Sermon Tone Analysis

 THE WORD BECAME FLESH

(John 1:14)

December 11, 2022

Read John 1:14.

This is one of the most astonishing statements ever made in human history.

God became one of us.

In the OT, God met His people in the tabernacle or temple.

But now, the Word, the 2nd person of the Trinity, has come "to dwell (tabernacle) among us."

John's Jewish readers would immediately get the analogy.

God has come to rescue fallen humanity.

Everyone longs for God.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote: "The center of me is always and eternally a terrible pain . . .

a searching for something beyond what the world contains, something transfigured and infinite.

The beatific vision - God.

I do not find it, I do not think it is to be found - but the love of it is my life....

It is the actual spring of life within me."

So much truth there, yet he missed the Answer - the Word who became flesh.

Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God; He alone can lead us back to God.

Heb 1:1-2: "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son."

So complete is this revelation that Jesus later says to Philip, Jn 14:9b: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."

John's whole purpose is to help us believe in Jesus who is the source of eternal life.

So, who is this Jesus?

I. Jesus is Truly Man

"And the Word became flesh".

The Word, who already was at the beginning, who pre-existed the creation of the universe, who had no beginning - that One took on flesh.

Not just a body, but all that it means to be human.

The One who created all things, "and without him was not any thing made that was made" - that One has now made for Himself a human body and human nature into which He was born in Bethlehem and which He will inhabit forever.

We will contemplate this for eternity and never quite get to the bottom of it.

This is a nuanced fulfillment of Isa 9:6, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given."

As a man He was born, but as the Son of God, He was given.

His humanity begins at birth, thus is born.

His divine nature has existed forever, thus is given.

Paul sees the same truth in Gal 4:4: "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman."

The eternal Son of God is given in a birth which added humanity to His deity.

This is the incredible love of God - becoming us in order to deliver us.

This fulfills Isa 7:14b: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

When Joseph found Mary pregnant and set out to break his engagement, an angel informed him that she was not only faithful, but was the virgin chosen to bear "Immanuel (which means, God with us)" (Mt 1:23).

Not just God with us for a short visit, a stopover.

"Became" = permanent arrangement.

No going back.

This is God with us permanently, experiencing all it means to be human, so he could succeed where the first Adam failed, so He could die in our place, to be raised again to rule forever!

Today, most people stumble over the deity of JC; in His time, they stumbled over His humanity.

The Jews were raised on the shema, Deut 6:4: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" God becoming man was inconceivable.

So, many erroneous teachings arose concerning the person of Christ.

The most persistent was Docetism, from the Greek δοκεω = to seem or to appear.

This heresy taught Jesus only seemed to be a man.

It came in two main forms.

One claimed Jesus only seemed to have a human body, but it was an apparition.

Others claimed Jesus did have a true human body, but did not have a human spirit, that his divine spirit (Christ) united with a human body at the time of Jesus' baptism, then left Him before His crucifixion.

Greeks would have accepted a Christ who seemed human but really wasn't.

To them the spirit is all good; the body is all evil.

God in a real body was inconceivable.

John had an opponent in Ephesus, Cerinthus -- a Docetist, which horrified John.

Church father, Eusebius, said John once entered a public bath.

Finding Cerinthus there, he left, urging others, "Let us flee, lest the bath fall in, as long as Cerinthus, that enemy of truth, is within."

To counter this, John doesn't simply say the Word became man, or the Word took on a body - rather he says, "The Word became flesh" - a strong, almost crude way of referring to the totality of human nature.

John had seen Jesus up close and personal.

He knew.

He was truly human.

He needed food, water and sleep.

He had human soulish emotions.

He wept over the loss of a friend; over Israel's rejection, and the agonies of Gethsemane.

Jesus was truly man.

But why would Christ take on flesh?

Why this unprecedented personal humiliation?

Bc it was the only way to save mankind!

As sinners, we cannot save ourselves.

Only God can.

But repairing the relationship must come from the human side.

Only God could pay the infinite price we owe; only man could receive the penalty of death.

The God-man was the only answer.

Jesus never could have been the perfect lamb of God without being truly human.

He could never have died for us without being human.

He would never have risen again had he not been truly man.

He did it all for love of a fallen, rebellious, underserving humanity.

Rom 5:8 answers why: "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

It was all for love!

C. S. Lewis rightly refers to the incarnation as the Grand Miracle.

And Dorothy Sayers observes that, "from the beginning of time until now it is the only thing which has ever really happened ... We may call this doctrine exhilarating or we may call it devastating, we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish ... but if we call it dull then what in heaven's name is worthy to be called exciting?"

And all for love.

To deny it; reject it; mock it or refuse it; is to sin against love itself.

And that is rightfully unforgiveable.

II.

Jesus is Truly God

John's already made that point in vv.

1-2.

But he makes it again in a unique way in this verse.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

"Dwelt" literally means "to live in a tent."

So, a temporary visit?

No. Leon Morris notes by Jesus' time the word meant to settle down permanently, as in Rev 12:12, where John urges, "Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them!"

What's more permanent than heaven?

It's used in II Cor 5:1 where earthly bodies are referred to as tents.

The emphasis is on Jesus being truly human.

But John's meaning is deeper than that.

The Greek word is σκηνω, also translated "tabernacled"; it unquestionably refers back to the tabernacle built by Israel during Moses' time.

The Hebrew word for tabernacle is miskan - note the s,k,n main consonants, just like in σκηνω.

Further, the cloud representing God's presence, was said to dwell (sakan) in the tabernacle as "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle" (Ex 40:34).

That was the same glory of the Lord Moses met on Mt.

Sinai (Ex 24:16) and which later filled Solomon's temple (I Kings 8:11).

Jewish people later referred to this as the Shekinah -- dwelling glory - a fearsome visible manifestation of Yahweh.