Jesus, the Word Became Flesh

Today we’re finishing up the prologue of John’s gospel. These first 18 verses have been answering one, primary question: Who is Jesus? And up until now, John’s answer’s been cosmic: Jesus is God. He’s always existed. He was in the beginning of everything, and he’s the one who created everything. When Genesis 1 tells us, “God said, Let there be light”, that was Christ. He is the Word of God, the source of all life.

But once we get to verse 14, John pivots. Not only is Jesus fully God; he’s also fully man. And in one verse, John’s gospel moves from making claims that all kinds of religions make to making a claim that no one else makes: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

We’re all familiar with movies where the hero is talked about almost like he’s a legend before we meet him. People believed ogres were monsters that would “grind your bones for its bread” until they met Shrek. Moana thought Maui was this pure, unselfish demigod that would do anything to help humanity until she met him and realized he was more vain and complicated than that… Clearly, I have a toddler that likes to watch animated movies right now.

But, still, in a similar way, the very idea of “God” lends itself to myth: divine beings that are “out there”, powerful, but invisible and ultimately, unprovable.

The claim of Christianity is that the invisible has become visible—the unprovable now has physical evidence—what felt like myth has stepped into human history. Our passage this morning is dealing with what we call the “incarnation”—that the Son of God who is God was born as fully man while still being fully God. Christ has always existed, and yet there was a time when he was born. He is now forever both God and man.

Some of you might love thinking through theology like that. For some of you, it might feel hard to understand and you just want to get to what’s practical. But I think the incarnation of Christ is one of the most practical theological truths in the entire Bible.

If God became flesh and dwelt among us, then all your questions about God, all your questions about life after death, about whether or not there’s some grand design, if you have a higher purpose or calling, what should motivate your approach to your work, your family, and your friends—according to the Bible, all those questions can find real and tangible answers in Jesus, the Word of God.

This morning I want to look at four practical benefits that come from the incarnation of Christ. And these matter both to the Christian looking to grow in their faith as well as the non-Christian exploring the faith. Because the Son of God became the literal man, Jesus:

1. We can see God’s glory

2. We can understand God’s Word

3. We can experience God’s grace, and

4. We can know God personally

Let’s start with how the incarnation enables us to see God’s glory. Look with me again at verse 14.

John 1:14 ESV

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

A couple things stand out about this verse. First, John reuses a phrase back from verse 1: “the Word”. He’s letting us know that the same one who was in the beginning and gave life to everything is also the one who became a man to bring us the new birth we talked about last week in verse 13. And how did he do this? “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

He didn’t just take on the appearance of a man and was only disguised as a human like Greek mythology often presents the gods. And he didn’t just temporally add flesh with a brief manifestation to restore order like Vishnu’s avatars in Hinduism. No, the incarnation was full, and it was permanent.

In verse 14, the Son of God didn’t stop being the Word; the Word just became flesh. Fully God and fully man. Permanently. When Jesus ascended into heaven at the end of his earthly ministry, he didn’t stop being human. When Paul meets him years later on the road to Damascus, he doesn’t see the spirit of Jesus; he saw the glorified person of Jesus. One day in eternity, we will behold all of God’s presence—Father, Son, and Spirit—but we will see Jesus, the Word became flesh.

And John goes on. He didn’t just become flesh to be like us; he was born as a baby to dwell with us. That Greek word for dwelt, skēnoō, literally describes someone taking up a residence—to pitch a tent. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word was used to refer to the tabernacle, which was what the Israelites built for the presence of God to dwell with his people.

John’s making an incredible statement here. In the past, God dwelt among his people in the inner room of a tent where only the high priest could visit once a year. Through Christ, God now dwells among all the people. Back in Exodus 33-34, God spoke his name to Moses in the tabernacle and then had his word written on two stone tablets. Now, God’s Word, his perfect self-expression, has become a man. Now, the Word doesn’t just communicate God’s name or his law; Jesus communicates all of God’s glory.

That’s what we see in the back half of verse 14. Because Jesus is fully man, he dwelt with John, his disciples, and others. Because he’s fully God, seeing Jesus meant seeing the fullness of God’s glory. Do you want to know what God is like? Look to Jesus. Do you want to know what God thinks of sin? Look to Jesus. Do you want to know if God loves you? Look to Jesus. Do you want to know if God cares about the suffering you go through in life? Look to Jesus.

