From The Series: John- So That You May Believe

Part 15: The Word Became Flesh

The Gospel of John 1:1-4; 14

Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church

Since this is our last service before Christmas morning, I thought I would back up and spend some time this morning examining the mystery of the Incarnation. Much of the unbelieving world is confused by the Christian celebration around Christmas. Unfortunately, immigrants and recent arrivals to Canada are not the only ones confused. Many of the young people from our communities and families fail to recognize the significance of the celebration of Christmas. For many, Christmas is a time to gather together and exchange gifts, share a huge meal, and visit with family to catch up on things. These are all marvellous things, but many fail to recognize the reason for the feast.

Older civilizations had very distinct patterns for their festivals and it was clear why the gatherings and celebrations were happening. The same is true of other cultures around the world, but here in the West, many of our traditions have become commercialized and we have lost sight of the purpose behind the holiday. For me, the two biggest examples of this are Easter and Christmas.

Easter has become more about chocolate rather than the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ, and Christmas has become about giving and receiving gifts to and from others. Instead, we should recognize that God stepped into His Creation and dwelt among His people for about 33 years and then offered Himself up as the only suitable and perfect sacrifice to give His rebellious people a path back into a reconciled relationship with Himself.

One commentary author wrote this about the verse we will be studying this morning, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. This statement is one of the most significant and memorable ever penned. Its implications are limitless. It has provided the church over the centuries with a key to understanding the mystery of Jesus Christ. It represents the heart and climax of the gospel. The remaining twenty and a half chapters of the John’s Gospel will be spent unfolding its significance.”^[1]

This morning, we are going to examine, in some depth, the significance of the human birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the role that this birth plays in your salvation if you do not know Jesus, and the role that this birth plays in your sanctification if you are a Christian and are currently walking with Jesus.

Before we begin, please open your bibles, or turn on your devices,  to the first chapter of the Gospel of John where we are going to read the first four verses and then jump down to verse 14 to help us understand what the Bible and the Holy Spirit are speaking to us this morning. 

READ John 1:1-4 then John 1:14

“¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” Now, jump down to verse 14, “¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

What came to your mind when I was reading these verses back-to-back? When we read these verses we should see the divine nature and the human nature juxtaposed, inviting us to meditate on this unique aspect of Jesus Christ. I keep using the descriptor “unique” when referencing Jesus Christ. I do this because I want us to recognize that Jesus Christ as the fully divine/fully human individual, is the only personage that could fulfill the task appointed unto Him. Only Jesus could fulfill the requirements of the Law thus permitting the establishment of the New Covenant between God and His People. A New Covenant extended out past the originally chosen people, the Israelites, to include all peoples from around the world including Jews and Gentiles.

Christianity invites us to hold some complex doctrines and simple doctrines at the same time. A simple doctrine such as Jesus paid it all, we can earn nothing to add to His offering to ensure our salvation. Then there are complex doctrines such as Jesus being both fully divine and fully human at the same time. We have terms for complex doctrines. Sometimes putting a name to a concept that is difficult to grasp helps us to think the thing through. The complex doctrine of Jesus being fully human and fully divine simultaneously is called “The Hypostatic Union”.

The hypostatic union explains how Jesus could sometimes operate within human limitations while at other times demonstrating divine power, all stemming from his single personhood. While this doctrine attempts to explain the dual nature of Christ, it is acknowledged as a concept that surpasses full human comprehension. In other words, we are limited by our human intellect to understand the mechanics of how this union exactly works. But, if I have done my preparation correctly, by the end of this message I should have shown the significance of this doctrine to your life as a Christian.

In the first verse of John chapter 1, we see John firmly establishing the deity of Jesus. “¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We have two personages identified here, “The Word” and “God”. In the original Greek, the words that John the Apostle used to describe this situation are very specific. I won’t go into the details of the Greek language here except to say that the words and the tenses of those words used were very intentional so that we can render the exact meaning that we have derived from it into English.

