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Continued from Christmas Thoughts – Part 1:
John continues his excitement after remarking that John the Baptist was a witness of Jesus. He states:
Once again John stretches the mind of those with ears to hear and eyes to see. Notice his expression: “…from his (Jesus) fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…” In other words all the resources – the fullness – of the Godhead are within the incarnate son of God and from that reserve those who follow him all (not some, not a special class, not those perhaps considered “super Christians,” but every single one who follows after him) received a heaping helping of the grace of God – grace upon grace.
John continues with what some might consider an incoherent coupling – Moses and the law aligned with Jesus and Grace and Truth. That is an unfortunate understanding. Nowhere in the New Testament, including the writings of Paul, is the law viewed negatively. The law is actually considered God’s first grace gift. The law can and has been impaired, but then so has grace. When the law is seen as a way of salvation it is misused. When grace is seen as license it is abused. For John the advent of Jesus is God piling up on his first gift – the law. As Gerald L. Borchert expressed it,
So John, moved to heights of exhilaration, reveals at the beginning of his gospel that God’s step one – the law, was given through Moses. Moses of course was one whose communication with God was closer than any man since Adam. Yet even he was only allowed to see God’s back and not his face. But then the dam bursts and John states without reservation that though no one has ever seen God; the only God who is at the Father’s side – literally in the bosom of the Father – has made this very God known. How did this happen? John says Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. The emphasis is even more emphatic in the original; it literally says that Grace and Truth “Came to be.”
Consider that announcement this Christmas morning when the family is gathered around reveling in the joy and delight that Christmas morning brings. When small hands and cherubic bright faces are romping around the tree squealing in delight at the “grace gifts” they have received and you are thinking about the credit card bills that will be due in January. Think about your heavenly Father fully aware of the price that would be due a few decades after Christmas morning, yet the joy and delight he rejoiced in knowing that though the price was immense, the reward was you and me and multiplied millions – so many that they cannot be counted adopted into his eternal family.
Perhaps more importantly though, John and the other gospel writers have left all of us who are Jesus’ followers with clear instructions that we are to do the same. Christ indwells his people in the person of the Holy Spirit; God’s tent is still pitched in this old, broken world in the form of us who are followers of Christ. Our responsibility is to allow his Spirit to so fill us that all those who know us will see us as people so full of his grace and truth that they too will not only want to but will actually begin to follow the one who was more than a carpenter.
May you have a wonderful and Grace-filled Christmas season!
[1] Borchert, Gerald L., The New American Commentary Vol. 25A, John 1-11 (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002), 123.
Maybe I don't have a response to the second part but my own Christmas reflections and with this last Sunday being the epiphany in some places, I have some thoughts about the "wise men". They stand out in contrast to what IBLP teaches. First of all, they were probably astrologers from Persia, they studied the stars. So even in a false religion, there were threads of truth which these men began to follow. That is in contrast to Bill's isolation type emphasis on other religions. They made a dangerous and expensive trip to find this new King. They took the risk to seek and give gifts. They didn't do it to get something from Jesus but to give something to Jesus. That is in contrast to the success type promises of Bill. Follow these so called "principals" and you will have no conflicts and problems. Bill promoted following Jesus not because He is God, the second person of the trinity, the King of kings etc but follow principals because you will have success. I watched the One Accord video clip (an act of suffering for sure) and I was flabbergast at his opening statement that people follow what god they think is powerful and Christians today in Bill summery are not considered powerful. Really? is that why we should follow Jesus? For power? That is not what the wise men did. They didn't travel over desert, mountains and danger looking for power but looking for the new King who was born in a stinky cave/stable. That isn't power but truth and love. That is what wise men do, they look for Jesus, even if they don't have all the facts or understanding, not to get something but to give something. That is why wise men (and women) still seek Him.
Exactly! We still seek Him.
I hope you do not mind me adding...
Gold a symbol of divinity, Frankincense a symbol of holiness and righteousness, Myrrh a symbol of bitterness, suffering, and affliction. Was this fulfillment of prophesy in Isaiah 60?
Their gifts revealed they came to worship deity. They traveled to worship the King of Glory, Incarnate Savior, unknown to them future Resurrected Redeemer.
The gift we bring in the moment by moments of our lives is worship/adoration prompted by the Holy Spirit as He reveals more of Jesus Christ's holy loving nature. Our gift of worship prompted by the Holy Spirit cries out to "Only to know Him more!"