Grace and Truth

John 1:14-17 KJV - 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.  

15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.  

16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.  

17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.  

The theme that rings from this passage of scripture is the theme e of grace and truth. The first thing we must address is that there are two Johns involved in this text. The apostle John is the person who wrote the book of John, and he is telling his account of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, in our passage of scripture today, the apostle John is telling us about the words of John the Baptist as he preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For example, the 14th verse is the voice of the apostle John, and verses 15, 16, and 17 are the voice of John the Baptist. In order to understand the context of our scripture, it is necessary that we consider the first verse of this chapter where the apostle John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn. 1: 1).  

The apostle John’s very first claim is that Jesus was there in the beginning, and he was not created. For, he was with God. Not only did John say he was with God, but he also stated that Jesus was God. Since we now understand the context of John’s writing, we can understand the great wonder and magnitude of Christ’s humility. How great was his love being that he was and is a holy God and yet willing to put on flesh and dwell with sinful humanity. Not only did Jesus put on flesh and live among sinful humanity, but he also gave his innocent blood and his innocent life in order to save sinners like us. In doing so, Jesus restored grace to all those who accept the new covenant that God offers through his blood. John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, knowing these truths about Jesus, wrote that Jesus was “full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1: 14).  

In the following verse, verse 15, John the Baptist testifies about Jesus saying, “This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.” Why is it necessary that John says this, especially since the John the Baptist was Jesus’s older cousin. John the Baptist was older than Jesus, because he was born before Jesus. The Mary, mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, were both pregnant during the same season. When Mary received news from the angel that she was about to be pregnant, she visited her older cousin Elizabeth who was already pregnant with a John the Baptist. When Mary entered the room with baby Jesus in her belly, John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb when he heard the salutation of Jesus’s mother Mary. Even in the womb, John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost when he was in the presence of Jesus (Luke 1: 38-44). Since John the Baptist was conceived before Jesus, he must have been born before Jesus. Although John was born before Jesus, he still claimed that Jesus was before him.  

John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah, was one of the Levitical priests who worked in the temple. Before John the Baptist was even born, the angel told Zachariah that his son would prepare the way for the Messiah. John’s entire life went into preparing the way for the Messiah and preparing the hearts of the people for the coming of the Messiah. Being that his father was a Levitical priest; being that the angel warned Zachariah that John’s life’s work would be preparing the way of the Lord (see Luke 3: 4), John studied everything there was to know about the Messiah.  John could confidently say that Jesus was before him, because he knew the words of the prophet Isaiah concerning the Messiah. The prophet Isaiah said:  

 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6)  

John knew that Jesus was before him, because Scripture said that the Messiah would be called “The mighty God” and “The everlasting Father.” John the Baptist knew that the Messiah was God, and he knew that the Messiah was from everlasting to everlasting. Christ confirms this revelation in the Book of Revelation where he says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” Therefore, when John the Baptist said that Jesus was before him, he was saying, “Make no mistake about it. Jesus was before me, because he is God. He’s so much God that I am not worthy to unlatch his shoes. He’s so God that he will baptize his people in the Holy Ghost with fire. He said that Jesus was so God that he would bring salvation to all those who were made righteous in Jesus Christ. He’s so God that he will judge the world of sin, and the evil doers he will cast into the unquenchable fire. This is why John the Baptist could say that Jesus was preferred before him, because he was before him. Even though John the Baptist was born before Jesus, Jesus existed before John the Baptist, because Jesus is God.  

In the 16th verse of the same, John the Baptist16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. What does John the Baptist mean when he says, “And of his fullness have all we received grace for grace?” What he is saying is that because Jesus is who he is and he has done what he has done, we have sufficient grace. In other words, Jesus’s identity as the son of God and his work of dying on the cross and being raised from the dead provides for us sufficient grace.  When we get a picture of who God is; when draw close to God, we can gaze into perfect holiness and purity. When we gaze into the perfect holiness and purity of God, the first thing we realize is how sinful we are as humans. The prophet Isaiah had a moment when he also gazed into the perfect holiness and purity of God. In Isaiah 6:1-8, Isaiah said:  

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. 6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me (KJV)  

            Here we have Isaiah’s account of when he was able to look into the perfect holiness and purity of God. Notice how he describes seeing the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and evidence of his glory and sovereignty filling the temple. Notice how bright the glory of God must have been, because Isaiah said that the seraphim covered their faces with two of their wings. Isaiah is giving us a picture of the holiness of God. God’s holiness was so bright, until the seraphim had to cover their faces. Not only that, but God’s holiness was so pure that the seraphim used their other two wings to cover their feet. God’s essence is so holy that the seraphim flew with two more wings, and they cried unto another, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”  

