Grace: The Divine Disclosure of Christ

In this post I am going to be speaking less about grace as the gracious act of giving, and more about grace as the substance of Who is given. John 1:14,16 says, “And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth. And out of His fullness we all have received, and grace upon grace”. What is His fullness? Grace and truth. Grace is the substance, the essence, of everything He is. The word “grace” in this context means more than a doctrine; it is the property that constitutes the Christ. The word “truth” in John 1:14 is the Greek word “alethia” which means “unveiled reality; the reality pertaining to an appearance”.The release of His grace is His appearing; it is making visible what was invisible, material what was immaterial. When you say Jesus is “full of grace and truth”, you are saying that when the inner substance of everything He is (grace) manifests,, you have the unveiled reality of Christ or “the truth”.

What is interesting is that John the Baptist says that out of the Lord’s fullness we have all received. Received what? “Grace upon grace”. So what is contained within us is that substance or property which constitutes Christ. And when released, that grace contains the transformational ability of God. It is the appearance of that grace compliant with the substance within that brings the divine disclosure, the distribution of Christ. The pre-existent One, from outside this time/space world, becomes Immanuel-God with us, full of grace and truth. Jesus died to do away with the veil, that body of flesh that hid His eternal being. (Hebrews 10:19-22, II Corinthians 5:16). It is difficult to reduce the significance that God has placed upon our lives when we acknowledge what the Lord went through in order to live in and through us personally.

We can’t buy this grace, merit it, or labor for it. It is given (Ephesians 4:7).When we receive it, it becomes our divine “engine” and defines who we are. I Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am (identity) and His grace toward me was not found to be for nothing (fruitless and without effect). In fact, I worked harder than all of them, though it was not really I, but the grace of God which was with me” (the engine). I don’t have to wear certain kinds of clothes to know who I am or derive my energy through self effort; I am what I am by the grace of God. And I do what I do by the grace of God; so much so that when I look back, I realize it could ONLY have been by the grace of God! What was seen was energized by Someone within. There is this substance in us that drives us; it is the hard drive of His being. That engine determines the output of His appearance, and He just cannot remain invisible!

When we go forth, we are usually an answer to a cry for help. Paul admonished those he was sent to “not to receive the grace of God in vain (the grace in Paul; the means by which Christ would exert His holy influence on hearts through him). For God says, In the time of favor I have listened to and heeded your cry….” (II Corinthians 6:1,2). We are His grace distributed. However, in the same chapter, Paul went onto lament over the Corinthian rejection of that grace (verses11,12) just as Jesus did over Jerusalem’s rejection in Matthew 23:37-39. Without the recognition and reception of the measure of grace upon each one, there will be the loss of what God intended to impart of Himself into need in order to bring that which sustains and builds up the inner man. He distributed Himself to a many membered body so that He might continue appearing everywhere, impacting lives, full of grace and truth.