Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 4 Study # 3
December 4, 2022
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: Believers
need to view the circumstances of life as an opportunity to "see" God's "Grace" methodology.
Introduction: Last week we considered Author-John's first statement regarding the "witness" of the other man named John who was sent from God to bear witness to The Light so that people could be brought to Faith and its result: salvation. In that study we noted the fact that Witness-John's "witness" boiled down to this:
The Word is the Infinite God.
This "infinity" is, in a sense, the ultimate "glory" of God. I make this claim because "infinity" establishes the very existence of God and declares that every aspect of His "glory" to be rooted in "infinity". The "I Am" declaration of the existence of God means that God's "existence" is "infinite": He has always existed; He is presently existing; and He shall exist without any end of any kind.
All of the "glory" (attributes) of God is "infinite". "Time" stretched into "infinity" becomes "Eternity". "Power" stretched to "infinity" becomes "Omnipotence". "Knowledge" stretched into "infinity" becomes "Omniscience". Et cetera.
This week we are going to begin to look into the particular focus of this "witness". Witness-John's "witness" is, for this context, limited to 1:15. In 1:16-18 is Author-John's particular focus upon the impact of Witness-John's words.
Thus, in 1:16, Author-John brought Witness-John's words down to what the translators' call "His fulness" as it relates to "Grace". His conclusion is that the absolute infinity of God (the meaning of "His fulness") signals the experience by human beings of what the translators call "Grace Upon Grace".
What "Grace Upon Grace" means is the focus of our attention this morning. What does "out of His fulness we all received, even Grace Upon Grace" mean?
- I. Some Quick Clarifications.
- A. I am calling "the fulness of The Word", "the infinity of God" in particular focus upon His "Word" identity (meaning, He knows unto infinity so that whatever He says in words can be trusted to be true through all of the infinity of time -- i.e., Eternity): Isaiah 40:8.
- B. I am identifying the "we" who "received out of His fulness", The Twelve, because they are those who actually "beheld His glory" (1:14).
- C. I am taking the phrase "Grace Upon Grace" to be Author-John's explanatory focus regarding the particular "What?" of the Infinity of God that he intends for his readers to set their attention upon.
- II. Now, The Text.
- A. Our first question is: What is "Grace"?
- 1. We have to have a concrete concept in mind in order to be able to understand what "Grace Upon Grace" means.
- 2. The most popular conceptions of Grace have been watered down so far as to make Grace into a nebulous "something".
- 3. The issues of Grace are anything but "a nebulous something".
- a. The strongest biblical description of "Grace" is that it is divine action taken for good, when those who will receive the impact of those actions are notoriously unworthy of being recipients of benefits of God's actions (consider Witness-John' "witness" concerning his true reality, even though filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb: 1:27).
- 1) Grace is not "blessings that fall upon good people"; it is, however, blessings that fall upon people with God taking action without regard for their moral character.
- 2) Grace is not rooted in human capacities; it is, by definition, actions taken because the people have no capacities for genuine moral action and are in for a world of hurt if something is not done.
- b. The clearest expressions of "the Grace of God" are two.
- 1) The provision of the Christ Who would act in the stead of, and for the benefit of, creatures of God: He is "David" vs. Goliath; the Champion of The People of God.
- 2) The provision of the Holy Spirit Who followed on the heels of the Christ as Deliverer so that human beings could experience the blessings of deliverance.
- 3) In both cases, God was doing for man what He demanded of them because they could not meet His demands.
- c. The actual focus in our text is twofold.
- 1) It first focuses upon The Incarnation, The Tabernacling, and The Resurrection of The Word; making the entire life of Christ upon the earth, from birth to resurrection the focus.
- 2) It's second focus is specifically upon The Word as Messenger: The words of The Word.
- 3) This means that the primary focus upon "Grace Upon Grace" is upon the words of The Word as expressions of the ways of men into the blessings of a totally unmerited revelation in words from God.
- a) And this means that we should expect "Grace" in the form of words that give us understanding; the gracious actions of God do no good for those who do not know, understand, and believe the gracious words of God.
- b) This is not to discount the actions God takes in our personal history to bring us to the experience of Himself, but it is to highlight the fact that, without words of explanation, "Grace" is just turned into "Good Luck" or "Remarkable Coincidences".
- B. So, then, what is "grace upon grace"?
- 1. The conception is that our lives are a streaming set of circumstances that require that we know how to address them if we are not to sow to the wind and reap the tornado.
- 2. Each set of circumstances is a unit within itself that requires God's involvement and our understanding.
- 3. Since each set of circumstances requires God's involvement, Grace is given in the form of divine action taken for each set.
- 4. But, the "Grace Upon Grace" phrase strongly implies that the Grace of God's actions is limited to the particular set of circumstances, and when they pass, there will be a new set of circumstances that will also require God's actions on our behalf.
- 5. Thus, each set of circumstances can be met by Grace, but must be met by a different set of Grace-actions, and our grasp of what is going on is dependent upon the Grace that is actually words from God to address our ignorance.
- C. Thus, it should be our attitude that we are looking for the "Grace" required in our particular moments and should be expecting that God will meet us as we trust Him, and that this attitude should be ours as time and circumstances arrive on our scene.
