ift through versions
and languages down to what is really being said, you find it said in the
simplest strongest way possible.

Here John is saying, "glory as of _an_ only begotten from _a_ father."
It is a family picture, so common in the East. Here in the West, the
unit of society is the individual. The farther west you come the more
pronounced this becomes, until here in our own land individualism seems
at times to run to extremes. Custom in the East is the very reverse of
this. There the unit of action is not the individual, but the _family_.
The family controls the individual in everything. We Westerners think we
can see where it runs to such extremes as to constitute one of the great
hindrances to progress there.

In the East, if a young man is to be married, he has actually nothing to
do with it, except to be present in proper garb when the time comes. The
fact that he should now be married, the choice of his bride, the
betrothal, the time, all arrangements and adjustments,--all this is done
by the families. The two that we Westerners think of as the principals
have nothing to do, except to acquiesce in the arrangements of their
elders. It is strictly a family affair.

Even so all that belongs to the family, of wealth, fame, inheritance,
distinction, vests distinctly in the head of the family, the father. He
stands for the whole family. And so, too, all of this descends directly
from the father at his death to his eldest son. In some parts the father
retires at a certain age, either really or nominally, and all becomes
vested technically in his eldest son. And if the son be an only begotten
son, then literally all that is in the father comes into the son. All
the fame, the inheritance, the traditions, the obligations, the wealth,
in short all the glory of the father comes of itself, by common action
of events, to the son.

Now this is what John is thinking of as he writes, "we beheld His glory,
glory as of _an_ only begotten of _a_ father." That is to say, all there
is in the Father is in Jesus. When you see Jesus, you are seeing the
Father. The whole of God is in this Jesus. This is what John is saying
here.

Grace and Truth Coupled.

And then John does a bit of exquisite packing of much in little. He
tells the whole story of the character, the revealed glory, of Jesus in
such a few simple words,--"_full of grace and truth_." Not grace
without truth. That would be a sort of weakly, sickly sentimenta