The words of my text refer back to those of the fourteenth verse: 'The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.' 'And
of His fulness have all we received.' The 'fulness' here seems to mean
that of which the Incarnate Word was full, the 'grace and truth' which
dwelt without measure in Him; the unlimited and absolute completeness
and abundance of divine powers and glories which 'tabernacled' in Him.
And so the language of my text, both verbally and really, is
substantially equivalent to that of the Apostle Paul. 'In Him dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and ye are complete in Him.' The
whole infinite Majesty, and inexhaustible resources of the divine
nature, were incorporated and insphered in that Incarnate Word from
whom all men may draw.
There are involved in that thought two ideas. One is the unmistakable
assertion of the whole fulness of the divine nature as being in the
Incarnate Word, and the other is that the whole fulness of the divine
nature dwells in the Incarnate Word in order that men may get at it.
The words of my text go back, as I said, to the previous verse; but
notice what an advance upon that previous verse they present to us.
There we read, 'We beheld His glory.' To _behold_ is much, but to
_possess_ is more. It is much to say that Christ comes to manifest God,
but that is a poor, starved account of the purpose of His coming, if
that is all you have to say. He comes to manifest Him. Yes! but He
comes to communicate Him, not merely to dazzle us with a vision, not
merely to show us Him as from afar, not merely to make Him known to
understanding or to heart; but to bestow—in no mere metaphor, but in
simple, literal fact—the absolute possession of the divine nature. 'We
beheld His glory' is a reminiscence that thrills the Evangelist, though
half a century has passed since the vision gleamed upon his eyes; but
'of His fulness have all we received' is infinitely and unspeakably
more. And the manifestation was granted that the possession might be
sure, for this is the very centre and heart of Christianity, that in
Him who is Christianity God is not merely made known, but given; not
merely beheld, but possessed.
In order that that divine fulness might belong to us there was needed
that the Word should be made flesh; and there was further needed that
incarnation should be crowned by sacrifice, and that life should be
perfected in death. The alabaster box had to be broken before the house
could be filled with the odour of the ointment. If I may so say, the
sack, the coarse-spun sack of Christ's humanity, had to be cut asunder
in order that the wealth that was stored in it might be poured into our
hands. God came near us in the life, but God became ours in the death,
of His dear Son. Incarnation was needed for that great privilege—'we
beheld His glory'; but the Crucifixion was needed in order to make
possible the more wondrous prerogative: 'Of His fulness have all we
received.' God gives Himself to men in the Christ whose life revealed
and whose death imparted Him to the world.
And so He is the sole Source. All men, in a very real sense, draw from
His fulness. 'In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.' The
life of the body and the life of the spirit willing, knowing, loving,
all which makes life into light, all comes to us through that
everlasting Word of God. And when that Word has 'become flesh and dwelt
among us,' His gifts are not only the gifts of light and life, which
all men draw from Him, but the gifts of grace and truth which all those
who love Him receive at His hands. His gifts, like the water from some
fountain, may flow underground into many of the pastures of the
wilderness; and many a man is blessed by them who knows not from whence
they come. It is He from whom all the truth, all the grace which
illuminates and blesses humanity, flow into all lands in all ages.
II. Consider, then, again, the many receivers from the one Source. 'Of
His fulness have all we received.'
Observe, we are not told definitely what it is that we receive. If we
refer back to words in a previous verse, they may put us on the right
track for answering the question, What is it that we get? 'He came unto
His own,' says verse 11, 'and His own received Him not; but as many as
received Him, to them gave He power,' etc. That answers the question,
What do we receive? Christ is more than all His gifts. All His gifts
are treasured up in Him and inseparable from Him. We get Jesus Christ
Himself.
The blessings that we receive may be stated in many different ways. You
may say we get pardon, purity, hope, joy, the prospect of Heaven, power
for service; all these and a hundred more designations by which we
might describe the one gift. All these are but the consequences of our
having got the Christ within our hearts. He does not give pardon and
the rest, as a king might give pardon and honours, a thousand miles
off, bestowing it by a mere word, upon some criminal, but He gives all
that He gives because He gives Himself. The real possession that we
receive is neither more nor less than a loving Saviour, to enter our
spirits and abide there, and be the spirit of our spirits, and the life
of our lives.
Then, notice the universality of this possession. John has said, in the
previous words, '_We_ beheld His glory.' He refers there, of course, to
the comparatively small circle of the eye-witnesses of our Master's
life; who, at the time when he wrote, must have been very, very few in
number. They had had the prerogative of seeing with their eyes and
handling with their hands the Word of life that 'was manifested unto
us'; and with that prerogative the duty of bearing witness of Him to
the rest of men. But in the 'receiving,' John associates with himself,
and with the other eyewitnesses, all those who had listened to their
word, and had received the truth in the love of it. '_We beheld_'
refers to the narrower circle; 'we _all_ received' to the wider sweep
of the whole Church. There is no exclusive class, no special
prerogative. Every Christian man, the weakest, the lowliest, the most
uncultured, rude, ignorant, foolish, the most besotted in the past, who
has wandered furthest away from the Master; whose spirit has been most
destitute of all sparks of goodness and of God—receives from out of His
fulness. 'If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.'
And every one of us, if we will, may have dwelling in our hearts, in
the greatness of His strength, in the sweetness of His love, in the
clearness of His illuminating wisdom, the Incarnate Word, the
Comforter, the All-in-all whom 'we all receive.'
And, as I said, that word 'all' might have even a wider extension
without going beyond the limits of the truth. For on the one side there
stands Christ, the universal Giver; and grouped before Him, in all
attitudes of weakness and of want, is gathered the whole race of
mankind. And from Him there pours out a stream copious enough to supply
all the necessities of every human soul that lives to-day, of every
human soul that has lived in the past, of every one that shall live in
the future. There is no limit to the universality except only the limit
of the human will: 'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely.'
