John 1:14-18: Glory and Grace

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

You want to see the glory of God? Know Him? Love Him? Worship Him more?

There it is right there.

But what does it mean?

Here’s the Big Idea from John 1:14-18...

Jesus took on human flesh to reveal the glory of God and give us the fullness of God’s grace in salvation.

The glory of God is God’s goodness towards sinners in the incarnation, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

My goal is to help you see more of God’s glory and how God shows us His glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6), with the hope that you will know His glory more and love and worship Him in return.

So let’s see if we can do just that starting with point number 1..

I. Jesus Took on Flesh to Reveal the Glory of God’s Goodness

And we are going to spend about half of the sermon here because this point basically lays the foundation for everything else in this sermon.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Became Flesh

And the Word became flesh are some of the most important words in the entire Bible.

They are the clearest and most concise biblical statement on the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

What you believe about the incarnation changes everything!

If Jesus really was God in the Flesh then that means everything He said was true.

That He really is the only way to the Father and the only One who can save us from our sins.

It would mean He is worthy of all of our worship and we should follow Him and live all of our lives for the glory of His Name.

What you believe about the incarnation even defines who is and who is not a Christian?

John in his epistle 2 John, says that those who deny Jesus Christ came in the flesh are deceivers and antichrist (2 John 2:7, 1 John 4:2-3).

Why? Because if you lose the incarnation, you lose everything.

If Jesus were just another man…He would be sinful just like the rest of us.

And that would mean His death on the cross wasn’t a sacrifice that could actually pay for our sins, because He would have had His own sin He had to die for.

We needed a spotless Lamb. We needed a substitute who could take our all of our sins and suffer and die in our place…who could bear the wrath of God on our behalf so that we could be forgiven.

That is only possible with the incarnation.

As a man, Jesus was a Suitable Substitute who could pay for our sins.

Man was the one who sinned against God, and if man was going to truly be forgiven, truly reconciled to God and redeemed from His wrath, man himself would have to pay for their sin.

Goats and bulls…animal sacrifices would never be enough.

But it couldn’t be just any man. It had to be a pure man.

They only way for anyone to be saved was if there was a Pure Sacrifice for sin. A man who did not have any sin of his own to die for.

Here’s the problem with that. All of us are guilty in Adam.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

No one could have paid for their own sins, much less anyone else.

This is where Christ comes in. As God, He is a pure Sacrifice.

He is the GodMan who was descended from Adam, but through the virgin birth was not in Adam.

He inherited none of Adam’s sin and guilt making Him and Him alone the only one who could save us from our sin.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

Without the Incarnation, none of us would be saved.

And when John says that the Word became flesh John affirms Jesus’ full humanity.

Hebrews 2:17 He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation [an atoning sacrifice that satisfies God’s wrath and turns it into favor] for the sins of the people.

Here is what we believe.

Jesus Christ is truly and fully God, and truly and fully man. Very God, and very Man.

His incarnation did not mix up His divinity and His humanity and blend them together in into some new third thing that is neither God, nor man, but something else.

He is one person with two natures without mixture, confusion, separation or division.

His humanity never overpowered His Divinity. His Divinity never overpowered His humanity.

He is fully God and fully man all at once.

And this makes Him the Redeemer Job hoped for who could stand between us and God and lay His hand on us both to make peace between the two of us (Job 9:33).

Dwelt

John goes on. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The word dwelt is a Greek word that literally means to live in a tent.

And the root word is the same word used in the Old Testament for the Tabernacle where God dwelt in the midst of His people after the Exodus.

So literally you could translate this as, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.

That’s not an accident. And to see what John is doing here and what that says about Christ, you have to remember what the Tabernacle was.

God gave Israel the Tabernacle after the Exodus. So right there, there’s hints of Christ being the true and greater Exodus, not just from slavery in Egypt, but from slavery to all of our sin.

And the Tabernacle basically did three things.

Number 1: It was where God dwelled in the midst of His people in all of His glory.

You remember the glory cloud of the Lord filled the Tabernacle (Ex. 40:34-35), and when Israel would stop and set up camp, the Tabernacle would be in the middle and the twelve tribes would surround Tabernacle with three tribes camping on each side.

God truly did dwell with His people.

Number 2: the Tabernacle was where the people of God would draw near to worship Him.

