We Have an Advocate

Have you ever had a dispute where no one took your side, or where no one was available to represent you on your behalf? Where no one would come forth to be your advocate? (An advocate is a person who pleads for or in behalf of another.) I think most of us have at least felt alone like this at some point in our lives. Under the Patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, when a man sinned against God there was no one to stand up on behalf of the transgressor. There was no one to be his advocate. And, there was no means of propitiation (appeasement toward God) on account of his sin.

The patriarch Job, while facing the testing of his faith and false accusations of his closest friends, expressed his distress at this fact in this way, “For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman [umpire – ASV] betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me: Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me...” (Job 9:32-35) A “daysman” is an umpire (ASV) or mediator who represents one before another. Easton’s Bible Dictionary defines the word mediator this way, “One who intervenes between two persons who are at variance, with a view to reconcile them. This word is not found in the Old Testament; but the idea it expresses is found in Job 9:33, in the word ‘daysman’ (q.v.), marg., ‘umpire.’” The prophet Eli also acknowledged this deficiency under the Law of Moses when he rebuked his sons’ behavior and said, “If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him...?” (1 Samuel 2:25). Under both of these dispensations, the only recourse the sinner was to make a substitutionary sacrifice of an animal to take the place of the sinner.

Under Christ, we do not have to feel as if we are alone, because we do have someone to entreat for us. We do have someone to act as a daysman between us and the God of Heaven. We have an Advocate! Jesus Christ, the Righteous! “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world...”(1 John 2:1-2) The Greek word here translated as “advocate” is taken from the same Greek word translated as “comforter” (KJV) or “helper” (NKJV) in John 14:16; 15:26; 16:7. The Greek word means, "’one who is summoned to the side of another’ to help him in a court of justice by defending him, ‘one who is summoned to plead a cause.’" (Easton’s Bible Dictionary). As our Advocate, Christ not only intercedes on our behalf before His Heavenly Father, but He comforts and helps us at the same time! And even more than that, (yeah much more!) He gave His own life for man as the ultimate propitiation for sin!