John 1:16

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. (Joh 1:16-18)

of his fulness--of "grace and truth," resuming the thread of Joh 1:14.

grace for grace--that is, grace upon grace (so all the best interpreters), in successive communications and larger measures, as each was able to take it in. Observe, the word "truth" is here dropped. "Grace" being the chosen New Testament word for the whole fulness of the new covenant, all that dwells in Christ for men.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh_1:16

Of His fulness have all we received

The fulness of Christ

The word fulness is given to vessels that are brimful of liquor, and so is metaphorically applied to Christ, who is brimful of grace.

I. Take grace for LOVE, so there is a fulness of love in Christ.

1. Of pardoning love (Luk_23:24). When on earth He did not pardon once, but again and again, and that without upbraiding.

2. Of compassionating love (Mat_5:3-4). When poor souls could not come to Him He went to them.

3. Of special love to His disciples (Mat_12:47-50).

II. Take grace for HOLINESS, and there is a fulness of holiness in Him. Holy things, the law, priests, temple, were only types of Him. If there were not a fulness of holiness in Him

1. How is it possible that God and man could be brought so near who were so far apart?

2. How should He be anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows Eph_1:23). The saints fulness is only particular, His is universal Col_1:19). Theirs ebbs and flows and is often empty.

III. Take grace for GIFTS, and there is a fulness of excellency in Christ.

1. Kingly (Heb_1:3; Heb_1:8).

2. Prophetical (verse 17).

3. Priestly (Joh_16:7; Joh_16:10).

4. In general (Hag_2:7; Col_1:11).

IV. WHAT IS OUR DUTY FLOWING FROM HENCE? If there be such a fulness then

1. Let all men come to Him. All have wants.

2. Let us trust to Him.

3. Leg us draw forth from Him.

(1) By a serious, frequent consideration of His fulness (2Co_3:18).

(2) By resting upon it in time of temptation.

(3) By giving forth of it, as the conduit receives more water by letting out.

4. Let us labour to be like Him, full of grace.

5. Let us take heed how we do anything that may rob Christ of the glory of His fulness. (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The communication of Christs fulness

There is a dealing out of His fulness.

I. BY THE UNION THERE IS BETWEEN CHRIST AND A BELIEVER. Union is the cause of communion or communication. Bread is united to a man by his eating of it.

II. BY THE OVERFLOW OF HIS INFINITE GRACE HE IS ABLE

1. To succour and supply those who are tempted (Heb_2:18).

2. Whatever grace Christ hath received He hath received not for Himself but for others (Eph_4:8; Joh_17:19; Isa_61:1-2).

3. There is an infinite willingness in Him to communicate this grace Heb_3:2; Psa_16:2; Job_4:24).

4. As He is willing nothing can hinder Him (Isa_43:13; Tit_2:14).

III. WHY THEN ARE BELIEVERS SO EMPTY OF GRACE?

1. The fulness of grace in a believer is many times hid from the world and from Himself.

2. Sometimes the avenues of grace in a believer are choked or broken.

3. This grace is communicated in proportion. What is your want? go to Christ and get that supplied.

IV. APPLICATION:

1. See the transcendent excellency of the saints.

2. What an encouragement there is here to come to Christ and partake of His fulness.

3. Acting upon this believers are firm against all temptations, discouragements, afflictions.

4. Then believers should labour to strengthen their assurance of union with Christ. (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The reception of Christs fulness

Whatever grace the saints have they have it all in the way of receiving.

1. The grace and mercy of justification and remission of sins (Rom_5:11).

2. Of adoption (Gal_4:5).

3. Of sanctification (Gal_3:2).

4. Of the gifts of the Spirit (Act_10:46-47).

5. In general all is by way of receiving (Col_2:6; 1Co_4:7). This will appear

I. FROM MANS NATURAL INABILITY

1. To overcome sin, be it never so small (1Co_15:57).

2. To rise again after falling. Peter must have a look from Christ before he could repent.

3. To stand and continue.

4. To prepare himself unto what is good (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5; Joh_6:44).

II. FROM THE SUPERNATURALITY OF GRACE. (Eph_2:10)

III. FROM THE SHORTNESS OF THE MEANS OF GRACE. The means as it is in itself, without Gods appointment, is utterly inefficient.

IV. FROM THE WORK AND NATURE OF FAITH There is no grace that the Scripture puts more upon than faith--in the Old Testament all victories, in the New all cures. Yea, the same works thai are given to Christ are given to faith: sanctification, justification, salvation. Why? Because faith is a receiving grace (Joh_1:12). So believing is nothing but receiving the grace of God.

V. FROM THE POSTURE AND TRUE BEHAVIOUR OF PRAYER. Prayer is the souls begging. A beggar holds forth his hand noting his willingness to receive (Job_11:13). In conclusion

1. You say that this cuts off all endeavour. Not so (see Php_2:12).

2. Why is all this?

(1) That all boasting and self-confidence may be taken away Rom_4:1-25 : 1Co_4:7).

(2) That Christ may be fully honoured.

(3) That the children of God may live by faith.

3. This doctrine is full of spiritual use.

(1) Behold what infinite care God hath of believers. If a mother would not let her child eat bread but of her own cutting, or drink water but of her own drawing, what carefulness of her child that would argue.

(2) What comfortable lives believers live--even their troubles are from God who makes them minister to their good and helps them in them. (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The abundance of grace the saints receive from Christ

I. AN ABUNDANCE OF GRACE. Grace for grace like skin for skin Job_2:4). All his skins. This suits

(1) the word and or even;

(2) the attribute of Christ, fulness;

(3) the scope of the place where Christ is set above Moses.

(4) Other Scriptures (Rom_5:15; Rom_5:17, etc.)

1. Abundance of grace discovered.

(1) It will appear if you consider the several advances grace hath made from the beginning till now (Gen_3:15), the Abrahamic covenant Gen_12:3), the Mosaic, the prophecies, Christ, the preaching of the gospel.

(2) The manifestations of grace under the Old Testament were under a veil; that veil is now removed (2Co_3:18).

(3) There were many doctrines of grace communicated to the Jews, yet they were so tempered by the law that the very gospel seemed law unto them. Now the law is so tempered by the gospel as to seem gospel.

(4) Grace was manifested under the old dispensation by drops and at intervals (Heb_1:1), under the New Wholesale.

2. Abundance of grace exhibited and communicated.

Is it not a great matter

1. For an ungodly man to be justified For a man to be a child of God.

2. To have the image of Christ drawn on a filthy soul.

3. For a man to be in heaven before he comes there (Joh_17:3).

4. But we do not see this abundance, objectors say. But

(1) Though little in quantity it may be great in quality.

(2) Though it be small as a possession it is great as an earnest Col_1:12).

II. APPLICATION:

1. Why should any of Gods people vilify and degrade the gift of God whereby they are enriched?

2. Behold what great sinners inconsistent professors are!

3. What a mighty encouragement there is here to come to Jesus Christ and be filled! (W. Bridge, M. A.)

Whatsoever grace the saints have they have it from Jesus Christ

Grace is sometimes taken for

1. The favour of God;

2. Gods assistance;

3. Holiness;

4. Gifts;

5. An office in the Church.

But whichever it is it comes from Christ. This will appear if you consider

I. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF NATURE (1Co_3:5; verse 13).

II. THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST (Rev_1:17; Ro Joh_14:6).

1. There are three great doors which must ordinarily be opened before converting grace can get into the soul of man.

(1) A powerful ministry (1Co_16:9);

(2) The door of the heart (Act_16:14);

(3) The door of the ear (Job_33:16).

2. Christ has the opening of these doors (Rev_1:18; Rev_3:7).

3. The names which Christ bears witness to, His all-sufficiency, Sun of Righteousness, Morning Star, Raiment, Bread of Life, Door, Good Shepherd, etc., are given to Christ to show that He is all they signify to the soul. And they are not barely given to Him; He is Good Shepherd, Bread of Life, etc. Therefore, as the apostle says, He is all in all. (W. Bridge, M. A.)

.

The answerableness of grace in every Christian to the grace of Christ

We have received grace in abundance from Christ, but whatever grace there is in Him there is somewhat in the saints answerable thereunto, as the impression answers to the stamp.

1. Take grace as the favour of God: Both Christ and believers are Gods beloved (Mat_3:17; 2Sa_12:25).

2. For privilege: Both are called Sons of God (Heb_12:6); Heirs Heb_1:2; Rom_8:17); Elect and precious (1Pe_2:6; 1Pe_1:2); Light (Joh_8:12; Eph_5:8).

3. For assistance (Psa_22:1-31 : 1Co_12:9).

4. For sanctification (Joh_17:19). The reason of this

I. THE UNION BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE (Job_14:20).

II. THE RELATIONSHIP OF CHRIST AS THE SECOND ADAM A COMMON PERSON BETWEEN GOD AND US (Rom_5:15; Joh_5:26).

III. THE LOVE BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN. Love loves to make a thing loved like itself.

IV. THE SAME SPIRIT IS IN A CHRISTIAN THAT IS IN CHRIST (chap. 15:26). (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The fulness of Christ

This fulness is shown

I. IN THE DOCTRINES OF SCRIPTURE CONCERNING CHRIST.

1. His perfect humanity.

2. His supreme divinity.

II. IN THE POETRY AND METAPHORS WHICH DESCRIBE HIM. Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, Lion of Judah, Sure Foundation Stone, Sun, Desire of all Nations.

III. THE CHARACTERISTICS WHICH HIS FIRST FOLLOWERS MOST APPRECIATED WERE TRUTH AND GRACE, AND THESE WERE MANIFESTED IN FULNESS.

1. Truth represents

(1) Intelligence. In Christ there is a fountain of knowledge inexhaustible. The keen Sadducee, the exact Pharisee, the learned scribe, the eager Mary, all wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of His mouth. The words of Jesus are a study for ones life, and those who have studied them most are as far as ever from exhausting their meaning.

(2) Reality. This was complete in Christ. He was the shadow of no substance, the image only of the invisible God.

