And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth;
John's Gospel opens by describing One who was in the beginning, who was with God, and who was God. Now it says this Person became something He had not been before, and readers have asked ever since what "flesh" means here and whose glory the witnesses saw.
The verse marks a turning point in the chapter. Everything before it describes the Word's own nature; here something happens.
In verse 14 a new part begins. Before, it was what He was; now, what He became. The Word became flesh and lived among us. It was a real thing, not like God appearing to Abraham for a visit. He pitched His tent among us.
One writer looks closely at the word "became":
When Scripture says that the Word became flesh, it teaches us this was a new beginning. It was a condition that did not exist before. Now it is true of the One who was and is the Word.
The word chosen is the lowest word available for human nature.
"Flesh" describes humanity by its lowest part. The depth of this stooping down is the glory of what is revealed, and the words "the Word became flesh" convey that glory perfectly.
Because the word is so low, some have treated His humanity as a costume. Commentators reject that.
His humanity was not just an outward form. It was not something put on like a coat for a purpose, then thrown off once that purpose was done. It was real. He became an actual man, and this He will never cease to be.
And what He became took nothing away from what He already was:
His becoming man took nothing at all away from His eternal deity, or from His eternal place within God Himself. It only gave His humanity His own perfection without limit.
One writer compares this to the tabernacle, the tent where God's glory stayed among Israel.
In that tent, the glory of God had lived — in the darkness, not in the light, shut away where no one could reach it. Now here was another tent, the flesh of Christ, and in it lived the full glory of God, open to all. People could come near that divine glory and look at it, because it was shown in grace and truth.
This is why the coming is not classed with the appearances God made to people in earlier times:
He tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. It was not a visit or an appearance of God, as in Old Testament experiences.
"We beheld" is not a claim about eyesight.
"We beheld," here, would tell any spiritual mind that this was spiritual sight, not just physical sight. So it does not mean one event in the lives of those who saw Him. It means a lasting impression on the mind. That is why one translation renders it as "we have contemplated His glory."
Commentators differ over the next phrase. One older version reads "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father," while another gives "a glory as of an only-begotten with a father." "Only-begotten" means the one and only Son. One writer reads it this way:
There was glory in this unique Person, "Only-begotten with Father." That glory existed before, and no one had ever seen it until He became flesh. When His devoted disciples did see it, it came to them as unlimited grace and truth, and it bound them to Him for ever.
The glory did not come as a demand.
It is God come as a man into the world of sinners. He comes veiled in humiliation. He comes into the world of sinners in grace. Instead of saying, "You must behave properly," He comes Himself — not to judge, but to save... Grace comes abounding over all the sin, and truth comes too — not telling us what we ought to be, but what we are.
- Became. The verse turns from what the Word always was to what He became. It was a real beginning, never true of Him before.
- Flesh. He took humanity at its lowest and frailest point. The depth of that stooping is itself the glory God reveals.
- Tabernacled. The old tent shut God's glory up in darkness. The flesh of Christ carried that same glory out where people could come near and look.
- Beheld. The witnesses did not catch a glimpse. They kept looking at glory that belongs to the One with the Father, and it came to them as grace and truth.
- Full. He came to save people, not to tell them what they ought to be. Grace overflowed the sin, and truth told them what they are.
(John bears witness of him, and he has cried, saying, This was he of whom I said, He that comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me;)
John's Gospel has been unfolding who the Word is — eternal, Creator, life, light, now flesh among us. Then a human voice breaks in. The man who came first in time insists that the One who came after him ranks ahead of him — and always did.
Verse 15 breaks into the flow of the chapter. One writer explains why the sentence sits here, and why the word "was" carries so much weight:
He came after John in date, so He must be preferred before him in dignity. For He was (ἦν) — not came into being (ἐγένετο) — before him. He was God. This statement (verse 15) is a parenthesis, though it confirms verse 14. It connects John's testimony with this new section, where Christ appears in flesh. In the same way we saw John introduced in the earlier verses, which dealt with Christ's nature as the Word in the abstract.
John the Baptist was born first. So his statement is either nonsense or a confession of something far larger than ordinary human origin:
There would have been neither sense nor reason in John's testimony if Jesus had not been more than man, for John entered the world before He did. But John began his existence at his birth. The One he spoke of came forth from eternity. And John, full of the Holy Spirit, knew that the lowly Nazarene was his Lord. He was before John, before Abraham, before the beginning, the great I AM.
One writer points out that the word for "before" holds two ideas at once — time and rank:
The word is the first part of the word used later in the letters for firstborn. It would show that the Lord was before John not only in time, but also in rank. No doubt the emphatic "was" has time in view. But here is One of whom John could testify, "He was before me", and that seems to show He comes first in both time and rank.
Being second in the order of events might look like a demotion. The reverse is true, and the comparison is with the highest human standard available:
The coming of Jesus after John was no lessening of His glory, but the very opposite. No greater prophet than John the Baptist had arisen among those born of women. But Jesus is God. If He chose to come after John in time, He had still become beyond compare before him in place and title. Indeed, He really was before him, and this only because He is divine.
The text does not say John mentioned this quietly. He cried — and the same verb is used elsewhere of Jesus Himself:
So far, then, the Baptist bore witness to the surpassing excellencies of the coming One. And clearly he wanted everyone he could reach with his voice to hear it. For he "cried out," we read (1:15). The Lord Jesus in John 7:37 and 12:44 sought to reach many by His voice. The Baptist cried out in the same way. No doubt he wanted to clear away any illusion that he was himself the Christ (Luke 3:15).
John repeats this line three times in the chapter (verses 15, 27, 30). One writer hears in it the confession of every prophet and institution that went ahead of Christ:
The Baptist speaks of Jesus as really before him, though He came after him, and he repeats it with a kind of jealousy (verses 15, 27, 30). But this is very blessed. In it the Holy Spirit, who spoke through John, honours Jesus as the great Subject of all the divine counsels, the great Ordinance of God, to whom all other ordinances pointed. And so, though He came after them, He was before them. John speaks as if voicing the mind of all ordinances and ministries: "He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me." For the Son alone had been set up from everlasting (Prov. 8:23), the great first Object of all the divine counsels. Every prophet and ordinance was only His servant, a testimony to Him.
The same testimony shaped how John saw himself. He was glad to be forgotten if Christ was honoured:
Love delights to see Christ exalted, even though the one who delights in Christ passes out of the thoughts and sight of men. If only every believer could catch this happy spirit of John! It shrinks from public notice and prominence before men, so that Christ may be exalted. It makes nothing of self, so that Christ may be all in all.
- Was, not became — the tense is deliberate: Christ did not come into being before John, He simply was. That one word carries His deity.
- Before — the term covers both time and rank. He existed earlier, and He stands higher; the second follows from the first.
- Preferred — coming later in history cost Him nothing. The greatest man born of women still ranked below Him, because Jesus is God.
- Cried — John did not whisper this. He cried it out, to clear away any idea that he himself was the Christ.
- Faded — every earlier prophet and ordinance was only a servant pointing forward. John lived that out, glad to fade from view so that Christ might be all.
for of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace.
John has just called the Word full of grace and truth, and verse 16 says that His fulness has reached us. That raises three plain questions: what is this "fulness," who does "all" cover, and what does grace upon grace mean?
The fulness is not a store of blessings kept apart from Christ. One writer points to the Person Himself as the whole supply.
The straight line of truth runs: "full of grace and truth … and from His fulness we have all received, grace upon grace" (verse 16). What an astonishing truth! He is the gift and the giver — full of grace and truth. From His fulness we all received. That is what even the least believer has. The strongest is only stronger because he values Him better. There is no blessing outside Him, and so no lack for the soul that has Jesus. If anyone tries to add anything else to the Lord, it is a real loss, not a gain. It only adds what takes away from Him. For Christ is all, and in all.
How far does that supply reach? As far as human need goes.
It is the endless sea of divine grace flowing in on the shore of human need, wave after wave, filling every inlet and creek and cave. All it looks for is room for its blessing. It is the fulness of the Godhead brought down to us in Jesus. It pleased the Father that all fulness should live in Him. That fulness lived in Him, and still lives in Him for you… You have no need that He cannot meet. There is no crack in your heart that He cannot fill.
Another writer sets receiving Christ Himself against being content with correct statements about Him.
This is the second place where the blessings and privileges of the saints are named. In verse 13 the blessing given to all believers was the place of children of God. Here it is that we have all received from His fulness. That is the necessary and blessed effect of receiving Christ Himself. Many seem content instead with receiving some doctrinal statement about Him. Receiving Himself is a very different thing. With Himself we receive all that He is. His wisdom, riches, honours and powers are all ours. We see with His eyes, understand with His heart, feel with His affections.
The word "all" leaves no room for favourites or rankings. It also sets this gift against the older system that came through Moses.
