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; (1 John 2:1)

Plan A – don’t sin; Plan B – and God provides an advocate. John’s simplicity has confounded theologians. Was the work of Christ on the cross (here, His advocacy) an afterthought, the result in God’s mind of sin coming into the world? In other words, did God’s original plan not work out because His image bearers thwarted God’s glory, so He is going with a secondary plan to redeem His image bearers? Or was the work of Christ part of God’s plan from the very beginning, a plan for His creation in which His glory could best be seen through redemption? We leave these debates to the theologians.

John keeps things simple. At the end of the day we must become like children in our faith. Did not Jesus say this was how following Him begins? “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3). John preserves that notion as he addresses his readers 14 times as “children.” In particular he writes, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are” (1 John 3:1)

This is not meant to minimize deep, reflective theological thinking, for some things taught in Scripture are in fact difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). John brings us to a faith we need in our daily, spiritual realities. We should not sin! Let no one ever say that salvation means we no longer need to obey God’s commands. Nor does it mean we will never sin again. “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). The phrase “if anyone sins” must be understood as “when anyone sins.”

The point is this: we have an Advocate to come alongside and defend us. The Greek term for “Advocate” is the same word used in John 14:15 for the Holy Spirit as our “Helper” (NASB, ESV, NKJV). Here our defender is “Jesus Christ the righteous.” If He who is the perfectly righteous one is our Helper, our

Advocate, then we have nothing to fear from the discovery of sin in our lives. But on what basis can this be? The next verse answers this: “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins …” (1 John 2:2). Christ has satisfied the wrath of God, the judicial guilt based on the Law, so that we are no longer declared unrighteous – and this despite that, as Christians, we still do sin at times.

Lord, You know I want to avoid sin, but I fail constantly. Thank You for Your eternal advocacy on my behalf, that I will never have to face the wrath of God.