Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::
The gospel of John chapter 1 is worthy of a lifetime of study and consideration. It is perhaps one of the most marvelous portions in all of Scripture. Marvelous because it unveils Christ to us in so many aspects. Verse 1 shows Him as the Word…the very Son of God in eternity past. And at the end of the chapter (verse 51) we see Him revealed not just as the Son of God…but as the Son of Man for God’s building…for God’s habitation in eternity future.
And in between these two book ends, we see Him in glory as the only-begotten Son full of grace and reality…even as the very fullness of God declaring Him and making Him known in a wonderful and experiential way.
John 1 first of all tells us that Christ as the Word (which was God Himself) came as life to us and as light shining within us for the purpose to bring forth many children of God that God may have the enlargement…that God may have a corporate expression. This is revealed in the first thirteen verses of chapter one. Now we have the second section of chapter one that is composed with verses 14 to 18.
In this section it unfolds to us that the very Christ…now He was incarnated in the flesh for us to enjoy Him. How Christ could be enjoyed by us? By being incarnated. Christ was the Word yet even He Himself as the word was mysterious. But He became flesh. He became incarnated. Now in the flesh, He became so real to us. He was intangible. He was invisible. He was not touchable. He was not seen. But by becoming flesh, He became so solid. So real…seen, visible, touchable, tangible. But just being tangible still is not good for us to enjoy Him.
But here is says when He became flesh He was full of (not doctrines, not gifts) grace and reality. Every disciple saw Him and everyone touched Him….not only touched Him…enjoyed Him. If you check with Peter…if you check with Mary…why they love Jesus that much…why they liked to be in His presence. They would say, “we cannot tell you why, but we can tell you as long as we stay with Him, there is a kind of enjoyment. No word can utter it, but we all can testify just to sit in His presence for half an hour…my oh the sweetness…oh the enjoyment…oh the reality. We don’t know how to explain. We don’t know how to define. But we do know we have enjoyed something.” What was that? That was full of grace and reality.
