the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
1 John 2:1
‘We have an advocate’
Read 2 Samuel 12:1-14
We do sin, but John assures us that our sins will never deprive us of our interest in Christ. Notice John’s words: ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.’ Yes, my friend, though we do sin, we have an Advocate with the Father still. The text does not read, ‘If any man sin, he has forfeited his advocate with the Father.’ It says, ‘We have an advocate,’ sinners though we are! All the sin a believer ever has committed, or ever can commit, cannot destroy his interest in Christ. We may, any one of us, fall into some dreadful, shameful, sorrowful transgression. God forbid that it should ever happen. But there is no sin, no evil thought, imagination, or deed, of which you and I are not capable. Yet if we do sin, these horrible, treasonable acts can never tear us from our Savior’s heart. Aren’t you glad that God ‘hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities’? (Psalms 103:10.) Child of God, I tell you plainly that the Lord Jesus Christ will never forsake his wandering sheep! He will not leave his erring child! I say, do not sin. May God strengthen you with grace to resist sin and to hate evil. But when you do sin, do not despair God still declares, ‘I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed’ (Malachi 3:6). Mark this down as a solid pillar of gospel truth: notwithstanding all our sin, we are perfectly justified, accepted, righteous and beloved in Christ.
John also gives us a reason for this blessed assurance. God has provided his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as an advocate for his sinning people. ‘We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins.’ God will never charge his believing children with sin, because Christ has completely satisfied the justice of God for us, and he pleads the merits of his righteousness and blood for us in heaven.
