Ephesians1:6: To the Praise of His Glorious Grace, with which He Has Blessed Us in the Beloved.

John 1:14:  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 said we would speak on grace as we came to the latter verses, and we have arrived at one of them, but notice:

1.   All that went before (in the prologue of John's gospel) established that which is being expressed.

2.   It is God who is life, and gives life, and the reception of this life is not dependent upon, or can be acquired by, man in his natural, fallen state.

3.  This verse expresses the reality of which the preceding verses have been speaking of – the Word became flesh, and showed the glory of God as God the Son, the same glory as the Father Himself has, and this is in accordance with truth – not man’s truth, but God’s truth (cf. John 17:5).

This, then, is grace: God reveals Himself to whom He will in His Son, who shows forth His glory and mercy to those He will (Matthew 11:25-27).

The apostle John is obviously referring to the Word who is Light when he speaks of seeing His glory and the use of, first, the first person plural pronoun us, referring to a people group, then the first person plural of we have seen, which is one word in the Greek, referring to that pronoun of those John is speaking about as seeing the glorious grace and truth of God in His Son - the disciples (the reader can research the cases and other elements of the Greek to note further the relationship these words have to one another) - leaves no doubt as to who John is speaking about.

In other words, there is no other way to view who is seeing what than to view it as those Jesus called, or choose, to be His disciples at the first – this is an eyewitness account – and that which they see is the very Son of God, the exact expression of His glory, in His truth, as we have already looked at in prior messages of this study. He is full of grace and truth – that is, He completely embodies all that is grace and truth, and grace and truth find their full and entire expression in Him in bodily form – there is no more that needs to be filled up with grace and truth, for the Son has all the qualities of the Father, and these are expressed in Him to those He gives the right to be changed into – born again, or reborn – as children of God. These qualities, like His Scripture, will be apparent to those who are His, but will have the opposite reaction to those who are not – remember, the world did not know Him, and His own did not receive Him, because He did not give them the right, the privilege, the power to become His children – unless God freely acts to change that which is dead in all men, the light and grace of God is offensive and rejected by them.

This is the glory of God beheld in the Person of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for and to those who are His; in part, now, and fully, on that Day.