Col 1:5 ...the word of the truth of the gospel, (6) Which has come to you, even as it is also in all the world, bearing fruit and growing, as also in you, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth. John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality [truth] came through Jesus Christ.
The grace of God is what God is to us and what God gives to us in Christ. Actually, grace is Christ Himself. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John we are told that the Word which was with God and which was God became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth (vv. 1, 14). Truth here means reality. To know the grace of God in truth is to know it in its reality experientially, not just in word or in doctrine mentally. Truth is Christ as reality, and grace is Christ as our enjoyment. As we experience Christ and enjoy Him, Christ as the truth becomes our grace. The way the gospel grows in us and bears fruit is through our enjoying Christ and experiencing Him as our grace. If we take the words "in truth" as an adverb modifying knew, we see that our knowledge of grace should not be in doctrine, but in reality. This means that our knowing Christ as grace must be in reality. In the gospel Christ is conveyed to us and infused into us both as truth and as grace. We have Christ as our reality, and this reality is our enjoyment. As we live by the Christ whom we experience as truth and grace, we lay up for ourselves hope in the heavens.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Colossians, pp. 17-18. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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