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.                                   --John 1:14

It has been about three weeks since
my last Power of the Word entry. For
that I apologize and again beg your patience. Truth be told, there are some
other personal projects I have been focusing on, and due to the time I’ve been
spending on them, I’ve been unable to focus on The Power of the Word.
That being said, let me briefly
remind you of what I was discussing previously and then pick up where I left
off. We are still in the earliest stages of a study of the Life of Christ. I
began the series by affirming the Deity of Jesus Christ, looking at how it is
established in the Bible. One of the verses I focused on was John 1:1, which
tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.”
Having established the Deity of
Christ, I turned our attention to the Incarnation, focusing on John 1:14, which
tells us that “the Word became flesh.” After revealing this truth to us, John
tells us that he and his contemporaries beheld Christ’s glory. This raises the
question; What was the nature of the glory they beheld? In my last entry, I
suggested to you that this glory was itself the very fact of the Incarnation.
That the Almighty God of the universe would become a man, for the express
purpose of dying on a cross to pay for our sins is the most glorious truth in
all the Bible.
But now we face another question:
How was this glory made manifest? What was it about Christ that let those
around Him know that He was God in the flesh? John answers this question by
telling us that Christ was “full of grace and truth.”
Sometimes we miss the significance
of this statement. However, it was this truth that set Jesus apart from the
Scribes and Pharisees with whom He collided so many times throughout His
ministry. Unlike our Lord, they were not full of grace and truth.
You know, there are times when
God’s timing is impeccable. I say this because, in focusing on some of the
other things I’ve had to work on recently, I’ve been reading a certain book,
the first chapter of which makes the point that, in order to be transformed
into the image of Christ, our lives must be characterized by grace and truth.
The author of this book goes on to
explain that when grace is present without truth, it yields license to sin.
Conversely, when truth is present without grace, it yields legalism. Both
situations result in bondage to sin.
It is tempting o delve into a discussion
about how the absence of either of these ingredients from one’s life leads to a
life of sin. I get the feeling that such a discussion would be good material
for a book, and perhaps such a book needs to be written (this is not the theme
of the book I am reading, just a foundational premise for the rest of the
book).
However, I will point out that the
Scribes and Pharisees were full of truth (the Law of Moses), but were woefully
lacking in grace. Hence, they are infamously known for their legalism. Christ,
on the other hand, was wholly full of grace and wholly full of truth. This
enabled Him to live a perfect life of obedience to God. In addition, He
perfectly demonstrated both grace and truth in His dealings with others. This
is no more clearly seen than in what He said to the woman who had been caught
in adultery: “I do not condemn you. Now go and sin no more” (cf. John 8:11).
Believe it or not, it was this
perfect blend of grace a truth, which was so radically different from what
people had seen in the Pharisees, that caused His followers to recognize Him as
the Incarnate Word.
 Got a question about the Bible or Christian Theology? Having trouble finding the answer? Get your question answered at www.gotquestions.org.