Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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The Advocate
Throughout this series, we've seen how "the Satan" works as the accusing voices within each man, and within society itself. And we've seen how Jesus accomplished a total defeat of these voices when he refused to fight by the same methods.
But even more than this, Jesus presents the face of God as the antithesis of the Accuser - the Advocate. I John 2:1-2 tells us that Jesus is "an Advocate with the Father". The word that is translated as “advocate” is parakletos, and the meaning is along the lines of “defense
attorney” - the opposite of the "prosecuting attorney" that "the Accuser" represents. Now, those who believe in Penal Substitution often try to turn the situation into Jesus vs. the Father - the Father (who is an angry judge) wishes to condemn us, but Jesus the Advocate stands in the way. But the problem with this is that Jesus has made many statements along the lines of John 10:30, where he tells us that he and the Father are one (or of one essence, as the footnote says). So why would we think the Father has a judgmental, angry personality if Jesus is the complete opposite?
Also, it’s interesting to note that the word parakletos is also used for the Holy Spirit in John 14:15-17 and John 15:26-27. And Jesus identifies this spirit of defending others as the "Spirit of Truth" - so Jesus is saying that ultimate truth is not found in accusing, but in defending!
Jesus changes our image of God from an angry judge to a defense attorney. In fact, the Bible implies that Jesus is the judge (see Mt. 25:31-46 and Rom. 2:16 for a couple examples) - and thus the judge is the Advocate! And how could you lose that case? In fact, Jesus is the judge who does not judge! (See John 8:15)
In John 8:1-11, we see Jesus acting both in the role of judge and of defense attorney when an adulterous woman is brought to him. In refusing to let anyone else stone or condemn this woman, Jesus has taken on the role of the defense attorney. Jesus does judge her in the way an Advocate would when he tells her “Go now and leave your life of sin.” He has pointed out her destructive behavior and commanded her to turn from it – because God loves this woman! Love does not condemn when we disobey – love is saddened because it knows the natural consequences we will face for this destructive behavior. But rather than condemn her, Jesus is standing on her side as a person, and the people he seems most angry with are the stone throwers.
Later on, in Acts 9:1-22, Jesus is also Paul’s defense attorney. It is hard to imagine a more hard-hearted person than one who would travel around stoning Christians simply for being Christians. Paul was full of rage and addicted to control. But Jesus showed love to him, even in his unrepentant state, and softened his heart. Jesus loved and healed Paul – and what did Paul do to deserve this? Nothing.
The good news of the Gospel of Jesus is not that God loves repentant sinners, but that God loves unrepentant sinners.
Perhaps the most dramatic statement of Jesus as defense attorney rather than prosecuting attorney is Jesus’ final words on the cross. The cross shows us a juxtaposition of two realities: the depth of destruction caused by unloving behavior, and the even greater depth of love in God’s response. Rather than condemning those who subjected him to such a violent, cruel, senseless death, Jesus says in Luke 23:34:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.Jesus, in his wisdom, knew that you can’t solve the hurt caused by the Accuser by piling on more guilt and fear. This is why you rarely see Jesus confronting sin - in fact, usually the only sin he points out is the pride of the legalistic pharisees! In other words, the sin that Jesus is always going on about is the Accusing nature itself!
The Accuser only serves to entrap people within their harmful, damaging lifestyle - I always say that you can't break a habit, you can only replace it. This is why you will often see smokers gaining weight after quitting - they are merely replacing the bad habit of smoking with a dependency on food to solve their cravings. So rather than accusing the sinner, Jesus the Advocate comes alongside of them and shows them what makes them special - he gives them a purpose, and replaces their bad habits with good ones.
But the picture of God that Jesus shows us is of a merciful Being. After commanding his disciples to love their enemies in Luke 6:35, Jesus states that "you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." Not only does Jesus imply here that mercy and love of enemies is a prerequisite for being "children of the Most High", but Jesus tells us that this is how God is. Jesus follows this statement up by stating this explicitly in verse 36:
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.Jesus follows this statement up by defining just what this mercy looks like (verses 37-38):
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.I am reminded of one of the most powerful scenes in movie history - in "Good Will Hunting", we are introduced to a troubled young man named Will Hunting, who is discovered to be a Math genius. In one of the final scenes of the movie, Will has a breakthrough with his psychologist. All throughout the movie, he has been distant and protective of himself. But as he is talking with his psychologist - Sean (played by Robin Williams) - about the abuse his father put him through, Sean picks up Will's file and says: "Will, you see this, all this shit? It's not your fault." Will says, softly and in a non-committal voice "I know." Sean repeats: "No you don't. It's not your fault." Will repeats his statement: "I know." But Sean is relentless - and in a dramatic act of prophecy, he comes alongside Sean and repeats "it's not your fault" while Will breaks down in tears, and you can see all the hurt he's bottled up inside for years being poured out.
