Jesus – full of grace and truth.  John 1.14

Tap, tap … the sure sound that the message is coming –

so the Word of God became a person  --stop--

and took up his abode in our being  --stop—

       John now moves from the tangible person of Jesus to the

       set-apart being—describing him with grace, truth and glory …

full of grace and truth  --stop—

and we look with our own eyes upon his glory  --stop--

glory like the glory which an only son receives from a father –-John—

The grace with which Jesus came, the disposition he had toward us, the expression he has in his eyes yet today when he looks at you and me … each is undeserved.  We haven’t done anything to deserve it.  Grace – it just is.  And it is beautiful; yes, grace is beautiful.  Grace always is beautiful.  Jesus allows us to see the beauty of God.

In Jesus, is the fullness of truth, John astutely points out.  Jesus embodies truth, communicates truth, and through his truth, makes us free.  >Read it for yourself—John 8.32—

I suppose if we did not study the life of Jesus for anything else but these two qualities, it would be enough.  I mean, doesn’t the world need more of both grace and truth?  Oh, of course, it does!  And so we look to the Savior who is full of both.  Enough to spill over to us perhaps if we can learn from him, if we can sit or follow close enough that the dust of the rabbi will perhaps land on our clothes. 

On a conference call with my corporate brothers as we had our first study from John’s gospel, the rhetorical question hung in the air, ‘how could anyone doubt the truth of this?  How could anyone doubt the Bible?’  The question came as we looked at John 1.1-In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; Genesis 1.1-In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; Colossians 1.16-For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him; and Psalm 33.6-By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth… marvelling how God’s Word confirms itself …  [over hundreds of years and 40 different authors without contradiction.]  And then first one brother and then another repeated things doubters have said to them, things we have heard about the many hands the papyri passed through over the centuries, the unreliable nature of the transcribers, etc.  My response to the scoffer, the skeptic is first a question, ‘have you read through any of the gospels?  Have you read the book of John, for example?’  You see, folks, people soon forget about transcription error of jots and tittles and punctuation when they read the account of the life of Jesus Christ.

Last night, I got to teach this same passage to the group of high school students I lead and love, many having never sat in a church service.  To watch them locate the book of John, and then turn to find Genesis, and then Colossians, explaining that Jesus actually spoke the universe into existence … well, it was incredible!  But just to watch the innocence and sweetness of them searching the pages of the Bible is a rare treasure to behold, and one I know the Lord Jesus treasures also.

To complete the thought of this incredible verse, Jesus Christ is himself the magnificent concept of glory—both a noun and a verb.  In the flesh, he was the glory—the very manifestation—of God the Father.  And further, Jesus was the one in whom the Father took glory and received glory. 

Jesus – full of grace, truth, and the glory of the Father. 

Christine