Every Friday
Full of Grace and Truth
By J.D. Greear
In 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese was walking to her apartment in Manhattan when she was assaulted and stabbed, right there on the street. As she desperately yelled for help, lights in the apartments turned on and neighbors opened their curtains and looked down at this horrifying scene—and yet, not one single person came down to help her. It became a national scandal: What kind of nation have we become where a woman could be stabbed to death in plain sight with several dozen people looking on, simply because nobody wanted to help?
Friend, we were all Kitty. But thank God, Jesus came down to bring light to all the dark things: “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” (John 1:14 ESV). He told us the absolute truth about our darkness but then died in our place so that we could live.
“Dwelt among us” in this verse means “tabernacled.” In the Old Testament, the tabernacle was the tent-like structure that housed the presence and glory of God on earth. In Jesus, the glory of God took on flesh and blood so we could see it and touch it and understand it.
John boiled the defining characteristics of God’s glory down to grace and truth. Religion is often characterized by one or the other. Many religions are truth without grace; they tell you what’s right but in a way that condemns and excludes you.
Or, they are grace without truth; they act accepting but refuse to be honest about what God’s Word says. Truth without grace is fundamentalism; grace without truth is sentimentality. Jesus was full of both grace and truth, and that is the only way to life.
Jesus’ truth didn’t cancel out grace; nor did grace compromise the truth. Jesus told us exactly what God’s righteous standards are, but then he died in our place so we wouldn’t perish under them.
Notice that Jesus led with grace. He doesn’t want us to perish; he wants us to live. He takes delight in mercy and repentance. We see it in how he responded to the woman caught in adultery and the despised Zacchaeus, how he couldn’t turn away the lepers or sinners or tax collectors.
In Jesus, full of grace and truth, we see how God cares about sinners.
Reflections
What does it tell you about God’s character that he was willing to send Jesus to earth so we could experience his glory in a personal way?
In what ways can you better embody grace and truth in the way you interact with others?
Prayer
Tell God that you want to know Jesus more deeply and fully so you can become a person who exhibits grace and truth like he did and share with many people how God cares about them