If Any Man Sin, We Have an Advocate, and John Wrote That on Purpose

The failing is not what took him out. It was the arithmetic he did after it.

He had done the same thing again. Not something new and not something worse. The same thing, the one he had brought to God on a specific night four years earlier and had meant every word about.

And what happened in his head afterward was not guilt exactly. It was a conclusion. If it can happen again after that night, then that night was not what he thought it was. And if that night was not what he thought it was, then the whole thing probably is not what he thinks it is, and he has been operating for four years on something that did not hold.

That conclusion is quieter than shame and it does far more damage, because shame keeps a man talking and this stops him.

There is a sentence in a short letter that was written specifically for the man on the other side of that arithmetic, and both of its halves are in the same verse.

Both halves in one sentence

Here it is, in the King James Version:

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. That is the aim, stated plainly, and it is not softened anywhere in the letter.

And if any man sin.

He does not say if. He says it, and then keeps going, in the same sentence, without a paragraph break and without a change of tone.

Whoever wrote that was not naive about how it goes. He states the goal and then immediately makes provision for the goal not being met, and he does both in one verse so nobody can quote half of it.

That is what a man who has done the arithmetic needs to see. The letter is not surprised. The provision is not an emergency measure bolted on afterward. It is in the same sentence as the aim.

You have provision written into the same verse as the instruction and you were never a case the letter failed to anticipate. 1 John 2:1 says that ye sin not and if any man sin in one sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a better run who makes both halves hold in a man at the same time.

The word advocate, and what it meant

We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Advocate is a courtroom word. It means somebody who stands beside you and speaks for you, and it means it in the most literal sense: he is present, he is on your side of the room, and he does the talking.

And the qualification given is not that the advocate is persuasive. It is Jesus Christ the righteous, which is a statement about his standing rather than his skill.

Then the next verse says what he brings with him:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

The advocate is also the payment. He is not arguing that the debt is smaller than it looks. He is the settlement, standing there.

Which means the thing the man was afraid of, that his repeat would come up in a room somewhere, is true, and there is somebody in that room, and the somebody is the one who settled it.

You have somebody standing and speaking for you and you were never going to be in that room alone. 1 John 2:1 calls Him an advocate with the Father and 1 John 2:2 calls Him the propitiation, and it is His Spirit who makes an ongoing arrangement something a man rests on rather than hopes for.

And if the conclusion you reached has gone past discouragement into somewhere darker, if it has reached not wanting to be here, that is not a thing to hold alone. A doctor, a counselor, somebody you trust who will pick up the phone. In the United States the 988 crisis line answers day and night. Nobody is asked to carry that by himself.

What Jesus said would happen and what He prayed about it

There is a scene in Luke that goes at the arithmetic directly, and Jesus is the one doing the arithmetic first.

And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. (Luke 22:31-32)

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.

He knows what Peter is about to do. He says so in the next two verses, with the detail about the rooster. And what He does with that knowledge is pray, in advance, about the specific thing.

And when thou art converted. When. Not if. The recovery is spoken about as a settled matter, before the failure has even happened, by the person who knows it is coming.

And strengthen thy brethren is an assignment given on the far side of it, which means the failure did not remove Peter from what he was for.

Paul says the same thing about the present arrangement:

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)

Who also maketh intercession for us. Present tense, ongoing, at the right hand of God.

You are prayed for in advance and you were never going to fall out of what you are for. Luke 22:32 has Him pray about the failure before it happens and say when thou art converted, and Romans 8:34 says He makes intercession now, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an intercession going on elsewhere something a man can lean his weight on.

What Proverbs says the count is

And the sentence that gives a shape to a life that has this in it more than once.

For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief. (Proverbs 24:16)

A just man falleth seven times.

Read that carefully, because it is not what most people remember it as. The just man in that verse is not the one who does not fall. He is the one who falls seven times and rises.

Which means a repeated pattern of falling and getting up is not evidence against a man in this book. It is the description given of the just one.

That does not make the falling good and the verse does not say it does. It settles what the falling proves, which is the exact question the arithmetic was answering wrongly.

You have a description that includes the falling and you were never disqualified by the count. Proverbs 24:16 says a just man falls seven times and rises again, and it is His Spirit who makes an old proverb a thing that holds a man up on the eighth time.