The key verse of the Gospel of John, in my view, is found in chapter 1 verse 14.

 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This statement is critical to the gospel story. As we have written earlier in this series, the pre-existent Christ became a man and lived 33 years on the earth. He experienced all of the experiences common to mankind. He knew both joy and sorrow, he became weary and needed rest. He needed community, he needed friends. He ate, went to parties, and loved the most unlikely in the society where he lived and ministered. And, Jesus prayed, a lot! In his humanity he was totally dependent upon his heavenly Father. His life was common in many ways but it one way it was not only uncommon, it was unique. He lived his life never transgressing the law of God and having never failing to to what he should have done. His record was perfect before the Father.

Not only did Jesus live among us humans and do it flawlessly, there was more. His uniqueness was manifest. It is one thing to be a good man, the best man, it is quite another to be the God man. Even for the casual observer Jesus was unlike other men, in good ways. When he started calling his disciples he went to common people, sort of a cross section of society in the first century middle east and said “Follow me” and the amazing thing is they did! Think of what was happening. A guy is busy with his fishing business, mending nets and Jesus walks up and says “Follow me”, and the guy dropped what he was doing and tagged along. That alone is amazing to me!

And then there are his miracles. John only recorded six of those. Only six, but those six put on display his Glory. Mere men did not do the things he did. Only God can raise the dead, command the weather, give sight to the blind, turn water to wine, and more. And only God can love the most unlovely, unlikely suspects without measure. And, only God can forgive sin. Yes, we saw “his glory”. When his followers saw his “glory” they believed in him.

John concluded his gospel book saying in the next to last chapter about what he had written:

but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31

The beautiful thing is that as we read through John’s gospel, we too can see his glory. And we can believe too. John said of Jesus in verse 14 above that he “was full of grace and truth”. Jesus said of himself I am “the truth“. Thank God the one who is truth is also “full of grace“. Because he is full of grace there is plenty for you and for me. God treats you and me with love and forgiveness because Jesus gives us himself. That is grace!

Royce Ogle