John 1:14,16

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth... ¹⁶From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He came from the Father, full of grace and truth, and we have seen His glory. From the fullness of His grace, we have all received blessing. How does this make you feel? Jesus, the Word of God became man as God Incarnate. And we have all received blessing upon blessing as a result of His ministry.

The fullness of God was clothed with the fullness of human nature. The eternal God became flesh. And from other Scriptural references to flesh, this is not a glorious image. Had Jesus been made man, that could have been seen by some humanist Christians as a positive thing, but flesh is not so pretty. Flesh is fragile and mortal - not something we like to consider for the image of Deity. Many have tried in futility to explain away this doctrine of the full Deity and full humanity of Jesus. They have suggested that Christ was only a man, filled with God only for a time. Some say that His divinity was not complete, but only partial. They have suggested that Christ was only God, entering a man for a time to give a message and show an example of love. Some say that His humanity was only partial and not complete. And others claimed that He was two people � one divine and one human, seen in different ways at different times over the course of His life. But we see here that when the Word was made flesh, He did not cease to be the Word. John upholds Jesus' full humanity and full Divinity in this passage.

And He dwelt among us. Jesus tabernacled with us. (John offers rich imagery of the tabernacle in his gospel - seeing Christ revealing the Father is like touring the tabernacle). He pitched His tent in our camp and showed that He desired intimacy with us, despite - even on account of - our sin. He visited us. "Us" here probably refers to the disciples of Jesus, since John writes, "we" beheld His glory (ala, the Transfiguration and the Resurrected Body). Can we view it as "believers" or "all of us"� Jesus demonstrated not only that He was God in the flesh by His miracles, but also that He was full of grace and truth, or "true grace," or "perfection," by His fulfillment of the Law and His patience with our feeble humanity.

In all things, He showed Himself to be the Messiah, which is the most striking mark by which He ought to be distinguished from all others. And that's where John goes in v16, after the brief reminder of John the Baptist in v15. When we read, "We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only," that is a single Greek word (monogenes), alluding to the uniqueness and eternal nature of the Son. When we read, "Full of grace and truth," note that it is parallel to the Old Testament phrase, "Full of steadfast love and faithfulness." Grace is like steadfast love, and truth is like faithfulness.