2. The grace of Christ was love in fulness.

IV. THE EXPERIENCE OF ALL HIS DISCIPLES CONFIRMS THE OBSERVATION OF HIS FIRST FOLLOWERS. They could say, We beheld; we Whom having not seen we love. What is this grace but grace superseding grace, grace supplanting grace--as the blossom supplants the bud, and as the fruit supplants the blossom--as the noon supersedes the morning, and as summer supplants spring--grace superseding and surpassing grace. What have you received? Is Christ to you a cistern which you have emptied? A vine stripped of fruit? Bread eaten and gone? Or is Jesus Christ living bread? A fountain of living water? A tree of life bearing all manner of fruit? In plain language, does grace supersede and supplant grace? Are you rising higher and yet higher through the uplifting of the hand of this Saviour? Is sanctification supplanting conversion, and is glorying in tribulation being built upon patience in sorrow? If so, beware of pride, and of vanity, and of vain-glorying, and of boasting. God forbid that we should glory save in the fulness of this Jesus Christ. At the same time quiet your fears and call forth your hopes. All that you have received is from fulness. Come again. Come every hour--for everything. Friends may depart, but friendship in fulness abides in Jesus. Helpers may become helpless, but might exists in fulness in Jesus. Riches may leave you, but in Christ there are riches unsearchable. Health may sink, but strength undecaying is in Jesus. (S. Martin.)

Fulness of grace

I have heard our Lord likened to a man carrying a water-pot, and as he carried it upon his shoulder, the water fell dropping, dropping, dropping, so that every one could track the water-bearer. So should all His people be, carrying such a fulness of grace that every one should know where they have been by that which they have left behind. He who hath lain in the beds of spices will perfume the air through which he walks. One who, like Asher, has dipped his foot in oil, will leave his footprints behind him. When the living and incorruptible seed remains within, the Divine instincts of the new nature will guide you to the wisest methods of activity. You will do the right thing under the inward impulse rather than the written law, and your personal salvation will be your prime qualification for seeking out others of your Masters flock. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

All fulness in Christ

God cannot give you anything more than He gave you 1,800 years ago. It was all in Christ. Take a very vulgar illustration, which is altogether inadequate for a great many purposes, but which may serve. Suppose some man tells you that there was a thousand pounds paid into your credit into a London bank, and that you were to get the use of it, as you drew cheques against it. The money is there, is not it; the gift is given, and yet for all that you may be half dead, a pauper. In the very last of the Arctic expeditions, last year or the year before, they found an ammunition chest that Commander Parry had left there fifty years ago, safe under a pile of stones, the provisions inside being perfectly sweet and good and eatable. There it had lain all those years, and men had died of starvation within arms length of it. It was there all the same. And so, if I may venture to vulgarise the great theme that I am trying to speak about, God has given us His Son, and in Him all that pertains to life and all that pertains to godliness. My brothers, take the things that are freely given to men of God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

How grace is received

Here on the one hand is the boundless ocean of the Divine strength, unfathomable in its depth, full after all draughts, tideless and calm, in all its movements never troubled, in all its repose never stagnating; and on the other side is the empty avidity of our poor, weak natures. Faith opens these to the impulse of that great sea, and according to our faith, in the exact measure of our receptivity, does it enter our hearts. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The fulness of Christ

I have found it an interesting thing to stand on the edge of a noble rolling river, and to think, that although it has been flowing on for six thousand years, watering the fields, and slaking the thirst of a hundred generations, it shows no signs of waste or want; and when I have watched the rise of the sun, as he shot above the crest of the mountain, or in a sky draped with golden curtains sprang up from his ocean bed, I have wondered to think that he has melted the snows of so many winters, and renewed the verdure of so many springs, and painted the flowers of so many summers, and ripened the golden harvests of so many autumns, and yet shines as brilliant as ever, his eye not dim, nor his natural strength abated, nor his floods of light less full for centuries of boundless profusion. Yet what are these but images of the fulness that is in Christ? (J. Bates.)

Grace to receive grace

The Duchess of Gordon and a companion were visiting at a cottage in Scotland when a pedlar came in, threw down his pack, and asked for a drink of water. The woman of the house handed the water to him, and said, Do you know anything of the water of life? By the grace of God I do. He drank the water, and then said, Let us pray. And this was his prayer: Oh, Lord, give us grace to feel our need of grace.

Oh, Lord, give us grace to receive grace. Oh, Lord, give us grace to ask for grace. Oh, Lord, give us grace to use grace when grace is given. He then took up his pack and went away, having preached a powerful sermon in those few words.

The fulness of Christ

On a tradesmans table I noticed a book labelled Want Book. What a practical suggestion for a man of prayer! He should put down all his needs on the tablets of his heart, and then present his want book to his God. If we knew all our need, what a large want book we should require! How comforting to know that Jesus has a supply book, which exactly meets our want book! Promises, providences, and Divine visitations, combine to meet the necessities of all the faithful.

The riches of Christs grace

There is a story of Rowland Hill, which I have no doubt is true, because it is so characteristic of the mans eccentricity and generosity. Some one or other had given him a hundred pounds to send to an extremely poor minister, but, thinking it was too much to send him all at once, he sent him five pounds in a letter with simply these words inside the envelope, More to follow. In a few days time, the good man had another letter by the post, and letters by.the post were rarities in those days; when he opened it there was five pounds again, with just these words, And more to follow. A day or two after there came another, and still the same words, And more to follow. And so it continued twenty times, the good man being more and more astounded at these letters coming thus by post with always the sentence, And more to follow. Now, every blessing that comes from God is sent in just such an envelope, with the selfsame message, And more to follow. I forgive you your sins, but there is more to follow. I justify you in the righteousness of Christ, but theres more to follow. I adopt you into my family, but theres more to follow. I educate you for heaven, but theres more to follow. I have helped you even to old age, but theres still more to follow. I will bring you to the brink of Jordan, and bid you sit down and sing on its black banks, on the banks of the black stream, but theres more to follow. In the midst of that river, as you are passing into the world of spirits, My mercy shall still continue with you, and when you land in the world to come there shall still be more to follow. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Grace obstructed

When our spiritual supplies fail, the channel is sometimes at fault, and not the stream; the hindrance to their coming lies with us and not with our heavenly Father. The supply of fuel to our city in midwinter sometimes fails, not because the coal-fields are exhausted, but because the weather has frozen our rivers, detained our colliers in the Channel, and blocked up our railways. The supply of water or of gas to our houses is sometimes insufficient, not because the reservoirs are low, but because the pipes which connect our dwellings with the main service are choked up or broken. News fail to reach us, not because our correspondent has neglected to write, but because the means of transmission have been imperfect. (Samuel Martin.)

Grace preferred to earthly honour

Having rendered some service to Lord North, the Prime Minister, during the American war, he received a polite communication from that nobleman, desiring to know if he stood in need of anything which it was in his power to bestow. Mr. Fletcher modestly replied:-- He was sensible of the Ministers kindness, but he only wanted one thing, which he could not grant him, and that was more grace. It is a high attainment to prefer the grace of God to earthly honours and emoluments. None but God, the author of grace, can incline the heart to this. (J. Cope.)

A precious plentitude

I. THE FULNESS.

1. The fulness belongs to Christ personally. In His complex nature He possesses fulness.

(1) In Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The fulness of omnipotence, omnipresence, wisdom, justice, mercy. The attributes of God make up a perfect total. The unity, with all its uniqueness is His. The fractional parts are ours.

(2) There was also a fulness of Christ in respect to His manhood. Nothing was lacking in Him to constitute human perfection--sinlessness, sympathy, the virtues of both sexes, human nature in its completeness.

2. In Christ is an acquired fulness. His perfect obedience secured an everlasting wellspring of merit; and now risen from the dead there is a fulness of prevalence in His intercession, of cleansing power, and of peace, when the Spirit applies the blood to the guilty conscience.

3. A fulness of dignity, prerogative, and qualification. He is a perfect prophet, priest, and king. Join all the qualities involved in name or fame and you shall find that He comprises them all in liberal, lavish fulness.

4. A fulness of every kind of perfection. All that is virtuous, amiable, noble or illustrious.

5. A fulness of the Spirit. The Lord gives not the Spirit by measure unto Him.

6. An abiding fulness. All the saints of every age have drawn their supplies from Him, but He is just as full as ever. He is never less, He can never be more than full.

II. THE FILLING.

1. Surely, then, the saints were empty before. All alike are empty of merit and satisfaction.

2. The filling is universal. All the saints partake of it.

3. There must be a personal reception in every case. Grace cannot be derived or transmitted from one individual to another.

4. It is gratuitous Grace for grace; not purchased or earned but received. All the doing to receive it is an undoing: the soul empties itself to be filled. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

I. We are shown that we ARE ALL UTTERLY DESTITUTE AND EMPTY of spiritual blessings. The abundance in Jesus Christ is intended

1. To supply our deficiency.

2. To relieve our poverty.

3. To satisfy our hunger and thirst.

II. We are warned THAT AS SOON AS WE HAVE DEPARTED FROM CHRIST IT IS VAIN TO SEEK FOR HAPPINESS, because God hath determined that whatever is Gods shall reside in Him alone. Accordingly we shall find angels and men to be dry, heaven to be empty, the earth to be unproductive, and, in short, all things to be of no value, if we wish to be partakers of the gifts of God in any other way than through Christ.

III. We are assured that WE HAVE NO REASON TO FEAR THE WANT OF ANYTHING, provided that we draw from the fulness of Christ, which is in every respect so complete as to be inexhaustable. (J. Calvin.)

Christs fulness

There is a fulness of atoning efficacy in His blood, for the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from all sin; of justifying righteousness in His life, for there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; of Divine prevalence in His plea, for He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him; seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them; of victory in His death, for through death He destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; of efficacy in His resurrection from the dead, for by it We are begotten again to a lively hope; of triumph in His ascension, for when He ascended up on high He led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; of blessings unspeakable, unknown; grace to pardon, regenerate, sanctify, preserve, and perfect. There is a fulness at all times; a fulness by day and by night; of comfort in affliction, of guidance in prosperity, of every Divine attribute, of wisdom, of power, of love; a fulness which it were impossible to survey, much less to explore. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The fulness of Christ received

I. AN APPEAL TO OUR GRATITUDE. Glory be unto Christ for His fulness, for of it have all the saints received--Old Testament saints and New, martyrs, reformers, saints on earth, saints in glory, etc., etc. And they all received all that they had.

II. A DISCRIMINATION OF CHARACTER. Thus may we know the people of God, for of His fulness all have received.

1. There are some who receive their religion from their fathers and mothers; but religion is not to be inherited; it is a personal matter.

2. There are those who have got their religion from good works. They do not belong to Johns company.

3. Others get their religion partly from self and partly from Christ; but to Johns company Christ is all in all. The true Christian gets all from Christ. Even Paul was the chief of sinners, less than the least of all saints, and confessed that he was nothing.

