What is truth?
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. John 1:16
In his account of Jesus Christ's life, John (the apostle) said the Word (Jesus) was "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Most of us skillfully describe God's "grace" as "God's favor and kindness given to those who do not deserve it and cannot earn it." But when asked to define "truth," we are as stumped as Pilate was the night he asked Jesus, "what is truth?"
Not only is Jesus full of grace and truth, John adds, "and of His fullness [of grace and truth] we have all received…." That's just great. Here we are, the beneficiaries of these wonderful blessings but how will I know that I have received His fullness of truth if I don't know what it is?
John's original audience knew what he meant by "truth." They knew "truth" to be embodied in the Law God gave to Moses. They knew "truth" demanded the keeping or obeying of God's Law. They knew "truth" revealed sin (thus the need for the sacrificial system) but it could never remove sin (that's grace).
John declared that Jesus Christ is the fullness of truth. In His life, death, and resurrection Jesus perfectly kept all the demands of the Law. However, if God dealt with us only according to truth, none of us would survive. John also declared that Jesus Christ is the fullness of grace. Here was a concept John's original readers were not as familiar with. Each act of sacrifice was an expression of God's grace through the Law but that grace was partial and incomplete. We would say that the grace the sacrifices represented in the Old Testament was a picture of the perfect sacrifice that would one day come.
Here is the Amplified Bible's helpful translation of John 1:16: "For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received [all had a share and we were all supplied with] one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift."
To be in right relation with God we need both grace and truth. What is truth? Look to Jesus as the perfect Law-keeper who became our once-for-all sacrifice. What is grace? Look to Jesus the Christ and receive from Him what we don't deserve and cannot earn.