We covered some of this before, but I think it bears repeating. John uses “In the beginning” to harken the minds of his Jewish readers back to Genesis 1:1, but he also uses the word “Logos” in the original Greek to refer to Jesus. In Greek philosophy, Logos was the unidentifiable force behind all the universe. So, in this short sentence, John is drawing the Jewish thought of the Creator and the Greek understanding of the Universe together into the personage of Jesus. For the Jews, John tells them that Jesus was with God, and then John throws them into chaos because of their monotheism, their belief that there can only be one God, by claiming that the Word, the Logos, was also God.

As Christians, we hold to monotheism as well. We believe in one God who is present in three persons, the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons, each with their own personalities and roles, but all sharing the same substance in the Godhead. Again, another complex doctrine which we have given a name in order to help us to understand is the doctrine of the Trinity.

How do we know for sure that John is referring to Jesus when he uses the phrase “the Word”? We can tell in two ways. We can jump down to verse 14 where John tells us, “¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Only Jesus matches this description.

We can also tell by referencing another verse in the Bible where it speaks about Jesus being the Creator.

Paul echoes John’s thoughts in The Book of Colossians when Paul wrote in verses 15 and sixteen of the first chapter, “¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” We see both John and Paul making it clear that Jesus was there with the Father before Creation. Therefore, Jesus is not a created being, He is not an angel as some teach, He is God! If Jesus is God, and He was with God at the beginning, and we believe in only one God, then we must have a mechanism to explain this: the Doctrine of The Trinity is that mechanism.  

The Nicene Creed was written to help us to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. Unfortunately, not many Western Protestant churches teach the creeds and confessions anymore. Again, we have touched on this a couple of weeks back, but it bears repeating. Here is what the Nicene Creed states:

Nicene Creed:

 “I believe in one God”, right there we have a statement affirming the belief of monotheism. It continues,  “the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.” We see the Father is listed as the Creator of all things. “And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds,” Begotten here means unique, or one of a kind. Jesus is exactly that, “unique and one of a kind!” “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made;” We are told here that Jesus is also the one through whom all things were made. “…who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate” made flesh, just as we are covering this morning. “… by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

You will find this creed in the centre of today’s bulletin for you to take home and study.

Before we move on to the second point this morning, I want to point out one more thing about the Greek words that John uses in verse 14. Another commentator wrote this about verse 14. It’s a little technical but I will explain, “The verb ‘was made’ [translated in the NIV as “became”] in Greek is (egenetō, from ginomai) ‘expresses that a person or thing changes its property and enters into a new condition, it becomes something that it was not before’. The tense is aorist, implying a definite and completed action; there is no going back upon the incarnation. The act of self-humbling on the part of God is irreversible; he is eternally ‘Emmanuel’, God with us. God the Son, without ceasing for a moment to be divine, has united to himself a full human nature and become an authentic human person, ‘God with us’. In Jesus Christ, God ‘was made man’.^[2]”

Let me explain. The Greek word used indicates that what Jesus became when He was born in the manger some 2,000 years ago was a new condition with new properties. Not a new being. Jesus did not lose any of his divinity, but He added new properties (His humanity), His human form, so that, He, Jesus, was now something that He wasn’t before.

We can’t say that Jesus is 50% human and 50% God because that would indicate that He was something less than He was before the incarnation. We say that Jesus is fully divine and fully human to describe that He was not less before His human birth, but that He was different than He is now.

The tense of the word in Greek indicates that the change is complete. There is no undoing His humanity. As the commentary writer says, “Jesus is eternally ‘Emannuael’ or God is with us. This is another component of the sacrifice that Jesus was willing to make for His creation. Jesus was willing to forever change His nature to take on humanity for our sake. Jesus humbled Himself to such an extent as to leave the side of the Father where He had been for all of eternity past and enter into His creation in the form of a small human infant. The more I study Jesus, the more I am amazed at the depth of His love for us. Those are some of the points regarding the significance of the Incarnation.

The next point I want to cover this morning is the role of the Incarnation in the salvation of the lost. What significance does Jesus adding human nature to His existing divine nature have for His role in our Salvation? Let’s look at a few Bible verses to determine that.

1 John 3:5, “⁵ But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.” In one of his shorter letters, John writes again about the reason for Jesus stepping into our reality and walking among our ancestors. He appeared so that he would be able to take away our sins.