III. A SENTENCE OF ADMONITION TO BELIEVERS. Should they not be

1. Most humble. Pride, and indebtedness to Christ for all, is a contradiction.

2. Most grateful. When our friends love us we love them in return. So Christ deserves that we should spend the spirit for Him.

IV. A WORD OF SWEET ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE SINNER. You need a new heart, repentance, a sense of sinfulness, pardon. He can give you all, no matter how guilty you are. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Christs inexhaustible fulness

I. THERE IS IN CHRIST A FULNESS, the greatest abundance of blessings of every description. It is such a fulness as is in God, for John tells us that Christ is

1. The Creator and Preserver of all things.

2. The Author of human redemption.

3. The fountain of life and light.

4. The Author and Dispenser of salvation.

II. CHRISTIANS HAVE RECEIVED OF THIS FULNESS

1. Many blessings, such as spiritual illumination, faith, pardon, acceptance, the aids of the Spirit, sanctification, hope, and the happiness begun in this world, and perfected in the world to come.

2. These many blessings in great abundance, and in everything have been enriched by Him.

III. ALL HAVE RECEIVED.

1. All men if they were willing; and what is there to hinder all men from receiving them? Even now, and at all times, may not all receive them? All may receive to the utmost extent of their desires.

2. All men, of every class and condition; for different men, according to the variety of their situation and circumstances, stand in need of different blessings; and all may have those blessings which their necessities require.

3. All men, in every age, and in every part of the world.

4. There is a fulness of blessings in Christ sufficient for the present and eternal salvation of the whole human race.

5. In Christ there is

(1) An open fountain, to which all have access, from which all may draw, the righteous and the wicked, the joyful and the sorrowful, the living and the dying.

(2) A copious fountain, from which all may draw in abundance.

(3) An inexhaustible fountain which never can be drained, however great be the number of those who draw from it.

4. A perpetual fountain, flowing to all eternity, from which all who are willing may continually draw. (C. C. Tittman, D. D.)

The fulness of Christ the treasury of the saints

(cf. Col_1:19)

I. THERE IS A GLORIOUS FULNESS IN JESUS. Why, then, are we so weak, unfurnished, and unhappy? There is that in Jesus which

1. Can enable us to rise to the highest degree of grace.

(1) If sin is to be overcome the conquering power dwells in Him in its fulness.

(2) If virtue is to be attained, sanctifying energy resides in Him to perfection.

(3) Without Him we can do nothing, but we can do all things through Him. There are many barely Christians who have scarcely enough grace to float them into heaven, their keel grating all the way; and yet their privilege is to reach the deep waterer and have so much grace that they may sail like a gallant bark on the broad ocean, with a glorious cargo and all colours flying, so that there may be administered an abundant entrance.

2. Sufficient for the conquest of the world.

(1) All the might for the conquest of heathenism.

(2) All the strength for victory over vice and infidelity at home.

(3) Every weapon required for the fight, Fulness for teaching, convincing, converting, sanctifying.

II. THE FULNESS IS IN JESUS NOW.

1. The glory of the past depresses many Christians. Scarcely any Church realizes that it can do what its forefathers did. A people are in an evil ease when all their heroism is historical. But the fulness upon which Paul, Luther, Whitefield drew is unexhausted.

2. The mass of professors have their eyes on the future. Yet, if the texts are true, all that is to be done can be done now. Want of faith in Christs fulness makes them dote on the Millennium.

3. Our Churches believe that there is fulness in Christ, and that sometimes they ought to enjoy it. But it is not the Lords purpose that a fulness should reside in Jesus during revivals. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and that being the case, the highest state of revival should be the normal condition of the Church.

III. THE POSITION OF THE FULNESS IS RICHLY ENCOURAGING TO US IN THE MATTER OF OBTAINING IT. In Christ:

1. Where we can receive it now.

2. In Him who loves to give it.

3. With Him who is Himself ours. If God, had put it in an angel we should not feel greatly drawn to Him; but He has placed it where we love to have it, where we feel at home, where we are glad to go often, where we would abide.

IV. FROM THIS FULNESS MANY OF US HAVE RECEIVED.

1. This should encourage us to further exercises of faith,

2. What restrains us from receiving.

(1) I cannot be a Christian of the highest type. Why not? If you have received life you can receive it more abundantly.

(2) I cannot hope to be as useful as some. Why not? According to your faith it shall be done unto you. What you have received is a pledge of what you may receive.

V. THE RECEIPTS WE HAVE ALREADY HAD ARE NOT TRIFLES. He that spared not His own Son, etc. He has given to all such grace as they have capacity to receive. SO on to perfection.

1. Believe in great thing;.

2. Expect great things.

3. Attempt great things.

4. Dont talk about this but set about it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. The ONE GLORIOUS PERSON concerning whom this verse is written.

1. The Word or speech and revelation of God. Wouldst thou have me see thee, said Socrates then speak. Wouldst thou see God? Listen to Christ.

2. Lest Christ should be regarded as a mere utterance, John is careful to show that He is a Divine Person.

3. Christ was also man.

4. Lest others should come into comparison with Him they are all barred out. Angels, John, Moses.

II. The TWO PRECIOUS DOCTRINES.

1. That all grace is treasured up in Christ Jesus. His is an immeasurable fulness of grace and truth.

(1) Of grace--pardoning, justifying, and sanctifying. Of this He is always full.

(2) Of truth.

2. All the saints have received all of grace out of the fulness of Christ.

(1) All of them.

(2) Very abundantly.

III. THREE EXPERIENCES.

1. Our own emptiness.

2. A personal reception of Christ Jesus.

3. The discovery that all we receive comes to us by grace.

IV. FOUR DUTIES. If we have received Christ then

1. Let us praise Him.

2. Let us repair to Him again.

3. Try and obtain more.

4. Encourage others to receive Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Grace for grace

I. THE EXPOSITION.

1. Some take the phrase to have reference to the Law and the Gospel; but St. John is speaking of what takes place after Christ comes and the Law is abandoned.

2. Others to faith in Old Testament saints and light in New Testament saints. That does not hold, because both had faith and light.

3. Others, grace in the believer resembling grace in the Saviour; but that would only give us the moral qualities of Christ, and leave us destitute of those evangelical blessings which He came especially to bestow.

4. The real sense is that of exchange; for--instead of a new grace coming in the place of the old, and, when that is done with, another fresh from the fulness, and so on until grace becomes glory.

II. THE ILLUSTRATION:

1. Grace in the believer dies, wastes away, as all living things do, and the faster they live, the faster they die. Granite rocks might last for ever, their life and motion are so slow; but the most exquisite flowers stand in their prime rich-blossomed state only for a short time. You must come to-day, we say, or you will not see the best of it. So with that most living thing called grace. Indestructible in its fountain and principle, it yet comes and goes, flowing in, flowing out, blossoming, fading. In the human soul, if there were not replenishment, grace for grace, it would soon be empty and dead.

2. This does not mean simply a steady continuance of the same class of gracious ministration. You stand by a river and watch the flow, the drops of water coming and going to the ocean. But then other drops succeed them, and others them, so evenly and incessantly that we hardly realize that the waters are passing away. So with the supply of grace. Suppose the colour of the river should change with the day, now black from muddy hills, now yellow as the Tiber, now blue as the Rhone, now crystal as the Tweed, it would be a singular phenomenon; but grace for grace means a change like that. There is an element of sameness in all graces, just as water is water, but in many respects one kind of grace is not like another.

3. There is no invariable order, but in general

(1) The grace of forgiveness is the first bestowed. This may come after much anxiety, or quite gently; but, come as it will, peace is a special grace.

(2) But the believer dots not rest long in his peace. Next comes a totally different kind of grace--active strength and the spirit of boldness. Not that he is deprived of his peace, but that becomes secondary. This is very necessary, as uniform tranquillity would be injurious. To root the tree firmly rough winds are necessary.

(3) The grace of patience for the grace of active strength. Working time comes to an end, or work goes on, patience comes to prevent discouragement.

(4) The grace of victory for the grace of preservation in battle. As thy day so shall thy strength be. Not dying grace till death.

III. THE APPLICATION:

1. Do not try to live in or by the past. Live in it by a grateful memory that will help you; but not so as to get a present living nourishment out of states, and frames, and feelings that are dead and gone. You would not get on in June seeking the withered leaves of last autumn. Let them sink into the soil. Trust nature to get all the good that is in them, and send that good up again.

2. We ought to be afraid of stagnation, but never of new experiences or enterprises.

3. Christ offers grace for--not grace, you have none, brother sinner; you would never take it--but for sin and its condemnation. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

Grace for grace

I. GRACE BY DEGREES; grace upon grace; a little grace to begin with, but more grace afterwards. He giveth more grace, grace following in grace, and further in superabounding grace, when grace turns into glory.

II. GRACE TO PREPARE FOR FURTHER GRACE--the grace of a broken heart--to make room for repentance; the grace of hatred of sin to make wayfor the grace of holy and careful walking; the grace of careful walking to make room for the grace of close communion with Christ; the grace of close communion with the Lord Jesus Christ to make room for the grace of full conformity to His image; perhaps the grace of confortuity to His image to make room for the higher grace of brighter views of Himself, and still closer incomings into the very heart of the Lord Jesus. It is grace that helps us on in grace. When a begger asks you for a penny, and you give him one, he does not ask you for a sixpence; or if you give him a shilling, he would not consider that an argument why you should give him a sovereign. But you may deal thus with God. The grace you have expands your heart, and gives you capacity for receiving yet more grace. You send your child to school to learn A B C, the grace of learning his alphabet. But it is preparatory to the spelling book, a preparation for further acquisition of knowledge.

III. GRACE ANSWERABLE TO GRACE. Let God give me grace to be a preacher, and He will give me grace to discharge the office. If you have the grace of resignation you may need the grace of patience. Or grace received by us answerable to the grace that is in Christ. A young heir to a large estate, though not of full age, generally gets an allowance suitable to the position he is to occupy. If he has £100,000 a year in prospect, he would hardly be limited to a penny a week. When I see one child of God always mourning, another always doubting, and yet another always scheming, I see they are living below their privileges. They do not seem to have grace in possession answerable to the grace they have in reversion. We always inculcate the propriety, on the part of all our people, of living within their incomes; but the child of God cannot live beyond his income in a spiritual sense.