When Isaiah saw the holiness of the Most High, he said, “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” When Isaiah saw the LORD, he was distraught. He was upset, because at the same time he realized how unworthy he was. He realized how sinful and unclean he was. And when he came to the realization of how sinful he was, that is when God showed grace to Isaiah. The bible says that one of the seraphim went and got a hot coal out of the fire, and he put the hot coal on Isaiah’s mouth. Then, the angel told Isaiah, “Lo, this (coal from the fire) has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged away. In other words, God saved Isaiah by removing all of Isaiah’s iniquity, and he sanctified Isaiah by purging away all of his sins. This lets us know that we can only be saved and sanctified when we realize that we are filthy and sinful. When we get close enough to God to see how holy he is and how filthy we are, that is when God extends to us his saving and sanctifying grace. The bible says, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.” We must accept that God is the truth, and we must always be honest in our worship. The truth is that we are all unworthy of God, and we are all sinful. When we come to this reality, that is when the grace of God is revealed.  

There is another dilemma we face when we come to grips with the reality of how sinful we are, even as Christians. We live by the confession that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, but we still live in sinful flesh. The apostle Paul said it like this in Romans 7: 20-21, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (KJV) The apostle Paul said that there was a war going on in his body. His spirit desired to please God, but his mind and his body wanted to do evil and rebel against God.  

I would argue that this is a battle that every Christian struggles with, and some Christians are overwhelmed by this struggle. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by this war we have against our flesh, because sometimes our sinfulness can be so dirty and filthy until we think we are beyond repair. Sometimes we fear that our sins are too great to receive the grace of God. In 2 Corinthians 12: 7, the apostle Paul describes the same type of situation saying, “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” In this verse, Paul said that he was given a thorn in the flesh, which means he experienced great pain and/or great trouble in his flesh. Paul wrote that he was given a thorn in the flesh to buffet him. To be buffeted means to be struck, to be hit, to be smitten with great force. He is telling us about a time when he had great trouble in his flesh, and he said it was like the enemy hit him with great force. Furthermore, Paul believed that he received this attack so that he would not be exalted above measure which means that God allowed him to be hit with such a great blow so that he would be humbled.  

Paul was so humbled, so frustrated, so irritated, so pained, so discouraged by the thorn in his flesh until he prayed to God three times asking him to remove the thorn from his flesh. After Paul prayed to God the third time, God responded saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” When we are humble enough to confess to God that we are weak, that is when God gives us the grace of his strength. When we are humble enough to confess to God our brokenness, that is when God gives us the grace of healing. When we are humble enough to confess to God that we are sinful and filthy, that is when he gives us his grace of salvation and sanctification. So, this is what John the Baptist is talking about when he says that we have received “grace for grace.” It means that God’s grace is sufficient for us. When we think that we have exhausted the grace of God, let us be reminded that through the fullness of Jesus Christ we have received grace for grace. This is not a grace that should be abused, but his grace is extended to us when we humbly broken with hearts postured for repentance. God’s grace does not give us a license to live sinful lives, but it is extended to us when we fall short.  

Since we know that they salvation and sanctification graces we are given to us as gifts, we must be willing to give the gift of grace to others. Often, we can become so exalted and lifted up that we forget that it was only because of grace that we can be lifted up. Sometimes we can get a little prideful and think that we are the reason for our salvation and holiness, but the reality is that we were and still are in desperate need of forgiveness. All of mankind is in desperate need of forgiveness, but oftentimes we forget that the people around us need the same forgiveness that we have been given.

When we recognize that we are sinful, we confess, we repent, and we beg for mercy. So, on one hand we have our hands out in desperate need for forgiveness, but on the other hand withdraw our hands from others when its time for us to give them grace. We hold the hand of forgiveness behind our backs, and we refuse to give the same grace to others that God has given to us. Jesus noticed this tendency in us, and he resolved that only those who are merciful will receive mercy from God. Only those who forgive will receive forgiveness from God (Matt. 6:14-15). This is so essential to our faith as Christians until Christ included this principal in the Lord’s prayer (see Matt. 6: 7-19). Let us be humbled in our dispositions, recognizing that on our best days we still need the mercy and forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ. Let us be empowered to show mercy to our fellowman as our Father in heaven has shown mercy to us.  

Let us pray,  

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen