I assume you are referring to John 1:16. To get a proper understanding of this phrase, let’s read John 1:15-17, “John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

The Gospel of John begins by introducing us to the Word. We are told that the Word was WITH God and that the Word WAS God. John 1:14 tells us that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The Word IS the Lord Jesus! It was the blessed duty and privilege of John the Baptist to introduce the Lord Jesus to the nation of Israel. He would say of himself in verse 23, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.” John was a VOICE. The Lord Jesus is the WORD.

Notice what John said in verse 15, “He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.” Christ came ‘after’ John because He was about six months younger than John. (Read Luke 1:35-36). Yet, Christ came ‘before’ John because He is the everlasting God. Micah 5:2 speaks of Christ, saying, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; WHOSE GOINGS FORTH HAVE BEEN FROM OF OLD, FROM EVERLASTING.”

We then read in verse 16, “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” This ‘fulness’ refers to what is written in verse 14, telling us that Christ was “full of grace and truth.” These are two inseparable partners…grace and truth. Neither is complete without the other, and Christ is full of both! How complete is our savior that He embodies both grace and truth! We read in Colossians 2:9-10, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And YE ARE COMPLETE IN HIM, which is the head of all principality and power.” We have also received “grace for grace.” Most translations of the Bible render this as “grace upon grace.” The Amplified Bible renders the verse as “For out of His fullness [the superabundance of His grace and truth] we have all received grace upon grace [spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, favor upon favor, and gift heaped upon gift].” There is an unlimited abundance of grace for those who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. New, continuous grace for each new day. A similar thought is found in Lamentations 3:22-23, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. THEY ARE NEW EVERY MORNING: great is thy faithfulness.” It is said of the Lord in James 4:6, “But he giveth more grace.”

Then, we read in verse 17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” The law cannot, and was never intended to save. Rather, the law was given to expose men to the truth that all are sinners before a sin-hating God. We read in Romans 4:15, “…the law worketh wrath…” The law was the expression of God’s straight-forward truth. To be sure, there was grace in the Old Testament. Exodus 6:7 says, “And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” However, in the person of Christ, there is the very embodiment of both GRACE and TRUTH! And in that fullness of GRACE and TRUTH, there is GRACE upon GRACE! (277.6)