Think of that solitary figure of the Christ reared up, as it were,
before the whole race of man, as able to replenish all their emptiness
with His fulness, and to satisfy all their thirst with His sufficiency.
Dear brother! you have a great gaping void in your heart—an aching
emptiness there, which you know better than I can tell you. Look to Him
who can fill it and it shall be filled. He can supply all your wants as
He can supply all the wants of every soul of man. And after generations
have drawn from Him, the water will not have sunk one hairsbreadth in
the great fountain, but there will be enough for all coming eternities
as there has been enough for all past times. He is like His own
miracle—the thousands are gathered on the grass, they do 'all eat and
are filled.' As their necessities required the bread was multiplied,
and at the last there was more left than there had seemed to be at the
beginning. So 'of His fulness have all we received'; and after a
universe has drawn from it, for an Eternity, the fulness is not turned
into scantiness or emptiness.
III. And so, lastly, notice the continuous flow from the inexhaustible
Source. 'Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.'
The word 'for' is a little singular. Of course it means _instead of, in
exchange for_; and the Evangelist's idea seems to be that as one supply
of grace is given and used, it is, as it were, given back to the
Bestower, who substitutes for it a fresh and unused vessel, filled with
new grace. He might have said, grace _upon_ grace; one supply being
piled upon the other. But his notion is, rather, one supply given in
substitution for the other, 'new lamps for old ones.'
Just as a careful gardener will stand over a plant that needs water,
and will pour the water on the surface until the earth has drunk it up,
and then add a little more; so He gives step by step, grace for grace,
an uninterrupted bestowal, yet regulated according to the absorbing
power of the heart that receives it. Underlying that great thought are
two things: the continuous communication of grace, and the progressive
communication of grace. We have here the continuous communication of
grace. God is always pouring Himself out upon us in Christ. There is a
perpetual out flow from Him to us: if there is not a perpetual inflow
into us from Him it is our fault, and not His. He is always giving, and
His intention is that our lives shall be a continual reception. Are
they? How many Christian men there are whose Christian lives at the
best are like some of those Australian or Siberian rivers; in the dry
season, a pond here, a stretch of sand, waterless and barren there,
then another place with a drop of muddy water in some hollow, and then
another stretch of sand, and so on. Why should not the ponds be linked
together by a flashing stream? God is always pouring Himself out; why
do we not always take Him in?
There is but one answer, and the answer is, that we do not fulfil the
condition, which condition is simple faith. 'As many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God; even to them that
believed on His name.' Faith is the condition of receiving, and
wherever there is a continuous trust there will be an unbroken grace;
and wherever there are interrupted gifts it is because there has been
an intermitted trust in Him. Do not let your lives be like some dimly
lighted road, with a lamp here, and a stretch of darkness, and then
another twinkling light; let the light run all along the side of your
path, because at every moment your heart is turning to Christ with
trust. Make your faith continuous, and God will make His grace
incessant, and out of His fulness you will draw continual supplies of
needed strength.
But not only have we here the notion of continuous, but also, as it
seems to me, of progressive gifts. Each measure of Christ received, if
we use it aright, makes us capable of possessing more of Christ. And
the measure of our capacity is the measure of His gift, and the more we
can hold the more we shall get. The walls of our hearts are elastic,
the vessel expands by being filled out; it throbs itself wider by
desire and faith. The wider we open our mouths the larger will be the
gift that God puts into them. Each measure and stage of grace utilised
and honestly employed will make us capable and desirous, and,
therefore, possessors, of more and more of the grace that He gives. So
the ideal of the Christian life, and God's intention concerning us, is
not only that we should have an uninterrupted, but a growing
possession, of Christ and of His grace.
Is that the case with you, my friend? Can you hold more of God than you
could twenty years ago? Is there any more capacity in your soul for
more of Christ than there was long, long ago? If there is you have more
of Him; if you have not more of Him it is because you cannot contain
more; and you cannot contain more because you have not desired more,
and because you have been so wretchedly unfaithful in your use of what
you had. The ideal is, 'they go from strength to strength,' and the end
of that is, 'every one of them appeareth before God.'
So, dear brother, as the dash of the waves will hollow out some little
indentation on the coast, and make it larger and larger until there is
a great bay, with its headlands miles apart, and its deep bosom
stretching far into the interior, and all the expanse full of flashing
waters and leaping waves, so the giving Christ works a place for
Himself in a man's heart, and makes the spirit which receives and
faithfully uses the gifts which He brings, capable of more of Himself,
and fills the widened space with larger gifts and new grace.
Only remember the condition of having Him is trusting to His name and
longing for His presence. 'If any man open the door I will come in.' We
have Him if we trust Him. That trust is no mere passive reception, such
as is the case with some empty jar which lies open-mouthed on the shore
and lets the sea wash into it and out of it, as may happen. But the
'receive' of our text might be as truly rendered 'take.' Faith is an
active taking, not a passive receiving. We must 'lay hold on eternal
life.' Faith is the hand that grasps the offered gift, the mouth that
feeds upon the bread of God, the voice that says to Christ, 'Come in,
Thou blessed of the Lord; why standest Thou without?' Such a faith
alone brings us into vital connection with Jesus. Without it, you will
be none the richer for all His fulness, and may perish of famine in the
midst of plenty, like a man dying of hunger outside the door of a
granary. They who believe take the Saviour who is given, and they who
take receive, and they who receive obtain day by day growing grace from
the fulness of Christ, and so come ever nearer to the realisation of
the ultimate purpose of the Father, that they should be 'filled with
all the fulness of God.'