John chapter 1. John chapter
1. Title of the message, Grace and
Truth came by Jesus Christ. The law was given, but grace
and truth came. There's a big difference. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
on the scene, and He appeared to John the Baptist
when he walked, and John the Baptist saw Him coming, and he
said, Behold the Lamb of God. You know, John the Baptist could
have just as easily said, Behold grace and truth. He could have
pointed at him and said, Behold, grace and truth. There is the
embodiment of grace and truth in the Lamb of God. Now in these
verses, John gives further witness to the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the eternal Son of God, and what He brought to us. He
brought to us salvation. He brought to us redemption.
He brought to us righteousness. He brought to us forgiveness.
He brought to us pardon. My word, He's brought to us grace.
And listen, truth. Truth. We have the truth. If
you know Christ, you know the truth. And you know what scripture
says? And the truth shall set you free. Nothing else sets you free. Truth
will. Now, he says in verse 14, and
I left off in this verse last week, "...and the Word was made
flesh." We ought to stand in awe at that statement. Every
time we read it, we ought to pause. Selah. Selah. Stop and think about what was
just said. The Word was made flesh. The
Son of God became what He was not before, that you and I might
become what we were not before. He became human. That's why He's
called the Son of Man as well as the Son of God. That you and
I might become sons of God, not sons of Adam now, but sons of
God. So He became what He was not
before. He became a man, a real human man. That's what made flesh
means. Now when He became a man, He
did not in any way, shape or form cease to be God. He did not cease to be God when
He became a man. Our Lord took upon Him human
nature Except for sin, he knew no sin. He became the perfect
man that you and I must have in order to stand before God.
In order to redeem us, we need this man. Because the blood of
bulls and goats can't put away the sin of a man. The death and
blood of an animal can't put away the sin of a human being.
The only way that can be done is for a human being to die for
that sin. And then if it's just a human
being, that doesn't work either. But if it's the God-man, if it's
the God-man, then our sins can be put away. And this union of
the two natures in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, it
is said over in 1 Timothy 3.16, great is the mystery. What a
mysterious man. The Jews could not figure him
out. They looked at him and said, we know you, you're the carpenter's
son. Well, it's evident they didn't know him. He's God. He's God's son. That's who he
is. Great, it says in 1 Timothy 3.16,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. God was. God was manifest in
the flesh. He was this man Jesus Christ. He was and he is God-man. God-man. God-man. Can I say it that way? See, my
last name is Chapman. I always say it Chapman. Now
some people who don't really know how to pronounce it, they
say Chapman. They say Chapman. Chapman. Godman. He's the Godman. He's Godman. That's who He is,
Godman. That's who Jesus Christ is. When
He became flesh, when He became human, the two, the old writer
said this, I read this from an old writer, the old writer said,
the two never became confounded. His deity, was veiled in that
flesh, and that's why they couldn't see Him unless the Lord gave
them eyes to see. All they could see was a carpenter's
son. If He walked in this room in the flesh right now, if God
did not give you and me eyes to see, we would see nothing
more than a man. We wouldn't see the deity that's
veiled in that flesh. We wouldn't see it. And this
union of these two natures, The God-Man is absolutely necessary
for Him to be our Redeemer. You see, our Redeemer has to
be a kinsman. A kinsman-Redeemer. This God-Man
is our brother. He's our elder brother. The Lord
Jesus Christ is our elder brother. And the reason He had to become
a man is because of this. God by Himself can't suffer.
God can't suffer and die. God can't do that. And as a man, if he's just a
man, he can't satisfy justice. That's why when that man came
to him, that young man came to him and said, good master, he
said, hold on now. He stopped him. He stopped him. He said, there's none good but
God. If I'm good, if I'm really good, it's because I'm God. That's what he's saying. If I'm
really good, it's because I'm God. And we have to have both
of those that we might be redeemed. That we can be redeemed. And
not only that, but now we also have a high priest that can be
touched with the feelings of our infirmity. We have a high
priest who can identify with us in our tears, in our heartaches,
in our sorrows. We have one who can identify
with us. When he stood there at the grave
of Lazarus, he wept. It says Jesus wept. He felt their
sorrow. We have one who can identify
with, and he's our high priest. He's our high priest. And we needed these. We needed
this God Almighty and a man perfect and sinless in one person, one
undivided person. We had to have it. The Scriptures teach us this.
