Continuing our look at 1 John this morning by turning to 1 John chapter 2. We'll actually start reading before that in chapter 1, but our message today will simply be the first two verses of 1 John chapter 2. But I will start reading in chapter 1, because this is really the summary of his introductory remarks. So 1 John, starting in chapter 1, he's already told us that we all sin, that denying that is not just being foolish and lying, but even calling God a liar, because he teaches us we all sin. And the wages of sin is death. So now in chapter 2, he will turn to the encouragement. Let us start reading in chapter 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so 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 our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His word. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, as we come back to this chapter, or to this book and start a new chapter, we ask Lord to open our hearts, open our eyes that we may see and understand and rejoice in the things that you have for us this morning. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So John is telling us his purpose here. I write these things so that you may not sin. Now he starts it off addressing that to my little children. We see this used by Jesus in John 13, 33, and a total of seven times here in 1 John. And some feel that he's using this as their spiritual father through whom they were saved and now are born again as infants, little children. However, That would really omit the people who are mature in the faith. He's not writing to pastors, elders, and those who have been Christians a long time and have grown in their knowledge of God. I think more likely this is just a term of endearment, showing his love for them as an apostle, a love which he strongly advocates throughout this whole letter. I think we see in this that he's calling them like his little children. I care for you the way I would care for my own child. And he says, I am writing these things. Really, I think it includes all the things of the letter. If you read through the letter, you'll find there's a lot about not sinning, and avoiding sin, and turning from sin, and why not to sin. And so it's probably the whole thing, which we'll see as we go through the epistle. But I think he's especially referring to those verses he just read, particularly verse 5 through 10 of chapter 1. In verse 5, concerning the purity and the holiness of God. God is light, there is no darkness in Him of any kind. Concerning the fellowship with Him, no one who lives in darkness, no one who walks in darkness, which is to say who walks in sin, has fellowship with Him. Concerning the pardon and cleansing from sin by the blood of Christ, which we have as His people in verse 7. Concerning sin being in us all, and there are none without it, verse 8. And he goes on to say that denying this truth shows that we're self-deceived and devoid of truth. And I reminded us that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He's saying we're unsaved if we do that. And then in verse 8, concerning sin being in us all, and in verse 10, concerning the fact that we do all sin, as God has proclaimed in His Word, to deny that we sin, is to call God a liar. So he's written these things to help us so that we will not sin. All the doctrine of verses 5 through 10 are set down so that even though we have human infirmities, even though we have a propensity to sin, even though, as Paul calls it, a law of our corrupt nature that makes us sin, that we might desire not to, that we might abstain from sin, and that we might seek that forgiveness of sins that he has just promised us if we confess our sins. And so he's written these things that we might not sin, because sin is darkness. Sin separates us from the light of God. Our darkness makes it impossible for us to walk in the light of Christ, in the light of God, in the light of heaven, and thus We need to have those sins dealt with and need to have those sins forgiven. What an awesome purpose he's writing about here. And it really should give us encouragement to look to live that life for God that is more sinless, more pure, more godly. And so he writes us an encouragement in that first verse. But if anyone does sin, We have an advocate. Now, if anyone does sin, he has already just said that we can't be sinless. That if we claim we are sinless, we don't know God. If we claim we don't sin, we're calling God a liar because his word shows us over and over again, page after page, that we live a life of sin. Now, some have claimed, though, that this teaches that we can be sinless in this life, kind of using it as a spoof text. But John has already laid the groundwork in chapter 1, saying and showing and proving that we're all sinful by nature and sinful by practice. And to claim to be sinless is to call God a liar, because his word, his law, shows us our sin. Their slander, their blasphemy is obvious to John, and so he's quite harsh in that chapter towards them. Because he's saying that while they pretend to be a believer, They're really not. We study the word, and we see ourselves reflected in it accurately. And we understand what God requires, and we don't do. And we understand what God forbids, which we do do. And all the things we do that are good, we learn that they're not really that good. that they come short of His perfect standard. Indeed, Paul says in Romans 3.23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is not in our nature, this perfection that God has. Not yet, anyway. But our perfect holiness is something to be hoped for in heaven and waited for. And so, if any man does sin, and every man does, even the man who walks in the light, who lives in the light, who has fellowship with God, who believes in Christ, is justified through his righteousness, pardoned by his blood. All the little children that John is writing to do sin. We shouldn't. And that, I think, is why it is written as if, because we should not. But we do. However, we have an advocate for all that sin. Now, the Apostle is not speaking of all mankind. He does say to his little children, men who sin do not have an advocate in Christ. God's people