Advent 13 (2013): LOVE’s Defining Attributes of Grace and Truth

Exodus 34:4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” 8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.

What Moses heard proclaimed is what we see in Jesus. 

The character of God proclaimed to Moses is now seen in Jesus Christ who embodies all of God’s character including two defining attributes, His grace and His truth.  The words in the Greek, chosen by John as grace and truth, reflect the Hebrew words hesed and ‘emet which communicate the ideas of divine lovingkindness and great faithfulness.  What we see in John 1:14 is the surpassing nature of a New Testament reflection of a former grace–the grace in the giving of the Law and the proclamation of God’s character to Moses–now visible to us in the Person of Jesus.

We worship Jesus because He is God, coming from the Father and displaying the very attributes in His person that He proclaimed long ago to Moses.  

God is completely loving and hence, full of grace…and He is faithful and reliable in all He does. He doesn’t just say what is true, and act truthfully, but He is the Truth.  Consequently He tells us the truth when He says in John 15:13,

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

The Word was not made flesh merely to display God among us, to dwell among us, to reveal Him to us.  No, the Word was made flesh in order to die for us, as the perfect gracious demonstration of the greatness of His lovingkindness and to prove Himself reliable in all He does as the supreme example of faithfulness. In John 14:6 Jesus says,

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

He is reliable in everything He does.  He is full of grace and truth.