“John bore 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” ‘ ” (John 1:15). John the baptizer testified of the Son, that He had existed before the baptizer did, although the baptizer was born first (see the sequence of John-then-Jesus birth order in Luke 1-2). The infant John had leaped in recognition of the baby that was in Mary’s womb when she visited him in his pregnant mother Elizabeth in Luke 1.
After 400 years of prophetic silence, God raised up a prophet called John and gave him unusual clarity about the coming one. The baptizer knew He existed before himself, so he elevated Him. The God of ages past had entered history and visited His people through the Son.
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).
Throughout the disciple’s life with Jesus, the disciples received of His fullness. Fullness of love. Fullness of His caring attention. Fullness of His kingdom teaching. And especially, fullness from the overflow of His deep love connection with the Father.
Jesus came to give and give again, grace upon grace. Not burden loaded upon burden. Not rules piled upon rules. And certainly not shame heaped with guilt upon condemnation.
This latter way was only too familiar a pattern of my way of thinking. I slid further from that end of the spectrum to the other end of grace the more I became like Christ through the Spirit. I “received” of this fullness as my relationship with God grew.
“For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Moses passed on God’s law to His people when they stopped at Mount Sinai. They were good laws designed to create a whole society with God at the center of everything they did. (How different from our society that prizes man above all else.) But the law lacked the secret sauce that would have made it all work. Jesus Christ, finally named in this verse, brought grace and truth, which the law could not provide. By these we receive God’s own help to live the life that pleases Him.
The Ten Commandments were founded on the law of love. God is worth our entire allegiance and devotion. A sinful person cannot give this devotion. It cannot love another more than itself. The law of Moses failed to bring about a community of love. Through His grace and truth God makes it possible among His followers.
Through the truth amply displayed by Christ’s fellowship with the Father, we see what we might have should we surrender to His example. Through the gospel we turn from an ever-frowning law to the smiling face of a heavenly Father. Grace swings wide the door to a living relationship with God that the condemnation of the law had slammed shut. By grace, we enter that door through faith, and by faith turn from trusting self to trusting God. Then we enter the fellowship of the Father and the Son.
The law showed us our true state as fallen from God. Grace and truth help us rise in spite of it. John and the other disciples witnessed the kindness and goodness of God in Christ that beckoned a sinner to come and join Him in the life of love. They witnessed His miracles and healings and His dedication to the spread of the good news of the kingdom to Jew and non-Jew, men and women, high caste and cast-offs. The prostitutes and tax collectors saw grace in action and pressed into the kingdom.
“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). Elsewhere, we find Lazarus in the “bosom” of Abraham in Paradise, a disciple leaning in the bosom of Jesus at the supper table, and now Jesus in the bosom of the Father in the kingdom. All are portrayals of familiarity and intimacy.
No one has been as near to the Father as the Son. No one has known the Father as the Son has. He came straight from God and revealed God, declaring Him in words and lifestyle, in teaching and action, in attitude and familiarity.
Why? He showed us the flip side of the law; what it looks like when the fullness of the law is lived out in truth in holy fellowship with God. Love is the fulfilling of the law; Jesus loved and obeyed the Father in all things, and it was joy to do so.
If God seems far off to you, and you yearn for this fellowship with the Father and the Son, it’s yours for a look at the Crucified One. It’s yours if you enroll in the life of faith, being trained in the Word of God to see Christ and live for Him. It’s yours if you will deal with sin, and be patient as the heavenly Father prepares you for this communion called everlasting life.
