"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John born witness of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'"
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."

Message:

Our Lord Jesus Christ! Ah! What wondrous things of Thee are spoken!

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

And He is the head of the body the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

FOR IT PLEASED THE FATHER THAT IN HIM ALL THE FULLNESS SHOULD DWELL." (Col. 1:15-19)

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-1l)

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory." (1 Tim. 3:16)

And John writes: "And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

King of all that is kingly, King of life and light,
Lord of all that's lovely, robed in raiment white;
Highest of the lofty, grandest of the great,
Gentlest of the gracious, perfect is Thy state.
Prince of all that's princely, strongest in Thy might,
Boundless in Thy bounty, brightest of the bright!

Kindest of the kindly, wisest of the wise;
Morning Star most brilliant, Monarch of the skies:
Richest of the wealthy, of mankind the Head,
Fairest of the friendly, First-born from the dead.
Famous in Thy victory, foremost in renown,
Righteous in Thy justice, matchless is Thy crown!

God of all that's godly, truly good and just,
Noblest of the worthy, worthy of our trust.
Choicest of the comely, mighty, Thou, and strong,
Gorgeous in Thy glory, valiant all along.
Wondrous in Thy wisdom, changeless in Thy love,
Ageless in Thy goodness, so like God above!

Power, riches, wisdom unto Thee belong,
Hosts proclaim Thee worthy, in an endless song;
Every lip is praiseful, every voice upraised,
Christ is Lord triumphant, and forever praised!

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Jesus made some tremendous claims about His relationship to God Almighty:

"I and My Father are one." (John 10:30)

"Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. Philip said to Him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, "Show us the Father"?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves." (John 14:5-11)

John began this great Gospel with these startling words: "In the beginning was the Word (Jesus Christ), and the Word (Jesus Christ) was with God, and the Word (Jesus Christ) was God."

"FOR IT PLEASE THE FATHER THAT IN HIM ALL THE FULLNESS SHOULD DWELL" (Col. 1:19)

The word that Paul uses for FULLNESS is PLEROMA...it means fullness, completeness. Jesus is not simply a sketch of God or a summary and more than a lifeless portrait of him. In Him there is nothing left out; he is the full revelation of God, and nothing more is necessary!

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the Fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds;
Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of his power; whom he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;" (Hebrews 1:1-3)

And that is why John wrote: "...we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Jesus Christ alone brings to men and women the full revelation of God and that he alone enables them to enter into his very presence. The writer to the Hebrews (we have just quoted the first three verses of Hebrews) uses two great pictures to describe what Jesus was. He says that he was the APAUGASMA of God's glory. This word can mean one of two things in Greek. It can mean EFFULGENCE, the light which shines forth, or it can mean REFLECTION, the light which is reflected. Here it probably means EFFULGENCE. Jesus is the shining of God's glory among men.

He is saying that Jesus is the CHARACTER of God's very essence. In Greek, CHARACTER means two things, first, a SEAL, and second, the IMPRESSION that the seal leaves on the wax. The impression has the exact form of the seal. So, when the writer to the Hebrews said that Jesus was the CHARACTER of the being of God, he meant that He was the exact image of God. Just as when you look at the impression, you see exactly what the seal which made it is like, so when you look at Jesus you see exactly what God is like!

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John uses a term which needs some explanation..."the glory as of the only begotten of the Father ..."

ONLY BEGOTTEN...This term is never applied by John to any but Jesus Christ...and he uses it on five different occasions, namely 1:14,18; 3:16;18 and 1 John 4:9.

IT MEANS LITERALLY AN ONLY CHILD.

