I haven’t updated for 3 weeks! Time is flying by so much faster than I realized it would.
I have enjoyed being home: gotten to hang out with some friends, worked on my 30-page senior history paper, read 3 books, gone dancing once, hung out with my family, went on a ridiculous day trip to 10 cities, hiked from peak to peak on Mt. Diablo, … and gotten to keep in touch with my beloved Hotchkissians.
Earlier this week I read one of my favorite passages in the Bible: John 1.
I wish I could write about the entire passage, but I’m just going to talk about a section of it. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. … And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.”
One, one of the phrases that always sticks out to me is that Christ is full of “grace and truth.”
Two, that from Christ’s fullness we have received “grace upon grace.”
I decided to mull around my reference books to get some background on these passages. What I found was encouraging, so I thought I’d share. Truth is what accords with reality. Truth is not abstract, but revealed in the actual person of Christ. He is truth because he is the revelation of God. Boice said truth “did not come to the world through philosophy or through any other form of human speculation. Truth came into the world through Jesus Christ.” That’s just astonishing to me whenever I think about it. Christ, the Logos, is truth. In him there is no falsehood. Christ revealed in the Scriptures is true. Amen! And Christ was full of grace.
Because of man’s sinfulness we do not deserve anything from God. We deserve to have awful, miserable lives. Yet God gives his children grace upon grace. I think even as Christians we forget how much the Lord blesses us with. As Christians we have peace with God. We are no longer enemies and under the wrath of God, we are no longer in bondage to sin, we have hope in Christ! If we lived in awful circumstances, yet knew Christ, could we complain? We’d have enough to forever sing praises. And yet the Lord gives us so much more than even that ultimate gift.
We’ve received grace upon grace.
I love how Verbrugge explains ‘upon’: it denotes a perpetual and rapid succession of blessings, as though there were no interval between the arrival of one blessing and the reception of the next. ‘Grace’: is poured out in overflowing fullness. MacArthur says grace is that ‘abundant supply [that] will never be exhausted or diminished; grace will continually follow grace in a limitless, never-ending flow.’
Ironside applies it: We are not called to live upon past experiences. Many of us remember when were first saved of the grace that was poured into our souls when that took place… but that is not our experience today. That was grace indeed, wondrous grace! What we have now should be grace against grace, grace following upon grace, all down through the years.
How apathetic can we become to grace. May it not be! As James says, every good gift is from above. Everything good is from our Father. How much do we have to be thankful for, how much grace are we showered with daily, hourly. Do we praise Him for his kindness, mercy, faithfulness, justice? Do we praise Him for fellowship with our fellow believers? Do we thank Him for his grace in covering our sins? Do we thank Him for answered prayer? Do we thank Him for his Word?
Psalm 86:8-13.
There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord; that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depth of Sheol.
If you know Him, praise Him.
If you don’t know Him, why do you not trust in the One who is full of all truth and grace?
1 comment:
Hi Matt~
Thanks for the post on John 1, it's one of my favorite NT chapters also, John being my favorite NT book, followed closely by Hebrews!
One commentator described the word grace as denoting "a perpetual and rapid succession of blessings, as though there were no interval between the arrival of one blessing and the reception of the next." I really like that.
I think a great word picture for Christ's grace upon grace is the waves of the ocean overlapping one another as they crash into the shore - another one coming before the previous one is gone. It helps me to better understand the fullness and constant outpouring of His grace which we have received. What a blessing!
Keep pressing on to know Him Matt!
In Him,
Julie
Post a Comment