A week ago Saturday I broke a tooth. After determining I would live I called the dentist and left a message. Monday afternoon I found myself not only in the dentist’s chair but in the “seat of learning,” too. Dr. Peery told of singing in the choir at Hollywood Presbyterian (to meet the girls), being personally helped by THE Henrietta Mears, and chatting in the chow line at Forest Home with a 29 year-old unknown evangelist named Billy something. His stories were fascinating but didn’t help take my mind off all the grinding going on in my mouth.

Still full of Novocain (twice) I got a call that the lights were out in one of the apartments. Armed with bloated face, numb lips, and my trusty screwdriver I set out to fix the problem. My handyman skills are woefully deficient and this would prove to be another hilarious moment. I have not yet advanced to testing electricity according to the Chester “moisten two fingers and touch” Kirkwood method. Mike Cosgrove came to my rescue and brought his ladder. That’s simple enough, why didn’t I think of that? One ladder and a wire-nut later the lights were on. I still don’t understand how one circuit-breaker can turn on the lights wired to another circuit-breaker that is turned off.

I’m going to blame the cat of that house for the allergy symptoms that followed. Some cats have no affect on me and others need to have only been near. Apparently this cat was of the latter variety. Sneezing, watery eyes, stuffy sinuses, slight congestion, and coughing—not the cat, me! One medicine said “non-drowsy.” It was truthful, I didn’t sleep at all that night. The cough medicine let me sleep then I coughed all day. Is this product appropriately misnamed?

Last Sunday we completed our study of the first eighteen verses in John 1. The subject of this passage is the incarnation of God. The eternal Creator Jesus Christ took on human flesh and “dwelt” [fixed his tent, lived awhile, moved into the neighborhood] with humanity.

From this point on in his book, John is going to reveal the Messiah “in flesh.” My circumstances led me to wonder about how much of our humanity Jesus actually put on. Did God the Creator of all ever break a tooth? Visit a physician because He was ill? Have allergies? Receive medical treatment that didn’t work? Did the eternal God listen to captivating stories about human heroes that became heroes in the first place because He gave them prominence among men? Did the all-knowing God have to actually learn or did He simply call to mind what He needed to know at the moment from what He originally designed?

Theologians state simply that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. Whatever is or isn’t implied in “100% man,” Jesus had become so human He didn’t stand out in any significant way. John (the apostle-author) tells us this in the very first section of his book. The priests and Levites were sent to ask John the Baptist if he was the Christ they were looking and waiting for. The religious leaders were clueless but to their credit, they were searching. When John the Baptist pointed them toward the Messiah, he first mentioned Jesus’ humanity. “There stands one among you…” (John 1:26). Then John referred to Jesus’ deity. “It is He who, coming after me, is preferred [existed] before me” (John 1:27).

Why was it important that Jesus become human? The answer is not so that we can speculate whether He broke a tooth or forgot an answer at Synagogue school. It was necessary that the Son of God become one of us that we might become the sons of God (John 1:12).

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.