The words of my text go back, as I said, to the previous verse; but
notice what an advance upon that previous verse they present to us.
There we read, 'We beheld His glory.' To _behold_ is much, but to
_possess_ is more. It is much to say that Christ comes to manifest
God, but that is a poor, starved account of the purpose of His coming,
if that is all you have to say. He comes to manifest Him. Yes! but He
comes to communicate Him, not merely to dazzle us with a vision, not
merely to show us Him as from afar, not merely to make Him known to
understanding or to heart; but to bestow--in no mere metaphor, but in
simple, literal fact--the absolute possession of the divine nature.
'We beheld His glory' is a reminiscence that thrills the Evangelist,
though half a century has passed since the vision gleamed upon his
eyes; but 'of His fulness have all we received' is infinitely and
unspeakably more. And the manifestation was granted that the
possession might be sure, for this is the very centre and heart of
Christianity, that in Him who is Christianity God is not merely made
known, but given; not merely beheld, but possessed.

In order that that divine fulness might belong to us there was needed
that the Word should be made flesh; and there was further needed that
incarnation should be crowned by sacrifice, and that life should be
perfected in death. The alabaster box had to be broken before the
house could be filled with the odour of the ointment. If I may so say,
the sack, the coarse-spun sack of Christ's humanity, had to be cut
asunder in order that the wealth that was stored in it might be poured
into our hands. God came near us in the life, but God became ours in
the death, of His dear Son. Incarnation was needed for that great
privilege--'we beheld His glory'; but the Crucifixion was needed in
order to make possible the more wondrous prerogative: 'Of His fulness