But this term...ONLY BEGOTTEN...has been much misunderstood and misinterpreted in past centuries. We have our first record in church history of a misinterpretation of this term...by Arius who was a Bishop in Alexandria whose views were condemned at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, and who died in A.D. 336. His views were known as ARIANISM. Arius taught that God the Son was at one point created by God the Father, and that before that time the Son did not exist, nor did the Holy Spirit, but the Father only. Thus, though the Son is a heavenly being, who existed before the rest of creation and who is far greater than all the rest of creation, he is still not equal to the Father in all his attributes---he may even be said to be "like the Father" or "similar to the Father" in his nature, but he cannot be said to be "of the sane nature" as the Father." The Arians depended heavily on texts that called Christ God's ONLY BEGOTTEN Son (John 1:14; 3:16,18 and 1 John 4:9). If Christ were "begotten" by God the Father, they reasoned, it must mean that he was brought into existence by God the Father (for the word "beget" in human experience refers to the father's role in conceiving a child). Further support for the Arian view was found in Colossians 1:15, "He is the image of the invisible God, THE FIRST-BORN OF ALL CREATION." Does not "FIRST-BORN" here imply that the Son was at some point brought into existence by the Father? And if this is true of the Son, it must necessarily be true of the Holy Spirit as well...so reasoned the Arians.

BUT THESE TEXTS DO NOT REQUIRE US TO BELIEVE THE ARIAN POSITION!

Colossians 1:15, which calls Christ "the first-born of all creation" is better understood to mean that Christ has the rights or privileges of the "first-born"--that is, according to biblical usage and custom, the rights of leadership or authority in the family for one's generation.

In Hebrews 12:16 we read: "Lest there be a fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright." His birthright was the privileges and authority accorded to the eldest son. It is the same thought in Colossians 1:15. It means that Christ has the privileges and authority and rule, the privileges belonging to the ‘first-born,’ but with respect to the whole creation. The NIV translates it, THE FIRST BORN OVER ALL CREATION.

As for the texts that say that Christ was God's only begotten Son, the early church felt so strongly the force of many other texts showing that Christ was fully and completely God, that it concluded that, whatever "only begotten" meant, it did not mean "created." Therefore the Nicene Creed in 325 affirmed that Christ was "begotten, not made":
"WE BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN; THAT IS, OF THE ESSENCE OF THE FATHER, GOD OF GOD, LIGHT OF LIGHT, VERY GOD OF VERY GOD, BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER..."

This same phrase was reaffirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381. In addition, the phrase "before all ages" was added after "begotten of the Father to show that this "begetting" was eternal. It never began to happen, but is something that has been eternally true of the relationship between the Father and the Son.

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However, the nature of that "begetting" has never been defined very clearly, other than to say that it has to do with the relationship between the Father and the Son, and that in some sense the Father has eternally had a primary in that relationship.

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ITEM IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH...and that is why I am taking much time with it.

In further repudiation of the teaching of Arius, the Nicene Creed insisted that Christ was "of the same substance as the Father." The dispute with Arius concerned two words that have become famous in the history of Christian doctrine, HOMOOUSIOS ("of the same nature") and HOMOIOUSIOS ("of similar nature"). The difference depends on the different meaning of two Greek prefixes, HOMO-, meaning "same," and HOMOI-, meaning "similar."

Arius was happy to say that Christ was a supernatural heavenly being and that he was created by God before the creation of the rest of the universe, and even that he was "similar" to God in his nature. Thus, Arius would agree to the word HOMOIOUSIOS. But the Council of Nicea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 realized that this did not go far enough, for if Christ is not exactly the same nature as the Father, then he is not fully God. So both councils insisted that orthodox Christians confess Jesus to be HOMOOUSIOS, the SAME nature as God the Father.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO WORDS WAS ONLY ONE LETTER, THE GREEK LETTER IOTA, AND SOME HAVE CRITICIZED THE CHURCH FOR ALLOWING A DOCTRINAL DISPUTE OVER A SINGLE LETTER TO CONSUME SO MUCH ATTENTION FOR MOST OF THE FOURTH CENTURY A.D. Some have wondered, "Could anything be more foolish than arguing over a single letter in a word?"

