Propitiate and Advocate

Darrell Pickle brought the message.

I John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we
have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 2:1 My little children, these things
write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world.

John is writing to Christians. He says if “we” sin. We do.
We do sin. Saying we don’t is deceiving ourselves. Deceiving yourself is bad.
Verse 9 says if we confess God will cleanse us. This means to acknowledge the
sin and see it as God sees it. It’s not a matter of saying “I’m sorry” and
going on and doing it again and saying “I’m sorry.” That’s treating it as if it’s
okay to since because we can just ask God to forgive me. When we see sin as God
sees it, we’re less likely to do it again.

In chapter 2 we see two words to focus on—advocate and
propitiation. What do they mean? Propitiation means to appease. It’s an act
that brings God into a favorable attitude toward sinners. Adam lost his
wholeness when he sinned. He lost the favor of God. Propitiation brings back
that fellowship. After they sinned they realized they were naked and make
clothes of fig leaves; that was not sufficient for the Lord. He killed an animal
and made clothes of the skin. The animal was a substitute and it appeased God.
Until the cross, animals were the only sacrifice to appease the Lord.

Look at Cain and Abel. They obviously had been taught about
pleasing the Lord for Abel brought a firstling from the flock. This appeased
God. Cain brought fruit of the ground, which was cursed by God when his parents
sinned. Cain knew just as Abel did, but he refused to obey. God did not accept
his offering.  Moses told the people to
make a sacrifice before the death angel flew over the land of Egypt.
The lambs were the propitiation. When the tabernacle was set up in the
wilderness, God was appeased by the sacrifices.

Propitiation goes further than a substitute. Jesus is not
just a substitute. He brought us back to God. 
Romans 8 says nothing can separate us from the love of God. Jesus is
such a favorable substitute that he was seen as the propitiation.  God doesn’t accept us for what we can do for
salvation is not by works. It is by grace. By grace we are in a favorable
position with the Lord.

An advocate pleads for mercy on behalf of another. Jesus is
the lawyer between us and the God of the universe. He pleads our case. If we
get in trouble and need to go before a judge, we don’t go on our own. We don’t
know the law; we don’t know the judge. A lawyer does and we’d be crazy not to
get one. This is what Jesus does. He is our attorney. Yet he is not only our
attorney, he took the sentence the judge handed out. The wages of sin is death.
It was required for the payment of our sins. Jesus died and arose and is still
the advocate.

He is the go between—the mediator—the Bible says there is
ONE mediator between God and man—that mediator is Jesus Christ. We can pray for
each other, but we cannot mediate for each other. A mediator takes an enemy and
the one offended and brings them together. 
That advocate is our high priest. Hebrews 4 tells us that he is touched
by our temptation for he was tempted. When we’re broken, he knows how that
feels. He had no place to lay his head. The rich became poor for us that we
might find grace, or favor, with God.

We’ve not been promised that life will be easy. Our
advocate, our propitiation, our mediator goes to God for us. He pleads our case
as a lawyer would. He paid the price in our stead. The lawyer stood for the
guilty. If we confess, he will forgive and cleanse us.