1 Peter 2:24 puts it this way, “²⁴ “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds, you have been healed.” Jesus bore our sins in His body.

1 Corinthians 5:21, “²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin (or a sin offering) for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Think about that for a moment. Here is another example of the depth of Jesus’ love for us. A perfect God, who added human form to His divine form, lives a perfect sinless life (which we will explore in greater detail in a minute) then after being humiliated, beaten, flogged, and nailed to a Roman Cross, becomes a sin offering for us, so that we did not have to pay the punishment for our rebellion against God.

How many people in your life right now, would you be willing to endure such treatment for? Your spouse, your children, your parents maybe? What about the neighbour down the road who ignores you every time you come across them? Would you do it for the police officer who gave you your last speeding ticket? Would you bear the punishment for a prisoner on death row? Would you bear the anger that people have for the Prime Minister right now so that he could be reconciled to a Holy and Merciful God? Jesus did that for us, while we were still yet sinners! He did that for you and me.

Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed these words, “⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed.” This prophecy was fulfilled on a Roman Cross, outside the walls of Jerusalem, on a hill called Calvary.

I came across an interesting quote in regards to these types of prophecies in the Old Testament. Listen to what one author wrote, “We do the Bible a disservice if we try to read these prophecies as predictions. Few Old Testament prophecies are actually predictive. Most are better understood as patterns of God’s work in history that anticipate the events of Jesus’ life.”^[3] I found that idea so interesting. I’m sure that you are aware that there have been some prophecies that have been fulfilled multiple times. If we stop thinking of Old Testament prophecies as simply predictions of future events, but rather we think of them as indications of patterns that are evidence of God’s work and the anticipation of the events in Jesus’ life, we can have a whole new appreciation and understanding of the prophecies.

The final point I wish to address this morning is what is the role of the Incarnation of Jesus in your sanctification? Does this fact of Jesus adding humanity to His already perfect divine form have any bearing on how you live your life? Does it influence your Christian walk?

Through the prophet Zechariah, Yahweh and Jesus spoke these words, “¹⁰ “Shout and be glad, Daughter Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the Lord. ¹¹ “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. ¹² The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem. ¹³ Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.” Pay close attention to verse 11, “¹¹ “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.” “Many nations will join with the Lord”, that would be Jesus, “I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.” The term “Lord Almighty” is referring to the Father here.

Reading these verses and recognizing that they are referring to Jesus of Nazareth, allows us to have confidence in the truthfulness of the Old Testament. As I mentioned earlier, we are seeing more than a prediction here, we are seeing a pattern emerge of God’s interaction with His people. A pattern that allows us to recognize the faithfulness and unchanging character of Jesus Christ and God the Father.

To understand another role that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ plays in our sanctification we need to keep in mind a couple of verses from the Book of Hebrews. I touched on the sinlessness of Jesus earlier, but Hebrews 4:15 stresses this point. “¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” It is true that Jesus did not face every exact sin that we face, especially the sins that are facilitated by technology and social media, but technology has not brought any new category of sin. Technology has simply allowed new packaging of the same old sins.

Take pornography as a sin example. What lies at the heart of pornography is lust. We read in 2 Samuel chapter 11 in the Old Testament that David succumbed to the sin of lust when he stood on his palace rooftop and watched Bathsheba bathe on her rooftop. Same sin, different packaging and delivery system. Notice what Hebrews 4:15 is saying here: Jesus empathizes with us. He is not a cruel and heartless taskmaster of a Shepherd. Jesus can empathize with us because He too faced similar temptations, yet His resistance was so complete that He lived a Holy and Righteous life.

Take phone scams as another example. The sins that lie behind the actions of these people on the other end of the phone are greed, covetousness, theft, lying, and pride. These scammers are greedy and they want what you have. They think they deserve to have the money that you worked hard for and saved. They are willing to lie to steal it from you and they think that they are so much smarter than you and they try to take advantage of our trusting society here in the West.

There were cheats, liars and thieves in the days of Jesus. They just lacked the ability to pick up a phone and reach out to someone across the country, or halfway around the world from where they were. Same sins, just different delivery methods.

