1. I. That Christ is an advocate, in some general propositions.
I. That Christ is an advocate, in some general propositions.
I . In general, Christ is as much an advocate as he is a sacrifice, as God is as much a governor as he was a creator. As we say of providence, it is a continued creation, so of intercession, it is a continued oblation. As providence is a maintaining the creation, so this intercession is a maintaining the expiation, and therefore is by some called a presentative oblation. The heathens had some notice of the necessity of some mediator or intercessor, either by tradition from Adam, from whom the notion of a mediator might as well be transmitted as the notion of expiation of guilt by bloody sacrifices. But while they retained the carcase, they lost the spirit of it; and while they preserved the sentiment of the necessity of an advocate, they framed many wrong and unserviceable ones. They dubbed their heroes, and men that had been benefactors to them in the world, with this title after their death, and elevated them to be intermediate powers between God and them. Some of those demons are fancied to carry up their prayers to God, and back their prayers with new supplications;* others brought gifts from God. Some handed their petitions and pleaded for them; others brought the
answers of their prayers and relieved them, which the apostle alludes to: 1
Cor. 8:5, 6, 'For though there be that are called gods, as there be gods many, and lords many; but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.' As they had many gods, so they had many mediators between themselves and those particular gods; but, saith he, 'To us there is but one God,' the principal cause, 'and one Lord Jesus Christ,' the procuring cause of all things, by whose suit we are what we are, and enjoy what we have. This intercession of Christ was ancient; it is as ancient as his first undertaking our suretyship, by virtue of which the vengeance the sinner had merited was deferred. He 'upholds all things by the word of his power,' Heb.
1:3, or his powerful or prevailing word, when they were ready to sink; not only as God by the word of providence, but as mediator by his word of intercession, that the guilty sinner might not be dealt with by the rigours of justice, but in the tenderness of mercy. As he was fore-ordained a sacrifice, so he was fore-ordained an advocate; as he was a lamb slain, so he was an advocate entertained, from the foundation of the world. His sacrifice, though not performed, could not have a credit with God, as it had, but his pleas upon the credit of that sacrifice must be admitted also. Thus were believers of old saved by him, and redeemed in his pity, as he was 'the angel of the presence' of God, Isa. 63:9, i.e. in the phrase of the New Testament,
'appearing in the presence of God for them,' Heb. 9:24, noting the manner of his intercession. He did, as an undertaker for them, interpose for their salvation; he 'bare them, and carried them all the days of old,' alluding, I guess, to Aaron the high priest bearing the names of the twelve tribes in the breast-plate of judgment upon his heart when he went into the holy place to intercede for the people, Exod. 28:29. He was an advocate for them to
whom the credit of his propitiation did extend; but that did extend to those that believed before his coming in the flesh; to them therefore his intercession extended also. It was then indeed an intercession upon credit; it is now an intercession by demand, since the actual offering himself a victim.
1. This office of advocacy belongs to him as a priest, and it is a part of his priestly office. The high priest was not only to slay and offer the sacrifice in the outer part of the tabernacle, on the anniversary day of expiation, but to enter with the fresh blood into the sanctuary, and sprinkle it seven times, to shew the perfection of that expiating blood which was figured by it, Lev.
16:14. In the blood was the expiatory virtue: Lev. 17:11, 'It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul;' yet the high priest did not perform his office complete, till he had sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice with his finger on the mercy seat; he was also to bring a censer full of burning coals from off the altar, and incense in his hands, and put it upon the fire before the Lord, within the veil, that the cloud in the incense might cover the mercy seat, Lev. 16:12, 13. As the high priest going into the holy of holies after the sacrifice, was a type of Christ's ascension after his passion on the cross; so the blood he was to sprinkle was a type of that blood, and the incense he was to kindle, a figure of the prayers of Christ after his entering into heaven.* Incense in Scripture frequently signifies prayer, and prayer is compared to incense. As the high priest's office was to enter into the sanctuary with this blood and incense to intercede for the people, and obtain a blessing for them, so it pertained to the office of Christ, as a priest, not only to enter with his own blood, but with the incense of his prayers, as a cloud about the mercy-seat, to preserve by his life the salvation he had merited by his death. Christ entered into heaven as a priest, and in that
capacity 'sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,' Heb. 8:1, and was settled 'an high priest for ever,' by a solemn oath, Ps. 110:4. There is therefore some priestly act, which he hath a capacity and an obligation, by virtue of his office, to perform for ever, all the time he stays in heaven, till his second appearing (as the high priest, all the time he was in the holy of holies, was performing a sacerdotal act), which is not the act of sacrificing, that was done by him on earth (as the sacrifice was slain without the veil). Nothing but intercession can answer to that type, which is called an appearing for us, as a proxy or attorney, in the presence of God, Heb. 9:24, otherwise there is no priestly act for him to do; and so his being a priest would be an empty title, a name without an office.
God's oath would be insignificant, if there were not some priestly act to be performed by him, as well as a priestly office vested in him. Being a priest, therefore, he must have something to offer, even in heaven; which cannot be a new sacrifice, for that was but once to be done. It must be therefore the presenting his old, his body wounded, which is nothing else but this which we call intercession; a presenting to God this sacrifice of himself, and pleading the virtue of it in every time of need. The apostle tells us our salvation depends upon his intercession, and his intercession upon his priesthood, Heb. 7:24, 25. Our salvation depends not simply upon his living for ever, for that he had done if he had never come upon the earth to redeem us, but upon his living for ever in an unchangeable priesthood; the end of which unchangeable and everlasting priesthood is intercession. As our salvation depends not upon God's living for ever, for God had lived for ever had we been damned; but upon God's living for ever as a reconciled God, and entered into covenant. As he was a priest upon the cross to make an expiation for us, so he is our priest in the court of heaven, to plead this
atonement, both before the tribunal of justice and the throne of mercy, against the curses of the law, the accusations of Satan, the indictments of sin, and to keep off the punishment which our guilt had merited.
