Ep. 122 | 123 John Part 4: Jesus our Propitiation and Advocate
Speaker: Hunter Hoover
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Summary
123 John Part 4
Hunter discusses Jesus role in the life of a Christian both in light of their past sin being removed and the sins which they still fall into.
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Scriptures Explored: 1 John 2:1-6; John 3:16; John 14:15-16
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Music created by Chad Hoffman
Artwork created by Anthony Kuenzi
Speaker’s Bio
Hunter grew up in Montana and now serves the Church in Albany Oregon where he works as a youth and young adults pastor. He and his wife Ana stay busy with two kids. Hunter loves studying the Bible and communicating it in a way which encourages further exploration of others.
Transcript
Intro:
Hey there, welcome to Pickled Parables. This podcast is presented by Parable Ministries as a Bible teaching resource. Thank you for joining us. Pickled Parables is a podcast about taking in and living out the Bible. Here we will study, contemplate and testify to the Bible's incredible teachings and how it leads us to live better lives. To stay up to date with all things parable, follow us on Instagram at parable underscore ministries and visit our website at parableministries.com. We hope today's message finds you well.
Message:
Hi everyone, welcome back to Pickled Parables.
My name is Hunter Hoover, and I'm gonna be sharing with you today.
We're gonna be continuing in our study of John's letters, and we're gonna be beginning 1 John chapter two.
Before we do so, and before we jump into this, I wanna briefly recap what Michael shared from last episode.
I would encourage you, if you haven't heard it yet, go back and listen to Michael's episode.
He did a great job of really beginning to dive into the bulk of this letter.
In Michael's episode, he pointed out that this idea of walking in the light, and coupled with the idea that John is writing to a group of believers, as he calls them, dear children, there's this reminder that one, we ought to evaluate our Christian walk and our Christian lives, and that is good.
But he also noted that John is writing to address some possible false teaching and false doctrine that had snuck up in the church into the people that he is writing to.
Michael identified this false doctrine as possibly Gnosticism, but he also shared that it can really be condensed down into this idea that there are like super Christians, those who are more holy or have had some sort of special spiritual interaction or in the most severe or intense claims that they live without sin having been saved.
Michael shared how when we live our lives and when we live out our faith in Jesus, how our lives look and whether we are congruent with the person of Christ, that when people see us, do they see us walking as Jesus did, is more of a tell of our spiritual condition than whether or not we claim to be without sin or whether we claim to be super Christians.
It should be noted as we move into our next section that John was writing a letter.
We've said this a few times, but it serves well to remind us of this.
We have to hold this reminder in our Bible reading lives and even more so when we are listening to sermons or podcasts, such as the one you are listening to right now, that this letter would have been read and digested in one shot or setting.
It would not have been read and you read five to six verses, and then you put it down and come back 10 to 20 days later and read the next five to six.
This would have been read in one shot.
Here at Parable, we have divided up John's letters for ease of study and to make our episodes a little more manageable for listeners.
Even in our reading, when you look at your Bible, it has section headings, chapters, verses, and it can be easy for us to begin to compartmentalize parts of God's Word.
It is easy for us to divide up these letters where in their original context and setting, they were not.
We as people who study God's Word and people who read God's Word today have some work to do to keep the whole of the letter as we read one part of it.
As I noted, John has been discussing the idea of walking in the light, which Michael talked about last time.
We walk in the light as a means of being in right agreement with Jesus and being in fellowship, as he noted, with others who are also walking in the light.
It is as if as we walk along the way, we look over and we find fellow Christians walking alongside of us.
Walking in the light is also related to living out an honest and truthful reality that acknowledges our sin and allows Jesus to deal with that sin.
When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, he is faithful and just and acknowledges that faith and through his work on the cross, we are purified and cleansed of our unrighteousness before God.
John's talked about this already, and we've noted it in our study.
Maybe you hear that and you think, well, I've put my faith in Jesus, and I know I've been saved from my sin, but I still sin.
I still face these things.
Temptation still finds me.
John, in his letter, is now moving from the salvation which saves us and justifies our position before God, to salvation which continues to save us and sanctifies our lives to be more like Jesus.
If we keep with the idea that John is addressing some false teaching as well, these are going to be solid reminders for answering the question, how then do I know if I am walking in the light?
If I don't look like these super Christians and I still sin, how will I know that I'm still walking in the light?
Or, how can I rest assured that my faith is of value when others say theirs is of a higher quality?
John revels in the fact that in being made more like Jesus, Jesus doesn't leave us to our own devices.
Jesus doesn't save us and then toss us into this life and say, well, good luck, enjoy it.
Hopefully, you don't do anything too detrimental and then walk away.
We need to jump back into the letter of 1 John, Chapter 2.
As we read this week, he says, My little children, I'm writing these things to you 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.
And by this, we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments.
Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
And by this, we may know that we are in him.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Representatives play an important role in our society.
When you're listening to this, the election has ended here in the States.
I am recording this on election day.
Representatives are a big part of our government.
They speak for and lobby for the things their people care about.
Or at least they're supposed to.
In our legal system, a representative often works and speaks on our behalf before our courts.
When I was mentoring in Salem, we would have youth who would have CASAs, court-appointed state advocates.
These were people who represented a young person in all sorts of different situations, and they were identified as young people who might have trouble representing themselves.
That idea of advocacy is related to the idea of representative.
The chief difference between being a representative is that the person being represented can speak for themselves, but do not have an audience or an influence to do so.
I am capable of making my views known, but I cannot and I do not have the audience to make those views known to our federal government.
My representative is supposed to do it for me.
Being an advocate usually implies doing so on behalf of someone who is unable to advocate for themselves.
In either case, advocates or representatives, they are only as good as the extent to which they will advocate for others.
As John moves further into discussing living the Christian life and how we are not alone in living it, John again calls his audience dear children.
We ought not read this as condescending.
As Michael said in his episode, it's more of a reminder that John is writing to fellow Christians, and he's likely writing to a group of Christians that he cares deeply about.
It's a term of endearment used by John toward his audience.
As he is transitioning to address a point of tension in what he has said, it's likely he's trying to encourage his audience forward.
John said, If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us those sins, and to cleanse us from unrighteousness.
Being cleansed from unrighteousness does not mean we have lost the ability to sin.
We're still human.
We still live in a fallen world plagued by sin.
We can still fall into temptation.
But if we are made righteous yet still sin, how do we proceed in our walking in the light?
John's answer is to introduce Jesus as our advocate.
John does want us not to sin, and so does God.
But John and God deal in reality.
And as a result, John says, if you sin, know this, we have an advocate with the Father.
John wastes no time in telling us who that advocate is, and why he is sufficient to be our advocate before God.
That advocate is Jesus Christ, and he is called the Righteous One.
When we put our faith in Jesus, God forgives us.
God declares us unrighteous.
When we, having been forgiven, and having been declared righteous before God, do unrighteousness, God's standard doesn't change toward us.
He doesn't look at us and say, well, I'm going to change my standard of righteousness.
I'm going to be lenient on my standard of justice here.
No.
That sin is still wrong.
It still violates God's law.
But in faith, Jesus is our advocate before God.
Jesus doesn't just save us, giving us our position before God.
He actively and continually advocates our position before Him.
Jesus is able to do so.
And we are not, because as John highlights, Jesus is the righteous one.
If we jump back to the previous section in Michael's episode, where John says that those who claim to be without sin are liars, we can begin to see some of that theology play out here.
I believe, and I hope I'm not reading too much into it, but I believe John might even have a tongue in cheek to those who would claim to be without sin, to say, okay, you're without sin, be your own advocate before the Father.
Only a righteous one can do that.
Jesus is able to be our advocate, and he is our only hope for advocacy, because we all still sin.
It's an essential function and results of our faith.
John is doing a cool thing with the term advocate here as well.
The Greek term advocate or paraclete or paracletos is used only by John.
Once it is used here in John's letters referring to Jesus, and the other four times it is used in John's gospel to refer to the Holy Spirit's advocacy in our lives.
Most famously, John comments about the Holy Spirit's advocacy where Jesus tells us in John 16 verse 7.
He says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
It is to your advantage I go away.
For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
John 14 6 is really the first time we hear about this advocate, but it helps us build out this idea of who this helper is.
John 14 verse 16 tells us, I will ask, this is Jesus speaking, he says, I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever.
The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.
You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
The Holy Spirit is the other person that is referred to when John brings up the idea of advocacy.
The Spirit dwells with us forever.
He teaches us the things of God and reminds us of the words of Jesus.
He bears witness to us and reminds us of who Jesus is.
When we put our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is the advocate within us to God the Father.
And God the Son, Jesus Christ, is the righteous advocate in heaven before God the Father, testifying that, yes, we have sinned, but Jesus has bore our wrath.
This is exactly where John moves to, as he begins looking at Jesus and he introduces the word propitiation to describe Jesus.
Propitiation is an amazing word, which we don't really use or hear that often these days.
