The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (books to read to improve english .TXT) 📕

Advocate is “Lord of all,” (Acts 10:36), that the kingdom is Christ’s, that it is laid up in heaven for us, (Eph 5:5, Col 1:5); yea, that the “inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, is reserved in heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation” (I Peter 1:4, 5). Thus therefore is our heavenly inheritance made good by our Advocate against the thwartings and branglings29 of the devil; nor can our new sins make it invalid, but it abideth safe to us at last, notwithstanding our weaknesses; though, if we sin, we may have but little comfort of it, or but little of its present profits, while we live in this present world. A spendthrift, though he loses not his title, may yet lose the present benefit, but the principal will come again at last; for “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Sixth. The necessity of the advocateship of Jesus Christ for us further appears in this-to wit, for that our evidences, which declare that we have a right to the eternal inheritance, are often out of our own hand, yea, and also sometimes kept long from us, the which we come not at the sight or comfort of again but by our Advocate, especially when our evidences are taken from us, because of a present forfeiture of this inheritance to God by this or that most foul offence. Evidences, when they are thus taken away, as in David’s case they were, (Psa 51:12), why then they are in our God’s hand, laid up, I say, from the sight of them to whom they belong, till they even forget the contents thereof (II Peter 1:5-9).30

Now when writings and evidences are out of the hand of the owners, and laid up in the court, where in justice they ought to be kept, they are not ordinarily got thence again but by the help of a lawyer-an Advocate. Thus it is with the children of God. We do often forfeit our interest in eternal life, but the mercy is, the forfeit falls into the hand of God, not of the law nor of Satan, wherefore he taketh away also our evidences, if not all, yet some of them, as he saith-“I have taken away my peace from this people, even lovingkindness and mercies” (Jer 16:5). This he took from David, and he entreats for the restoration of it, saying, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit”

(I Chron 17:13; Psa 51:12). And, “Lord, turn us again, cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved” (Psa 80:3, 7, 19.) Satan now also hath an opportunity to plead against us, and to help forward the affliction, as his servants did of old, when God was but a little angry (Zech 1:15); but Jesus Christ our Advocate is ready to appear against him, and to send us from heaven our old evidences again, or to signify to us that they are yet good and authentic, and cannot be gainsaid. “Gabriel,” saith he, “make this man to understand the vision” (Dan 8:16). And again, saith he to another, “Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls” (Zech 2:4). Jerusalem had been in captivity, had lost many evidences of God’s favour and love by reason of her sin, and her enemy stepped in to augment her sin and sorrow; but there was a man [the angel of the Lord] “among the myrtle trees” that were in the bottom that did prevail with God to say, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; and then commands it to be proclaimed that his “cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad” (Zech 1:11-17). Thus, by virtue of our Advocate, we are either made to receive our old evidences for heaven again, or else are made to understand that they yet are good, and stand valid in the court of heaven; nor can they be made ineffectual, but shall abide the test at last, because our Advocate is also concerned in the inheritance of the saints in light. Christians know what it is to lose their evidences for heaven, and to receive them again, or to hear that they hold their title by them; but perhaps they know not how they come at this privilege; therefore the apostle tells them “they have an Advocate”; and that by him, as Advocate, they enjoy all these advantages is manifest, because his Advocate’s office is appointed for our help when we sin-that is, commit sins that are great and heinous-“If any man sin, we have an Advocate.“31

By him the justice of God is vindicated, the law answered, the threatenings taken off, the measure of affliction that for sin we undergo determined, our titles to eternal life preserved, and our comfort of them restored, notwithstanding the wit, and rage, and envy of hell. So, then, Christ gave himself for us as a priest, died for us as a sacrifice, but pleadeth justice and righteousness in a way of justice and righteousness; for such is his sacrifice, for our salvation from the death that is due to our foul or high transgressions-as an Advocate. Thus have I given you thus far, an account of the nature, end, and necessity of the Advocateship of Jesus Christ, and should now come to the use and application, only I must first remove an objection or two.

[OBJECTIONS REMOVED.]

SIXTHLY, [I now come to answer some objections.]

First Objection. But what need all these offices of Jesus Christ?

or, what need you trouble us with these nice distinctions? It is enough for us to believe in Christ in the general, without considering him under this and that office.

