I repeat, the action of the Advocate does not wait for our repentance and confession. We may take the case of Peter as an illustration. Before he had committed the terrible sin of denying his Lord, Jesus said to him, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” He was indeed on the way to this sin, being filled with self-confidence, and he needed to be sifted, and the sifting was allowed to take place; but Jesus prayed for him before he fell into the hands of Satan, and his faith did not fail. He was indeed sifted, but his faith was sustained even in that dark hour when Satan would have filled him with despair. At the suited moment Jesus looked on him, and His words were brought to his remembrance, and then “Peter went out and wept bitterly.” Here was indeed repentance, but it was the fruit of the Lord’s intercession, and not what led to it. Afterward Peter was restored. There was the message to him from the risen Lord by the women, and the Lord appearing to him first of all the apostles, and, last of all, the probing of Peter’s heart to reach the root of the evil; but in all this we see only the Lord’s own action in meeting Peter’s need. And He meets our need too, when we, like Peter, have turned aside. It is a service of perfect love, and unmixed grace, not waiting for anything in us, save the need which arises from our failure and sin, and even this it anticipates, as we have seen in the case of Peter.
We may now look a little at the ground of this service of our blessed Lord. Our Advocate is “Jesus Christ the righteous.” The righteous One represents us: “as he is so are we.” He is our life and our righteousness. We are in Him, the righteous One, and thus stand before God in immutable righteousness. “And he is the propitiation for our sins.” He has suffered for our sins, the Just for the unjust, has borne them in His own body on the tree, and has perfectly glorified God about them; and His presence on high is the witness of our perfect acceptance in Him, according to the value of His propitiatory sacrifice. On the ground of this, He maintains our cause on high, and, if we have sinned, secures our restoration to communion.
It is important to see that His advocacy is not in any sense to atone for our sins, as if they were imputed to us. He atoned for our sins once in His death on the cross, and this can never be repeated. By that one sacrifice all our sins are covered, and there can be no imputation of guilt to the believer; as it is written, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin;” and again, “Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” We have been pardoned and justified, and are in Christ, according to divine righteousness; so that the advocacy of Christ can have nothing to do with satisfying God about guilt, or securing pardon for us, as if sin had been imputed to us. Even the sins we may commit after having believed, were all covered by the death of Christ, and they are not imputed to us; but they hinder communion with God, and this is an immense loss to our souls. It is God’s good pleasure that we should be in communion with Himself, and that our joy should be full. But practical holiness in us is absolutely necessary for this, because God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. We cannot go on in sin, and have communion with Him, and hence, if we sin, we need to be restored, so as to enjoy afresh the communion we have lost. And for this Jesus our Advocate intercedes, on the ground of the fact, that we are in relationship with God according to divine righteousness, and according to the value of His propitiatory sacrifice.
And now a word as to the action of restoring grace. Jesus Christ the righteous is our Advocate with the Father, and His plea for restoration cannot fail. But there is also the action of the Lord’s grace towards us when overtaken in sin. A beautiful picture of this action is given us in John 13, where the blessed Lord washes the feet of His disciples. Peter did not understand then, but would understand it afterward. He also, in his ignorance and pride of heart, resisted the Lord’s action, saying, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” But “Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” Peter then desired Him to wash his head and hands also; but Jesus again answered, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit, and ye are clean, but not all.’ All, except Judas the betrayer, were already washed, and were “clean every whit.” They were clean through the word which Jesus had spoken to them. (Chap. 15:3.) They were born again—born of water (a figure of the word) and of the Spirit—and thus were clean. We are born again but once, and in this get a new and clean nature, and thus are washed all over. But washing of the feet applies to our walk as Christians. Our walk needs to be separated from the defilement of this world, in order that we may have communion with Christ in glory. It is thus we have a part with Him. “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” Rejected and cast out of this world, He was going back to Father. But He did not thereby give up His own which were in the world, but “loved them unto the end.” And in going to the Father, He would have them linked up with Himself in His own blessed relationship with the Father, to have communion with Himself and the Father outside the world which was the scene of His rejection and death. But to have part with Him—communion, with Him—according to that heavenly relationship, it was necessary to have the walk kept pure (the feet washed) according to the truth of this relationship. Thus the blessed Lord has girded Himself for this lowly service of love to His own, in order to keep them in communion with that heavenly scene where He is, forming their affections according to the revelation of Himself to their hearts, as they are being conducted on to their portion with Him in glory.
Do we then fall into sin? Do our feet become defiled in our walk through this evil world? Well, we have an Advocate with the Father, whose plea for us cannot fail, and who also turns to us in blessed grace, with towel and basin, to wash our feet and bring us back into the communion we have lost. By the application of His word to us, we are led to self-judgment, and a walk of holy separation from evil, according to the truth of the cross, in which sin in the flesh has been condemned. May the Lord give us to walk thus, in happy communion with Himself.
Jesus also says: “If I, then, your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you.” May we also heed this admonition, following His example in the same lowly grace, and in the power of the same divine love.
One thing more. If we have sinned, and the Lord is seeking to wash our defiled feet, or if our brethren are seeking to do so in the Lord’s name, how solemn if we are resisting this action of grace! God is not mocked! He is full of patience, but if we are rebellious, He knows how to chastise and break our stubborn wills. Oh may we trust our feet in the hands of the blessed Lord, to be washed when need arises through our failure; bowing to His will with repentant hearts and with chastened spirits, and humble, prayerful dependence on God, seek to walk in His fear, and in the realization of His perfect and unfailing love and grace.
A. H. R.