But the difference between the two words was profound, and the presence or absence of the iota really did mark the difference between biblical Christianity, with a true doctrine of the Trinity, and a heresy that did not accept the full deity of Christ and therefore was nontrinitarian and ultimately destructive to the whole Christian faith!

A similar heresy is abroad in the land today! Many preachers are saying....THE BIBLE CONTAINS THE WORD OF GOD. It sounds good, but it is not the total truth!

THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD! That is all the difference in the world. For if it only contains the Word of God, then man becomes the judge as to what is and what is not, the Word of God!

Paul warned Timothy: "Study to shew thyself approve unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16,17).

BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER means:
Jesus Christ was imminently the Son of God, sustaining a peculiar relationship to him in his divine nature, exalted above all men and angels, and thus worthy to be called, by way of eminence, his only Son. Saints are called his SONS as children, because that are born of His Spirit, or are like him; but the Lord Jesus Christ is exalted far above all, and deserves eminently to be called HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.

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What is GRACE? The New Scofield Bible says: "Grace is the kindness of God toward humanity. It is simply the unmerited favor of God toward sinners.

The Bible expresses it when it says that "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

God is gracious toward us, not on the basis of what we have done, but solely because it is his nature to be gracious.

GRACE is one of the great Christian words, and it is a minor mystery that John uses it three times in the Prologue and not again throughout his Gospel.

The word basically denotes "that which causes joy", and so "winsomeness". It comes to signify "good-will", "kindness", and the like, often with the notion that the favor shown is undeserved.

In the Christian understanding of things grace is especially seen in that God has provided for man's spiritual need in sending His Son to be man's Savior. From this we get the thought of the good gifts that God bestows on those who are saved, and finally that of the attitude of thankfulness that men ought to have to God for all His goodness to them.

WITH THIS JOHN LINKS "TRUTH". "Grace" and "truth". These are fitly and inseparably joined together. We cannot have the one without having the other.

There are many who do not like salvation by grace, and there are those who would tolerate grace if they could have it without the truth. The Nazarenes could "wonder" at the gracious words which preceded out of His mouth, but as soon as Christ pressed the TRUTH upon them, they "were filled with wrath," and sought to "cast him down headlong from the brow of the hill whereon their city was built" (Luke 4:29). Such, too, was the condition of those whose sought Him for "the meat that perisheth." They were willing to profit from His GRACE, but when He told them the TRUTH some murmured at Him, others were "offended" and "many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him" (John 6:66). And in our own day, there are many who admire the grace which came by Jesus Christ, and would consent to be saved by it, provided this could be without the intrusion of the truth. But this cannot be! Those to reject the TRUTH, reject GRACE.

"FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH." Jesus Christ declared the truth....In Him was no falsehood. He was not like the false prophets and false Messiahs, who were wholly imposters; nor was He like the emblems and shadows of the old dispensation, which were only types of the true; but He was TRUTH itself!

JESUS CHRIST IS THE EMBODIMENT OF THE TRUTH. He said: "I am the truth" (14:6). To see truth we must look at Jesus. Here is something infinitely precious for every mind and soul.

Very few people can grasp abstract ideas; most people think in pictures. We could think and argue forever and we would very likely be no nearer arriving at a definition of beauty. But if we can point at a beautiful person and say that is beauty, the thing becomes clear...the meaning is put in physical form.

Ever since men began to think about God they have been trying to define just who and what He is---and their puny minds get no nearer a definition. But we can cease our thinking and look at Jesus Christ and say: "That is what God is like." Jesus did not come to talk to men about God; He came to show men what God is like, so that the simplest mind might know Him as intimately as the mind of the greatest philosopher.

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The Apostle John in the Gospel and Epistles written by him makes reference to TRUTH forty-eight times, and threw him the Spirit of God has given to us a comprehensive presentation of the characteristics by which TRUTH may be identified.