And Number 3: The Tabernacle was where sacrifices were offered.

When anyone sinned, they would come to the Tabernacle and offer a sin offering to the world.

Now here’s where this gets really amazing.

What is the baseline promise…the goal of all the covenants?

We could look at a few places. Leviticus 26:11-12 is the first summary of it.

Ezekiel 37:27 reaffirms it in the New Covenant.

And Revelation 21:3 celebrates it as the culmination of all Christ’s work.

Let’s look at it in Ezekiel 37:27. And I chose this one because it is without a doubt, God’s promise to us in the New Covenant…what the Old Covenant was pointing to and ultimately driving towards.

Ezekiel 37:27 My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The Tabernacle is Israel’s first foretaste of all those promises.

I will dwell with them.

God dwells in the midst of His people.

I will be their God.

God’s people draw near to worship Him.

And they shall be my people.

God in His grace and mercy provides atonement for their sin and claims them to be His own.

But now John is saying in the incarnation, Jesus is the true and ultimate Tabernacle.

Through the incarnation, God came to dwell with us. Jesus took to Himself human flesh to be our great and merciful high priest.

Through the incarnation, God becomes our God. We draw near to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

And through the incarnation, God makes us His people. He forgives our sins once and for all, and through faith He makes us not just His people but His own beloved children.

With that one little word, John is giving us a peek at the glory of Jesus Christ. He is the fullness and ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant love and promises.

That one word tells us everything Christ accomplished in His sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection.

Glory

That’s why John moves on and says and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Just as the glory of God filled the Tabernacle, the glory of God filled Jesus Christ in His incarnation.

Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

Colossians 1 He is the image of the invisible God…and in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:15, 19).

The word glory is a word that means splendor or majesty. In the Old Testament it meant weight or heaviness.

So God’s glory is His splendor and majesty.

The weight of all that God is that weighs down on us and presses on us awe, praise, and wonder.

God’s glory is the beauty of God in all of His perfections.

Its that attribute of God that makes you go, “Wow.”

Its the weightiness of who God is that presses out of us worship.

And John says we see that glory, the fullness of all that God is and all that He’s worth, truly, fully, and most of all in His Son Jesus Christ, the only Son from the Father.

Well what is God’s glory? What is God’s glory that He revealed in the full radiance of His splendor in Jesus Christ?

Let’s go to Exodus 33 and 34.

I realized writing this sermon this week that this is a passage we hit a lot. And I think there is good reason for it. I think this is one of the most important passages in the entire Old Testament.

When you ask the question who is God, this is the passage that tells you.

In Exodus 33:18 Moses ask God “Please show me your glory.”

Show me the weight of who you are and all that your worth.

Verse 19, God answered Moses and said “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’”

So, this is key, God’s glory, in a single word, can be summed up as His goodness.

And God’s goodness is tied up in His Name the Lord. That is, His goodness is directly connect to who He is.

But this came with a warning. Exodus 33:20-23 “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

God would allow Moses to see His glory, but not the fullness of it.

Sinful man cannot see God’s glory and live.

But Moses would see the backside of God’s glory. The afterglow.

And I think John has this passage in mind here because immediately after this God gives Moses two new tablets of the Law and Moses beholds God’s glory.

In John 1, we have seen His glory through Christ, and the Law came through Moses. That’s verse 17 which we will get to a little bit later.

So what happens?

Exodus 34:5-7 The Lord descended in the cloud [that’s the glory] and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”

So here is God’s goodness. God’s glory. The weight of all that God is.

He is the LORD. Ruler of Heaven and earth.

He is merciful and gracious. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping steadfast love for thousands.

Forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.

This is who Christ reveals God to be.

And He reveals who God is to be in all the the fullness of His glory.

How does Christ show us God is merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving all of our sin without clearing the guilty?

Without just sweeping our sin under the rug?

Through Christ’s death on the cross.

By laying our sin on Christ.

Christ pays the punishment for our sin, the wages of our sin, with His own death on the cross.

God doesn’t just clear the guilty. He pays for our sin in full.

And in Christ, God forgives us. He is merciful and gracious. Slow to anger. And abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness to us all because of Christ.

As Paul says in Romans For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:23-26).