Despite all these trials and temptations, Jesus was able to stay true. Hebrews 7:26 tells us this very thing: “²⁶ Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” Notice what the author of Hebrews is not saying. He is not making excuses for our sins. Jesus is not an enabler, giving us an understanding wink and head nod saying, “I know, it’s hard, I’ve been there” and then permitting us to remain in our sin.

Twice in the Gospel of John, Jesus is recorded as telling people whom He rescued to “go and sin no more.” Once was in the fifth chapter after Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda, and the second time is when He comes across the woman accused of adultery who was about to be stoned. So these preachers who claim that Jesus loves you right where you are in your sin and that you do not need to change are flat-out false teachers. Jesus calls Christians to a higher standard of living. We are called to live a life worthy of an adopted child of God. Not to earn our salvation, but because we already have it and we want to show our appreciation of the value of the gift called Grace.

It is our rebellious nature and our pride that stand in the way of a personal saving relationship with Jesus. I saw a meme this week on X that really struck me. It was a painting of the column of fire that Yahweh used to reassure the Israelites that He was still present with them and guiding them. Under the picture was a statement something to the effect of, “When unbelievers ask for a sign that our God is real. They will often say something like, ‘If God is real and He were to manifest Himself in front of me right now, then I will believe in Him and obey Him’.” The statement went on to point out that even when the Israelites had physical proof in front of them, like the columns of fire and smoke, they still failed to believe and obey.”

The issue is not physical proof. The issue is a heart issue. It is an issue of submission. That is why Jesus spent so much time talking about people’s hearts in the Gospels.

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ signifies that God has come to dwell with us, bringing hope and redemption, and He invites us to live in a relationship with Him. Throughout Scripture, the theme of Christ as the Word emphasizes His preexistence, His creative power, and His sustaining role in the universe. The Incarnation is a key moment that bridges God's holiness with humanity's need for salvation, making Jesus the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises.

In this sermon, I attempted to teach the importance of the Incarnation and how it is central to understanding who Jesus is: fully God and fully man. The Incarnation emphasizes the importance of both aspects of His nature and the implications they have for our faith and daily living.

This passage reassures believers that Jesus understands their struggles because He entered into our human experience. He faced the same categories of temptations that we do and He calls us to live in the light of His revelation, knowing that we have a Savior who identifies with our humanity and offers us eternal life through His grace.

We have the privilege of becoming children of God through faith in Christ, the Word made flesh. We gain the acceptance and intimacy that come from a personal relationship with the Creator, and He empowers believers to embrace their identity in Christ and live boldly for Him as a testament to His grace. Think about this: there is the Old Testament and the New Testament, but there is also the testament of your life to others as you faithfully walk with Christ in His teachings. What is your life testifying to?

CONCLUSION

The story is told of Shah Abbis, a Persian monarch who loved his people very much. To know and understand them better, he would mingle with his subjects in various disguises. One day he went as a poor man to the public baths and in a tiny cellar sat beside the fireman who tended the furnace. When it was mealtime, the monarch shared his coarse food and talked to his lonely subject as a friend. Again and again he visited and the man grew to love him. One day the Shah told him he was the monarch, expecting the man to ask some gift from him. But the fireman sat gazing at his ruler with love and wonder and at last spoke, “You left your palace and your glory to sit with me in this dark place, to eat of my coarse food, to care whether my heart is glad or sorry. On others you may bestow rich presents, but to me you have given yourself, and it only remains for me to pray that you never withdraw the gift of your friendship.”

This beautiful story reminds us that Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, left the glories of heaven in order to share himself with us. That gift of his love and friendship will never be withdrawn from us. He chose to be your friend and mine forever.^[4]

                To conclude this morning, let’s stand and together sing the Doxology:

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heav'nly hosts; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". 

Go in peace, you are dismissed.

 

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^[1] Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here Is Your King!: With Study Guide, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 46.

^[2] Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here Is Your King!: With Study Guide, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 46.

^[3] Wendy Widder, “The Anticipators: ‘To Fulfill What the Lord Had Spoken’ (Matthew 1:18–2:23),” Bible Study Magazine (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press; Faithlife, 2018), 22.

^[4] Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 48–49.