I want to give you something I got from A.W. Pink in this. He said, the dualities of this
nature was absolutely necessary in order for him to be the Messiah.
Well, first of all, he says, he's got to be a prophet like
Moses. This is the human side. He's got to be a lineal descendant
of David. He's got to be a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. But on the deity side, He's got
to be God with us. He has to be the mighty God. He has to be Jehovah who comes
to the temple. He has to be. He has to be the
one born in Bethlehem, yet the ruler, the king, the monarch. So the duality of His nature
is absolutely necessary to accomplish the Scriptures and to be our
Redeemer. And it says, He dwelt among us,
He tabernacled among us, and He's making reference here to
the tabernacle in the wilderness. You know, everything about that
tabernacle pretty much pictured the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean,
it was just a clear picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the
outside, it was so humble, it was not attractive, There's no
beauty that we should desire Him. There's nothing. When you
walked into the camp of Israel, there was nothing. Appearance-wise,
by looking at that tabernacle that was set it apart from all
the other tabernacle or all the other tents and stuff that was
around there, all that they camped out in and stayed in, that tabernacle
looked just like the rest of them. The beauty was on the inside.
The Shekinah glory was on the inside. The broken law, the keeping
of the law was preserved on the inside. The law was preserved
in Jesus Christ. The honor of the law was preserved
in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our tabernacle. He tabernacled
among us. God walked and lived among us. That's what He's saying here.
He dwelt among us. And that tabernacle is the place
where God met men and where the sin offering and atonement was
made. That's Jesus Christ. Where do we do business with
God Almighty at? In grace and mercy. In Christ. In Jesus Christ. not up here
at an altar, wooden altar somebody puts at the front of a building.
That's not the place we meet God. We meet God in Jesus Christ. That's where we deal with God,
and that's where the glory of God is seen. It's seen in the
face of Jesus Christ. If you don't see it there, you're
not going to see it, because God is not revealing Himself
anywhere else but in Christ. And it was a place of worship.
That tabernacle is where they came before the door of the tabernacle. Those offerings were made. We
come before Jesus Christ this morning. We come before God in
Christ this morning. You know what we offer? You know
the sacrifice we offer this morning? We do offer one, you know that?
Sacrifice, praise, and thanksgiving. This morning, in the name of
Jesus Christ, we offer up praise and thanksgiving to God And it's
accepted. It's accepted. And he says, we beheld his glory.
John is saying we, the disciples, and those who believe, but especially
the disciples, which became the apostles, except for Judas. And
he tells this over in 1 John 1. We beheld his glory as God. We beheld the divine attributes
of God in this man, Jesus Christ. We beheld His omnipotent power
when He said, live. He raised the dead. When He said,
hear, He gave hearing to the deaf. When He said, see, He gave
sight to the blind. He enabled the lame to walk. We saw His power. He just spoke. He spoke at times when they were
way off at a distance. As Centurion came about his servant,
he just spoke. He said, I'm not worthy that
you come under my roof. He said, I'm a man in power.
I know what that's about. I say to one, go, and he goes.
One come, and he comes. He said, you just need to speak
the word, if you just speak the word. And the Lord did. And when
he went back, at the same hour, that servant was healed. That's his omnipotent power.
And then his omniscience, he knows all things. He knew what
was in man. It says he didn't commit himself
to man. He knew what was in man. He knew what they were thinking,
standing there talking to him. They're calling him good master.
He said, you don't think I'm good. You're just messing. I'm paraphrasing. It might not
sound good, but you're just messing with me. I know what you're doing.
You don't love me. He sold those Pharisees. You're
whited sepulchers. That's what you are. On the outside,
you appear good, you appear holy and righteous, and you're slapping
them on the back, while in your heart, you're stabbing them in
the heart. He knew what was in man. He's omniscient. He knows
our thoughts. He's omnipresent. Nathaniel, before your brother
called you, I saw you under the fig tree. I saw you under the fig tree.
When John says we beheld His glory, he's making reference
to His deity. And he's making reference also
to His perfection. We saw His glory. This one is
holy. This one is sinless. He knew
no sin. Can you imagine what it would
have been like to have walked around with Him for three years in the flesh
on this earth and never one time sin, never one time say a word
that you could I mean, you can point to words and conversations
I've had, you think, well, you probably shouldn't have said
that or talked about that person or said something about that
person. But they couldn't. John said for three years we
beheld his perfection. Perfection. And it's this person there in
verse 15, it's this person that John bore witness to, saying,
this is He of whom I speak. This is my message. This is the
one I've been talking about. I've been talking about the Messiah.