Let us remember that the treasures of truth's treasury are everlasting...a familiar word in John's message. The wealth of truth's richest cannot be weighed. The volume of truth's virtues cannot be valued. The excellence of truth's essence cannot be estimated. The range of truth's resources cannot be reckoned. The magnitude of truth's ministries cannot be tabulated. Every detail of these abounding features is embodied in the Person of Christ.

Numerous parallels are given in Scripture of the experience of believers in relation to Christ and truth, which are identical. Let me mention only three:

"If ye continue in My Word...ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31,32). "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."

"I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth" (3 John 3-4) "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Col. 2:6).

"Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth" (John 17:16). "To them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:2,30).

Truth is the Word, the Word is Christ;
The Word is the Truth, the Truth is Christ;
Truth is that Light, the Light is Christ;
The Light is the Life, the Life is Christ.

Jesus Christ is the communicator of the truth. He told his disciples that if they continued with him they would know the truth (8:31). He told Pilate that his object in coming into this world was to witness to the truth (18:37). Men will flock to a teacher or preacher who can really give them guidance for the tangled business of thinking and living. Jesus is the one who, amidst the shadows, makes things clear; who, at the many crossroads of life, shows us the right way; who, in the baffling moments of decision, enables us to choose aright; who, amidst the many voices which clamor for our allegiance, tells us what to believe.

The truth is what makes us free (8:32). There is always a certain liberating quality in the truth. A child often gets strange, mistaken notions about things when he thinks about them himself; and often he becomes afraid. When he is told the truth, he is emancipated from his fears. A man may fear that he is ill; he goes to the doctor; even if the verdict is bad he is at least liberated from the vague fears which haunted his mind.

The truth that Jesus brings liberates us from estrangement from God; it liberates us from frustration; it liberates us from our fears and weaknesses and defeats. Jesus Christ is the greatest liberator on earth!

The truth can be resented. They sought to kill Jesus because he told them the truth (8:40). The truth may well condemn a man: it may well show him how far wrong he is. Paul writes to the Galatians and asks this question: "Who bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you?" (Gal. 3:1). Truth on the scaffold, crucified! Truth is perfect in sensitiveness and therefore suffers more keenly when bearing the penalty for guilt. Truth like love, her constant companion, never, never fails. What a spectacle of sorrowful suffering Christ became. How astounding that He should stoop so low and allow Himself to be made sin for us. Amid the inhuman insult of hoarse laughter and course language, the soldiers mocked His royal claims. No ridicule more rude, no scorn more

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scorching, no mockery more menial, and no contempt more cruel was ever hurled at anyone...at TRUTH! Truth rejected! Yet under every possible disadvantage Christ was the first and only one who made platted thorns to become a princely crown. He transformed the gloom of human grief into the grandeur of heavenly glory. Yea, more, He transmuted a dishonored death into a dignified diadem of higher life, and via the steps of a painful crucifixion at the rough hands of haughty men. He ascended to a pre-eminent coronation at the right hand of the highest majesty in the Heaven of heavens!

The Cynics declared that the teacher who never annoyed anyone never did anyone any good. Men may shut their ears and their minds to the truth; they may kill the man who told them the truth--but the truth remains. No man ever destroyed the truth by refusing to listen to the voice that told it to him; and the truth will always catch up with him in the end.

CHRIST IS TRUTH AND VICTORIOUS. He wore the panoply of omnipotent and His loins were girt about with truth, He Himself, the embodiment of all that is noble, stable, and durable. He stood unabashed and undeterred before the cold materialistic philosophy of the Sadducees, the confessed belief in the Word of God and faith in invisible spiritual realities. He trembled not at the threat of the Herodian, with his worldly politics, but sent him the message of the plan He had determined to fulfill in the two ensuing years. He met the great enemy of truth in the wilderness when physical energies were at their lowest ebb, and demonstrated that spiritual equipment from the Word of God was far superior to the infernal powers of evil. He overcame the world order, the sphere dominated by the prevalence of sin, with its modes, manners, and ministration; with its customs, fashions, and laws. This whole system of things which is divorced from God and which offers position, possession, and power to those who serve its interests, Christ declined every overture made to Him and stated emphatically, "I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

And that is why John could write: "I beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Now we come to verse 15: "John bore 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."

