John 1:14-18, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
When it says that Jesus was full of grace and truth, I have often heard that explained that truth is added to grace to balance out grace. Therefore, in light of that, we also have grace people, and we have truth people, and we need both to balance it out. In speaking of Jesus, that explanation is trying to say that even though Jesus was full of compassion and caring, sometimes, like in the example of cleansing the temple, He was being a truth person, and therefore if you are going to walk out true spirituality you have to have a balance of grace and truth. Obviously, there are going to be times when we have to speak clear and firm words into people’s lives, no matter how kind we want to be, but I do not think that interpretation of what it means about Jesus being full of grace and truth is even close to being an accurate one in terms of trying to define what’s being said in John 1:14. The last verse of that paragraph from John 1 that I listed above says that no man has seen God at any time, but Jesus who lived in the bosom of the father has explained him. Jesus came to reveal the true nature of the Father and He did that perfectly. In other words, He came to tell and reveal the truth about God. Hebrews 1:3 says about Jesus, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature,…” As we have talked about before, even though Jesus was 100% God, He was also 100% man, and He lived His life on the earth as the Son of Man, being continually filled with the Holy Spirit. He laid down His right to live out of His own independent deity, and as the second Adam came to be the author and the perfecter of faith; living His life in absolute and utter dependence on the Holy Spirit to manifest in and through Him the life of the Father. He lived as a spirit-filled man to be an example for us and an example of us. Jesus did not come to show us how God lives, but He came to show us how God lives through a man Jesus did not come to show us what God can do, but He came to show us what God could do through a man, and in doing so He revealed to us the truth about God. The way He did that is revealed in verse 14 of John 1: He was full of grace, and therefore, He was full of truth. Jesus lived by grace because as a man, only by grace can a man reveal the truth about God. The free gift of the life of the Father in Him by the indwelling Holy Spirit, moment by moment, is the way Jesus lived His life on the earth. John 14:10, 11 says, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me; otherwise, believe on account of the works themselves.” Acts 2:22 says, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man approved to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.” Jesus was in the Father, and the Father was in Him, and He lived His life drawing on the free gift (the grace life) of the Father’s life in Him for everything He did. He did not live out of His own self-effort and strain (remember, He said that His yoke was easy and that His burden was light), but instead, He lived by the performance of the Father who lived in Him by the Holy Spirit. He was full of grace, and because He was full of grace, He was full of truth.
Notice what is said about our relationship to Jesus in those verses above: “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” Every believer alive has received the Fullness of Jesus, which is ours as a free gift, and as we simply keep receiving from that gift, moment by moment, we will reveal the life and true nature of Jesus just as He by grace revealed the life and true nature of the Father. There is a calling that all Christians share, and that calling is to be Christlike, but we can only live a Christlike life by the free gift of grace. The best definition of grace that I know how to give is simply this; “God’s limitless affection, acceptance, and ability, as a free gift in the person of Christ, to us, in us, and through us.” Truth does set people free, and as you enjoy the privilege of drawing on the grace of Jesus who lives in you to live the Christian life then you will enjoy the hilarious privilege of seeing people get set free as they encounter the truth of Jesus released through your life.