Studies Through 1 John - Lesson 4
You Need A Lawyer!
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
2 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father (or- "we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense" NIV 84)—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 1John 1:6-2:2
Who retains a lawyer? Someone who needs a lawyer! "I don't want to hire a lawyer; it makes me look guilty"! Have you ever heard that one? Have you ever said that one? As we look at this passage we see Jesus as our defense attorney. He is our advocate or paraclete which is someone who comes along side you to represent you. He defends us against the accusations of Satan, the accuser of the brethren, to God the Father the judge which we will go into more detail about but it is important to realize that, like an earthly lawyer, you won't have Him as your advocate unless you admit you need Him.
Verses 6,8,10 all start out "if we claim". Verse 6 states the scary thought that people can claim to be in a relationship with God but aren't. How does that happen? Self deception always begins with a misunderstanding of sin as seen in the other two "if we claim" verses. Verse 8 says first of all people deceive themselves by thinking that they don't have sin (singular tense). In other words they don't believe they have a sin nature but are basically good people. They don't understand that inside us is a nature that wants to be god rather than to be under God. We have a nature that lives for us first. At our very core is the whole disposition of our character to be me centered not God centered. Yet the world denies this and thinks that man is basically good. They must not watch the news. This leads to verse 10 which says therefore we will deny we have sinned. When is the last time you heard a public figure confess that they sinned? No, it is always a moral failure, a mistake, something that hurt a lot of people that they are sorry about. This is why they don't believe the good news of Jesus Christ because they haven't received the bad news that they are sinners to the core.
The divine defense attorney, Jesus, is for us who admit that we need an advocate because we are in trouble. This is prophesied several times in the Old Testament
Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the Lord’s wrath,
until he pleads my case
and upholds my cause.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness Micah 7:9
“He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
that we might confront each other in court.
33 If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,34 someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
35 Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot. Job 9:32-35
Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.
20 My intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God
as one pleads for a friend Job 16:19-21
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord (Jesus), and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Zech. 3:1-2
Also, as we look at Jesus, a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15) we see Moses interceding for God's people in Exodus 32:11-14 and in Numbers 14:13-20.
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
We see Satan accusing us before God in Job 1 and 2, Zech. 3:1,2 ,1 Peter 5:8, Jude 1:9, Luke 22:31,32. Jesus, who sits on the Father's right hand (Matt. 26:64, Luke 22:69, Eph. 1:19-22, Col. 3:1, Heb,12:2, Ps. 110:1) defends us to the Father who is the judge. Now lest we think that Jesus is nice and the Father is hateful, remember this - the Father sent the Son to die for us out of love (John 3:16) The problem is really one of conflict of interest - how can justice be served when someone God loves is being judged? I remember being asked to referee a basketball game that my brother was playing in, in elementary school because the referee couldn't get there because of snow. I had all the fans yelling at me because I kept calling fouls on the other team whenever my brother got touched. I was not a fair judge. Therefore we need an advocate to remove us from the equation. He does this in two ways - by being our proxy and our voice.
Jesus is our proxy; we give Him our power of attorney. What He accomplishes before the judge is applied or imputed to us. In fact He is sort of like our federal head. In the old days a champion could be chosen for two sides going to war and the champions could battle in place of the army and whoever won would impute victory to that side. We can see this in David and Goliath where Goliath says, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” 1 Sam. 17:8,9 Paul talks about this in Romans 5 - " But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!" Paul says that Adam was our federal head who gave us all sin (1john 1:8) and Jesus is our champion who defeats sin and death and imputes that victory to us.
Our advocate speaks for us. (NIV84) After all, isn't that what attorneys do? They have the gift of gab! But not only that, they speak the language. It is a terrible idea to represent yourself in court. Why? Because you don't speak the language. I am reminded of the time I had to hire an attorney when twins died at 32 weeks when their cords wrapped in utero and I was sued because the plaintiff said I could have prevented it. I remember giving advice to my attorney. The conversation went something like this;
Me " She smoked, lets use that"
Atty "Did you tell her not to smoke?"
Me "Of, course; I say that to everyone!"
Atty "Did you document in your notes that you told her?"
Me "Well, no"
Atty "Then it didn't happen"
Me " The babies didn't move for a week before she called. I tell everyone to call me if the baby moves less than 10 times a day. Lets use that"
Atty "Did you document that you told her that?"
Me "No, I don't treat records as if I am a future adversary with this patient!"
Atty "Then it didn't happen"
Me "I hand out an informational book at the beginning of pregnancy that talks about fetal movement and when to call"
Atty "What if she says you never gave her the book? Do you know if she can even read?"
Me "Here is a card she sent me thanking me for my care. Lets use that"
Atty "She was not thinking clearly at that time"
And so it went and I was convinced I had the worst attorney ever until he won the case because he knew just what to say. Here is what Jesus would say to God. He wouldn't beg and plead for the Father to have mercy and pity on us like a lawyer who had no case. He would probably plead that it would be unjust for the Father to punish us for a sin that has already been punished for. Jesus has taken the punishment for us so he would probably plead Double Jeopardy (1999 Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones) where you can't punish for the same crime twice. Where do we get that? (we being me and Tim Keller) Three places; 1John 1:9 says "He is faithful and just to forgive our sins", not faithful and merciful or longsuffering or patient or empathetic - but just. It is out of justice that we are forgiven. Secondly 1 John 2:2 says that He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins - His blood covered over our sins so the demand that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins" is paid for. Also if we go several verses further in 2:12 we see that our sins have been forgiven on account of His name. In other words, as our federal head, Jesus paid for our sins in court and we just go before God using His receipt.
So what practically can we take away from this?
1. We don't have to fear losing our salvation or forgiveness of sins. Jesus blood is sufficient not only for us but also the whole world. He has satisfied the Law and we can rest in that. There is no sin you can commit that His blood won't cover
2. You don't need to fear going into God's presence. You are going in in Jesus' name and you are clean
3. You don't need to judge others or feel judged - they/we have an advocate and a judge and it isn't you and it isn't me.
Lastly in Acts 7 we see Stephen before the Sanhedrin giving a message which wasn't well received so he is about to get stoned to death.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Why is Jesus standing? He is our High priest that unlike all the earthly high priests who could never sit in the Holy place because their work was never done, Jesus sat down at the Father's right hand because "It is finished"! However, here we see Him standing. Why? Maybe because He is serving as Stephen's defense attorney before the Father. The devil is making his claims for Stephen's eternity just as he did for Moses' in Jude. I can picture Satan in Moses' case saying, "He didn't make it to the promised land because of sin. He struck the rock. He murdered an Egyptian. When you told him to go back to Egypt he refused. He's mine" In Stephen's case and in ours there are plenty of things we have done against God and Satan the accuser of the brethren was accusing Stephen. However, Jesus his advocate had approached the judge and was saying "It would be unjust to hold his sins against him because I have already paid for them." Satan's accusations are overcome by our testimony- that we have received Christ, and the blood of the lamb - that He paid for our sins.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony; Rev. 12:10,11
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