Before we can pour out the unconditional love of God, we must defeat shame. In "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead", shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown writes:
Shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying. Researchers don’t find shame correlated with positive outcomes at all - there are no data to support that shame is a helpful compass for good behavior. In fact, shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive and hurtful behaviors than it is to be the solution.Elsewhere in the book, Brown illustrates how shame is a function of the Domination System - she tells a story of a session she had with a group of college students where a young man told her about "the box":
Shame works like termites in a house. It’s hidden in the dark behind the walls and constantly eating away at our infrastructure, until one day the stairs suddenly crumble.
“Let me show you the box.” I knew he was a tall guy, but when he stood up, it was clear that he was at least six foot four. He said, “Imagine living like this,” as he crouched down and pretended that he was stuffed inside a small box. Still hunched over, he said, “You really only have three choices. You spend your life fighting to get out, throwing punches at the side of the box and hoping it will break. You always feel angry and you’re always swinging. Or you just give up. You don’t give a shit about anything.” At that point he slumped over on the ground. You could have heard a pin drop in the room."The Box" is the Accuser's assault on individuality. The Accuser cannot stand when others are different - unique is not allowed. I think that some people manage to get out of that box, but then everyone else starts smacking them with baseball bats and trying to stuff them back in! Society hates it when there is a person who doesn’t conform! That’s the Accuser at work! But I believe that Jesus, as Advocate, prizes what makes people unique! God the Advocate boasts of our unique gifts: "look at how special my child is!"
Those who do not accept the all-inclusive nature of God, revealed through the doctrine of Biblical Universalism, will be ill-equipped, I fear, to adopt Jesus’ non-violent way and speak the voice of the Advocate. They will have difficulty accepting that violence does not redeem. Jesus pointed to a different way of understanding judgment - judgment was not the end, but a beginning. The fire of judgment does not consume, but purifies - as in the oft-used Biblical metaphor of the refiner’s fire (see Mal. 3:3, Heb. 12:29, I Pet. 1:7 for a few examples). Divine judgment is not intended to destroy, but to awaken through the act of removing impurities. God’s judgment is more often expressed through passive judgment - allowing the wicked to face the destructive traps that they themselves constructed through their exclusive structures of domination. Through this understanding, we find that judgment is not the last word, but often the first Word which initiates New Creation. Jesus’ entire ministry expressed this truth, as he sat at the same table as the “sinners” of his time: those who had been cast out by the political and religious systems.
Jesus the Advocate says “your sins have been forgiven, now go and sin no more” (see John 8:11) - forgiveness comes first and frees the sinner to enter into the kingdom of God, leaving behind their destructive way of life. But to enter this new Way, we must also be willing to forgive our enemies - we must reject the very mechanism of “enemy” that scapegoats others. We must cease to identify people by their sins, but see the image of God in them.
In the Harry Potter series, there is a conversation between Harry and Sirius Black where Harry is worried that he might be bad because he has dark feelings and is often angry. And Sirius says:
You’re not a bad person. You’re a very good person who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.Often, in order to love our "enemy", we must see the enemy within - thus Jesus' teaching on projection with the illustration of a log in our own eye (Mt. 7:1-5, Lk. 6:41-42). Loving the enemy within enables us to extend this love outward to love the "enemy" without - accepting God’s forgiveness and extending it in response. But if we insist - after being forgiven - that God hates those we hate and refuses to forgive them, we inevitably insert a psychological time-bomb. Our own hypocrisy, while we may successfully deny and hide from it for a time, will come back to haunt us in the end. Unconsciously we know that a deity who is hostile towards certain types of people is potentially hostile to ourselves as well. So we will be locked in a constant battle, and will find no peace. This battle will ultimately descend into a perfectionism which results in the condemnation of all - the devil’s universalism.
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| What if "the enemy" represents our own projections? |
So we must learn to see our enemies as a mirror - so often, those we have the most difficulty with are displaying characteristics that are very much a part of us. And this can function as a useful mirror, and show us our own weaknesses which our friends ignore out of love. Our friends rarely tell us about our faults - this is usually what makes them a friend in the first place: that they are willing to overlook our faults and let them be. But our enemies can reveal them to us, and this can transform our enemy from a hurdle into a gift. This becomes a very humbling experience, as we realize that before we can transform our enemies, we must first transform ourselves, and that our enemy has helped us in this task. Then we can look at our enemies and say: “forgive them, for they know not what they do” - because we understand how the same was true of us. We can now understand how our enemy has been deluded by the same rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, and spiritual forces spoken of in Ephesians 6:12.
It's time for another break - and next time, I will present some concluding thoughts.
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Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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