He is just because He punishes every sin, and He is the justifier because He gives us grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

In other words, all the goodness of God, all the glory God revealed to Moses is most clearly seen in Jesus Christ.

How do we know who God is and the weight of His glory? Through Jesus and His death and resurrection.

That’s why John says we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth.

I take grace and truth to be a summary of all of God’s goodness and glory.

So what is God’s glory manifested in Jesus Christ? Grace and truth. The Fullness of Grace and Truth.

Grace: God’s unmerited benevolent kindness towards unworthy sinners.

And Truth: that which is absolutely true and can be trusted entirely with absolute certainty.

Here’s John’s point.

Christ took on human flesh to show us the glory of God in all His fullness.

To show us God’s goodness full of grace and truth.

The fullness of the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness forgiving all of our sin.

And Christ is able to do this because He is God in the flesh.

That’s the big flashing light. Jesus is God incarnate.

He is the full radiance of the glory of God. Not an imitation or derivative glory.

That’s why John the Baptist comes in.

John 1:15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)

Lest anyone think the Word is anything less than God Himself, John the Apostle brings in the witness of John the Baptist.

He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.

Here John says Jesus is eternal God.

Jesus was born after John the Baptist, and yet, John the Baptist says Jesus was before him.

Preexisted him.

So John the Apostle uses John the Baptist to make it explicitly clear that the Word is not some lesser God or derivative of God.

He is God Himself. God made flesh.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1).

Jesus took on human flesh to reveal who God is in all of His goodness and glory.

Jesus shows us God is full of grace and truth - merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

And that takes us to point number two.

Jesus not only took on Human flesh to show us the glory of who God is...

He also took on human flesh to give us the fullness of God’s grace.

II. Jesus Took on Flesh to Give us the Fullness of God’s Grace

John 1:16-17 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Now we need to do a little exegetical work here to see the full meaning of what John says in this passage, because usually people will read this verse and say it just means in Christ we have received grace upon grace.

Grace on top of Grace.

Ever-flowing, abounding grace.

And that is certainly true. Christ is an infinite fountain of grace that will never run dry.

But I think John is actually being more specific than that.

The usual word you use for upon or on top of is the Greek word ἐπί, but that’s not the word John uses here.

He uses the Greek word ἀντί which usually means for or in the place of, which would make the translation from his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace.

Now that could still get you to abounding grace. You have grace, and that grace is replaced with more grace.

But then verse 17 says For.

Meaning verse 17 supports and gives further explanation to what John said in verse 16.

And he says, For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

You’ll notice there is no “but’ there. John doesn’t draw a sharp contrast that pits the Law given through Moses against the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ.

That’s how we usually see it in Paul. The Law condemns, grace saves.

But that’s not not typically how John talks about Moses and Christ.

John 3:14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

John 6:32 The Manna God gave through Moses in the wilderness was a gracious gift, but it was not the true bread from heaven. That was Jesus Christ.

And John 5:46 “f you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

For John, Moses and the Law are shadows that point to and anticipate the fullness of what was to come in Jesus Christ.

So when John says From Christ’s fullness, from the fullness of His glory that is full of grace and truth, we have received grace in place of grace.

He’s saying we have received true grace in place of the shadow of grace anticipated in the Law.

In other words, in Christ we have received the fullness of all that the Law pointed to and required.

Now this is profound and grounds our salvation and the fullness of God’s promises in Christ being the fulfillment of the Law on our behalf.

Now let me make it explicitly clear. The Law does not save.

Galatians 2:16 No one will be justified by works of the Law.

But that does not mean the Law was not gracious at all.

Anytime God condescends to unworthy sinners to reveal who He is and what He requires it is a gracious work of God.

So the Law is not a gift of God’s grace in any salvific since. It is not an instrument of grace that brings salvation to people who obey.

The Law has no power to save.

All the Law had the power to do was condemn us in our sin.

The Law said Do this and live. But the problem was, none of us could keep the Law.

All have sinned and and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

Hebrews 8 says this was the fault with the Law. Not with the Law itself as God does not make anything faulty.

But the fault was in us. We had sinful hearts and had not power to keep the Law no matter how hard we tried.

As Augustine said “The law threatened, [but] did not bring aid; commanded, but did not heal; made manifest, but did not take away our feebleness.” (Phillips, John, 1st ed., vol. 1, Reformed Expository Commentary, 67).