IV. GRACE IN ABUNDANCE. Like the waves of the sea, where one comes there is another close behind it.

V. GRACE FROM HIM TO PRODUCE GRACE IN US. The grace of gratitude should be produced in us by the grace of generosity from God. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

Christs fulness

As the sea is not diminished by the treasures of rain which it yields, and which are dispensed to the earth to fertilise and refresh it, or as the sun is not wasted, that he has imparted light to all past generations of men; so Christ has not been affected in His fulness, though from Him has proceeded all the good that has ever been bestowed on every creature. That in the beginning He laid the foundations of the earth, and that He then spread forth the heavens like a curtain, has not diminished His strength. That He brought into being all the families of life, in their innumerable and varied forms, has not exhausted His resources. (A. Beith, D. D.)

Christs fulness and our reception of it

We all receive of His fulness grace for grace, as all the stars in heaven are said to light their candles at the suns flame. For though His Body be withdrawn from us, yet by the lively and virtual contact of His Spirit He is always kindling, cheering, quickening, warming, enlivening, hearts: nay, this Divine life, begun and kindled in any heart, wheresoever it be, is something of God in the flesh, and in a sober and qualified sense, Divinity Incarnate, and all particular Christians, that are possessed of it, so many mystical Christs. (R. Cudworth.)

If any one is to obtain grace, His fulness must do it: our crumbs and morsels, our tiny drops and bits, they verily will not do it. All, whether Jews or Gentiles, if indeed they would obtain grace and be really found before God, are required (and indeed they can do no other) to fill their little flasks from this well--a well which flows and overflows for ever and ever; they must drink their fill from this fountain-head of living water, springing up into eternal life. In short, His fulness is without measure or end; therefore draw manfully and without fear, and drink with pleasure and joy! For here is overflowingly enough, even into eternal Life; in this you will have enough to praise and thank God for to all eternity. (Luther.)

The plenteousness of grace

The philosophic Hamerton tells us the story of a woman who worked in a cotton factory in one of the great manufacturing towns in Lancashire, and who, in an excursion, went for the first time to the coast. When she caught the earliest glimpse of the Irish Sea, the expanse lying out before her eyes, looking like the limitlessness of the ocean in its rush and roll of billows, she exclaimed, as she drew one boundless breath of freshness and glory: At last, here comes something there is enough of! (Dr. C. Robinson.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 1:16. And of his fulness have all we received — These are not the words of the Baptist, as the expression, we all, shows; for those to whom he addressed himself do not appear to have received grace from Christ. But here the evangelist confirms the Baptist’s words, spoken in the preceding verse; as if he had said, He is indeed preferred before thee: so we have experienced: for we all, that is, I, John, the apostle, and my brethren, the other apostles, and all that truly believe in him, have received from his fulness, from the plenitude of truth and grace which are in him, all the blessings we enjoy, whether as men, as Christians, or as apostles. “But what,” says Dr. Campbell, “is the import of the clause, grace for grace? Is it that we receive grace in return for the grace we give? So says Le Clerc, availing himself of an ambiguity in the Greek word χαρις, which (like grace in French) signifies not only a favour bestowed, but thanks returned: and maintaining that the sense is, that God gives more grace to those who are thankful for that formerly received; a position which, however just, it requires an extraordinary turn of imagination to discover in this passage. Is it, as many render it, grace upon grace, that is, grace added to grace? I should not dislike this interpretation, if this meaning of the preposition, αντι, in Scripture, were well supported. It always there denotes, if I mistake not, instead of, answering to, or in return for. Is it a mere pleonasm? Does it mean (as Grotius would have it) grace gratuitous? I do not say that such pleonastic expressions are unexampled in Sacred Writ; but I do say, that this sense given to the idiom is unexampled. The word in such cases is δωρεαν, as Rom 3:24, Διακαιουμενοι δωρεαν τη αυτου χαριτι, justified freely by his grace. If, instead of giving scope to fancy, we attend to the context, and the construction of the words, we shall not need to wander so far in quest of the meaning. In Joh 1:14 we are informed that the word became incarnate, and sojourned among us, full of grace and truth. It is plain that the 15th verse, containing the Baptist’s declaration, must be understood as a parenthesis. And it actually is understood so by all expositors; inasmuch as they make αυτου [his] here refer to λογος [the Word] in Joh 1:14. The evangelist, resuming the subject which (for the sake of inserting John’s testimony) he had interrupted, tells us, that all we his disciples, particularly his apostles, have received of his fulness. But of what was he full? It had been said expressly, that he was full of grace. When, therefore, the historian brings this additional clause concerning grace in explanation of the former, is it not manifestly his intention to inform us, that of every grace wherewith he was filled, his disciples received a share? The Word incarnate, he says, resided among us, full of grace and truth; and of his fulness all we have received, even grace for his grace; that is, of every grace, or celestial gift, conferred above measure upon him, his disciples have received a portion according to their measure. If there should remain a doubt whether this were the sense of the passage, the words immediately following seem calculated to remove it. For the law was given by Moses, the grace and the truth came by Jesus Christ. Here the evangelist intimates, that Jesus Christ was as truly the channel of divine grace to his disciples, as Moses had been of the knowledge of God’s law to the Israelites.” If, however, the reader prefer adhering to the common translation, it seems it may be supported by the frequent use of the preposition αντι. Thus Rom 12:17, Recompense to no man (κακον αντι κακου) evil for evil, or, in return for evil. According to this translation, the meaning of the passage will be, that under the gospel dispensation, all men receive grace for grace, that is, privileges and advantages, in proportion to the improvement which they make of those already bestowed on them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

THE FULNESS OF CHRIST

Joh 1:16.

What a remarkable claim that is which the Apostle here makes for his Master! On the one side he sets His solitary figure as the universal Giver; on the other side are gathered the whole race of men, recipients from Him. As in the wilderness the children of Israel clustered round the rock from which poured out streams, copious enough for all the thirsty camp, John, echoing his Master’s words, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,’ here declares ‘Of His fulness have all we received.’

I. Notice, then, the one ever full Source.

The words of my text refer back to those of the Joh 1:14: ‘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 Joh 1:11, ‘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.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 1:16. Καί, and) [But [21][22]*[23][24][25], the Latin ante-Hieronymic Versions [26][27], the Memphitic, and Orige[28] thrice, read ὍΤΙ for καὶ] The evangelist confirms the fact, that to this prediction of John the Baptist the event corresponded, and that the priority of office fell to Christ; for the statement in this verse is that of the Evangelist; since the Baptist would not be likely to call Jesus the Christ so openly as Joh 1:17 does: moreover the fulness, Joh 1:16, has reference to the word full, Joh 1:14; [and so Joh 1:16 is to be regarded as a continuation of those things which were begun, Joh 1:14.—V. g.]—ἡμεῖς πάντες, all we) Not all beheld, Joh 1:14, but all received,—Apostles and all the rest [of His disciples] received,[29] Jews and Gentiles.—ἘΛΆΒΟΜΕΝ, ΚΑΊ, we received, even) The Accusative is understood, all that was to be received out of His fulness, and [specially] grace for grace.—χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος, grace for grace) Each last portion of grace [though itself], indeed large enough, the subsequent grace by accumulation and by its own fulness, as it were, overwhelms [buries under the load of its own fulness]. See an instance, Joh 1:51 [Jesus to Nathaniel, Because I said, I saw, see under the fig-tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these,—Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man]. A very similar use of ἀντί occurs in Æschyl. Agam. ὌΝΕΙΔΟς ἭΚΕΙ ΤΌ Δʼ ἈΝΤʼ ὈΝΕΊΔΟῦς; and Book VI. of Chrysostom, concerning the priesthood, ch. 13, where he makes his Basilius speak thus:ΣῪ ΔΈ ΜΕ ἘΚΠΈΜΠΕΙς, ἙΤΈΡΑΝ ἈΝΘʼ ἙΤΈΡΑς ΦΡΟΝΤΊΔΑ ἘΝΘΕΊς; thou dost dismiss me, imposing one anxiety on another: wherein the former care, and that the less one, had not been removed, but a new one had been thrown in [in addition], and that so great a one, as to throw into the shade the former one, and as to seem not to have been added to it, but to have succeeded it. Examine the passage itself, if you please, and what comments we have collected upon it, p. 516. The Hebrews use על as שבר על שבר, Jer 4:20; Jer 45:3; Eze 7:26; Psa 69:27.

[21] Cod. Basilianus (not the B. Vaticanus): Revelation: in the Vatican: edited by Tisch., who assigns it to the beginning of the eighth century.

[22] Ephrזmi Rescriptus: Royal libr., Paris: fifth or sixth cent.: publ. by Tisch. 1843: O. and N. T. def.

[23] Bezז, or Cantabrig.: Univ. libr., Cambridge: fifth cent.: publ. by Kipling, 1793: Gospels, Acts, and some Epp. def.

[24] Cod. Reg., Paris, of the Gospels: the text akin to that of B: edited by Tisch.

[25] Cod. Monacensis, fragments of the Gospels.

[26] Vercellensis of the old ‘Itala,’ or Latin Version before Jerome’s, probably made in Africa, in the second century: the Gospels.

[27] Veronensis, do.

[28] rigen (born about 186 A.D., died 253 A.D., a Greek father: two-thirds of the N. Test. are quoted in his writings). Ed. Vinc. Delarue, Paris. 1733, 1740, 1759.

[29] Viz. What He offered.—E. and T.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_1:16. Not the language of the Baptist (Heracleon, Origen, Rupertus, Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, Lange), against which ἡμεῖς πάντες is decisive, but that of the evangelist continued.

ὅτι (see critical notes) introduces the personal and superabounding gracious experience of believers, with a retrospective reference indeed to the πλήρ. χάριτος κ. ἀληθ., Joh_1:14, and in the form of a confirmation of Johns testimony in Joh_1:15 : this testimony is justified by what was imparted to us all out of the fulness of Him who was borne witness to.

ἐκ τοῦ πληρώμ. αὐτοῦ] out of that whereof He was full, Joh_1:14; πλήρωμα in a passive sense; see on Col_1:19. The phrase and idea were here so naturally furnished by the immediate context, that it is quite far-fetched to find their source in Gnosticism, especially in that of the Valentinians (Schwegler, Hilgenfeld).

ἡμεῖς] we on our part, giving prominence to the personal experience of the believers (which had remained unknown to unbelievers), Joh_1:10-11.

πάντες] None went empty away. Inexhaustibleness of the πλήρωμα.

ἐλάβομεν] absolute: we have received.

καὶ] and indeed. See Winer, p. 407 [E. T. p. 546]; Hartung, Partikell. I. 145.

χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος] grace for grace, is not to be explained (with Chrysostom, Cyril, Severus, Nonnus, Theophylact, Erasmus, Beza, Aretius, Calovius, Jansen, Wolf, Lampe, and many others, even Paulus), N. T. instead of O. T. grace (Euthymius Zigabenus: τὴν καινὴν διαθήκην ἀντὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς), or instead of the original grace lost in Adam (see especially Calovius), since in Joh_1:17 ὁ νόμος and ἡ χάρις are opposed to each other, and since in the N. T. generally χάρις is the distinctive essence of Christian salvation (comp. especially Rom_6:14-15); but, as Beza suggested, and with most modern expositors,[106] so that ever and anon fresh grace appears in place of that already received. Proximam quamque gratiam satis quidem magnam gratia subsequens cumulo et plenitudine sua quasi obruit, Bengel. So superabundant was the λαμβάνειν! This rendering is sufficiently justified linguistically by Theogn. Sent. 344, ἀντʼ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας; Philo, de poster. Caini, I. p. 254; Chrys. de sac. vi. 13,as it is generally by the primary meaning of ἀντὶ (grace interchanging with grace); and it corresponds, agreeably to the context, with the idea of the πλήρωμα, from which it is derived, and is supported further by the increasingly blessed condition of those individually experiencing it (justification, peace with God, consolation, joy, illumination, love, hope, and so on: see on Rom_5:1 ff.; Gal_5:22; Eph_5:9). John might have written χάριν ἐπὶ χάριτι or χάριν ἐπὶ χάριν (Php_2:27), but his conception of it was different. Still, any special reference to the fulness of the special χαρίσματα, 1 Corinthians 12-14 (Ewald), lies remote from the context here (Joh_1:17); though at the same time they, as in general no εὐλογία πνευματική (Eph_1:3), wherewith God in Christ has blessed believers, are not excluded.

[106] Among whom, however, Godet regards the phrase with ἀντί as a play upon words, referring to the O. T. law of retaliation, according to which chaque grâce était la récompense dun mérite acquisx. But such an allusion would be inappropriate, since χάρις in ἀντὶ χάριτος is not something human, but divine.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 1:16 . ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος … χάριτος , “because out of His fulness have we all received”. The ὅτι does not continue the Baptist’s testimony, but refers to πλήρης in Joh 1:14 . In Col 2:9 Paul says that in Christ dwelleth all the πλήρωμα of the Godhead, meaning to repudiate the Gnostic idea that this pleroma was distributed among many subordinate beings or æons. But what John has here in view is that the fulness of grace in Christ was communicable to men. By ἡμεῖς πάντες he indicates himself and all other Christians. He had himself experienced the reality of that grace with which Christ was filled and its inexhaustible character. For he adds καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος , “grace upon grace”. Beza suggests the rendering: (“ut quidam vir eruditus explicat,” he says): “Gratiam supra gratiam; pro quo eleganter dixeris, gratiam gratia cumulatam,” but he does not himself adopt it. It is, however, adopted by almost all modern interpreters: so that ever and anon fresh grace appears over and above that already received. This rendering, as Meyer points out, is linguistically justified by Theognis, Sent. , 344, ἀντʼ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας , sorrows upon sorrows; and it receives remarkable illustration from the passage quoted by Wetstein from Philo, De Poster. Cain. , where, speaking of grace, he says that God does not allow men to be sated with one grace, but gives ἑτέρας ἀντʼ ἐκείνων (the first) καὶ τρίτας ἀντι τῶν δευτέρων καὶ ἀεὶ νέας ἀντὶ παλαιοτέρων . Harnack ( Hist. of Dogma , i., 76, E. Tr.) asks: “Where in the history of mankind can we find anything resembling this, that men who had eaten and drunk with their Master should glorify Him, not only as the Revealer of God, but as the Prince of Life, as the Redeemer and Judge of the world, as the living power of its existence, and that a choir of Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, should along with them immediately confess that out of the fulness of this one man they have received grace for grace?”

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

[See also the "General Considerations on the Prologue" in the comments of Joh 1:18.]

Ver. 16. “And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.”

By that first feature of the divine character, grace, the Church recognized in Jesus the Word made flesh. The two words, χάρις (grace), andπλήρωμα (fullness), closely connect this sentence with the last words of Joh 1:14. The experience which the Church has had, has come to set the seal upon the testimony of those who surrounded Jesus when on earth. Since Heracleon andOrigen, many (Luther, Melanchthon, etc.), have made Joh 1:16 the continuation of John the Baptist’s discourse (Joh 1:15). And it is possible that from this explanation the reading ὅτι (because), arose, which the Alexandrian authorities, Origen, and some other documents substitute for καί (and) read by T. R. at the beginning of the verse. The we allof Joh 1:16, which implies the existence of the Church, in any case excludes the supposition that John the Baptist is still speaking in Joh 1:16.

As to ὅτι (because), if it were the true reading, it would be necessary to make it relate either to the testimony of the apostles in Joh 1:14, or to that of the Baptist in Joh 1:15. The first reference is not possible, since it would force us to make Joh 1:15 a simple parenthesis, which is inadmissible; the second is no more possible; since it would be necessary in that case to refer this because, as Weiss attempts to do, not to the contents of John’s testimony (Joh 1:15), but to the very act of the testimony, and thus to the verb he testifies: “John testifies thus of Jesus, because indeed we have all received...” A connection which is, grammatically and logically speaking, more unnatural cannot be imagined. Nothing is more natural, on the contrary, than the connection through καί (and) in the T. R.; this and expresses very simply the addition of the third testimony, that of the Church, to the two others. This reading, therefore, is certainly the true one; it is found already in the oldest Syriac version, the Curetonian Syriac. The other is due to Heracleon’s false interpretation, which was followed by Origen.

The word πλήρωμα which properly denotes that which serves to fill an empty space, refers to the inexhaustible fullness of grace and truth by which the person of the Logos is filled and with which it overflows. This word πλήρωμα is used here in the most simple and natural way, in the same sense as in Rom 15:29 (πλήρωμα εὐλογίας, fullness of blessing), and without the least analogy to the mythological sense, which the Gnostics of the second century gave to it in their systems. In the words we all are included all the believers mentioned in Joh 1:12, the Church already extended through every country of the East and the West at the time when John wrote this Prologue. The verb: we have received is left without an object. The question at first is not of such or such a gift received, but only of the act of receiving. “We have all drawn, richly drawn from this invisible source.” The witnesses had beheld(Joh 1:14); the Church has received. In the following words, John states precisely what it has received.

First, grace —that first sign by which it had recognized in Him the divine Logos; then, truth; this second sign will be noticed in Joh 1:17-18. The καί, and, signifies here: “and this is the way.” The words “grace for grace” are ordinarily translated “grace upon grace.” That would simply mean, grace added to previous grace. But, with this sense, would not John rather have used the preposition ἐπί (Php 2:27)? In the following verse, grace is opposed to the law. It must, therefore, be supposed that John has this antithesis already present to his mind, and that this is the reason why he seeks to bring out with emphasis in Joh 1:16 the peculiar character of the grace. Under the rule of the law each new grace must be obtained at the cost of a new work. In the economy of grace which faith in the Word made flesh opens, the gift already received is the one title to the obtaining of a new gift: “To him who hath, more is given.”

There is enthusiasm in this paradoxical formula which exalts the system of grace by setting it in such complete opposition to that of the law. No one defends any longer, at the present day, the explanation of the ancient Greek interpreters, who thought they saw here the supplying the place of the gift of the Old Covenant by the superior gift of the New Covenant. The following verse, where grace, as such, is opposed to the law, would be sufficient to exclude such an interpretation. That of Calov, who imagined he could see here the grace of salvation replacing the happy state which man possessed before the fall, is still more unfortunate.

Vv. 16 describes grace; Joh 1:18 will describe truth; Joh 1:17 which connects them, unites grace and truth:

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is grace upon grace, as a man would say graces heaped one upon another.

Christ is the most plentiful fountain of all goodness, but then he poured out his gifts most bountifully, when as he exhibited and showed himself to the world.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 16. This verse should be put in place of the fifteenth, and the 15th inserted between the 18th and 19th, which appears to be its proper place: thus John's testimony is properly connected. Joh 1:15-19

And of his fulness] Of the plenitude of his grace and mercy, by which he made an atonement for sin; and of the plenitude of his wisdom and truth, by which the mysteries of heaven have been revealed, and the science of eternal truth taught, we have all received: all we apostles have received grace or mercy to pardon our sins, and truth to enable us so to write and speak, concerning these things, that those who attend to our testimony shall be unerringly directed in the way of salvation, and with us continue to receive grace upon grace, one blessing after another, till they are filled with all the fulness of God. I believe the above to be the meaning of the evangelist, and think it improper to distract the mind of the reader with the various translations and definitions which have been given of the phrase, grace for grace. It is only necessary to add, that John seems here to refer to the Gospel as succeeding the law: the law was certainly a dispensation both of grace and truth; for it pointed out the gracious design of God to save men by Christ Jesus; and it was at least a most expressive and well-defined shadow of good things to come: but the Gospel, which had now taken place, introduced that plenitude of grace and truth to the whole world, which the law had only shadowed forth to the Jewish people, and which they imagined should have been restrained to themselves alone. In the most gracious economy of God, one dispensation of mercy and truth is designed to make way for, and to be followed by, another and a greater: thus the law succeeded the patriarchal dispensation, and the Gospel the law; more and more of the plenitude of the grace of the Gospel becomes daily manifest to the genuine followers of Christ; and, to those who are faithful unto death, a heaven full of eternal glory will soon succeed to the grace of the Gospel. To illustrate this point more fully, the following passage in Philo the Jew has been adduced: "God is always sparing of his first blessings or graces, (πρωτας χαριτας,) and afterwards gives other graces upon them, (αντ εκεινων,) and a third sort upon the second, and always new ones upon old ones, sometimes of a different kind, and at other times of the same sort." Vol. i. p. 254, ed. Mang. In the above passage the preposition αντι for, is used thrice in the sense of επι, upon. To confirm the above interpretation Bp. Pearce produces the following quotations. Ecclus xxvi. 15: Χαρις επι χαριτι γυνη αισχυντηρα - A modest woman is a grace upon a grace, i.e. a double grace or blessing. Euripides uses the very same phrase with John, where he makes Theoclymenus say to Helena. Χαρις αντι χαριτος ελθετω, May grace upon grace come to you! Helen v. 1250. ed. Barn.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. And out of his fullness. He begins now to preach about the office of Christ, that it contains within itself an abundance of all blessings, so that no part of salvation must be sought anywhere else. True, indeed, the fountain of life, righteousness, virtue, and wisdom, is with God, but to us it is a hidden and inaccessible fountain. But an abundance of those things is exhibited to us in Christ, that we may be permitted to have recourse to him; for he is ready to flow to us, provided that we open up a channel by faith. He declares in general, that out of Christ we ought not to seek any thing good, though this sentence consists of several clauses. First, he shows that we are all utterly destitute and empty of spiritual blessings; for the abundance which exists in Christ is intended to supply our deficiency, to relieve our poverty, to satisfy our hunger and thirst. Secondly, he warns us that, as soon as we have departed from Christ, it is ill vain for us to seek a single drop of happiness, because God hath determined that whatever is good shall reside in him alone. Accordingly, we shall find angels and men to be dry, heaven to be empty, the earth to be unproductive, and, in short, all things to be of no value, if we wish to be partakers of the gifts of God in any other way than through Christ. Thirdly, he assures us that we shall have no reason to fear the want of any thing, provided that we draw from the fullness of Christ, which is in every respect; so complete, that we shall experience it to be a truly inexhaustible fountain; and John classes himself with the rest, not for the sake of modesty, but to make it more evident that no man whatever is excepted.