who sin have an advocate in Christ, and only his people. We have that advocate. Now, the word translated there, advocate, I don't do Greek very often in my sermons, but this is one time I should, because you may know the word. Parakletos. You might recognize that word from John 14. I will send you another comforter. And that's Parakletos, talking about the Holy Spirit. Here it's used to refer to Jesus. In the New Testament, we only see it used that way, both in noun and verb form. And so it's a little tough to know exactly what it means from scripture. But we can look to the Greek dictionary how the word is really used in the rest of the Greek language outside of scripture. And Thayer gives a definition that if somebody who's summoned or called to one side, especially as an aid, specifically the one who pleads another cause before a judge, a counsel for defense, a legal assistant, an advocate. And that's why it's translated advocate here. One who pleads another's cause as an intercessor, coming between the two parties and interceding for them. And that's really how it's used with Christ. He comes between us and God the Father and makes intercession for us as our advocate. Pleads with God the Father for the pardon of our sins based on his sacrifice on the cross. Now, lawyers, and I have a Christian friend, former pastor, who I love dearly. He's a lawyer. He's a good man. But lawyers in general have a pretty bad reputation. Why? Because they'll argue either side of the case with the same amount of diligence and the same amount of fervor. And you've got to wonder how honest they are. Money, pride can get them to advocate for anything. help criminals, murderers, pedophiles. They'll defend them and try to get them off on a technicality, knowing that they'll go out and commit the crime again. I just read a story yesterday. A woman in Texas arrested for murder was let out on a small bond and she stabbed one of the witnesses. Gosh, what a surprise. Her lawyer got her out on bond. And so lawyers tend to have a pretty bad reputation. And if a lawyer comes to you and wants to, you know, make peace and advocate for somebody who's wronged you, how much listening to the lawyer do you do? Yeah, right. Sure. Yeah, I believe that. I got a bridge to buy in New York too. Waterfront property down in Florida. We're not going to listen. And that's why it says here, I think, that our advocate is Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, the Son of God. In verse 7 of the previous chapter, we saw whose blood cleanses us from our sin. And he's described as the righteous because God does not listen to the wicked. Proverbs 15, 29, the Lord is far away from the wicked. But he hears the prayers of the righteous. He won't listen to a wicked advocate. We can't hire a lawyer to intervene with God, because the lawyer is as wicked as we are. And God just won't listen to his lies, to his deceptions. But as our advocate is the righteous one, he has never sinned. He cannot lie. God listens. And as he has made atonement for us, As He is our propitiation, in verse 2, He can advocate for us perfectly. Now, I remember when I first became a Christian and I'm reading through the Bible and I come to Romans 3 and read that Jesus was put forward as a propitiation. I said, English, please. I'm sure most people who read that for the first time wonder what it means because it's not a word we use anymore, if it was ever a word. It's a very technical old word. So I pulled out my trusty Webster's dictionary. Propitiation is the act of appeasing wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person. In other words, you take away their anger and you make them favorable again. And the act of making propitious, another word that I didn't know, which means disposed to be gracious or merciful. In other words, taking the person who has wrath against your sin, and God's wrath throughout the Bible is taught clearly that when we sin, He is angry with that. We have offended His honor. We have offended His righteousness. We have blasphemed. We have destroyed. We have hurt His reputation. And so he has wrath against us. And a propitiation is the act of appeasing that wrath and making him once again favorable to be merciful to us and gracious to us. In theology, it's the atonement or atoning sacrifice offered to God to take away his wrath and make him well disposed to the sinner again. In other words, it's that part where our sin is taken from us and placed upon Christ on the cross. That is what propitiation here is referring to. We see this in Romans 3. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3.23 and following. Sin and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over the former sins. The sins had been committed. Nobody had atoned for them, but he didn't punish all of the sinners, because Christ would one day make propitiation for them on the cross. And since what God has ordained unfallibly comes to pass, he was able to say thousands of years before Christ died that this person's sins will be covered and leave his sins overlooked for the time being. The word here is linked to the Old Testament passage we read today of Leviticus 16. Definitely worth reading Leviticus 16 and thinking about those things, because in Hebrews 9, speaking of the art of the covenant in the temple, Hebrews 9.5 says, above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. The word mercy seat there is propitiation. These things we cannot now speak in detail. What he's saying is that the propitiation of Christ is linked to what was done on the mercy seat in the temple of God in the Old Testament. And that's what Jesus is really doing. Hebrews 9, 11 and following. Christ appeared as a high priest. He was a high priest who was to make atonement on the mercy seat. He appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come and then through The greater and more perfect tent, not the one tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, in other words, the heavenly temple. He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption for the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of the heifer. sanctify for the purification of the flesh? How