“But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
– 1 John 2:1–2
1 John just keeps getting better. We prayed according to 1 John 1:9. Now 1 John 2 tells us that when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, to get the picture, Jesus completely righteous, with no sin in him is our advocate before God the Father who stands in our place. He is the propitiation for our sins. Just either say that word out loud with me or think about it. Propitiation, propitiation. What does that mean? It means the one who turns aside just judgment. The one who turns aside wrath.
1 John 2:1–2 Shows Us What Jesus Does
This is what Jesus does. He stands in the gap for us as our advocate. And he takes the penalty that we deserve upon himself in his righteousness. He became sin for us in order that we might what? 2 Corinthians, might become the righteousness of God. Jesus is the propitiation, what a great word, for our sins. And not just for our sins, for the sins of the whole world, for the sins of people in every nation, tribe and tongue who trust in Jesus. This is an invitation for the whole world to believe in Jesus, to find in Jesus, an advocate before God the Father, who has paid the price, who has endured the just wrath we deserve in our place, for all who trust in him.
Jesus, we praise you as our advocate. We love that you are at the right hand of the Father right now in all of your righteousness as our advocate. All glory be to your name, the propitiation for our sins. You are. 1 John 2:2, “We just confess with your word today you are the propitiation for our sins.” And we love that you are the propitiation for our sins. We are so grateful that you have taken the just judgment, the just wrath. And we deserve eternal wrath. We deserve. You’ve taken it upon yourself. You’ve endured judgment in our place and turned aside the wrath of the Father toward us, that we might experience the love of the Father, that we might be welcomed in by the Father, as sons and daughters.
This Verse Praises God for His Propitiation
We praise you as our propitiation, and not just ours only. We praise you as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, for the sins of men and women in every nation, tribe and tongue. And so God, we pray, cause the name of Jesus the advocate, Jesus the propitiation for sin to be made known among all the nations we pray. We pray today, specifically for the Hazara people of Afghanistan, 3.8 million of them. 0.03% Christian. God, you know these numbers far better than we do. You know the names of those few Christians, and you know the names of the millions of people who have little to no access to the gospel right now and who don’t know the good news about Jesus the advocate, Jesus the propitiation.
So God, we pray, change that. We pray for the spread of the gospel among the Hazara. We pray for many disciples to be made and churches to be multiplied among the Hazara of Afghanistan. Please God, please bring it about for your name’s sake, for the glory of Jesus the propitiation for our sins in the world, among the nations, for the glory of Jesus our advocate with the Father. We pray all of this according to your Word before you right now, oh God, in the name of Jesus, our advocate. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