Answer. The wisdom of God is not to be charged with needless doing when it giveth to Jesus Christ such variety of offices, and calleth him to so many sundry employments for us; they are all thought necessary by heaven, and therefore should not be counted superfluous by earth. And to put a question upon thy objection-What is a sacrifice without a priest, and what is a priest without a sacrifice? And the same I say of his Advocate’s office-What is an advocate without the exercise of his office? And what need of an Advocate’s office to be exercised, if Christ, as sacrifice and Priest, was thought sufficient by God? Each of these offices is sufficient for the perfecting the work for which it is designed; but they are not all designed for the selfsame particular thing. Christ as sacrifice offereth not himself; it is Christ as Priest does that. Christ as Priest dieth not for our sins; it is Christ as sacrifice does so.

Again, Christ as a sacrifice and a Priest limits himself to those two employs, but as an Advocate he launches out into a third. And since these are not confounded in heaven, nor by the Scriptures, they should not be confounded in our apprehension, nor accounted useless.

It is not, therefore, enough for us that we exercise our thoughts upon Christ in an indistinct and general way, but we must learn to know him in all his offices, and to know the nature of his offices also; our condition requires this, it requireth it, I say, as we are guilty of sin, as we have to do with God, and with our enemy the devil. As we are guilty of sin, so we need a sacrifice; and as we are also sinners, we need one perfect to present our sacrifice to God for us. We have need also of him as priest to present our persons and services to God. And since God is just, and upon the judgment-seat, and since also we are subject to sin grievously, and again, since we have an accuser who will by law plead at this bar of God our sins against us, to the end we might be condemned, we have need of, and also “have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Alas! How many of God’s precious people, for want of a distinct knowledge of Christ in all his offices, are at this day sadly baffled with the sophistications of the devil? To instance no more than this one thing-when they have committed some heinous sin after light received, how are they, I say, tossed and tumbled and distressed with many perplexities! They cannot come to any anchor in this their troubled sea; they go from promise to promise, from providence to providence, from this to that office of Jesus Christ, but forget that he is, or else understand not what it is for this Lord Jesus to be an Advocate for them. Hence they so oft sink under the fears that their sin is unpardonable, and that therefore their condition is desperate; whereas, if they could but consider that Christ is their Advocate, and that he is therefore made an Advocate to save them from those high transgressions that are committed by them, and that he waits upon this office continually before the judgment-seat of God, they would conceive relief, and be made to hold up their head, and would more strongly twist themselves from under that guilt and burden, those ropes and cords wherewith by their folly they have so strongly bound themselves, than commonly they have done, or do.

Second Objection. But notwithstanding what you have said, this sin is a deadly stick in my way; it will not out of my mind, my cause being bad, but Christ will desert me.

Answer. It is true, sin is, and will be, a deadly stick and stop to faith, attempt to exercise it on Christ as considered under which of his offices or relations you will; and, above all, the sin of unbelief is “the sin that doth so,” or most “easily beset us” (Heb 12:1, 2). And no marvel; for it never acteth alone, but is backed, not only with guilt and ignorance, but also with carnal sense and reason. He that is ignorant of this knows but little of himself, or what believing is. He that undertakes to believe sets upon the hardest task that ever was proposed to man; not because the things imposed upon us are unreasonable or unaccountable, but because the heart of man, the more true anything is, the more it sticks and stumbles thereat; and, says Christ, “Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not” (John 8:45). Hence believing is called labouring, (Heb 4:11); and it is the sorest labour, at times that any man can take in hand, because assaulted with the greatest oppositions; but believe thou must, be the labour never so hard, and that not only in Christ in a general way, but in him as to his several offices, and to this of his being an Advocate in particular, else some sins and some temptations will not, in their guilt or vexatious trouble, easily depart from thy conscience; no, not by promise, nor by thy attempts to apply the same by faith. And this the text insinuateth by its setting forth of Christ as Advocate, as the only or best and most speedy way of relief to the soul in certain cases.

There is, then, an order that thou must observe in exercising of thy soul in a way of believing.

1. Thou must believe unto justification in general; and for this thou must direct thy soul to the Lord Christ as he is a sacrifice for sin; and as a Priest offering that sacrifice, so as a sacrifice thou shalt see him appeasing Divine displeasure for thy sin, and as a Priest spreading the skirt of his garment over thee, for the covering of thy nakedness; thus being clothed, thou shalt not be found naked.

2. This, when thou hast done as well as