Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 858
Delivered on Lord’s-day Evening, FEBRUARY 28, 1869, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Of His fullness have we all received and Grace for Grace.”- John 1:16.
THESE are not words spoken by John the Baptist, as a cursory reader might imagine, but they were written by John the Evangelist. The verse preceding is a paragraph cast into the midst of the Gospel, causing a temporary break. Omitting that verse, we read as follows: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of Grace and truth; and of His fullness have we all received and Grace for Grace.”
In its more limited meaning, as it stands in its connection, the text appears to teach that while Jesus Christ dwelt on earth there was a Divine Glory about His Person and Character which His Apostles and disciples clearly beheld, perceiving in Him and in His teaching a fullness of Divine Grace and the Truth of God. And further, that this Grace and Truth were Divinely contagions, so that the disciples participated in it and men took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus and learned of Him—this being especially true of the Apostles who drank most fully into the life and power of Jesus and continued to reveal to the world, after their Master was taken up—the Grace and Truth of the Gospel committed to them.
But this passage is not to be restricted to so limited a sense—it is of far wider range and of much greater depth. We understand it of our Lord Jesus in the whole of His Character and work. Looking beyond His earthly life we see Him in His Crucifixion, His Resurrection, His Ascension, His sitting at the right hand of God and His Second Advent. And beholding Him as the all-sufficient Savior, we this day behold His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth! And we, that is, the whole range of the saints in all ages past and in all periods to come—we receive out of this fullness superabundant Grace!
I. In discussing this text I shall first remind you of the ONE GLORIOUS PERSON concerning whom this verse is written. There are other persons in the verse, but they are comparatively insignificant. “We all” are mentioned as the receivers—we occupy the most humble place. The one throne of the text, (and a glorious high throne it is), is reserved for Him who is intended in the pronoun, “His.” “Of His fullness have we all received.” We know that this is no other than that august Person whom John calls, “The Word,” or the speech of God, so called because God in Nature has revealed Himself, as it were, inarticulately and indistinctly—but in His Son He has revealed Himself as a man declares his inmost thoughts—by distinct and intelligible speech.
Jesus is to the Father what speech is to us. He is the unfolding of the Father’s thoughts, the revelation of the Father’s heart. He that has seen Christ has seen the Father. “Would you have me see you?” said Socrates, “then speak,” for speech reveals the man. Would you see God? Listen to Christ, for He is God’s Word, revealing the heart of Deity. Lest, however, we should imagine Jesus to be a mere utterance, a mere word spoken and forgotten, our Apostle is peculiarly careful that we should know that Jesus is a real and true Person, and therefore tells us that the Divine Word, out of whose fullness we have received, is most assuredly God!
No language can be more distinct. He ascribes to Him the eternity which belongs to God—“In the beginning was the Word.” He clearly claims Divinity for Him—“The Word was God.” He ascribes to Him the acts of God—“Without Him was not anything made that was made.” He ascribes to Him self-existence which is the essential characteristic of God—“In Him was life.” He claims for Him a Nature peculiar to God—“God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” And the Word is “the true light, which lights every man that comes into the world.” No writer could be more explicit in his utterances, and beyond all question he sets forth the proper Deity of that Blessed One of whom we all must receive if we would obtain eternal salvation.
Yet John does not fail to set forth that our Lord was also Man. He says, “the Word was made flesh”—not merely assumed manhood, but was made. And made not merely Man as to His nobler part, His Soul, but Man as to His flesh, His lower element. Our Lord was not a phantom, but One who, as John declares in his Epistle, was touched and handled. “The Word dwelt among us.” He tabernacled with the sons of men—a carpenter’s shed His lowly refuge and the caves and mountains of the earth His midnight resort in His later life. He dwelt among sinners and sufferers, among mourners and mortals, Himself completing His citizenship among us by becoming obedient to death, even the death of the Cross.
See, then, my beloved Brothers and Sisters, where God has treasured up the fullness of His Grace! It is in a Person so august that Heaven and earth tremble at the majesty of His Presence and yet in a Person so humble that He is not ashamed to call us, “Brethren.” The Apostle, lest we should by any means put a second person in comparison with the one and only Christ, throughout this chapter continually enters caveats and disclaimers against all others. He bars the angels and shuts out cherubim and seraphim by saying, “Without Him was not anything made that was made”! At the creation of the world no ministering spirit may intrude a finger. Angels may sing over what Jesus creates, but as the Builder of all things He stands alone.