Day 6 Receiving the Grace

Receiving the Grace

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known       John 1:16-18

John has just spoken of seeing the glory of the incarnate Word, Jesus, ‘full of grace and truth’ (1:14). Now we move from seeing that grace to receiving it. ‘From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.’

And while it’s true that we do receive ‘one blessing after another,’ John literally wrote ‘we have all received one blessing “instead of” another.’ This is far more likely what John meant because of what immediately follows, ‘For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Christ.’ The blessing of ‘the law … given through Moses’ was replaced by the blessing of ‘grace and truth (that) came through Christ.

While John had seen the grace that came through Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry in a multitude of ways, from eating some of the bread and fish that was supernaturally multiplied, through being saved from a ferocious storm, he almost certainly has in mind the grace revealed when Jesus went to the cross to die for the sins of the world. Hand in hand with this would be experiencing eternal life along with all those who believe on Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit poured out by the ascended Saviour. These salvation blessings are all God’s grace in action.

The ‘grace and truth’ that came through Jesus far surpassed the blessing of the Law that came through Moses. Jesus made the Father known in a way that went way beyond any revelation the Law could have. ‘No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.’ When Moses asked to see God’s glory, He was told ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you … But, he said, you cannot see my face, for no one may see my face and live’ (Exodus 33:19,20). Moses did not see God. Only Jesus has seen God and can therefore make Him known.

We can too easily downplay the revelation of God that came through the Old Testament law. But great as this was, it is eclipsed by the revelation of God we have in Christ. Jesus has ‘made (the Father) known.’ There is no contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. It is the same God but the fullest revelation of God the Father has come to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to Philip, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’ (14:9). If you want to know what the Father’s like, simply look at Jesus. He is the image of His Father, exactly the same in character and temperament.

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