So the Law doesn’t save. But it still pointed to and anticipated God’s grace. In this way John calls the Law a grace.

A shadow of grace to be sure, but a shadow of grace that was replaced with the fullness of grace in Jesus Christ.

Well how so?

Tutor

First the Law is a Tutor.

Galatians 3:24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

The word guardian can be translated as tutor, leader, or guide.

This was what the Reformers called the first use of the Law.

It condemned us in our sin and made it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt of our inability to keep it, that the only thing that could save us would be God’s grace.

So one of the ways the Law was gracious, was not that it saved us, but it drove us to Christ in order that, as Paul says, we might be justified by faith.

So the Law anticipates God’s grace by showing us our need for God’s grace.

Shadow

But when we think of the Law, we aren’t just talking about a list of God’s commands.

The Law, biblically, included the first five books of the Old Testament and therefore encompassed everything God gave Israel through Moses.

The priesthood, sacrifices, Tabernacle.

The Exodus and Promise Land.

And all these things Hebrews says are a shadow of the fullness of God’s grace that would ultimately come in Christ.

Just take the sacrificial system.

Hebrews 10:1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Animal sacrifices under the Law saved no one.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4).

But those sacrifices were still gracious in the fact that they temporarily allowed God’s people to draw near to worship Him despite their sin...

And because , most importantly, they pointed to and anticipated how God would ultimately deal with sin once and for all, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but through the blood of His own Son.

In other words, they foreshadowed God’s grace.

Summary

So here is what I think John is saying.

Through Christ we have received grace on top of grace, abounding grace, because the shadow of grace anticipated by the Law was replaced with the fullness of grace and everything the Law pointed to in Christ.

In every way, Christ fulfilled all the shadows of God’s grace in the Law.

Number 1: He fulfilled all the requirements of the Law on our behalf.

He lived the perfect and sinless life we failed to live by obeying every command of the Law and keeping it perfectly.

And he also paid the punishment the Law requires for our sin by dying on the cross as our substitutionary sacrifice.

Now through faith in Him, Christ righteousness becomes our righteousness and all of our sin is paid so that now, in Christ we are forgiven and reconciled to God.

But Number 2: He also fulfilled all the shadows of God’s grace the Law pointed to.

He is the seed born of the woman God promised Adam and Eve after the Fall.

He is our great High Priest because He lives forever to make intercession for us.

He is the True Sacrifice that atones for our sins once and for all.

He is the true Exodus who delivers us from slavery to sin, death, and the devil and gives us eternal life.

And like we saw earlier, He is the true Tabernacle where God dwells with us, we are His people, and He is our God.

In the Old Covenant, God was still at a distance.

The veil separated us from His presence and glory in the Holy of Holies.

But when Christ died on the cross, the veil was torn in two and we have received the fullness of grace and we are forever reconciled to God.

Christ in every way is the fulfillment of the Law, and from His fullness we have received the true fullness of God’s grace that was only ever anticipated and looked forward to as a shadow in the Law.

I know some of this can be confusing, so here’s the BIG IDEA from this point.

It is finished. That is what Jesus says on the cross in John 19:30.

Everything necessary for our salvation...

All the requirements of the Law and everything the Law pointed to and promised - Do this and live; eternal life, blessing, fellowship with God, redemption and salvation from sin, death, and the curse - has been fully satisfied once and for all and given to us in fullness through faith in Jesus Christ.

All the shadows are realized in Him.

All the promises find their yes and amen in Him.

He has fulfilled everything the law required and from His fullness we have received the fullness of God’s grace only anticipated and hoped for in the Law.

Your salvation is sure because Christ fulfilled the Law on your behalf, every bit of it, and that shadow of grace has been replaced with the fullness of it.

As Paul says in Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

So when we say that in Christ we have received grace upon grace, we are not merely saying that Christ has given us abundant grace.

Its one step further. Richer.

Christ has given us the fullness of grace. All the grace we will ever need to answer all of God’s requirements in the Law.

That’s the idea John is getting at here.

Big Idea: God’s grace is so much richer than just grace upon grace. It is the fullness of grace; all the grace we need to fulfill all the Law’s promises, requirements, and commands in Christ.

