Jesus Christ as advocate?

A visitor to the site sent me the following question:

In 1 John 2:1, Jesus Christ is called an advocate with the Father. If you read this from the perspective of “atonement by satisfaction,” you might come to the idea that Jesus pleads for believers before God: God actually wants to punish, but Jesus Christ steps in for us and changes His mind. But God Himself sent Christ to die for (through) our sins, so that seems like a strange line of reasoning to me. How would you explain this?

Below is the passage the sender refers to (more literally translated):

1 My little children, these things I write to you that ye may not sin; and if any one may sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous,
2 and he is a covering in regard to our sins, and not in regard to ours only, but also in regard to the whole world.

Indeed, viewed through an orthodox lens, the thought naturally arises here that Jesus Christ, as advocate, now protects us against God’s condemnation. Because He would have borne God’s wrath against sin substitutionally on the cross, that wrath can no longer reach us. In this view, Jesus Christ now stands as a protective wall between God and us. One may, for example, read the footnotes of the Statenvertaling (the official Dutch Bible translation from 1637) on this passage.

As has often been argued elsewhere on this website, it must be clear that this orthodox interpretation stands in direct contradiction to what Scripture teaches. Jesus did not bear God’s punishment, but the punishment that men imposed upon Him (Isa. 53:4,5). Israel handed Him over to the Romans to be crucified. This act was the greatest injustice and the most terrible sin ever committed in world history. Even though it took place “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). It had to happen that way.

Men nailed Jesus to the cross and killed Him, but God raised Him from the dead (Acts 2:24). By raising Him up, God proved that He does not reckon the sins of humanity to them (2 Cor. 5:19). For through this path God will give to mankind the Life that has moved beyond death (1 Cor. 15:22)! God raised Christ Jesus from the dead to then place Him at His right hand. The mere fact that He is now above is the best proof that God Himself is for us! Nothing speaks more in our favour than the fact that the One who was raised and glorified by God is now seated at His right hand (Rom. 8:33,34).

Insofar as Jesus Christ’s function as advocate (Gr. parakletos, lit. ‘one-called-alongside’) is to be understood as that of a lawyer, then it is not to protect us against God’s accusations, but against those of the diabolos (devil) as “accuser of our brethren” (Rev. 12:10).

Delen: