John 1:16 And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. 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 arm's 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. |
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