2. This, therefore, was the end of his ascension, and sitting down at the right hand of God. In his incarnation, he came from the Father to acquaint us with his gracious purposes, and how far he had agreed with God on our behalf; and at his ascension he went from us to the Father, to sue out the benefits he had so dearly purchased. He drew up an answer upon the cross to the bill, that sin by virtue of the law had drawn against us, and ascended to heaven as an advocate to plead that answer upon his throne, and rejoin to all the replies against it. When his offering was accepted, he went to heaven to the supreme Judge, to improve this acceptation of his sacrifice, by a negotiation which holds and continues to this day. Heb. 9:24, 'Christ is entered into heaven;' for what end? 'To appear in the presence of God for us;' but may he not appear for us at first, and afterwards cease from it? No: now to appear for us. He entered into heaven long since, but he appears for us this instant. Now, as if the apostle should have said, while I am writing, and you are reading, in this, in that instant, Νῦν, is he appearing for us as a public person. Though there be a change in his condition, from a state of humiliation to a state of exaltation, yet there is no change in his office: Heb.
8:1, 2, 'He is set down as a priest on the right hand of God,' 'a minister of the sanctuary,' or of holy things, λειτουργὸς τῶν ἁγίων, as a performer of a divine office for men. As Moses, forty days after his conducting the Israelites out of Egypt (the type of our redemption), ascended the mount, while his redeemed people were in a conflict with Amalek, to pray for them as a type of Christ, so Christ himself, forty days after his resurrection, which was an evidence of our deliverance from spiritual slavery, ascended
up into heaven, to lift up his head there as our advocate, for assistance to be granted to us against our spiritual enemies. As this intercession is the true design of his eternal life as a priest; and since the apostle lays it down as a manifest truth, witnessed by all the prophets, Acts 3:21, that there is to be a restitution of all things, and that the heavens receive Christ till that restitution; it will follow that he sits there in order to that restitution; not as an idle spectator, but a promoter of it by the efficacy of his mediation; and no other order did he receive from his Father after his resurrection, being declared the begotten Son by his resurrection, but to ask, for that follows just upon the declaration of his being his Son, Ps. 2:7, 8, which is interpreted in the New Testament of his resurrection. Asking was all required of him for the enjoying his reward, of which the advantage of his people in enjoying the fruits of his death, is none of the meanest part in his own account, since it was 'the joy set before him.' His mediation kept the world from ruin after man's fall, and his intercession promotes the world's restoration after his own passion.
3. This advocacy is founded upon his oblation. He is our advocate, because he was our propitiation; the efficacy of his plea depends upon the value and purity of his sacrifice. He is an intercessor in the virtue of his blood. The apostle, therefore, speaking of his intercession, Heb. 7:24, considers it with a respect to his sacrifice: ver. 27, he could not have interceded as a priest, if he had not offered. As the high priest could not enter into the holy of holies, till, by the slaying of the sacrifice, he had blood to carry with him, so the true High Priest was not to be admitted to solicit at the throne of grace, till he had satisfied the tribunal of justice; so that a propitiation and his advocacy are not one and the same thing (as the Socinians affirm), but distinct: the one is the payment, the other the plea;
one was made on earth, the other is managed in heaven; the one was by his death, the other by his life; the one was done but once, the other performed perpetually; the first is the foundation of the second. Because he paid the debt as our surety, he was fit to plead the payment as our attorney; what he finished on earth, he continually presents in heaven. By shedding his blood, he makes expiation; by presenting his blood, he makes intercession; in the one he prepares the remedy, and in the other he applies it. They are not the same acts, but the first act is the foundation of the second, and the second hath a connection with the first.
4. The nature of this advocacy differs from that intercession or advocacy which is ascribed to the Spirit. The Spirit is said to 'make intercession for us,' Rom. 8:26; and he is in a way of excellency called the Comforter, which we heard is the same word in the Greek with this word which is here translated advocate. Christ is an advocate with God for us, and the Spirit is an advocate with God in us, John 14:17. Christ is our advocate, pleading for us in his own name; the Spirit is an advocate, assisting us to plead for ourselves in Christ's name. Christ pleads for us in the presence of God, the Spirit directs us to such arguments as may be used for pleas for ourselves.
The Spirit doth not groan himself, but excites in us strong groans, by affecting us with our condition, and putting an edge upon our petitions, and strengthening us in the inward man, Eph. 3:16. The Spirit is an advocate to indite our petitions, and Christ is an advocate to present them. Some distinguish them that Christ is an advocate by way of office, and the Spirit by way of assistance; but certainly the Spirit is an advocate by way of office to counsel us, as Christ is an advocate by way of office to plead for us; and the Spirit is as much sent to do the one in our hearts, as Christ was called back to heaven to do the other for our persons. The Spirit is an intercessor
on earth, and Christ is an intercessor in heaven. Again, as there are two courts we are summoned to appear in, the court of the supreme Judge and the court of the Judge's deputy, our own consciences, Christ clears us by his plea at God's bar, and sets us right with the offended Father. The Spirit, as Christ's deputy, being sent in his name, clears us at the bar of our own consciences. Christ answers the charge of the law in the court of God's justice, and the Spirit answers the accusations of sin in the court of God' deputy. The one pleads for our discharge above, the other pleads for our peace below; and the voice of God's Spirit is as mighty in us, as the voice of Christ's blood is mighty for us.