much more does the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? In other words, it is Christ's job to offer not the bulls and the goats that were pointing to him in the future, but to offer himself. And by taking our sins upon himself and offering himself as a sacrifice for those sins, the blood guilt is atoned for, the forgiveness can be had through justice, not through just winking at sin, but through justice having been fully carried out. And that is a critical thing that is overlooked by many people. God's justice must be fully fulfilled. His wrath must be fully appeased for him to be just and yet forgive sins. And we know that he is both the just and the forgiver of the sins of his people. And so while we were under God's wrath and curse for our sins, both in this life and the life to come, Christ died for us, making peace with God, appeasing his wrath, paying in full the just penalty for our sins, in cleansing us from all unrighteousness. All of this happens through his sacrifice on the cross, but its picture is of the sprinkling of the blood of the offering on the mercy seat, his making propitiation. And so he's both our advocate and our propitiation, and that allows him to intercede for us as our high priest. And his purpose in interceding for us is that we may perfectly possess salvation after this life. John 17, 24, he says, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, not just walking in light in this world, but walking in light eternally with him in heaven, to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world. And so he wants them to be with him in the light in heaven for all eternity. That's his purpose in making intercession for us. Not that we may be lost by our own will or by the will of the devil or by things that happen, but that our sins may be fully paid for. That with each sin that has brought up against us, he is there in heaven saying, my blood has paid for it, advocating interceding on our behalf. We see this also in Hebrews 7, 24 and 25. He holds this priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for him. His intercession always works because when he intercedes for the people God has given him, He says, their sin is covered by my blood. End of discussion. God accepts that. And we are reconciled. His high priestly office is of great importance. And we read about this in scripture often. In Hebrews chapter 8, that great passage, who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is it to condemn? Jesus Christ, the one who died. And more than that, who was raised. And we remember His death was for our sin. His resurrection proves that the sin is fully paid for because the power of death is no longer on Him. He is now innocent, having paid in full the guilt. And who is at the right hand of God and who is interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? So that's the context of that interceding for us, is that we belong to God and nothing can separate us from God. Nothing in all of creation, not us, not anything, can turn us back into a godless person. Nothing can remove us from God's hand if we belong to Him. In Hebrews 7.25, He is able to save to the othermost, the one I just read, by making intercession for us, because He's always in heaven with God. You know, the high priest went once a year, offering the blood of bulls and goats. And in that Day of Atonement passage we read, the sins are recited and placed upon the scapegoat. Well, every year that list got longer and longer and longer, because the sins weren't really covered. It was just a ceremony, so they had to list longer and longer and longer things upon the goat. Well, Christ has entered once for all. Hebrews 9, 24 and following. Christ did not enter into the holy place made with hands, which were copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest entered the holy place every year with blood not his own. For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, it has appeared once for all, at the end of ages, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. One of the greatest blasphemies of Roman Catholicism is their mass, in which they say, unless we offer Christ again and sacrifice him again, your sin can't be forgiven. The Bible teaches quite clearly, he sacrificed himself once and only once, and that was sufficient for all, both all the sins from the foundation of the world to his second coming, all of them. And so this intercession, this propitiation he makes for us and his advocacy for us is fully effective. Many, they worry, oh, I've sinned again. Maybe this sin can't be forgiven. That is not the case. He has been offered once for all for our sins. Now, he says something problematic next. Problematic, not because it's difficult to understand, but because it's abused quite a bit. He says, Jesus is revertiation not for us only, but for the whole world. Now, some have tried to take this and say that God has given forgiveness to all men, that he has wiped away the taint of original sin, that we are now tabula rosa, blank slate, able to choose to do good. And if we choose to do good, then we will be saved. But if we choose to do evil, we can't be saved. Nothing could be further from the truth. I mentioned how John has laid the groundwork. And he says in chapter 1, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. People are advocating and teaching that original sin is wiped away, He has already told you. No. I laid that groundwork before I said this. It can't mean that. Because I've already told you. Of course, they use other verses they add on to this. Chapter 4 of 1 John, verse 14. We've seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. In John 1.29. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They say, no, he has taken away original sin. We are all blank slates now. We are free. John says, no. Back in verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. First point I would make about this is the whole world here is cosmos. Really, it means everything. that God made. Commentators point out the absurdity of that, meaning being used to say that all men are saved because won't that apply then also to Satan and his demons? Are they also now a blank slate because he's taken away the sin of the whole world, the whole cosmos? Clearly not. And scripture clearly teaches that the devils are being held until the judgment where they will be punished, that there is no forgiveness for them possible. Second, by making it apply to all men equally, how then can anyone be lost? Universal salvation is sometimes denied by people who do this. Well, it depends on us, our choice, our will, our action. in the passages I read this morning, do we find that? We find the opposite. It depends upon God. The effectiveness is the effectiveness of God. If his death on the cross, his propitiation and his intercession apply equally to all men and some still go to hell, then it's a pretty worthless thing, isn't it? But it isn't. It's all powerful. And so we have to struggle with that. We know even Jesus himself teaches that some go to eternal punishment and the righteous to eternal life, Matthew 25, 46. Christ's death and atonement is all-powerful. They ignore other passages that talk about the world. You remember, and I'm going to skim over this a little bit, remember the parable of the weeds. It says, the field, Jesus explains this, the sower and the good seed are the sons of man. The field is the whole world. The good seed is sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are angels. And the weeds are gathered and burned, so it will be with men at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of the kingdom everything that causes sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and the righteous will shine like the sun. So the whole world, the way it's being used is of everything and yet there's still the good seed and the bad seed in the world. The gospel is to go into all the world and be preached. Remember also the Samaritan woman at the well. When Jesus asked her for a drink, she says to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. The Jews were very xenophobic. They cared nothing for the people around them. They hated them. They despised them. They considered them worse than beasts. Now, after this time, after Christ's time, it became a practice, and even put into their laws, that it was OK to cheat a non-Jew. Non-Jews had none of the rights, none of the privileges. The Bible did not apply to non-Jews, only to the Jews. And the precursors of that you can really see in the New Testament and their attitude And so she's saying, how can you talk to me? I'm not a Jew. I'm a Samaritan. And that long passage happens, and he stays there, and he teaches. And what happens in the end? Verse 42. He said, it was no longer because of what you said that we believe, the townsfolk said to the woman. For we have heard for ourselves, we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. What is the difference here? The Jews thought that God belonged to them only, that the Messiah would be for them only. They ignored all of the Old Testament passages that teach contrary to that. And these people now said, oh, our eyes are open. We see he's not the Savior of the Jews only, but of the world, meaning all the different kinds of people. Romans 3, 29, and 30 says, is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, the Gentiles also. For God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith. And so the world here is referring to all the different kinds of people, but only those of God who are scattered throughout the world. Rather than just the Jews, As we see in Romans 7, that great multitude under the throne that no one could number. They were from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. And they were standing before the Lamb. The world means me, the non-Jew. You, the non-Jew. Not just the Jews. That was a mistake of the Jews. In this passage, he's summing up his teaching in the first chapter and bringing us to his point. And the point is that we have this great hope. We're not supposed to sin. Those who walk in darkness can't walk with God. If we claim we don't sin, we're liars. We're calling God a liar. We're fools. And yet we know in our heart that we've sinned. The answer is, that we have an advocate in heaven. He is the sinless one. He is the atoning sacrifice. He is the Son of God. He is in heaven making intercession for us, applying His blood to all our sins and giving us forgiveness of sins. Now, you remember back in verse 7, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, not just the forgiveness of the act with the removal of the stain from our soul as we will stand before God. Of course, this is not a license for sin. He makes that very claim. If we say we have fellowship with him, verse 6, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Some people have a lot of trouble accepting this. They say, oh, you know, by interpreting it the way you do, The way Scripture says it, it means that we have a license to sin. But God says, no, if you're living in sin, if you're making use of the license you think you have, then you cannot walk with God. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we know, Lord, your great hatred for sin, the disgust you have for it, And we desire, Lord, to turn more and more from it, more and more to you, to do what is right, to do what you have called us to do, to not do what you have forbidden. Yet we know in our heart, Lord, that we sin in everything we do every day. And we thank you, Lord, that you have sent your Son to die for those sins, to make atonement for us, to cleanse us from the and that He stands beside you, interceding for us, so that we are not lost, so that we are not condemned. And we know, Lord, that this is not a license for sin, but it is a blessing of Your glorious grace, and not an encouragement to give in to sin, but an encouragement to turn away from it, knowing that we will walk with You for all eternity in the light. Bring us, Lord, into the light that we may see our sins, the light of your Word, the light of your Son, that we might know what we need to change in our lives and know the way to do it, and that we might share your hatred, your contempt, your disgust with our sin, that we might not desire it anymore. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.