It is indeed uncertain whether he speaks generally of the whole human race, or means only those who, subsequently to the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, have been made more fully partakers of his blessings. All the godly, no doubt, who lived under the law, drew out of the same fullness; but as John immediately afterwards distinguishes between different periods, it is more probable that here he especially recommends that rich abundance of blessings which Christ displayed at his coming. For we know that under the Law the gifts of God were more sparingly tasted, but that when Christ was manifested in flesh, they were poured out, as it were, with a full hand, even to satiety. Not that any of us has obtained a greater abundance of the grace of the Spirit than Abraham did, but I speak of God’s ordinary dispensation, and of the way and manner of dispensing. John the Baptist, that he may the more freely invite his disciples to come to Christ, declares that in him is laid up for all an abundance of the blessings of which they are destitute. And yet if any one choose to extend the meaning farther, there will be no absurdity in doing so; or rather, it will agree well with the strain of the discourse, that all the fathers, from the beginning of the world, drew from Christ all the gifts which they possessed; for though the law was given by Moses, yet they did not obtain grace by it. But I have already stated what appears to me to be the preferable view; namely, that John here compares us with the fathers, so as to magnify, by means of that comparison, what has been given to us.

And, grace for grace. In what manner Augustine explains this passage is well known - that all the blessings which God bestows upon us from time to time, and at length life everlasting, are not granted as the reward due to our merits, but that it proceeds from pure liberality that God thus rewards former grace, and crowns his own gifts in us. This is piously and judiciously said, but has nothing to do with the present passage. The meaning would be more simple if you were to take the word for (ἀντὶ) comparatively, as meaning, that whatever graces God bestows on us, proceed equally from the same source. It might also be taken as pointing out the final cause, that we now receive grace, that God may one day fulfill the work of our salvation, which will be the fulfillment of grace. For my own part, I agree with the opinion of those who say that we are watered with the graces which were poured out on Christ; for what we receive from Christ he does not bestow upon us as being God, but the Father communicated to him what would flow to us as through a channel. This is the anointing with which he was anointed, that he might anoint us all along with him. Hence, too, he is called Christ, (the Anointed,) and we are called Christians.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(16) And of his fulness.—Not a continuance of the witness of John, but the words of the evangelist, and closely connected with Joh_1:14. This is seen in the “all we,” and in “fulness” (“full”) and “grace,” which are key-words of both verses.

Fulness is a technical theological term, meeting us again in this sense in the Epistles to, as here in the Gospel from, the Asiatic Churches. (Comp. especially Col_1:19; Col_2:9; Eph_1:23; Eph_3:19; Eph_4:13.) The exposition belongs to the Notes on these passages. Here it means the plenitude of divine attributes, the “glory . . . full of grace and truth.” “Of,” or better, out of this fulness does each individual receive, and thus the ideal church becomes “his body, the fulness of him that filleth all things in all.”

Have all we received.—Better, we all received. The point of time is the same as in Joh_1:12, and the “we all” is co-extensive with “as many as.” The power to become children of God was part of the divine fulness which they received in receiving him.

And grace for grace.—Perhaps, even grace for grace gives the meaning less doubtfully. The thought is, We all received of His fulness, and that which we received was grace for grace. The original faculty of reception was itself a free gift, and in the use of this grace there was given the greater power. The words mean “grace in exchange for, instead of, grace.” The fulness of the supply is constant; the power to receive increases with the use, or diminishes with the neglect, of that which we already have. “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” (Mat_13:12). No truth is in precept or in parable of the Great Teacher more constant than this; no lesson is more brightly or more sadly illustrated in the lives of those who heard Him. What instances of its meaning must have crowded on the writer’s mind in the nation, in the disciples, in the Twelve, and even in the differing power of perception in the inner circle of the Three! “We all received,” but with what difference of degree!

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. The testimony of the Baptist to the incarnate Word is confirmed by the experience of all believers. The Evangelist is the speaker.

And] The true reading gives Because.

fullness] The Greek word, pleroma, is ‘a recognised technical term in theology, denoting the totality of the Divine powers and attributes.’ This fulness of the Divine attributes belonged to Christ (Joh_1:14), and by Him was imparted to the Church, which is His Body (Eph_1:23); and through the Church each individual believer in his degree receives a portion of it. See Lightfoot on Col_1:19; Col_2:9. ‘Of His fulness’ means literally ‘out of His fulness,’ as from an inexhaustible store.

all we] shews that the Evangelist and not the Baptist is speaking.

grace for grace] Literally, grace in the place of grace, one grace succeeding another, and as it were taking its place. There is no reference to the Christian dispensation displacing the Jewish. The Jewish dispensation would have been called ‘the Law,’ not ‘grace;’ see next verse, and comp. Joh_17:22.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And of his fulness have all we received,.... These are the words not of John the Baptist; but of the evangelist carrying on his account of Christ, after he had inserted the testimony of the Baptist, in connection with Joh 1:14 where he is said to be full of grace and truth; and which fulness is here intended; for the fulness of the Godhead in trim is incommunicable; and the fulness of his fitness, and ability for his office, as Mediator, was for himself; but his fulness of grace and truth is dispensatory, and is in him, on purpose to be communicated unto others: and "of it", the evangelist says, "have all we received"; not all mankind, though they all receive natural light and life from trim; nor merely all the prophets of the Old Testament, though they had their gifts and grace from him, who then was, as now, the head of the church; nor only all the apostles of Christ, though these may be principally intended; but all believers, who, though they have not all the same measure of grace, nor the same gifts, yet all have received something: nor is there any reason for discouragement, envy, or reproach. Faith is the hand which receives Christ, and grace from him; and the act of receiving, being expressed in the past tense, seems to regard first conversion, when faith is first wrought, and along with it abundance of grace is received; for a believer has nothing but what is given him, and what he has, is in a way of receiving; so that there is no room for boasting, but great reason for thankfulness, and much encouragement to apply to Christ for more grace, which is the thing received, as follows:

and grace for grace: according to the different senses of the preposition different interpretations are given of this passage; as that signifies a substitution of a person, or thing, in the room of another, the sense is thought to be, the Gospel, instead of the law; or the grace of the present dispensation, instead of the grace of the former dispensation; grace, different from the former grace, as Nonnus expresses it. If it designs the original, and moving cause, the meaning is, grace is for the sake of grace; for there is no other cause of electing, justifying, pardoning, adopting, and regenerating grace, and even eternal life, but the grace, or free favour of God; and the one is the reason why the other is received: if it signifies the end, or final cause, then it is explained in this way; the disciples received the grace of apostleship, or gift, of grace, in order to preach the Gospel of the grace of God, and for the implanting and increasing grace in men; and grace also, in this life, is received, in order to the perfection of grace, or glory, in the other: if it denotes the measure and proportion of a thing, as one thing is answerable to another, then if may be interpreted after this manner; the saints receive grace from the fulness of Christ, according, or answerable to the grace that is in him; or according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and in proportion to the place, station, and office they bear in the church. Some think the phrase only designs the freeness of grace, and the free and liberal manner in which it is distributed, and received; along with which, I also think, the abundance of it, at first conversion, with all after supplies, is intended; and that grace for grace, is the same with grace upon grace, heaps of grace; and that the phraseology is the same with this Jewish one (k), , "goodness upon that goodness", an additional goodness; so here, grace upon grace, an abundance of it, an addition to it, and an increase of it: so (l), joy upon joy, is an abundance of joy, a large measure of it; and "holiness upon holiness" (m), abundance of it,

(k) Zohar in Exod. fol. 45. 1. (l) lb. in Lev. fol. 28. 1. & in Num. fol. 69. 2. & 71. 2. (m) lb. fol. 40. 3. & in Num. fol. 61. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Ver. 16. Of his fulness] Which is both repletive and diffusive; not only of plenty, but of bounty; not a fulness of abundance only, but of redundance too. In Christians is plenitudo vasis; abundance of vessels, but in Christ, fontis: is the fount, these differ (say the schoolmen) ut ignis, et ignita, as fire and that which holds the fire. Take a drop from the ocean, and it is so much the less; but the fulness of the fire is such, that light a thousand torches at it, it is not diminished.

And grace for grace] That is (say some) the grace of the New Testament for the grace of the Old. And so in the next verse, "grace" shall answer to the moral law, "truth" to the ceremonial. Or (as others) "grace for grace;" that is, a latitude answerable to all the commands, a perfection answerable to Christ’s own perfection. As the father gives his child limb for limb, part for part, &c., so doth this "Father of Eternity," Isa 9:6. There are those who render it "grace against grace," as in a glass is face against face. See 2Co 3:18. Or "grace upon grace," that is, one grace after another, a daily increase of graces. Gratiam nova gratia cumulatam. Pasor.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Of his fulness - In Joh 1:14 the evangelist has said that Christ was “full of grace and truth.” Of that “fullness” he now says that all the disciples had received; that is, they derived from his abundant truth and mercy grace to understand the plan of salvation, to preach the gospel, to live lives of holiness; they “partook” of the numerous blessings which he came to impart by his instructions and his death. These are undoubtedly not the words of John the Baptist, but of the evangelist John, the writer of this gospel. They are a continuation of what he was saying in Joh 1:14, Joh 1:15 being evidently thrown in as a parenthesis. The declaration had not exclusive reference, probably, to the apostles, but it is extended to all Christians, for all believers have received of the “fulness of grace and truth” that is in Christ. Compare Eph 1:23; Eph 3:19; Col 1:19; Col 2:9. In all these places our Saviour is represented as the fulness of God - as “abounding” in mercy, as exhibiting the divine attributes, and as possessing in himself all that is necessary to fill his people with truth, and grace, and love.

