A Johannine Study (John 1:16-17)

16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Each sentence in the beginning of John reveals something about the person and work of Jesus. In this passage, John picks up where he left off in verse fourteen, “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.” We know from this that Jesus was not partially filled with grace and truth. He was completely filled with grace and truth.

In Jesus we have a full cup. He is not half empty, which would give the critic an opportunity to disparage him; nor is he simply half full, which would give postmoderns an avenue to relativize him. Jesus is full of loving-kindness and authenticity. His answer to the critic’s questions is love, and his response to postmodern subjectivism is objective truth. Jesus is so full of this grace and truth that nothing could enter his cup and taint its contents.

Now, John says that we receive Jesus’ fullness. More specifically, we are given “grace upon grace.” But what does that mean? The word “upon” is translated from the Greek word “ἀντί” (anti), which can also be translated as “in exchange for.” In other words, John is distinguishing between two kinds of grace. He explains what they are in the next verse: (1) law (through Moses); (2) grace and truth (through Jesus Christ). An archive of the first grace is recorded in the Old Testament. The law governed the way the Israelites ought to live. All of us, however, have the law written on our hearts (Romans 2:15). To put it another way, all of us are gifted with a conscience. This conscience tells us how we ought to live, exhorting us to be righteous. The unfortunate truth is that we sin (Romans 3:23), unable to meet the requirements of this gracious law. But John gives us hope with a second grace.

Jesus Christ replaces the law by fulfilling it (Luke 24:44). The law cannot fulfill itself insofar as a rock can make itself alive. Jesus, on the other hand, is full of righteousness (not taint) because he is God. As God, he does what man could not do; he met the requirements of his own law (Romans 8:3-4). Then, instead of just showing us how we ought to live by writing another testament, he takes away our sin and exchanges it with his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). We don’t just have the law written on our hearts, which was the first grace, but now, we have a satisfied law written on our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3).

The law no longer holds us captive to worldly legalism. We are freed to live lawfully because of what Jesus did, no longer because of what Moses wrote. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection become our “how we ought to live.” Fellow Christian, live having “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16)! Follow faithfully, not because you must attain his reward, but because he has attained it for you.