As a fan of
Kansas City sports, I like to listen to a sports talk radio station out of
Kansas City from time to time. There’s a jewelry store in Kansas City that runs
a lot of commercials on that station, and their advertising slogan is, “Now you
have a friend in the jewelry business.”
That’s a
pretty smart slogan if you ask me, because it makes us feel good to think that
we have friends in strategic places. If you’re ever in a jam, it feels good to
be able to say, “Don’t worry – I’ve got a friend who can get us out of this!”
Today we’re
going to be reminded that we have a friend in the most powerful place of all.
We have an advocate in heaven – someone who is representing us and defending
us. This friend is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Jesus
assumed this role for us after his death when he was raised to life and then
ascended to heaven 40 days later. Section 5 of our Statement of Faith contains
brief statements about Jesus’ resurrection and ascension before describing his
present ministry for us. This section states:
We believe in the bodily resurrection and Lordship of Jesus
Christ, his ascension into heaven and his present advocacy and priesthood in
the presence of God for us (Acts 2:32; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23; Acts 1:9; 1 John 2:1;
Heb 7:25; 8:1-2).
Let’s take a closer look at these claims.
The Bodily Resurrection
As you can
see, our Statement emphasizes that Jesus’ body truly did come back to life
after it had been entombed. This emphasis is meant to counter the tendency
among some people to try to accommodate Christian teaching to the challenges of
skeptics. The Resurrection was obviously an unusual event; it was out of the
ordinary, and so many people over the years have said that there is no way that
it could’ve happened.
Some people
who have desired to uphold the Christian faith have responded to these
challenges by saying, “Well, we certainly believe that Jesus spoke to the
disciples after he died, but perhaps he just spoke to them in a vision. Maybe
it’s true that his body didn’t really come back to life, but the disciples just
thought it did.”
That idea
flies in the face of so much of what the Bible records. What happened to his
body if it did not come back to life? The Bible says that three women first
found his tomb to be empty when they went to visit it on the first day of the
week. They reported it to the disciples, and Peter and John found the tomb to
be empty when they went to check it out. Even the Roman soldiers who were
supposed to guard the tomb reported that it was empty.
The Bible
also states that when Jesus appeared to the disciples they touched his body and
he ate food in their presence. The Bible clearly means to tell us that his body
did come back to life, and that is the only explanation that makes sense of the
facts.
The Lordship of Jesus Christ
Our
Statement then mentions the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This phrase refers to the
truth that Jesus himself announced in Matthew 28:18 as part of the Great
Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Obviously, as the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God had always been
ruling over all things. But after his resurrection, Jesus as the God-man was
exalted into authority over all things. That fact will be on full display one
day after Jesus returns to establish his kingdom in this world.
The
Lordship of Jesus is also highlighted in the rather familiar passage in
Philippians 2:9-11 [READ Phil 2:9-11]. This detail is easy to misunderstand,
but we should note that the title “Lord” is actually the “name above all names”
that was bestowed on Jesus. It is not Christ’s human name of Jesus, but his new
title of Lord that is the name above all names. He was given that title as an
honor because of his willingness to carry out God the Father’s plan of
salvation. And again, we will see his Lordship on full display when he comes to
reign over this world.
His Present Advocacy and Priesthood
It’s very
natural for us to ask, “What is Jesus up to these days?” We know what he did in
the past because we have read about it in the Bible. We know he’s going to
return in the future and that we will be with him forever. But what is he up to
right now? For many Christians, that remains a great mystery. Our Statement
sums up the Bible’s teaching about this when it mentions his present advocacy
and priesthood.
As our
advocate, Jesus acts like something of a defense attorney for us in the
courtroom of God the Father. 1 John 2:1 puts it like this – “My little
children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” That’s
Plan A for all of us, right? We don’t want to fall to temptation, but if we do,
we don’t need to fall into despair.
Why is
that? Notice the rest of the verse – “But if anyone does sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Jesus is right now in
the presence of God the Father to plead our cause for us when we sin.
Now we must
understand that Christ’s advocacy is not for God’s benefit, but for the sake of
our confidence and reassurance. God the Father is not some angry man looking
for a fight who has to be restrained by Jesus. Remember the truth of John 3:16
– for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
The Father
loves us and he doesn’t have to be constantly convinced to continue to love us.
But that fact is so easy to forget when we sin, isn’t it? We think, “How could
God still love me after what I’ve done? How could he still accept me after
this?” So for our sake, whenever we are tempted to doubt God’s love for us, we
have this reassurance that Christ is on our side – ready to take up our cause
and defend us. What grace and mercy!
Closely
related to all of this is the work of Christ’s priesthood for us. Just as the
priests in the Old Testament offered sacrifices for the sins of the people,
Jesus has offered a sacrifice for our sins to God the Father. The author of
Hebrews spilled a lot of ink in his letter as he emphasized that Christ’s
priesthood is far superior to that of the Old Testament priests:
·
Jesus only had to offer his sacrifice once,
whereas the Old Testament priests had to do it over and over again;
·
Jesus’ own blood was far more precious than the
blood of animals that they offered;
·
Jesus never had to offer sacrifices for his own
sins like they did, because he was perfect;
·
Jesus can now remain a priest for us forever –
he never has to be replaced like they did when they died.
So through
his own death, Jesus offered once for all time the only sacrifice that was
needed for us to receive complete and total forgiveness from God. As Hebrews
7:25 puts it, “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God
through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”
Monday Matters
As always,
we want to find a very practical application of these truths to our daily
lives. With these ideas, such an application is not hard to find:
Jesus’ advocacy and priesthood give me all the confidence I
need to pray to God about every temptation and to confess my every sin.
Since Jesus
sits right now at the right hand of God the Father, I never have to wonder if
I’m going to get a friendly reception from God when I pray. I have an advocate
pleading my cause and a priest representing me in the presence of God.
With these
reassurances, God has made such a gracious accommodation to our weakness. We
are so quick to lose our confidence in the promises that God has already given
us. Sometimes it is lost through sin, sometimes it is lost through cynicism. We
are told in life that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is,
and when we read in the Bible about God’s magnificent love for us, it sounds
too good to be true! So even we, as God’s children, might say, “How can it be?
Can I always count on him to be loving?”
So that no
lingering doubts about his love will keep us from him, God tells us that we
have an advocate and a priest in his presence so that we are always doubly
assured of a friendly reception. Here’s what the author of Hebrews has to say
about this [READ Heb. 10:19-23].
So that we
will never wonder if God can truly understand what we need, we are reminded
that our advocate and priest can sympathize with us through and through [Heb.
4:14-16].
Isn’t that
just what we need? Mercy! Grace! And they are ours for the taking whenever we
go to the Lord in prayer. And we can do so with every confidence, knowing that
our pleas are amplified by our great high priest!
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