I have been reading and teaching today out of the English standard version.
The NIV translates the word propitiation as atoning sacrifice, as does the Christian standard Bible CSB and the New Living translation, which we use here for my dusty Bible.
Atoning sacrifice is a good translation of the word.
It rightly captures the work of Jesus on our behalf and puts it into a more familiar language to readers today.
Personally, I like propitiation.
Propitiation captures that idea of atoning sacrifice, but it's this idea that Jesus not only atones for our sin, He not only gives us this position where God views us as righteous, but He takes the wrath of God directed at our sin and through the saving work of Jesus turns that wrath into favor.
Propitiation acknowledges, yes, we are saved, and though we may sin again, God's wrath is still levied against that sin.
Jesus, as propitiation and as advocate, says, yes, and rightfully so, that sin deserves wrath.
And then, as our Savior, as our propitiation, Jesus accepts that wrath fully for us on the cross that the Father might look on us with favor.
Jesus is our propitiatory advocate.
And John reminds us, as he did in John 316, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Jesus' act of atonement is sufficient for all men, meaning any person who puts their saving faith in Jesus Christ, who calls on the name of Jesus, can be saved.
The price has been paid.
Jesus' work on the cross is sufficient to pay the price of sin for all people.
This propitiation is extended and offered to all, but not all will respond in faith and receive it.
Here at the midpoint of our episode, listener, I would like to tell you, if you have not accepted Jesus' work on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, I implore you to do so.
John tells us, if we confess our sins, confess that we are a sinner, in need of a Savior, our God is faithful and just to forgive us of those sins, and through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I hope you believe that today.
But at the turning point, the implications of Jesus' propitiation are this.
God's wrath will be levied against sin.
The question is, are you going to accept God's wrath on yourself?
Or will you in faith allow Jesus to do so for you?
Again, in John's context, we've been forgiven.
He's writing to people who have believed.
He is asking the question then, how can we live like people who have believed?
And how can we say that we have this saving faith when we have these people running around claiming to have an even better faith saying they don't sin and I still do?
How do we know if we have come to know Jesus?
John tells us in verse three of our text today, he says, and by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
The way we will know if we have come to known Jesus, if we do what Jesus says, but this idea of keeping the commandments, it means in one sense to do them.
To keep a commandment means you follow it, you do it, and you seek to live it out.
But there is another sense that the word keep carries.
Keep can also carry this sense of holding it in high value, guarding it, and setting it as a high standard in our lives.
In the verse we read earlier in John 14 16, Jesus said he would as our advocate ask God the Father, and he will give us another advocate, the helper, the Holy Spirit, who will be with us forever.
The verse before that, John 14 15, says this, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
It is as if, both in the Gospel of John and in the letter from John, the Holy Spirit is there to help us do what Jesus has said.
Our desire and ability to do what Jesus said indicates and is the evidence that we know him.
And on top of that, we aren't left with, well, I have to muster up all this desire and I have to just beat all these things on my own.
Jesus, the Advocate in heaven and the Holy Spirit, the Advocate in our hearts guides and helps us to do what Jesus has said.
We are not left to our own devices to muster up enough, figure it out to make this happen.
Literally, when we put our faith in Jesus, we have God on our side now.
This doesn't mean we are perfect in it, but as John closes our section this week, he is going to detail this out further.
We read verses 4-6.
Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Whatever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
By this we know that we are in him.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
If a person says, I know Jesus, and again in the sense John has been writing this idea, knowing Jesus is not in reference to having like a book knowledge.
I read a story one time.
I saw a picture on a wall of Jesus walking on water.
And so I know like a statistical fact about the man.
Rather, this is a knowing that is deeper.
It is a knowing that comes as a result of a saving faith in the person of Jesus.
Jesus Christ.
To the one who says that he has this deeper knowledge of Jesus, this saving faith in Jesus, this intimate connection to Jesus and God the Father, but does not keep or care to keep or is not concerned with keeping the things that Jesus and as an extension God the Father have said.
John wastes no time levying judgment against that.
He says they're a liar.
If you say, I love Jesus, and then actively and consistently, time and again, do the thing that Jesus hates, we do not begin to question who Jesus is.
We begin to question your quality and whether what you've said is true.
Either way, they're a liar in that they do not know Jesus and have lied in saying they do, or they're a liar in saying that they do not keep his commands in full.
In other words, if they say that they do this stuff perfectly, John's again kind of going, nah, they don't.
Rather, the truth is, those who know Jesus are saved by Jesus, and they know that though they might desire to do as Jesus did, they're often gonna fail.
That's just the truth of this life.
Those who know Jesus know they need him as an advocate as much as they need him as the propitiation for their sins.
Those who know Christ know that they are not perfect.
In light of the Christian walk, this is both a challenge and good news.
A challenge in the sense that Jesus is the standard.
This doesn't mean we throw in the towel and say, well, I'll never be like him, so I'm not even gonna try.
Rather, with the knowledge that we have God within us and God before us, we do our best to do the things that God cares about and do the things that God has said.
It is also a challenge when those who seem to buck against this truth that we will still sin or who claim to have a faith that is somehow better or of a higher quality than our own, live in such a way that seems to be good, but contrary to this, it is a reminder that those who know Jesus know they need him as an advocate as much as they need him as propitiation.
They aren't perfect.
We find there is value in doing what Jesus said and what God says in his word.
First, the value is it is the means by which we prove and evidence that that truth is in us.
When we do the things that God says, when we live the way that Jesus lived, when we through the prompting of the Holy Spirit are guided by the Spirit, we prove that we care about the things of God and we evidence the faith that we have.
Second, as John says in verse 5, it is the means by which God's love is perfected in us.
God does not give direction and his commands and his words to control us or to keep us in line.
He doesn't do it because he's like, well, I had nothing better to do.
I'll give him a few rules, see how they do.
Rather, he tells us these things.
He does so because they are a means by which he will make our lives and our actions more in line with his character as a loving God, and in turn making that love more evident to those around us.
How do we know if we are in Christ?
John says those who abide in Christ know they do so because they consistently find themselves doing the things that Jesus did.
John has been pretty clear on this.
Those who claim to belong to Jesus, those who claim to walk in the light, had better have lives that look like Jesus'.
And when they do not, and if they do not, John reminds us that Jesus is their advocate before the Father.
Because while he is their Savior, he is also the propitiation who removes God's wrath on them.
When John talks about abiding, he likely has the idea of abiding he wrote about in John 15.
1 John 2 really is, it borrows a lot of the ideas that John wrote in his Gospel from chapters 14, 15 and 16.
But John 15, 4 tells us that like a branch cannot bear fruit unless it is connected to the vine, we cannot bear fruit unless we abide in Jesus our Savior.
Christians, our direction is this, live lives that look like Jesus.
When we fail, we can rest knowing our Savior and our propitiation is our Advocate.
But we do not fail and wallow in that failure.
When we doubt, when we are faced either with false teaching that says our faith is of a lower quality, or when faced with the reality that we do still sin, when we doubt or when there are others whose lives are inconsistent with Jesus, we can say this, those who belong to Jesus want to live like him.
Or at least they should.
Practically, John's argument is this.
If we say we belong to Jesus, but our lives consistently don't look like Jesus's, John says we are lying.
If we say we belong to Jesus, who has removed God's wrath from us, but we continue to live in a way which would increase God's wrath toward us, John says we are lying.
If we say we belong to Jesus, and when he advocates for us, and we ignore his wisdom and life example, John says we are lying.
Listener, if you have fallen under John's category of a liar, there is good news.
The good news arrives to us earlier in John's letter.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Jesus Christ has the ability to turn us from liars into people saved by his work on the cross.
He makes us righteous before God, he is making us righteous on this earth, but it's a process.
And as we go through that process, when we fail, he also serves as our advocate before God the Father.
As we close, I want you to imagine that you're brought under trial.
And in being brought under trial, not only are you under trial, but you're guilty and you know it.
You're looking at life plus.
Your representative, your advocate says, I have some advice for you.
Now, the first thing, your life's on the line.
You want the best, most qualified, most competent, the advocate with the best credentials, the advocate who cares the most.
You want the advocate that will go the farthest, that will put his time and energy the most into pleading your case.
That's the advocate that you want.
When you have that advocate and your advocate says, I have advice to help you.
I have a very simple and straightforward solution for you that will not only recognize your guilt, but will absolve it, it will deal with it.
It will be just, it will be forgiven, and you will not only be set free, but you will have a way by which once you are back out in the community to ensure that if something goes wrong again, you're not going to be condemned again.
I would argue when that advocate says, when you are told this is how you can access that, that you're going to listen, or at least I hope you would.
How much more ought we for our eternal Savior and our advocate, Jesus Christ?
In many ways, that's John's argument.
And that's his argument as he begins to move into a section called the New Commandment, but we'll see that next time.
Until then, thank you all for being here.
We love y'all, and we'll see you soon.
Bye now.
Outro:
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