Here He is. Here He is. This is the one whom
I spake, he that came after me is preferred before me, because
he was before me." As you read the Scriptures, you understand
that John was born in this world, in the flesh, six months before
the Lord was. But he's saying that, even though I was born
six months before him, he was before me. He existed before
I did. He's making reference here to
his deity, is what he's doing. And then he says here in verse
16, and of His fullness, who can measure that? Who can
measure the fullness of God? That's why God is said to be
infinite. Everything about God is infinite, unmeasurable. His
grace, His mercy, His love is unmeasurable. and of His fullness,
and he's making reference here again to the deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you'll find this same word
in Colossians 1.19 and Colossians 2.9 where it speaks of the fullness
of God dwelleth in him. All that God is. You cannot know
any more of God apart from Jesus Christ. There's nothing to know.
There's nothing to know of God apart from Christ. The fullness
of God is in this man, Jesus Christ. The fullness of His glory,
the fullness of His person, the fullness of His grace, the fullness
of Him, the fullness of God is in this man. It's in this man. And of His fullness have all
we received, all who believe, of His abundance, Have all we
received, and listen, here's what we received, grace upon
grace. You know that's what we are receiving
this morning? If grace could take form this morning, we would
see it raining down on us, like the rain that was outside this
morning. Grace is just pouring down on
us, grace upon grace upon grace. And it's raining upon us because
of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The reason we're not under the condemnation of God is because
the grace of God is raining on us, those who believe, those
who believe. And of His fullness is what we
have received, grace for grace. Now the law, and we covered this
this morning in the Bible class, the law was given by Moses. It says over in the book of Acts
that it was given by the hands of angels to Moses. God used
them as intermediaries, and they gave it to Moses, and it was
given to Israel by Moses. It wasn't Moses' law, it was
given to Moses, and Moses gave it to Israel. But now listen,
grace and truth was not given to Jesus Christ. It was not given
to him. It's given to us in Christ, but
he is grace and truth. There's a big difference than
being something and just being given something. You see, the
law was given to Moses, and it was given to Israel by Moses,
but grace came. It wasn't given. It came by Jesus
Christ. It wasn't given to him. Moses received the law from God,
Jesus Christ did not receive grace and truth from God. It's
His essential glory. It's Him. It's Him. You have
Him. You have Him. You have grace
and truth. You have it. The law that Moses gave could
never justify. It could not show mercy. It was
not given for that purpose. Someone said this, and I thought
this was interesting. The terror Israel displayed at
the giving of the law is the terror felt by every sinner who
truly understands the law. You know, when God gave the law,
Israel feared and quaked. They said, Moses, don't let him
talk to us no more. They were scared. I mean, they
were trembling, literally, literally trembling out of fear. And this
is the same terror felt by those who understand the law. And you run from it, like you
run from fire. Like you run from fire that's
out of control. The law, the scripture teaches us, is administration
of condemnation and death. In other words, all it can give
to us is death and condemnation. The law never revealed God. Not
in its fullest. It never revealed the full attributes
of God. The law never revealed grace, did it? And it didn't
reveal the full truth of God. It revealed the righteousness
of God and what God demanded. It did do that. But it did not
reveal the grace of God. That's revealed in Jesus Christ.
That's what that's revealed in. Paul wrote extensively in Romans,
in the book of Romans, about the law of God. But in every
one time, and in Galatians, we're going through Galatians, but
not one time did Paul ever say, not one time did he ever say
that the law reveals God. It doesn't. It doesn't reveal
a knowledge, a full knowledge of God, that's what he said.
It doesn't reveal a full knowledge of God, but grace and truth does.
And grace and truth is Jesus Christ. And he reveals that to
us. The reason you and I are not
seeking salvation by law, the reason we're not steeped in legalism
is because we know the grace of God in Christ. And we know
we don't wanna be under that law. I heard someone preaching,
Jason and I was talking about this last week, there's 600,
he said 613 laws, and I heard somebody preaching this week
that has 630 laws. And we're not under one of them
now. We're not under one of those laws, not a one. We're under
the grace of God. And we know that by truth, by
the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. See, grace and truth go together.