Grace for grace - Many interpretations of this phrase have been proposed. The chief are briefly the following:

“We have received under the gospel, grace or favor, ‘instead of’ those granted under the law; and God has added by the gospel important favors to those which he gave under the law.” This was first proposed by Chrysostom. “We, Christians, have received grace ‘answering to,’ or corresponding to that which is in Jesus Christ. We are ‘like’ him in meekness, humility,” etc. “We have received grace ‘as grace’ - that is, freely. We have not purchased it nor deserved it, but God has conferred it on us ‘freely’” (Grotius). The meaning is, probably, simply that we have received through him “abundance” of grace or favor. The Hebrews, in expressing the superlative degree of comparison, used simply to repeat the word - thus, “pits, pits,” meaning many pits (Hebrew in Gen 14:10). So here grace for grace may mean “much” grace; superlative favors bestowed on man; favors superior to all that had been under the law - superior to all other things that God can confer on men. These favors consist in pardon, redemption, protection, sanctification, peace here, and heaven hereafter.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And of his fulness we all have received; not only Jews, but also all nations. --- And grace for grace.[5] It may perhaps be translated grace upon grace, as Mr. Blackwall observes, and brings a parallel example in Greek out of Theognis, p. 164. It implies abundance of graces, and greater graces under the new law of Christ than in the time of the law of Moses; which exposition is confirmed by the following verse. (Witham) --- Before the coming of the Messias all men had the light of reason. The Greeks had their philosophy, the Jews the law and prophets. All this was a grace and favour bestowed by God, the author of all good. But since the word was made flesh, and caused the gospel of salvation to be announced to all men; he has invited all nations to the faith and knowledge of the truth. Thus he has given us one grace for another; but the second is infinitely greater, more excellent, and more abundant than the first. The following verse seems to insinuate, that the evangelist means the law by the first grace, and the gospel by the second. Compare likewise Romans i. 17. The Jews were conducted by faith to faith; by faith in God and the law of Moses, to the faith of the gospel, announced by Christ. (Calmet)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Gratiam pro gratia, Greek: charin anti charitos, gratiam; so Job, (ii. 4.) pellem pro pelle, i.e. omnem pellem.

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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And of his fulness have all we received; of that plenty of grace which Christ hath, (who hath not the Spirit given him by measure, Joh 3:34, as other saints have, Act 2:4,6,8), we who by nature are void of grace, whether taken for the favour of God, or gracious habits, have received, as the skirts of Aaron’s garment received the oil which was plentifully poured out on Aaron’s head.

And grace for grace: nor have we received drops, but grace upon grace; not only knowledge and instruction, but the love and favour of God, and spiritual habits, in proportion to the favour and grace which Christ hath (allowing for our short capacities); we have received grace freely and plentifully, all from Christ, and for his sake; which lets us see how much the grace receiving soul is bound to acknowledge and adore Christ, and may be confirmed in the receiving of further grace, and the hopes of eternal life; and it may mind all (according to that of the apostle, 2Co 6:1), to take heed that they receive not the grace of God in vain.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Of his fulness—Namely, of grace and truth, as mentioned in Joh_1:14.

All we received—This all embraces all men; being spoken in our character as

men. Grace for grace—Grace additionally bestowed for grace improved. As light previously implanted by the Logos in man is necessary for his reception of light, so grace fundamentally bestowed upon man is the basis of all his possible reception of further grace. But that first grace—”a gracious ability”—must be exerted by the free will of the agent; and then the Only Begotten adds grace additionally bestowed for grace originally improved.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 16-18. (7) The experience of the Writer.

There can be little doubt that the fifteenth verse is a parenthetical clause, answering to the sixth and seventh verses, and standing to ver. 14 very much in the same kind of relation that vers. 6, 7 do to vers. 1-5. There is a further reason; the verses which follow are clearly not, as Lange suggests, the continuance of the Baptist"s marturia , but the language of the evangelist, and a detail of his personal experience. The entire context would entirely forbid our taking the autou of ver. 16 as referring to the Baptist. This is still more evident from the true reading of oti in place of kai . The "because" points back at once to the statements of ver. 14. Hengstenberg and Godet think there is no need to transform the fifteenth verse into a parenthesis, in order, after the recital of John the Baptist"s testimony, to proceed to a further experience of the evangelist; translating and even," Lange makes the whole utterance to be that of the Baptist, which appears to be profoundly inconsistent with the position of the Baptist, either then or subsequently. The grand declaration, that the Logos incarnate was "full of grace and truth," is justified by the author of the prologue, from his conscious experience of the exhaustless plenitude of the manifestation. Because from his fulness we all received. He speaks as from the bosom of a society of persons, who have not been dependent on vision or on individual contact with the historic revelation (comp. Joh 20, "Blessed are they Jesus said who have not seen touched or handled, and yet have believed," but have nevertheless discovered a perennial supply of grace and truth in him). We all, my fellow apostles and a multitude which no man can number, received from this source, as from the Divinity itself, all that we have needed. An effort has been made, from the evangelist"s use of the word pleroma, to father the "prologue" upon one familiar with the Valentinian metaphysic, and thus to postpone its orion to the middle of the second century; but the Valentinian pleroma is the sum total of the Divine emanations of the thirty pairs of aeons, which have been produced from the eternal "bythos," or abyss, one only of which is supposed, on Valentinian principles, to have assumed a phantasmic form in Jesus Christ. Nothing could be less resembling the position of the author of this Gospel, who clearly regards the Logos incarnate as coincident with the fulness of the Godhead, as containing in himself, in complete self-possession, all the energies and beneficence of the Eternal. With the apostle"s doctrine of the Logos as identical with God, as the Creator of everything, as the Life, as the Light of men; and, as becoming the Source of all these energies to men in his incarnation, there is no basis for Valentinianism. Though the phraseology of the Gnostics was borrowed in part from the Gospel, and though Valentinus may have fancied himself justified in his misuse of texts; the ideas of the Gospel and the Gnostic were directly contradictory of one another (see Introduction). Long before John used this word, St. Paul had used it in writing to the Ephesiaus and Colossians, as though, even in his day, the word had acquired a distinct theological meaning, and one that had naturally arisen from its etymology and usage in Greek writers. Bishop Lightfoot has shown in his dissertation ("Epistle to Colossians," 2nd edit., pp. 257-273) that the form of the word demands a passive sense, id quod impletur, and not an active one which some have given to it in certain New Testament passages, as if it had the meaning of id quod implet. By his examination of numerous passages, he shows that it always has fundamentally the sense of completeness, the full complement," the plenitude. Plhrwma is the passive verbal from plhroun , to make complete. Thus Col_1:19, "The Father was pleased that all the fulness, the totality, should dwell in him," explained elsewhere in the same Epistle, "all the completeness, the plenitude of the Godhead". (Col_2:9) The widespread diffusion of the idea of emanations, the hypostatizing of perfections and attributes, the virtual mythology which was creeping through metaphysical subtleties even into Judaism and Christianity, demanded positive repudiation; and, while the whole Church was united in its recognition of the Divine energy of Christ, it became needful to refer to his Divine-human personality all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. In Ephesians St. Paul speaks, however, of the Church which is his body as identified with him, and as (in Eph_5:27) a bride made one flesh with her husband, without spot or wrinkle, ideally perfect, as the part of one colossal individuality of which Christ is the Head; or, the one building of which he is the Foundation and the Cornerstone, Hence "the fulness of Christ" (Eph_4:13) is that in which every member participates, and "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" is equated with the perfect humanity into which all believers come. Hence in Ephesians fit. 19 these individuals are completed in him, and are thus as a whole, by the realization of their union to Christ, participators in the fulness of God. So the difficult expression, Eph_1:23, becomes explained, a passage in which the Church itself, his body, is said to be "the fulness of him who filleth all in all." The Church is the organ and sphere in which all the Divine graces are poured, and is considered as ever struggling to embody the ideal perfection of him in whom all the fulness of God dwells. Both ideas, those of both the Christological Epistles, are involved in this great assertion of St. John. And grace for grace. It is said the evangelist might have written carin epi cariti , or epi carin , grace in addition to grace received already; but the use of the preposition anti , implies more, "grace interchanging with grace" (Meyer) not the grace of the old covenant replaced by the grace of the new dispensation (Chrysostom, Lampe, and many others), for, though there was grace underlying all God"s self-revelation, yet in the next verse the contrast between "Law" and "grace" is too striking to be ignored. The grace replaced by grace means that every grace received is a capacity for higher blessedness. Thus Christian humility is the condition of Divine uplifting; the knowledge that leads to love is the condition of that higher gnosis that is born of love. The faith that accepts mercy blossoms into the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. Reconciliation with God becomes itself transformed into active communion with him; all union to Christ becomes the harbinger of full identification with him, "he in us and we in him." This is the great principle of the Divine kingdom: "To him that hath shall be given.

Vers. 16-18. Christ the Fulness of grace and truth.

We next have the testimony of the entire Church.

I THE FULNESS OF CHRIST REALIZED IN THE CHURCH. "And of his fulness have all we received, even grace for grace.

1. The fulness of Christ. It is the plenitude of Divine attributes and graces.

(1) It is the fulness of the Godhead indwelling bodily in him. (Col_2:9)

(2) It is that fulness out of which the Christian draws for the needs of his spiritual life. "Ye are in him filled to the full". (Col_2:9) It is the fulness, not of a vessel, but of a fountain. All our spiritual wants are supplied out of Christ by virtue of our union with him. His Spirit conveys the sap of grace through all the branches of the vine from him as its Root.

(3) It finds its ultimate embodiment in the "body of Christ," which is "the fulness of him who filleth all in all". (Eph_1:23)

1. The wide extent of its reception. "We have all received." There may be an allusion to the Gnostic idea that only a certain spiritual class would be received into this fulness. The fulness of Christ is for all believers of both dispensations. Its blessed universality has nothing in common with the esoteric exclusiveness of Gnostic spiritualism.

