Grace Is here

John 1:14-18

The Bible is the overarching story of God’s love and faithfulness towards His people, and the coming of Jesus is the gospel story. The gospel story is the good news of the Bible is explained in Jesus, and as we get into this first chapter of the book of John, we will see that the whole point of his book is to show that Jesus is both fully God and fully man as the Savior of the world.

Jesus is the gospel story and the fulfillment of all prophecies from the Old Testament to John the Baptist, who said “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me” (v.15). A few days ago, we read about “logos” and how the Word was with God and was God in the beginning. Today, we read that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (v.14), but how could the all-powerful Creator become a man? Incarnation is the union of the human and the divine in Jesus, and Paul affirms that in Jesus, “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

Jesus is fully God and, therefore, is due all of the glory and honor. Yet, He was also fully human and made God known to people in a real and personal way (v.18). We can have a real and personal relationship with our God because He understands us. He experienced life as a mortal human and yet lived it perfectly because He is God, and we can draw near to Him because we can trust that He understands us better than we understand ourselves. How beautiful is it that our God loved us enough that He wanted to understand the full range of the human experience and better sympathize with his creations? While sympathizing and experiencing life was one reason, He also had to become human to die for us. Our God chose to become a human, and He took on a lowly position to pay the punishment due for our sins. On the cross, He took on the just wrath of God for the sin of all mankind, and in rising again, He defeated death and gave us access to a relationship with Him both now and forever. This was the ultimate sacrifice and gift of grace to give up His one and only Son for us. He expects nothing in return and freely gives “grace upon grace” so we can live in a relationship with Him (v.16).

Remember that He understands what you are going through and that there is grace upon grace to cover you if you trust in Him for your salvation.