The apostle John now returns to the testimony of John the Baptist. He has stated that the Word became incarnate, and he now appeals to the testimony of John to show that, thus incarnate, He was the Messiah. We find in this verse that the Lord's forerunner bears witness to Christ's supreme excellency: "He that cometh after me is preferred before me," he declares, which in Greek, signifies Christ had His beginning "before" John. Jesus was actually six months younger in age then John and John may be saying quite simply; he who is my junior has been advanced beyond me. Or, John may be saying: I was in the field before Jesus, I occupied the center of the stage before He did; my hand was laid to work before His was; but all that I was doing was to prepare the way for His coming; I was only advanced guard for the main force and the herald of the king. It may be that John is thinking in terms much more deep than that. He may be thinking not in terms of time but of eternity. He may be thinking of Jesus as the one who existed before the world began, and beside whom any human figure has no standing at all. It may be that all three ideas are in John's mind. It was not he who had exaggerated his own position; that was the mistake that some of his followers had made. To John the topmost place belonged to Jesus! It follows, of course, that Jesus Christ the Lord outranks John the Baptist. Between Christ and John the Baptist there is a difference as between the Infinite in the finite, the eternal and the temporal, the original light of the sun

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and the reflected light of the moon.

We now come to verse 16 which is a verse that thrills my heart: "FOR OUT OF HIS FULLNESS WE HAVE RECEIVED GRACE UPON GRACE."

In verse 14, the fullness of Christ has been confessed. The author now substantiates this by adding that he and all other believers with him had experienced the blessed fruits of this fullness; they had received grace upon grace. Believers are constantly receiving grace in the place of grace...one manifestation of the unmerited favor of God in Christ is hardly gone when another one arrives. His mercies are new every morning!

The Word that John uses for FULLNESS is PLEROMA, and it means the sum total of all that is in God. He meant that in Jesus there dwelt the totality of the wisdom, the power, and the love of God. From Christ, who is the sum total of God, we have found one wonder leading to another. The more we know Christ, the more wonderful He becomes. The longer we live with Him, the more loveliness we discover. The more we think about Him and with Him, the wider the horizon of truth becomes. The man who companies with Christ will find new wonders dawning upon his soul and enlightening his mind and enchanting his heart everyday! God's grace to His people is continuous and is never exhausted. Grace knows no interruption and no limit. In contrast with the Law it stresses the dynamic character of the Christian life.

In Christ we find grace instead of grace! The different ages and the different situations in life demand a different kind of grace. We need one grace in the days of prosperity and another grace in the days of adversity. We need one grace in the sunlit days of youth and another when the shadows of age begin to lengthen. We need one grace when we feel that we are the top of things and another when we are depressed and discouraged and near to despair.

The grace of God is never a static but always a dynamic thing. It never fails to meet the situation. One need invades life and one grace comes with it. The need passes and another need assaults us and with it another grace comes. All through life we are constantly receiving grace instead of grace, for the grace of Christ is triumphantly adequate to deal with any situation.

Old John Newton understood life's situation well when he wrote that great hymn...AMAZING GRACE. Verse 4: "Thru many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; ‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."

Paul was thrilled with the concept of GRACE:
"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." (2 Cor. 8:9)

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." (Titus 2:11)

"...having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:7).

Back to our text, John reminds us that the Law was given by Moses. In the old way, life was governed by law. A man had to do a thing whether he like it or not, and whether he knew the reason for it or not; but with the coming of Jesus Christ we no longer seek to obey the Law of God like slaves; we seek to answer the love of God like sons.

Verse 18 in the Amplified Bible reads: "No man has ever seen God at any time; the only unique Son, or the only begotten God, Who is in the bosom [in the intimate presence] of the Father, He has declared Him [He has revealed Him and brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him and He has made Him known].

Jesus said: If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.