Christ our Intercessor
"We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." -I John 2:1 [KJV] This advocacy is here called, as elsewhere, "pleading the cause" of the believer, and is connected with deliverance, for such an advocate can never fail: "O Lord, Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; Thou hast redeemed my life" (Lamentations 3:58) . The figure is taken from a lawyer pleading the cause of a criminal, and using his best endeavours to bring him off uninjured. But such advocacy may fail for two reasons: 1. the incompetency of the advocate; or 2. the badness of the cause. But there are no such hindrances to the success of the advocacy of Christ. How he can plead his own sufferings, blood, and obedience? His very Person as the Son of God, and yet son of man, gives unspeakable value and validity to every plea of the great Intercessor. What validity, then, has His intercession in the court of heaven! It is true that He cannot deny the truth of the charge...