And as if John had a suspicion about possible bad translations, he did a bit of underscoring. That word _fullness_ is underscored in John's original copy. It's a heavy underscoring, in red. The underscoring is in three words he adds: "Grace for grace." That is, grace _in place of_ grace. It's a sort of picture. Some grace has been received. And it is so wondrous that nothing seems so good. And the man is singing as he goes about his work. Then comes a sudden soft inrushing of a flood of grace so great that it seems to displace all that was there. Oh! the man didn't know there was such grace as this. It seems as if he had never known grace before. And the work-song is hushed into a great stillness, though the wondrous rhythm of peace is greater than before. And then before he quite knows how it happens in comes another soft subtle inrushing flood-tide of grace that seems to displace all again. Some temptation comes, some sore need, some tight corner. You look to Him; lean on Him; risk all on His response. He _responds_; and in comes the fresh inrush. And then this sort of thing becomes a habit, God's habit of responding to your need, need of every sort. It becomes the commonplace, the blessed commonplace that can never be common. That's John's underscoring of the word "fullness." May the crowds whose elbows we jostle get this underscored translation, bound in shoe-leather, _your_ shoe-leather. Then in his eagerness to make us understand the thing really, John makes a contrast. "The law was _given_ through Moses; grace and truth _came_ through Jesus Christ." The law was a thing, _given_, through a man. Grace and truth was _a man coming_, the very embodiment in Himself of what the two words stand for. The law, the old Mosaic law, was not a statement of the _full_ message of God. That was given much earlier. It was given to all. It came directly. It was given first in Eden, in its flood; and then continuously to every man wherever he was. It was given within each man's own heart, and through the unfailing flooding light in nature above and below and all around. The tide of its coming has never ceased in volume nor in steadiness of flow; and does not cease. That tide came to flood in Jesus. And that flood has never known an ebb. But men's eyes got badly affected. They didn't let the light in, either clearly or fully. The light was there, but it was not getting in. Something had to be done to help out those eyes. So the law was given. It was merely a mirror to let a man see his face, what it was like. Here's a mother calling to her little son, "Come here and let me wash your face." And he calls out, "It isn't dirty." "Yes, dear, it is very dirty, come at once." "Why, no, mother, it isn't dirty; you washed it this morning." And the child's tone blends a hurt surprise and a settled conviction that his mother is certainly wrong _this_ time about the condition of his face.