not as we are sinners themselves as being an Adam and this is our way to avoid these temptations and all these things we have. Right. That's good. That's good. But it's interesting. I think this is kind of Marilyn's dilemma.

It looks like on the surface here He didn't give me A, B, and C to do. He just said, think about what you have. Think about who you're relating to and what you have. He's telling people, think about what you have. You have an advocate with the Father. And this advocate is face-to-face with the Father. And oh, by the way, that same word is used for the Holy Spirit. And let's just read a couple of those. Actually, we're running out of time here.

Let's look at John 14.16.

It says, and this is really important, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you forever. That is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not Behold him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you So what's interesting is that word another is another of the same kind? Jesus Christ is God the Holy Spirit is God. It's another just like him another advocate that we have called the helper of the comforter so so I see this actually is like it's power-packed you get two for the price of one and Okay, let's go on. There's an and sign here, right? This is verse 1 continuing to verse 2. The thoughts continue. So we've learned one wonderful truth. We have this advocate with the Father, two-fold aspect of that.

And he himself, speaking of Christ, is a propitiation for our sins. Propitiation. Actually, what this is saying is propitiation identifies, it's actually a name for Christ. He is the propitiation. And it's this word hilasmas. It's the idea of signifies expiation, means by where sin is covered and remitted. He used the New Testament of Christ himself as the propitiation.

But what's interesting is, and there's a parallel verse in 1 John 4.10, which says basically, Christ sent his son to be the propitiation. So Christ is the propitiation. He is both the sacrifice and the high priest. And you see that if you look at down here in the verb form of this word.

In Hebrews 2.17, therefore he made him to be like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest, in thanks pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." So Christ actually has a dual function here. He's both. He's actually the sacrifice and the high priest.

And there's other places here. I want to get down to the bottom line here. Let's go on. So now it says, He is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but for those of the whole world. So we see two aspects here. For our sins, so, who's the are here? Believers, right? Okay. Believers' sins are paid for by Christ's propitiation. But believers' sins are also forgiven.

And if you look in like Ephesians 1.7, I'll just read that, it says, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. And then in Colossians it says, in whom we have," notice, we have, right? It's something we possess as a believer. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

A believer has trusted in Christ paying for our sins, okay? But then he goes on, he says, Christ's work on the cross, his propitiation was not only for our sins, Christ's work applies to all, for those of the whole world. Now this is a fact that Hal would talk about a lot, and I always like this.

Unbeliever's sins are also paid for by Christ's propitiation. But they're missing something, right? Unbeliever's sins are not forgiven until they accept Christ. So when you talk with somebody about salvation, right? Christ paid for those sins. They haven't trusted Christ. So Christ is the focus of Scripture, to believe on Him, so they can be forgiven. And some of those verses talk about the fact that they've been judged already. So there's a two-fold aspect for the believer and for the unbeliever. So Christ's propitiation on the cross covered both for all mankind. So he addresses both cases here. Well, we covered quite a bit. Any last thoughts or comments?

I was just thinking about this. If I have a loan at the bank, And you go and pay it off. But then it wouldn't need to be forgiven. I mean, forgiven because it's already paid off. I just was wondering if we can use that as a paradigm. It's basically that idea.

They aren't effective to you, right? What you're saying, if somebody pays off your loan, it's paid off whether you go there or not. Your sins are paid for, but do you accept that payment? They have the idea about a check. Let's say there's a check for If you never cash that check, you never sign the back of the check, it's not effective for you. You have that funds there, but you never make use of them. So I think it's that kind of idea. Well, you still have a sin nature to it. Exactly. So the unbeliever is still in union with the sin nature. He's not separated. A believer is separated from the sin nature.

So we can add different levels to that as well. Another thing I think is important with propitiation is to recognize that God's righteousness demands that the sin be eradicated. And that's what propitiation provides, is the eradication of that. But the forgiveness is tied in with the relationship and the fellowship. And that's the distinction here.

And that's why I think the loan analogy doesn't fit simply or without making it a very complex analogy. I know, right. It could fit if you have the idea of payment. I know Vern, she has the idea of payment. If you had a check and you never cashed the check, you never benefit by that, even though the money is yours. It has your name on it, but you never put it in your account.

So in a sense, man knows where he's at. The unbeliever knows where he's at. And some say, no, I just don't want that. I don't want that. I don't want your salvation. OK. I'm not sure we answered all the questions. Any other thoughts? We'll close here. Okay. All right.

We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Lord. Thank you that we do have an advocate face to face with you, and we have the Holy Spirit moment by moment, Lord, and we're thankful that you have paid for our sins and we've accepted it by faith. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.