The Word Became Flesh

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
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The Word Became Flesh

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 22 December 2013

Let’s look at John 1 and think about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. What would the Christmas story be with no manger, no Joseph, no Mary, no Bethlehem, no shepherds, no angels, no star, no wise men and no baby? It would be John’s account of the Christmas story, John 1:1-14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

One line from the text stands out and I want us to look at verse 14, and here is the story of Christmas in four words, “The Word Became Flesh.” That is the most profound truth of all truth. That’s why we celebrate Christmas. And God tells us through John things that are vast and incomprehensible in very simple terms, so that a child can understand them and yet the wisest of the wise cannot plumb the full depth of them. The Word became Flesh.

Who is the Word? Verse 1 says, “The Word was with God and the Word was God. And this Word became flesh, verse 14 says, and “dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” The Word became flesh and lived among us without giving up any of His glory. There is a supernatural reality going on here that is critical for us to understand because the eternal God, the infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, all present, unchanging God of the universe became a human being. That is the message of Christmas.

Emmanuel means “God with us.” That is the essential truth of Christianity and that is the only truth that can save a sinner from hell. John writes his gospel to get that truth across. And not only John, but all the other writers of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament all want us to know that Jesus is God.

In fact, if you go through the New Testament, you will find all kinds of evidence. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one. If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” There are direct statements about Him that He is God. Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and My God.” Titles are given to Jesus that belong only to God, the eternal judge, the holy One, the First and the Last, the Lord of the Sabbath, the Savior, the Mighty God, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of glory, the Redeemer. These are terms that are used of God alone in the Old Testament and of Christ in the New Testament, more evidence that He is God.

And then Jesus did works that only God can do, raising the dead, overpowering the Kingdom of Demons, and forgiving sin. Jesus also received worship. We have that throughout the story of the New Testament from the gospels all the way to the book of Revelation. The angels cannot be worshiped in Revelation 22. Men cannot be worshiped in Acts 10, but Jesus accepted worship, evidence that He is God.

Jesus also received an answered prayer, something only God can do. The evidences of the deity of Jesus Christ filled the Scripture, but none of them are more powerful than this opening section of the gospel of John. And it gets often overlooked. And John explains it in verse 14, “The Word became Flesh,” God became a man. The infinite became finite. The eternal one entered time. The invisible became visible.

Why is He called the Word? Because that term logos in the Greek is loaded with meaning, both for Jew and Gentile. The term “Word” is used once there in verse 14 to describe Jesus in the incarnation and three times in verse 1. And there is no explanation of it. Greeks would completely understand what John was saying because the Greek word logos was a title given to the creative force, to the ordering intelligent mind of the universe.

It would be like what is today called ID - intelligent design. But like the Greeks, it was considered some kind of impersonal force. It was Einstein who first launched this when he said, “Of course there is a God, but we could never know it. This is a cosmic force, cosmic intelligence.” And we cannot identify this as the God of the bible because then we not only have a Creator, we have a judge and a Law giver and an executioner for those who reject Him.

But John says that this Logos is not an impersonal power. Logos is not some kind of floating principle of reason. The Logos is a person. To the Greek mind, the Logos was the most powerful force in the universe, the creative power, the source of wisdom, knowledge and intelligence. And John is saying this is a person and He became a man, a personal God who came into the world in the form of Jesus.

To the Jew, the Word had even more meaning. If you read the Old Testament, you will read this many times, “The Word of the Lord came to so-and-so.” The Word of the Lord was simply God revealing Himself, His person, His nature, His will, His wisdom and His truth. The Word of the Lord was the expression of the personal God, the true and living God of the Old Testament and by His Word God had spoken.

Hebrews 1 says, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets.” John is saying that the revelation of God, the disclosure of God, the manifestation of God is now incarnate. The expression of God’s nature, will, wisdom, truth is now embodied. That’s why Hebrews 1:2 says, “has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” God is being revealed in Christ. You are hearing from God. You are seeing God unveiled and manifest.

So God, the Word, became flesh. “Became” is an important verb. God is a pure being, unchanging and immutable. God is not at any point incomplete. And yet, though He is God, He became a man. And that was a change. The Incarnation was that event when God took on the fullness of humanity while remaining fully God. Two natures not mingled, fused together in oneness, in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And to make it clear, verse 14 says, “And dwelt among us.” Christ’s humanity is not an illusion, it is not a vision, it is not just some kind of mental experience. He took on humanity. Philippians 2:7, “He was made in the likeness of men.” In Hebrews 2, “He partook of flesh and blood.” And to make this statement irrefutable, He lived in this world thirty-three years as a man among men with no indication that He was any other than a human being, till He began His ministry.

In Colossians 2: 9 Paul says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” no diminishing of His deity, He is fully God and fully man. Now John is giving us three lines of revelation that help us grasp the deity of Christ. First of all, John shows us that the Word became flesh by virtue of His preexistence. Let’s see that in verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word.”

In the beginning of what? That is a phrase taken out of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 refers to the original beginning of everything that exists. In the beginning, when everything that exists came into existence the Word was. In other words, Jesus already existed when everything that exists was created. Jesus is not a created being, He existed before creation, He already was preexistent. The testimony of Scripture is that He is before all things.

The Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others tell us Jesus was a created being. In fact, the Mormons tell us that the God of the Bible was created by another God who created the God of the Bible who then created Jesus. Those are lies because they deny God being God and Christ being God. Not only did He exist in the beginning, He was with God. In John 1:2 it says again, “He was in the beginning with God.”

That literally means face-to-face with God in intelligent personal communion. He is then distinct from God because He is with God. He preexists in fellowship with God. This is so important! In John 17:5 Jesus prays at the end of His incarnation, looking at the cross, “Restore to Me the glory I had with You before the world began, when we were face-to-face.”

And what was His relationship with God? God the Father says about His Son in Luke 3:22 at His baptism, “This is My beloved Son.” He is not a competitor to God, He is not another God. He is not a lesser God. He is before any creation existing in intimate, personal communion with the Father. And it is a communion of perfect love. Jesus is not part of the creation. He is outside the creation and He is before time. And if He is outside the creation and before time, He is eternal. And if He is eternal, He is God.

Secondly, John not only speaks of the preexistence of Christ, but he speaks of the co- existence of Christ. Go to verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” He is both with God and is God. Here is the mystery of the Trinity, right? He is distinct from the Father, having face-to-face communion with the Father, and yet is fully God as is the Father.

So when you think about the Christmas story, this is what is at the heart of it all, the one who came into the world is God Himself. He is God the Son who was eternally with God before anything existed, who is preexistent and coexistent with God.

Thirdly, God through John wants us to understand that not only is Jesus preexistent and coexistent with God, but He is self-existent. And now you are really come to grips with the substance of deity. When you talk about His preexistence, you are talking about His eternality. When we are talking about His coexistence, we are talking about His equality. But now when we talk about His self-existence, we are talking about the essence of His nature. First is eternality, second is equality and thirdly is essence.

What does it mean that Jesus is self-existent? It means in simple language, verse 4, “In Him was Life.” John 5:26 says it again, that in God is life and in the Son is life. What do you mean by that? Jesus didn’t receive life from any other source. He possesses it as an essential part of His nature. That’s why Jesus could say, “I’m the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” This is the truth of the self-existence of God.

And this reality concerning Jesus Christ is foundational to the Christian faith. And unless you believe this, you cannot be saved, even though you talk about Jesus all the time and say you believe in Jesus. If you don’t believe in the Jesus who is the eternal God, who is self-existent, who has life in Himself, then you believe in a different Jesus. And if you have another Jesus, you have another gospel, then the bible says you are cursed.

Everything that is created is becoming something else, right? All the creation moves, shifts, alters and changes. And if you want a clear illustration of that, look in the mirror, take a picture from ten years ago, and you will know what you’re becoming. You may not like what you’re becoming, but that’s the way it is. God is pure being, He doesn’t become anything other than He is.

This is the foundational reality of all realities, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And God gave life to everything that has life, right?” He gave life to everything that has life, because life is in Him. Most important truth of all truths right there in Genesis 1:1, and that is a very most assaulted truth. In many places in our world today, there is a massive effort to deny the creation account of Genesis 1. Get rid of the creation and you can get rid of the Creator. If you get rid of the Creator, you can live the way you want to because there’s no punishment for your sin.

There is more in verse 4, “In Jesus was life and the life was the light of men.” He came into this world as that eternal life and when He arrived, the light was on. Jesus said in John 8:12, “I’m the light of the world, whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness.” Life is one thing and light is something else, but here they are fused together. Life is the principle, light is simply the illustration.

The preexistent, coexistence, self-existent life of God in Jesus became the light of men. The light overcame the darkness of ignorance; the light overpowered the darkness of sin. As God and the Word are the same, light and life are the same. The light combines with life and manifests itself. The metaphorical way of showing the impact of the arrival of Christ, the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Paul calls it, in 2 Corinthians 4, shines.

What is the proof that Jesus is the eternal God? There can be only one proof and that one proof is that He existed before time began. John gives it in verse 3, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.” Apart from Him not even one thing came into existence that has come into existence. Nothing.

Yet the response is amazing, verse 10, “He was in the world and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” They still don’t. Then he explains it further in verse 11, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Now he’s talking about Israel. The Jews rejected Him, they killed Him, along with the Romans. And that’s the sad reality of sin.

The second line of testimony is creation as well, but this time spiritual creation, verses 12 and 13. It says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” This is a creative process.

Not only is the Word, the Lord Jesus, the Creator of the material universe, but He is the Creator of His own family through spiritual creation. “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God.” How did it happen? “They were born of God,” not by any human means, not by blood, that means humanity, not by the will of the flesh, that means your own will, it can’t happen. This is a spiritual creation by God.

Lots of people believe in the shepherds and the wise men and the angels. Lots of people believe in the baby Jesus. The big question is, do you believe in the Son of God? In John 20:31 he says, “These things I have written to you, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.” Do you believe in Him as your Redeemer, your only hope of salvation, your Lord and your God? Think about this and decide, this is just between you and God. Let’s pray.



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