2. The measure of the reception, "Even grace for grace.

(1) This does not merely imply the abundance of the supply.

(2) But the principle on which the supply is made. Grace makes way for grace. The power to receive it increases or diminishes according to the use we make of it. Therefore we must not "receive the grace of God in vain". (2Co_6:1) "Whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance". (Mat_13:12) "Under the Law a grace is received in exchange for some desert. But in the new order of things it is a grace received which becomes our title to receive a new grace.

II THE ESSENTIAL GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY AS DISTINGUISHED FROM JUDAISM. "For the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

1. Mark the superiority of the gospel to the Law.

(1) Each is Divine; for the Law given by Moses was God"s, as well as the gospel. But

(a) Moses was "a servant," Christ a Son; (Heb_3:5)

(b) the Law could not justify, it "worked wrath"; (Rom_4:15)

(c) the inferiority of the Law is implied in its useful pedagogic function, for "it was the schoolmaster to lead us to Christ"; (Gal_3:24)

(d) it imposed a heavy yoke of service.

(2) Yet we are not to infer that, under the dispensation of Law, there was no grace or truth for Old Testament saints. They were justified by grace like New Testament saints, (Ro 4) and their spiritual experience showed, especially in the Psalter, their experience of both grace and truth. But the characteristic spirit of the two dispensations is different. The one had a twilight duskiness, which disappeared before the noonday radiance of the other.

2. Mark the distinguishing glory of the gospel. "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." This is the first mention of this name in the Gospel, and it seems fitly to link together the two dispensations; for Jesus is the name of the humanity, and Christ is the name that marks his relation to the old dispensation.

(1) The treasury of grace is in Christ. Take away Moses from the Law, and yet the Law abides in all its authority; but take away Christ from the gospel, and there is no more grace or truth for man.

(a) He gives the gospel of grace.

(b) His salvation is entirely by grace.

(c) He plants grace in the hearts of men.

(2) The treasury of truth is in Christ.

(a) He is the Truth itself, as he is the Light (ver. 4).

(b) The gospel reveals the "truth as it is in Jesus.

(c) He is the fulfilment of all the types of the old dispensation.

III CHRIST THE ONLY REVEALER OF THE FATHER. "No man hath ever yet seen God; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." The apostle intends here to develop the idea of the fulness of truth as it is in Christ.

1. God is invisible to man in this life. The eye of mortal man could not bear the sight of God. "There shall no man see me and live". (Exo_33:20)

(1) The theophanies of the Old Testament were those of the Son, not of the Father.

(2) It is a useless question to discuss whether man will ever see God even in heaven. All the allusions to God"s invisibility in Scripture apply to man"s mortal condition on earth. It is implied that the next life will bring to us the sight of God. (1Jn_3:2)

2. God is revealed to us by his Son.

(1) As he is "the Brightness of the Father"s glory, the express Image of his Person". (Heb_1:3) "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." "God was manifest in the flesh.

(2) He is the Revealer of the Father"s truth, wisdom, love, holiness, and power. He is, above all, the Revealer of the way of salvation.

(3) He is the Revealer, because he is in the bosom of the Father.

(a) The Son reveals God, not simply as God, but as the Father.

(b) Because he is the only begotten Son of the Father, dwelling in his bosom,

(i) implying oneness of essence,

(ii) oneness of counsel,

(iii) oneness of affection.

IV CONCLUSION.

1. We ought to give due honour to the Son. We cannot think too highly of him.

2. We ought to listen to his words with holy awe, and obey him with all the sincerity of our hearts.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And - Here the apostle confirms the Baptist's words: as if he had said, He is indeed preferred before thee: so we have experienced: We all - That believe: have received - All that we enjoy out of his fulness: and in the particular, grace upon grace - One blessing upon another, immeasurable grace and love.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

16. Of his fulness. Of grace and truth. See verse 14. His grace and truth hath blessed “us” (the saints) all. Grace for grace. Grace (favor) has been added to grace; one blessing piled upon another.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

fullness

This word refers to God's grace that has no end.

grace after grace

"blessing after blessing"

Father

This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)

translationWords

grace

law

Moses

true

Jesus

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

16. ὅτι with אBC1DLX for καί of T. R. with Acts 3, perhaps to avoid ὅτι thrice in three lines.

16. The Baptist’s witness to the incarnate Logos confirmed by the experience of all believers. The Evangelist is the speaker.

πληρώματος. “A recognised technical term in theology, denoting the totality of the Divine powers and attributes.” See Lightfoot on Col 1:19; Col 2:9, where this meaning is very marked. This fulness of the Divine attributes belonged to Christ (Joh 1:14), and by Him was imparted to the Church, which is His Body (Eph 1:23); and through the Church each individual believer in his degree receives a portion.

ἡμεῖς πάντες. Shews that the Evangelist and not the Baptist is speaking. This appeal to his own experience and that of his fellows is natural as coming from the Apostle; it would not be natural in a writer of a later age. Another indication that S. John is the writer.

καί. Epexegetic, = ‘namely’ or ‘even,’ explaining what we all received. Comp. 1Co 3:5; 1Co 15:38; Eph 6:18. Winer, p. 545.

χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος. Literally, Grace in the place of grace, one grace succeeding another and as it were taking its place. (On χάρις see Joh 1:14.) There is no reference to the New Testament displacing the Old: that would have been χάριν ἀντὶ τοῦ νόμου; see next verse. Possibly the ἀντί may imply that one grace leads on to another, so that the second is, as it were, a reward for the first. Winer, p. 456.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16.] Origen (in Evang. Johan. tom. vi. 2, vol. iv. p. 102) blames Heracleon for terminating the testimony of John at the end of ver. 17, and makes it continue to the end of ver. 18. But it can hardly be that his testimony extends beyond ver. 15, for ἡμεῖς πάντες would bear no very definite meaning, and the assertions in ver. 17 would be alien from the character of the Baptist, belonging as they do to the more mature development of Christian doctrines. I cannot doubt that this and the following verses belong to the Evangelist, and are a carrying onwards of his declarations concerning the divine Word.

Ver. 15 is not parenthetical, but confirmatory of ver. 14, and this verse grounds itself on the fact of ver. 14, corroborated by the testimony of ver. 15,—that He dwelt among us, and that we saw His glory, full of grace and truth.

τὸ πλήρωμα is that of which He was πλήρης, ver. 14, and is not connected with the Gnostic pleroma at all. See reff.

ἡμεῖς πάντες] All who believe on Him: see ver. 12.

ἐλάβομεν, καί] received, and that … ‘our relation to Him has been that of recipients out of His fulness, and the thing received has been’.… So Herod. i. 102, ἔχων δύο ταῦτα ἔθνεα, καὶ ἀμφότερα ἰσχυρά.

χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος] The ancient interpretation, τὴν καινὴν διαθήκην ἀντὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς (Euthym.), is certainly wrong, for the ἐλάβομεν is spoken entirely of the times of the Incarnate Word: and besides, ὁ νόμος and χάρις are distinctly opposed to one another in the next verse.

The prep. ἀντί is properly used of any thing which supersedes another, or occupies its place. This is in fact its ordinary usage when exchange is spoken of: the possession of the thing gotten succeeds to, supersedes, the possession of the thing given in exchange, and I possess τοῦτο ἀντὶ ἐκείνου. Thus also we have received χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος continual accessions of grace; new grace coining upon and superseding the former. Thus in Theognis, Sentt. 343 ff. (Lücke), τεθναίην δʼ εἰ μή τι κακῶν ἄμπαυμα μεριμνέων | εὑροίμην, δοίης δʼ ἀντʼ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας. And Chrysostom, de Sacerdotio, 6. 13, vol. i. p. 435, σὺ δέ με ἐκπέμπεις, ἑτέραν ἀνθʼ ἑτέρας φροντίδα ἐνθείς. Also Philo, i. 254, speaking of this very word χάρις:—τὰς πρώτας ἀεὶ χάριτας … ἐπισχὼν καὶ ταμιευσάμενος εἰσαῦθις ἑτέρας ἀντὶ ἐκείνων καὶ τρίτας ἀντὶ δευτέρων, καὶ ἀεὶ νέας ἀντὶ παλαιοτέρων, τότε μὲν διαφορούσας, τότε δʼ αὖ καὶ τὰς αὐτὰς ἐπιδίδωσι.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. ὅτι … ὅτι on introduces vv. 16, 17, v. 16 being explanatory of v. 14, and v. 17 elucidating v. 16 further. ὅτι is here read by אBC*DL 33, and must be preferred to the rec. καὶ (AWΘ), which is probably due to scribes not understanding that v. 15 is a parenthesis.

ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ κτλ. The Incarnate Word is indeed “full” of grace and truth, for (ὅτι) out of His “fulness” we have all received. Stephen is described (Act 6:8) as πλήρης χάριτος as well as his Master, although in a lesser degree; but he was only one of many disciples of whom this might be said.

ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν, “we, all of us,” ἡμεῖς being prefixed for emphasis, i.e. all Christian disciples. The subject of ἐλάβομεν is wider than that of ἐθεασάμεθα in v. 14, where the thought is of contemporary witnesses of the public ministry of Jesus. It is, however, not only they who receive of His fulness, but every true believer.

πλήρωμα1 does not occur again in Jn., but is used in the same way of the “fulness” of Christ at Eph 4:13, Col 1:19. The thought of Eph 1:23 that the Church is His πλήρωμα is a different one; cf. also Rom 15:29. See p. cxxxvii.

καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος. ἀντί does not appear again in Jn.; it is a preposition which was going out of use in the first century.

Chrysostom understands the sentence to mean that Christians have received the higher χάρις of Christ in exchange for the χάρις of the law, “for even the things of the law were of grace.” If this were the meaning intended, viz. that the lesser favour were replaced by the greater, there is a parallel to the thought in Philo, who says that God always limits His first favours (τὰς πρώτας χάριτας), and then bestows others in their stead (ἀεὶ νέας ἀντὶ παλαιοτέρων, de post. Caini, 43). But the point of v. 17 is that χάρις did not come through the Mosaic law, the word being explicitly confined to the grace of Christ (see on v. 14).

A better suggestion is that of J. A. Robinson,2 viz. that ἀντί implies correspondence rather than substitution here, and that the idea is that the χάρις which the Christian receives corresponds to the source of the χάρις in Christ.3

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.