Its the fullness of grace because there is absolutely else needed for the fullness of our salvation.

And that takes us to point number 3...

III. The Only Way to Know the Glory of God’s Goodness and Grace is through Faith in Jesus Christ

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

No one has ever seen God takes us back to Moses and Exodus 34.

Moses spoke to God “face to face” but even Moses never saw God.

He only saw the back of God’s glory.

Remember what God said. Man shall not see me and live.

The Bible tells us that God is invisible and He dwells in unapproachable light (Col. 1:15, 1 Timothy 6:16).

And this is where we start to see the glory of Christ more and more.

Without Christ, we would never truly know God, and we would never truly see His glory, and that would mean we would never truly be able to worship Him for all that He’s worth.

But here’s the good news.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

No one has ever seen God in the fullness of His glory nor could we ever see God because of our sin.

But in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Colossians 1:19).

Then John says the only God, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.

John says Jesus is God and He is at the Father’s side.

Literally, He is in the Father’s bosom. In His Heart.

Jesus is beloved by the Father and as the only God and only Son of the Father has a unique relationship of intimacy and knowledge of who God is.

And out of that love, intimacy, and knowledge, out of sharing the divine essence of the Triune God who eternally exists as 1 God in three divine persons, Jesus makes the Father known.

Literally you could translate that as Jesus exegetes the Father.

Where we get our word for exegeting Scripture.

This means that Jesus interprets, makes known and explains who God is.

Remember how John started. We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In Christ, we see the fullness of God’s glory. The fullness of his Goodness full of grace and truth.

But the only way we can see God’s glory in Christ, is if we look at Christ with the eyes of faith.

That’s the only way to not just know God is good, but to experience he is good.

To know His covenant love and faithfulness to forgive all our sin and give us grace in Jesus Christ.

A vague belief in God does not save anyone.

The only way to God is through faith in Jesus.

John 14:6 I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Do you want grace upon grace?

The fullness of salvation given to you as a free gift and not by works? Something you could never earn?

Then believe in Christ. Receive Him. Put your faith in Him and take Him to be your personal Lord and Savior.

And God’s promise...

John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Conclusion

When we look at Christ with faith, we behold the glory of God full of grace and truth.

We see God’s wisdom and power.

His wisdom to plan out our salvation and make a way to uphold His justice while still forgiving all our sin.

His Power to accomplish our salvation in Christ and make it happen.

As Jesus said What is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27). God’s power in Christ did the impossible for us.

We see God’s holiness and purity.

The cross shows us just how grotesque and wicked our sin is.

All the blood, all the shame, all the tears…that is what our sin deserved from a holy and righteous judge.

We see his justice pouring out the full wrath our sin deserved.

We see God merciful and gracious.

Not giving us the due punishment of our sins, but more than that giving us the fullness of his grace and blessings.

We see Him patient and slow to anger.

Bearing with our sins and bringing us to repentance when most of us would have thrown ourselves away a hundred sins ago.

We see the Lord abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

While we were still sinners God sent His Son, His only Son, the Son of His love to die for us.

Why? Because God loved us. He pitied us in our sin and sent His Son to ransom us out of darkness and death.

And in Christ God has promised to never leave us or forsake us.

In Christ’s death and resurrection, we see all the goodness and glory of God full of grace and truth God proclaimed to Moses in Exodus 34.

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:5-7).

As Jesus said Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9).

And in Christ we see the Father in all His goodness towards us who believe.

And in beholding His glory, the weight of that glory should press down on us and overflow in love, adoration, and praise in return.

Here’s the Big Picture Summary:

What is the glory of God?

It is His unmerited goodness towards sinners.

And God shows us the fullness of that goodness in the incarnation of Jesus Christ who, through His life, death, and resurrection fulfilled the Law and satisfied all its righteous demands on our behalf to give us the fullness of God's grace and save us from our sins.

He took on flesh to reveal God and the glory of all of His goodness and give us the fullness of grace and salvation in the forgiveness of our sins.

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

As Thomas Watson says He took our flesh that He might take our sins (A Body of Divinity 194)....

And through the lantern of Christ’s humanity we behold the light of deity (195).

Or perhaps his best and most concise summary Christ incarnate is nothing but love covered with flesh (Watson, 194).

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

1 John 4:7-10 God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.