Gods Grace and Truth Revealed

(John 1:14-18)

I. Introduction.
A. Orientation.
This morning, were going to finish looking
At Johns introduction to the great subject of his book Jesus Christ.

He has told us so far that:

Jesus is God
He is not a god, He is the God.

Not only does John say this as plainly as you could hope for,
He tells us things about Jesus that could only be true of God:
That He is eternal He was in the beginning with God.
That He is the Creator He made all things that have been created.
He has life in Himself He breathed life into Adams soul and gives life to all His
creatures.
He is the light of men He has given man a rational soul
Which is one of the reasons He is called the Logos the Word, the reason of God
He gives man the ability to reflect that part of Gods image.
He is the One who gives light to everyone who comes into this world
Through natural revelation, as well as the light of reason to see it.
He was in the world before His incarnation in the Garden, as the angel of the
Lord, in Theophanies.

And yet when He came into His world the world didnt know Him.

When He came to His own people (the Jews) they didnt receive Him.
But there were those who did
Not because they were related to Abraham not of blood
Not because they were coerced or persuaded by others not the will of man
Not because they saw Him and desired Him themselves not of the flesh
But solely because of Gods mercy they were born of God.
B. Preview.
Before John begins the account of Jesus life on earth,
He wants to point out one more thing about Him
Something that could be considered the culmination of what hes just told us
There are those who were, are, and will be born of God,
Because Jesus has brought about grace and truth.

God became a man,

That He might become the source of Gods truth and grace.

II. Sermon.
A. First, lets consider that God became a man.
John writes, And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His
glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (v.
14).
1. Who is Jesus Christ?
He is the Word whom weve seen is God who became flesh.
John uses the word flesh to refer to another nature that the Word took to
Himself.

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Flesh can sometimes refer to the sin nature.
Its what we as believers must constantly fight against
Why God gave us His Spirit so that we could:
Paul writes, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire
of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).
And, So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh for if you are living according to the flesh, you must
die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you
will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of
God (Rom. 8:12-14).

Obviously, Jesus did not become flesh in this sense He was and is without sin.
The author to the Hebrews writes, For we do not have a high priest who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things
as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).
John is referring to His human nature
The same thing Paul will tell us in our text this evening,
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although
He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being
made in the likeness of men (Phil. 2:5-7).

John further emphasizes that He became a man when he writes that He dwelt
among us (v. 14)
The word, dwelt, literally means to pitch or live in a tent.
Paul uses the same word to refer to our bodies, For we know that if the earthly
tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor. 5:1).
When Jesus pitched His tent among us He became one with us.

As an interesting side note, another word for tent is tabernacle.

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The tabernacle was the original tent that God commanded Moses to build that
He might dwell among His people.
That was also a picture of Jesus Christ
Not only did the priesthood and sacrifices going on inside picture the work He
would do to cleanse you from your sins,
But the tent itself with the Shekinah/divine presence dwelling inside
Was showing us that God would one day pitch His tent among men
That He would become a man in Jesus Christ,
To take your place in judgment and die for your sins.

2. But again, John reminds us, for His sacrifice to be valuable enough to pay for
your sins,
This One who became a man had to be God
Only One infinitely worthy could atone for sins that are infinitely serious.

John has already told us that Jesus is God,

But he emphasizes this again: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among
us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full
of grace and truth (v. 14).

In his first letter, John is careful to emphasize that Jesus became a true man
Against those who denied God could ever take to Himself a material nature
He had to be a man to be your Savior.
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with
our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the
Word of Life (1 John 1:1).
He stresses this in His Gospel as well, but seems to lay an even greater stress on
the fact that He is God, perhaps because this is what the Jews were struggling
with.

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He writes, We saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father (v.
14).
What John meant was not that Jesus was glowing
As He did in the fiery cloud that led the Israelites by night,
Or as He did in the Shekinah that appeared in the temple
Remember, that was Jesus breaking into history
John meant that he saw Gods character, His reflection in this One who is His
image,
As the author to the Hebrews writes, And He is the radiance of His glory and
the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of
His power (1:3).
This was a glory that could only be in the One that was the only begotten from
the Father
In the One who is the eternal Son,
In, as he says in verse 18, the only begotten God:
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom
of the Father, He has explained Him (v. 18).
Do you want another passage to prove His deity? Here it is!
Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of God
He was in the beginning with God (eternal),
And He is the only begotten God.

