THE USE AND APPLICATION
If any man sins, we have an Advocate." Christian, thou that hast sinned, and that with the guilt of thy sin art driven to the brink of hell, I bring thee news from God—thou shalt not die, but live, for thou hast "an Advocate with the Father." Let this therefore be considered by you, because it yields this fruit.
2. The study of this truth will give you the courage to contend with the devil concerning the largeness of grace by faith since thy Advocate is contending for you against him at the bar of God. It is a great encouragement for a man to hold up his head in the country when he knows he has a special friend in court. Why, our Advocate is a friend at court, a friend there ready to give the onset to Satan, come he when he will. "We have an Advocate with the Father"; an Advocate, or one to plead against Satan for us.
3. 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. But what will he do with him as an Advocate? Will he urge that he plead against us? He cannot; he has no such office. "Will he plead against me with his great power? No, but he would put strength into me(Job 23:6). Wherefore Satan doth all he may to keep thee ignorant of this office; for he knows that as Advocate, when he is so apprehended, the saints are greatly relieved by him, even by a believing thought of that office.
4. This consideration, or the consideration of Christ as exercising this office, will help thee to put by that visor wherewith Christ by Satan is misrepresented to thee, to the weakening and affrighting of thee. There is nothing more common among saints than thus to be wronged by Satan; for as 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 visor upon the face of a father, and it may perhaps for a while frightening the child, but let the father speak; let him speak in his own fatherly dialect to the child, and the visor is gone, if not from the father's face, yet from the child's mind; yea, the child, notwithstanding that visor, will adventure to creep into its father's bosom. Thus, it is with the saints when Satan deludes and abuses them by disfiguring the countenance of Christ in their view. Let them but hear their Lord speak in his own natural dialect (and then he doth so indeed when we hear him speak as an Advocate), and their minds are calmed, their thoughts settled, their guilt made to vanish, and their faith to revive.
Indeed, the advocateship of Jesus Christ is not much mentioned in the Word, and because it is not often mentioned, perhaps it is that some Christians do so lightly pass it over, when, on the contrary, the rarity of the thing should make it the more admirable; and perhaps it is therefore so little made mention of in the Bible, because it should not by the common sort be abused, but is as it were privately dropped in a corner, to be found by them that are for finding relief for their soul by a diligent search of the Scriptures; for Christ in this office of advocateship is only designed for the child of God; the world hath nothing in addition to that to do. Methinks that which alone is proper to saints and that which by God is designed for them should be mightily taken withal; the peculiar treasure of kings, the peculiar privilege of saints—oh, this should be affecting us! why Christ, as an Advocate, is such. "Remember me, O Lord," said the Psalmist, "with the favor that thou bears unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance" (Psa 106:4, 5). The Psalmist, you see here, is crying out for a share in, and knowledge of, the peculiar treasure of saints, and this of Christ as Advocate is such; therefore, study it and prize it so much the more; this Advocate is ours.