The grace was so rich, so plainly divine. It was not that some souls deserved more than the rest and were rewarded on a rising scale of honour. No: from His fulness we have all received. Nothing could contrast more sharply with the system of government God had set up, which people had known in earlier times. Here there could not be more, and He would not give less… The law that Moses gave was no giver in itself; it was a demander. Jesus, full of grace and truth, gave, instead of requiring or receiving.
Older translations read "grace for grace." Commentators take it as grace stacked on grace, one supply landing on top of the last.
"And from His fulness we have all received, grace upon grace" — it really means grace heaped upon grace. When one grace was given, another came on top of it. Divine favour was in the world in all its fulness, and truth about everything… As believers we have all received an abundance of grace from Christ's fulness. Here it is what is in Himself.
Another writer reaches for the sea to picture the supply.
The picture here is the ocean — the fulness, the love, the power, the wisdom and grace that is in Christ. From that fulness, that ocean of God's resources in Christ, we have received grace upon grace. Before the effect of one wave has passed away, another has taken its place. That is what God has in mind for us.
The chapters that follow show that grace meeting one person after another.
In John 2, we see grace shown at the wedding feast. In John 3, as dealing with Nicodemus. In John 4, meeting the woman at the well. In John 5, with the man at the pool. In John 6, feeding the crowds. In John 8, with the woman in the temple. In John 9, opening the eyes of the blind man. In John 11, raising Lazarus and dealing with his sisters. Put them all together, and we can truly say, "From His fulness we have all received, grace upon grace."
- Source — the fulness is in Christ Himself. He is the gift and the giver. Nothing can be added to Him, and nothing is missing for the one who has Him.
- Share — the word "all" rules out any scale of merit. There could not be more, and He would not give less.
- Measure — grace upon grace means grace heaped on grace. One wave arrives before the last has spent itself.
- Manner — the fulness comes by receiving a Person, not by collecting statements about Him. With Himself we receive all that He is.
- Contrast — the law only demanded. Jesus gives instead of requiring, wave after wave, right through John's Gospel.
For the law was given by Moses grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ.
The verse sets two names side by side — Moses and Jesus Christ — and with them two ways God deals with people: law given through a servant, and grace and truth arriving in Person.
The wording is deliberate. The law was given; grace and truth came. One writer presses that difference hard:
The law was given by Moses. Nothing came into the world by the law. But grace and truth came, and they were really here when Christ was here. He is "the truth" — He is truth plainly set out before us; and all grace was in Him, that is, love adapted to the state man is in.
What is the difference between something true and the truth itself?
The law is holy, just, and good; but still it is nowhere called the truth. The law is God's standard of what He requires from man. It states what God demands from anyone who stands before Him on the ground of his own obedience. The truth is the revealing of God, and the making known of everything else, in Christ. It is therefore not requirement, but revelation. In fact, God Himself contrasts the two here. Was it not God's law? Yes — but Moses gave it. He was the channel it came through… Besides, Christ is the Truth. He makes everyone and everything known as they really are.
The law told people what they ought to be. Christ does something harder. He tells them what they are:
If I take the law, God never came out, and man could not get in. In the Person of Christ, God did come out, and man has gone in… Grace comes abounding over all the sin, and truth comes too. It does not tell us what we ought to be, but what we are — and man does not like that. When I come and tell a man that truth came by Jesus Christ, he does not like it, for truth says man is lost already.
Another writer describes the same pair as a double action, each with its own purpose:
There is a twofold action in all God's dealings with us — an action of truth, and an action of grace. The first uncovers the evil, the second puts it away. The first unfolds what man is, the second what God is… Both are needed: truth, to maintain God's glory; grace, to establish our blessing.
One writer explains why the two cannot be pulled apart, and where they meet:
It is interesting to note that grace is put before truth, and yet grace is not more important than truth, nor truth more important than grace. I understand that a single verb follows those two nouns to show us that we cannot separate the one from the other. We have to come to the Lord's death to understand the secret of it. At the cross we find that grace and truth have met together… You go into a garden and cut a stem, and it breaks into two stems, each holding a flower. So it is here — "grace and truth," two flowers on one stem.
The verse does not mean God was ungracious before Christ came. Writers are careful here:
Of course God had shown patience and grace in Old Testament times. He always was a gracious God, and He said so Himself. Again, many true and real things came to Israel through Moses. But when it comes to the absolute thing we have to turn to Christ. In Him God revealed His grace in full and showed His truth in full. The law made many true things known, but reality itself shone out in Christ.
