Grace Upon Grace

And from his fulness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known (John 1:16-18, ESV).  

So what exactly does "grace upon grace" mean in John 1:16? (rhyme unintentional). Does it mean upon or instead of?

Argument for upon: Some take it to mean "upon," as in "God piled grace on top of grace with the coming of Jesus." Because John 1:14-18 has many parallels with Exodus 32-34, some see "grace upon grace" as a parallel to Moses asking for grace even though he had already "found grace" in God's sight (Ex. 33:13). This is viewed along with the fact that God had given Moses the Law (a "grace" in its own right) but when the people sinned Moses broke the tablets, having to make two new tablets and scale Sinai once again, this time for a supernatural display of God's glory (Ex. 34:1-20; also, verse 20 connects with "no one has seen God" of John 1:18). In other words, Moses received a grace, then a greater display of God's grace because the first "grace" was not enough. The Law, then, came by grace but Christ came in an even greater display of grace.

However, this argument is undercut by two facts: 1) "grace upon grace" is typically constructed with epi, and not anti,, (cf. Sirach 26:15), the latter of which is found in John's prologue; and 2) there is no precedent in Greek literature for this usage (Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John's Gospel, 75; Kostenberger, John, 47).

Argument for instead of: The contrast of verse 17 ("for the law came by Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"), which follows immediately after the "grace upon grace" clause could be the commentary that explains it (Carson, The Gospel According to John, 132). Yes, Matthew 5:17-18 seems to indicate some lingering effect or force of the Law, but the remainder of John contains a constant antithesis between the Law and Jesus. He replaces the Temple (ch. 2), is the "bread of life" in contrast to the manna in the wilderness (which came from God, though the people attributed it to Moses, ch. 6), and replaced the water in the Feast of Tabernacles (ch. 7). Further, He is the "true vine" (15:1) as opposed to Israel in the Old Testament, for Jesus is forming His own Messianic community after not being received of "his own" (1:11).

Conclusion: As cool as the first argument sounds, I suppose I will side with the second argument in favor of "instead of." Because John embedded so many themes in the Prologue that he would later develop in the life of Jesus, perhaps the "grace upon grace" means that Jesus is the greater grace that replaces the Law of Moses.