You can't have one, not the other. You can't have, they can't be
separated. You have to have them together. And this grace is established,
and this is important. This statement's important. The
grace of God is established on the principles of an honored
law. The grace of God to you and me in Christ is established
on the obedience of Christ to God's law. It's been honored. It's been honored. It wasn't
just set aside, it was honored. You know in Christ we've kept
the law? In Christ we establish the law? In Christ we do. By the grace of God in Christ
we establish the law. And the reason that the law is
established in the Lord Jesus Christ is because He's the substitute
the law requires. He's the sacrifice, that's what
that means. He's the sacrifice. His blood
is the blood of atonement. He's everything I need. Jesus
Christ is everything I need. And the law is satisfied with
me in Christ. And God can be both just God and save me. And save me. You know what? You
know, I expect, honestly, I expect when I die, I expect to go to
glory. I expect that. I don't expect it because I have
preached in His name or cast out a devil in His name. or done
many mighty works in His name. I expect to go to heaven. I expect
to be in God's presence, not just go to heaven, but to be
in God's presence, accepted of God, based on the obedience,
the righteousness of Jesus Christ for this sinner. You know, when he said, depart
from me, I never knew you. They started saying, well, we
preached in your name, cast out devils in your name. Not one
of them said, Lord, didn't you die for me? That would have been
a whole different story. And first of all, they wouldn't
have been in that line if they believed that. Oh, my, my. Let me give you a
contrast between law and grace. I got this from A.W. Pink. He
has an excellent, excellent commentary on the book of John. I couldn't
improve on it. But I wrote this down here. The
law manifests what's in men. Sin, that's what it manifests. The law manifests what's in men,
sin. Grace manifests what's in God,
love. Law demands righteousness for
men. Grace brings righteousness to men. Grace brings righteousness to
men. Law sentences men to death. Grace brings dead men to life. Law speaks of what men must do.
Grace tells what Christ has done. Law gives a knowledge of sin.
Grace puts it away. Grace puts it away. Oh, give
me grace. Give me grace. Give me grace.
Grace, grace, and more grace. And then last of all, in verse
18, This summarizes what's been said
up to this point. No man has seen God at any time,
here in verse 18. No man has seen God at any time.
Moses didn't see Him. Moses said, Lord, show me Your
glory there in Exodus 33. You know what God showed him? His back parts. He said, I'll
be gracious to whom I'll be gracious, merciful to whom I'll be merciful.
He revealed to Moses his sovereign grace, his sovereign mercy. But
Moses did not look at his face. God said, no man can look at
my face and live. No man can do that. But there
is one man who did. There is one man who looks into
the face of God. And it's that man, Jesus Christ,
the God man. The only begotten Son, no man
has seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, and here
this is an important statement, which is in the bosom of the
Father, not was in the bosom of the Father. It's not like
He left and there's a separation now. It's not like He left there
and came here as a Son of God and there's a separation. At
the same time, at the same time, He was upon this earth in the
flesh at the same time he was in the bosom of the Father. That
union was not broken, listen, until Calvary. And he said, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? Why
have you left me? Why have you left me here all
alone, all alone? Because it's exactly what He
would do to me and you if He doesn't save us in Jesus Christ.
He's in the bosom of the Father. He hath declared, and the word
there is told out, the Son of God has come and He has given
us an understanding. It says in 1 John 5, He's given
us an understanding that the Son of God has come. We know
Him that's true, we're in Him that's true. He said, no man has seen God
at any time. But you know what's interesting?
Philip says, show us the Father. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
you're looking at Him. Outside of Christ, you and I
cannot look into the face of God. In Christ, we're looking
at the face of God. We're looking at Him. John says
over there, 1 John, I'm going to close with this. Turn over
to 1 John. John is so zeroed in on the deity
of Christ, because it's just what everything hinges on, Him
being God. He says, "...that which was from
the beginning..." John 1, verse 1, "...that which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon..." We've looked upon, and our hands
have handled what? The Word. of life. The Word was
with God, the Word was God, right? And John said, we've looked upon
Him. And you know what? We've looked
upon Him and we're alive. We're alive. We can look upon
the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It's no different
than looking into the face of God because He is God. So the
life was manifested, and we've seen it and bear witness and
show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and
was manifested unto us." I tell you, that's such good
news. God has come in the flesh. He became a real man, a real
human being with a real soul. God did that. the one who said,
let there be light, the one who created all this, became one
of us, that he might make us sons of God. He became what he
was not, that he might make us what we are not, sons of God. He became a son of man, that
you and I can become a son of God. That's good news, isn't
it? That's good news. All right.