"We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
This consideration will yield relief, when by Satan's abuse of some
other of the offices of Christ, thy faith is discouraged and made
afraid. Christ, as a prophet, pronounces many a dreadful sentence
against sin; and Christ, as a king, is of power to execute them: and
Satan, as an enemy, has subtlety enough to abuse both these to the
almost utter overthrow of the faith of the children of God.
This consideration will help thee to put by that vizor [Footnote:
That is, mask.] wherewith Christ by Satan is misrepresented to thee,
to the weakening and affrighting thee. There is nothing more common
among saints, than thus to be wronged by Satan; for he will labor to
fetch fire out of the offices of Christ to burn us: so to present
him to us with so dreadful and so ireful a countenance, that a man
in temptation and under guilt shall hardly be able to lift up his
face to God.
But now, to think really that he is my Advocate, this heals all. Put
a vizor upon the face of a father, and it may perhaps for a while
fright the child; but let the father speak, let him speak in his own
fatherly dialect to the child, and the vizor is gone, if not from
the father's face, yet from the child's mind; yea, the child,
notwithstanding that vizor, will adventure to creep into its
father's bosom.
Why, thus it is with the saints when Satan deludes and abuses them
by disfiguring the countenance of Christ to their view: let them but
hear their Lord speak in his own natural dialect--and he doth so
indeed when we hear him speak as an advocate--and their minds are
calmed, their thoughts settled, their guilt vanished, and their
faith revived.
Is Christ Jesus the Lord my advocate with the Father? Then awake, my
faith, and shake thyself like a giant; stir up thyself and be not
faint: Christ is the advocate of his people; and as for sin, which
is one great stumble to thy actings, O my faith, Christ has not only
died for that as a sacrifice, nor only carried his sacrifice unto
the Father into the holiest of all, but is there to manage that
offering as an advocate, pleading the efficacy and worth thereof
before God against the devil for us.
The modest saint is apt to be abashed, to think what a troublesome
one he is, and what a make-work he has been in God's house all his
days; and let him be filled with holy blushing, but let him not
forsake his Advocate.
If thy foot slippeth, if it slippeth greatly, then know thou it will
not be long before a bill be in heaven preferred against thee by the
accuser of the brethren; wherefore then thou must have recourse to
Christ as advocate, to plead before God thy Judge against the devil
thine adversary for thee. And as to the badness of thy cause, let
nothing move thee save to humility and self-abasement, for Christ is
glorified by being concerned for thee; yea, the angels will shout
aloud to see him bring thee off. For what greater glory can we
conceive Christ to obtain as advocate, than to bring off his people
when they have sinned, notwithstanding Satan's so charging of them
as he doth?
He gloried when he was going to the cross to die; he went up with a
shout and the sound of a trumpet to make intercession for us; and
shall we think that by his being an advocate he receives no
additional glory?
Christ, when he pleads as an advocate for his people in the presence
of God against Satan, can plead those very weaknesses of his people
for which Satan would have them damned, for their relief and
advantage. "Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" This is
part of the plea of our Advocate against Satan, for his servant
Joshua, when he said, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan." Zech. 13: 2.
Now, to be a brand plucked out of the fire, is to be a
saint--impatient, weakened, defiled, and made imperfect by sin. This
then is the next plea of our goodly Advocate for us: "O Satan, this
is a brand plucked out of the fire." As if he should say, "Thou
objectest against my servant Joshua, that he is black like a coal,
or that the fire of sin at times is still burning in him. And what
then? The reason why he is not totally extinct as tow, is not thy
pity but rny Father's mercy to him. I have plucked him out of the
fire, yet not so out but that the smell thereof is yet upon him; and
my Father and I, we consider his weakness and pity him; for since he
is as a brand pulled out, can it be expected by my Father or me,
that he should appear before us as clear and do our biddings as well
as if he had never been there? This is a brand plucked out of the
fire, and must be considered as such, and must be borne with as
such."
His righteousness Christ presents to God for us; and God, for this
righteousness' sake, is well pleased that we should be saved, and
for it can save us and secure his honor and preserve the law in its
sanction.
For Christ, in pleading against Satan as an advocate with, the
Father for us, appeals to the law itself if he has not done it
justice; saying, "Most mighty law, what command of thine have I not
fulfilled? What demand of thine have I not fully answered? Where is
that jot or tittle of the law that is able to object against my
doings for want of satisfaction?"
Here the law is mute; it speaks not one word by way of the least
complaint, but rather testifies of this righteousness that it is
good and holy. Rom. 3:22,23; 5:15-19.
Now then, since Christ did this as a public person, it follows that
others must be justified thereby; for that was the end and reason of
Christ's taking on him to do the righteousness of the law. Nor can
the law object against the equity of this dispensation of heaven;
for why might not that God who gave the law its being and its
sanction, dispose as he pleases of the righteousness which it
commends? Besides, if men be made righteous, they are so; and if by
a righteousness which the law commends, how can fault be found with
them by the law? Nay, it is "witnessed by the law and the prophets,"
who consent that it should be "unto all and upon all them that
believe," for their justification. Rom. 3:20,21.
And that the mighty God suffereth the prince of the devils to do
with the law what he can against this most wholesome and godly
doctrine, it is to show the truth, goodness, and permanency thereof;
for this is as if it were said, Devil, do thy worst.
When the law is in the hand of an easy pleader, though the cause
that he pleads be good, a crafty opposer may overthrow the right;
but here is the salvation of the children in debate, whether it can
stand with law and justice: the opposer of this is the devil, his
argument against it is the law; he that defends the doctrine is
Christ the advocate, who in his plea must justify the justice of
God, defend the holiness of the law, and save the sinner from all
the arguments, pleas, stops, and demurs that Satan is able to put in
against it. And this he must do fairly, righteously, simply,
pleading the voice of the self-same law for the justification of the
soul that he standeth for, which Satan leads against it; for though
it is by the new law that our salvation comes, yet by the old law is
the new law approved of, and the way of salvation thereby consented
to.