Notice that here again we see two persons referred to as God,

The same saw in verse 1, The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The first reference has to do with the Father
He is the One no one has seen at any time.
When God appeared in the OT as the Angel of the Lord or as a Theophany,

It wasnt the Father the Israelites saw:

It was the only begotten God the Son of God
The One who is in the bosom of the Father,
Or as John states it in verse 1, the One who was with God
He was in the world even then to reveal Gods glory.

But now, John tells us, He has become a man to reveal the Father even more
fully, The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has
explained (exegeted) Him (v. 18)
Jesus came to explain the Father, to reveal Him to us
Only One who is Himself God can do that.

That Jesus is God is also implied by what John the Baptist said regarding Him,
This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me has a higher rank than I,
for He existed before me (v. 15).
Jesus is the One he pointed to at His baptism This was He of whom I said
The One who would begin His ministry after Johns began He who comes
after me
Remember Jesus was conceived 6 months after John,
And John began his ministry 6 months before Jesus to prepare His way

Though Jesus was conceived 6 months after John,

He existed long before him, because He is eternal with the Father.
[He] has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.

John is merely the messenger who was to prepare His way.

But Jesus is the Lord who is coming (John 1:23).

He is God in human flesh.

B. So the Son of God became a man to save us.

He became man that He might reveal/explain the Father.
But He also became man that He might reveal something else: Gods truth and
grace.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as
of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (v. 14).
The glory we can see in Jesus
Besides that glory He has as the only begotten from the Father
Is His fullness of grace and truth.
In Jesus, we see these things come about
We see them revealed.

Gods grace and truth were partially revealed in the Law given through Moses
Through the Moral, Civil and Ceremonial Laws.

God showed us how we are to live in Moral Law the Ten Commandments.
If you really want to know right from wrong,
What is pleasing to God and what is sin,
This is one thing you can study.

The Civil Law was simply the Moral Law applied to that society
In that sense, it can help you to understand more about the Moral Law
What it means and how it should be applied.

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The Ceremonial Law was a revelation of Gods grace.
When His people broke His Moral Law, they deserved death.
But God didnt give them death:
He ordained the priesthood to offer sacrifices to cover their sins.
If the one who sinned went to the priest with his sacrifice,
And at the same time saw in that sacrifice the Lamb God had promised to take
away sin once and for all,
And trusted Him, that person was truly forgiven.
There was grace and truth in the Old Covenant.

But in the New, they are fully revealed in Jesus, For the Law was given through
Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ (v. 17).
Jesus is the reality/truth behind the Moral and Ceremonial Law
The One they were pointing to,
The One who would fulfill them both:
As the God-man,
He obeyed the Moral Law that He might give a perfect righteousness
And a perfect example of how we are to live
And He fulfilled the Ceremonial Law by dying on the cross
That He might provide an atonement for sin.
Through His work, grace and truth were fully realized
In the Gospel.

Because God was already giving grace in the Mosaic Covenant,

John tells us that in the New Covenant, Jesus replaces grace with grace

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John writes, For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace (v.
16).
The phrase Grace upon grace can mean grace heaped on grace
That the New Covenant is more gracious than the Old
But it can also mean, Grace instead of, or in place of, grace
There was grace in the Old Covenant as weve seen
But its been replaced by an even greater grace, a fullness of grace, in the New.

The Old Covenant could only point to the One through whom this grace would be
realized,
But it didnt have the power to give it or to change the heart.
God provides that power in the New Covenant
Through the work of His Son, Jesus
He gives grace instead of grace, grace heaped on grace, a fullness of grace,
To those who will trust Him.

C. Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of God, became a man,

So that through His obedience and death,
He might fulfill the Law and the Prophets,
And bring grace to those who were doomed to die.

Do you know this grace this morning?

Have you embraced the truth of the Gospel?
That you are a sinner in need of Gods mercy and forgiveness?
That there is grace and forgiveness in Jesus alone, if you will turn from your sins
and trust in Him?

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Have you trusted Him?
Does your life show that you have
By embracing His standard by following the example of His Son?
Dont rest comfortably in your salvation unless you see Christ being formed in you.

If you dont see this, if you havent trusted Him, I would invite you to do so this
morning.
Why will you die when God has shown you His truth in Jesus?
Why will you perish when He offers you so much grace in His Son?
Turn from your sins and take hold of Him in faith.
He will receive you; He will forgive you; and He will change you by His power.
Amen.
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