Why does grace need man's failure first? One writer answers:
The beauty and necessity and power of grace can only be seen when man's inability is demonstrated. He cannot take hold of the blessing in his own strength. He cannot even keep a blessing already given to him.
The contrast is between two persons, not two systems:
Moses brought law. The Son of God brought grace. A servant could come and tell man what God claimed from him. But only the Son of God could unfold the heart and nature of God. Moses could not do that.
- Given vs came — the law came down through Moses, a channel. Grace and truth arrived in Person, here in the world when Christ was here.
- Requirement vs revelation — the law states what God demands from man. The truth reveals God, and shows everyone and everything as they really are.
- Truth first, then grace — truth uncovers what you are; grace puts the evil away. Both are needed: one guards God's glory, the other secures your blessing.
- One stem, two flowers — one verb joins grace and truth. They cannot be separated, and they meet at the cross.
- Fully, at last — God was always gracious. But grace showed its full power only after man's failure, and only the Son could unfold the heart of God.
No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, *he* hath declared [him].
No human eye has ever seen God, and yet this verse says the Son has told God out in full. Everything rests on who does the telling: the only Son, who has always lived in the closest place to the Father's heart.
The verse does not say God had shown nothing of Himself before. It says even Moses saw only a fraction, and from behind. One note on wording: where the ESV has "the only God, who is at the Father's side," the writers below use the older wording — "the only-begotten Son," God's one and only Son, "in the bosom of the Father," the closest place at His heart.
The full revelation of God, however, waited for the coming of the Lord Jesus. The most that was possible, even for so great a man as Moses, was to see "the back parts" of the Lord (Ex. 33:23). Certain divine attributes stood out, such as His mercy and patience. But God could only reveal Himself in full in the only-begotten Son, who was God and became Man.
Even after everything God said to Moses, the limit held.
The mediator himself could not look at the glory of the Lord face to face. He could not see God and live. So it still remains, despite everything God declared to him, that "no one has seen God at any time." But the Only-begotten Son has not only seen Him. As the Son of His love, in the Father's bosom, He has declared Him — told Him out.
The verb matters. John does not say the Son came to be there. He says the Son is there — abiding, with no starting point.
Verse eighteen expresses this in its effect for us: "the Only-begotten Son who is" — literally, "the One being" or "abiding" — "in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (told Him out). Here the unchanging closeness of that eternal relationship is what qualifies Him as the perfect Revealer of God.
One common way of speaking about the Son's coming into the world needs correcting. He left one thing behind; He did not leave the other.
It is a wrong thought that He left the Father's bosom. He never did; He left the Father's house. In Christ you get the full revelation of what the Father is. The only begotten Son, all the Father's delight centres in Him, in the bosom of the Father, that is, in the full enjoyment of it, He declares the Father.
The clause about the bosom is not decoration attached to the title. It explains where the revelation begins.
God has revealed part of Himself in creation, where we see His majesty and almighty power. Psalm 19:1, for example, says, "The heavens declare the glory of God." But the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him in full. The Son has not declared the Father from the outside. As He told what the Father was, He did not start at the outside, with creation. He started with the heart of God, with His bosom — the place of feelings, the place where love dwells. That is the starting point.
The word translated "declared" is an everyday word for telling a story. Its other uses in the New Testament show what the Son came to do.
But this one is the simplest of all, for it means to "tell the whole story." When the apostle Paul tells the church at Jerusalem how God had worked through him among the Gentiles, it is the same word. It means "tell the whole story," and that is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do. He came to say everything that could be said, everything that had to be said, to make God known. It was in the bosom of the Father that He was, and so it is as the Father that He declares Him.
The verse raises a problem and answers it in the same breath. If no one has seen God, how could anyone know or love Him?
The Gospel is meant to bring Christ before us, and I find the sense to be this: well, you have not seen God, and yet you have. He who was the very delight of the Father — who is in the bosom of the Father, the immediate and closest object of the Father's delight — He has declared Him. Therefore I do know Him. It is the answer to the difficulty, that no one ever saw God. Christ has made Him known to me.
- Hidden. No one has seen God. Moses saw only God's "back parts" — the most anyone saw before Christ came.
- Home. The Son is in the Father's bosom — "the One being" there. That relationship abides, with no starting point.
- Kept. He left the Father's house when He came into the world. He never left the Father's bosom. He declared the Father while still enjoying His love.
- Heart. He begins from the bosom, the place where love dwells. So He tells God out from the inside, not from the outside as creation does.
- Whole. "Declared" means to tell the whole story. He came to say everything that could be said, so the God no one has seen is now known.