Free Bible Commentary
“First John 2:1-2”
Categories: First John“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; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”
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As Eric indicated yesterday, we must be careful to not minimize the effects of sin. Jesus had to live without sin in order to offer His life up as an adequate sacrifice for our sins so that He could be our “Advocate” with God and the “propitiation” for His wrath that our sins provoke. The tense of the verb in verse 1 indicates that each and every sin that we commit is deserving of God’s divine wrath and punishment, but praise be to Him that He provided advocacy through His Only Begotten Son when He offered Him up as a propitiatory sacrifice.
None of us can truthfully say that “we have not sinned” (1 John 1:10). Notice that the Apostle John places himself in the category of sinner as well, and in need of Christ’s intercession and mediation. But, while we cannot avoid the fact of sin in our lives, but we must avoid making sin our customary practice and way of life. John wrote this letter to the children of God, and addressed them as his own beloved “little children” in the faith, so that they would “not sin”. But when God’s children do transgress His will, we must not make excuses for our sins and behave as if transgression is a trivial thing with no eternal consequences (verse 1). We must confess our sins (1 John 1:9), and turn to our Advocate in remorseful repentance in order to be cleansed from all our unrighteousness.
The word “Advocate” is the Greek word “parakletos” that John frequently used to refer to the Holy Spirit and the work that He does as the “Helper” or “Comforter” (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). This is a compound word that refers to one who is called to the side of another in order to offer support. It was used of the Holy Spirit (and of Jesus – John 14:16) in His role of consoling and supporting the disciples of Christ as they carried out His mission, and it is used of Christ here to denote His “legal” advocacy as the One who defends us against the accusations of our adversary the devil, and pleads our case before the Father in heaven. As our High Priest and our propitiatory sacrifice, Jesus stands alone in His exclusive position of Mediator and Advocate between fallible mankind and the perfect and faultless God of heaven.
The word “propitiation” is the Greek word “halismos” and is used for that which provides an “appeasement” or “expiation” for God’s righteous wrath against sin. There is at least one prominent religious group which insists that Christ has yet to make complete atonement for the sins of mankind, and their evidence for this is that the word “atonement” is never used in the New Testament in reference to Christ’s sacrifice. But the word “propitiation” is the Greed equivalent of the Hebrew Old Testament word for “atonement”. In the 3rd century BC Koine Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), the word “halismos” and its various forms are used when referencing sacrifices involving atonement, with Leviticus 17:11 serving as the prime example, and definitive statement concerning substitutionary sacrifice for redemption.
Hebrews 19:11-12 expresses the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus quite well: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” And He did this for the sins “of the whole world” (verse 2). Christ died to offer salvation to each and every human being (no "limited atonement"), and He is mankind’s one and only way to the Father as a means for atonement and redemption (John 14:6).
Please read 1 John 2:3-6 for tomorrow.
Have a blessed day!
-Louie Taylor
