Verse of the Week...

The Advocate 

Before the throne of God above


I have a strong and perfect plea.

A great High Priest whose name is Love

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart.

I know that while in Heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart.


When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within,


Upward I look and see Him there


Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Saviour died

My sinful soul is counted free.

For God the just is satisfied


To look on Him and pardon me.


Behold Him there the risen Lamb,


My perfect spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I AM,


The King of glory and of grace,


One in Himself I cannot die.

My soul is purchased by His blood,


My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ my Saviour and my God!

--Charitie Lees Smith (1863)


This is my new favorite hymn. It’s full of rich, beautiful, inspiring theological ideas about Jesus’ advocacy for those who call Him ‘Lord.’ And while each stanza captivates, the single line that stands out from the rest goes: ‘No tongue can bid me thence depart.’ In other words, nothing, no one, can separate me from my Savior. Call it perseverance of the saints, call it what you will. There’s just something about this truth that makes me feel full, something about it that ushers in peace and security, and in doing so, casts out anxiety and despair.

I don’t know about you, but in my life there have been plenty of shameful moments, occurrences when my behavior or spoken words or thoughts leave me awestruck at my destructive capabilities and, in light of them, questioning, sometimes even of the safety of my salvation. In the wake of those times it seems many tongues bid me thence depart, as guilt-heaping accusations fly my way—some, if not most, from my own lips. It’s rough, to put it mildly, and somewhat of a spiritual crisis ensues when resulting doubt begins to mount and dejection settles in. It’s so true: Satan tempts me to despair, telling me of the guilt within me, bidding me, with all his might, to leave forever the forgiving arms of my Jesus.

Have you been there? It’s an awful place to be. The world around turns to gray, to gloom, my outlook dims and my heart grows calloused. And by my own dismissal, God seems eerily absent.

In this place a truthful word is needed. Better yet, the Truth, the Word, is needed. The Apostle Paul obliges:

‘But where sin increased, grace increased all the more…’ –Romans 5:20

Though our ears may not hear it, though our minds cannot conceive it, and though our hearts fight to disbelieve it, the veracity of Romans 5:20 remains. In our worst moments, when the grotesqueness or our sin surprises even us, grace increases. When we wrong others, when we sin against our body, the temple of God, when we break, destroy, wreck and ravage, it is precisely at these moments grace abounds most. The blood-bought grace, the kind only supplied by the Savior, is wholly sufficient to completely cover our worst. That’s why it’s so amazing. That’s why it’s so ‘of God.’

Because nothing outruns grace, nothing exceeds its reach, from the book of Romans there derives another glorious truth:

‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ –Romans 8:38-39

Hear that? Nothing will be powerful enough to pry us from His gracious grasp. And despite the damning utterances of others and our own whispers within, no tongue can bid us thence depart.

Indeed, Hallelujah! Praise Jesus, the God who by His death and resurrection made it so.

His steadfast, unending grace to you,

Voice of another