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#3.
"With Thee is the Fountain of Life" (Psa. 26: 9).
pp. 81 - 83
To the believer and the diligent student of Scripture, the statement that God Himself is
and must be the Spring and Fountain of all blessing is so obvious a truth as to amount to a
truism. This truth is taught by nature and by creation, but it awaits the revelation of
Scripture to retranslate these facts into evangelical experiences, and to teach that even
though the Ultimate Source of all being and blessing is God, these blessings are mediated
to their unworthy recipients through the Person and Work of the Son of His love. Gospel
grace does not come to man straight from God, as God; it comes to man as a sinner
seeking salvation through God manifest in the flesh. As we read the words of John 1: 16
we are reading a N.T. version of the acknowledgment, "All my springs are in Thee". The
passage reads: "And of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace."
To appreciate the rich grace here indicated we must go back to the opening of the
chapter in which the words occur. Even there, "in the beginning", when the purpose of
the ages was planned and when the redeeming Lamb was foreordained (I Pet. 1: 19, 20)
we are not taken into the presence of God in the absolute sense, but into the presence of
the Mediator, "The Word", "The Image of the invisible God", "The express Image of His
substance", of Whom it is written, in the contexts of these several statements:
"All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was
made" (John 1: 3).
"By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and
invisible" (Col. 1: 16).
"By Whom also He made the worlds (ages)" (Heb. 1: 2).
The fabric of creation is the work of His hands, and the ages, during which the Divine
purpose shall be attained, are all vested in Him.
Immediately following the statement of John 1: that all things were made by Him,
come the words of so great import to us, "In Him was life". Of no creature can it be said
that such has "life in itself"; inherent life is the prerogative of Deity. John goes on to say
that this life "was the light of men", revealing that in the beginning, even before man was
created, it was Christ (in Whose "image" he was later formed), Who was the Fount and
Source of Life, even as, in fullness of time, Christ was revealed to be the Spring of all the
graces of redeeming love. But not until the Deity took another step in corresponding love
could the Fountain flow in all its fullness to the sons of men; and so we read:
"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth" (John 1: 14).
Here is the "fullness" out of which we all have received; here is the "grace for grace"
that describes its nature.