As Hebrews 1:3 says, Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” I know glory isn’t a word we use often, and it can feel really spiritual but also really vague. When God’s glory is seen in the Bible, it’s most often in a depiction of who God is—his character, his attributes, even the status of his people when he saves them. God is glorified when who he is, is magnified. And that’s why Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God”. Nothing describes who God is better than the Son who came from the Father.

I mentioned Exodus 33-34 earlier. That’s where Moses asks God to “show me you glory.” God’s reply in Exodus 33:19 is telling. He says,

Exodus 33:19 ESV

¹⁹ And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

God responded to Moses’ request to see his glory by saying he would make his goodness pass before him. At the end of the day, that’s what God’s glory is. It’s his goodness, and in that verse we see it defined largely by his grace, which is giving his goodness to those who don’t deserve it. Unmerited favor.

Fast forward to John 1:14, and God’s glory is now fully on display, and it’s once again centered on grace and truth about God, embodied fully in the person and work of Jesus. Before, Moses could only experience the glory of God passing by, but through Christ we experience his fullness in our lives.

And this gives us an important insight into the next benefit of the incarnation. Because in the same way we can’t see how Jesus fulfills Moses’ request to see God’s glory, he also helps us understand all of Scripture. Look with me now at verse 15 in our passage.

John 1:15 ESV

¹⁵ (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)

Even though John the Baptist shows up in the New Testament, he’s still one of the prophets—actually, the last prophet pointing to the coming Messiah. He testified about Jesus, but people didn’t get it. That’s kinda the story of the prophets throughout the Old Testament as well. They would bring a message from God, either commanding repentance or announcing judgment or promising future deliverance.

But regardless of what their message was, the prophets weren’t received well when they shared it. Guys like Ezekiel and Jeremiah were misunderstood and rejected. Even in God’s covenant with the patriarchs like Abraham, the people were confused at how God was going to bless all the nations of the world through his offspring when it seemed like they were either stuck being slaves in Egypt or wandering the dessert or in Exile in Babylon.

What God was doing was largely a mystery to his people, but that mystery is revealed in the incarnation of Christ. Without Jesus, the Old Testament’s like your favorite novel with the most important page ripped out of it. It’s missing the key event that ties everything together.

Throughout Scripture, God had given people his promises, his law, his protection, his kings, and his prophets, but none of those things were enough. None of those things could restore people in a right relationship with God, and we see the evidence of that in every Old Testament story as even God’s chosen people continually rebelled against him.

But then we get to the birth of Jesus. And this isn’t God giving us his stuff; it’s God giving us himself. When God gave us tools, we couldn’t save ourselves. More often than not, we just implicated ourselves for how short we fall. But when God gives us his Son, he is able to accomplish what we cannot.

The Old Testament both poses a problem and shows us case study after case study why nothing else would work as the solution. The one we rebelled against was the only one who could restore us to himself.

Just think about any conflict you’ve ever had with someone. When you mess up and you hurt someone’s feelings, you can apologize, you can try to make amends, but at the end of the day the only way there can be reconciliation is if the person who was wronged restores the relationship.

But Jesus is also more than just the answer to the problem we see in the Old Testament; he’s also the fulfillment of every longing from the Old Testament. Every story it tells, every character it covers, every king that reigns, every prophet that speaks—they are all fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.

If you’re looking for help in this area, the book of Hebrews is a great resource for learning how to read the Old Testament through the lens of Christ as the fulfillment. But verse 15 in our passage this morning also gives us a helpful clue. John the Baptist said that Jesus ranked before him—Jesus was greater than him—because even though Jesus the person came after John did, the Son of God existed long before him. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

This means that in every one of those Old Testament stories, the Word of God was there. Christ was there. He’s the fulfillment of Scripture, and he fills every page of Scripture. Why does this matter for us? Maybe you don’t consider yourself a Christian, but you’re exploring the Bible and want to know more about Jesus. You figure the gospels are a great place to start, and they are.

But there’s more to learn about Jesus than just what we read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You can see his shadow in redeeming characters like Boaz, you can see his purpose highlighted with laws like the Sabbath, and you can see the need he meets with stories like King David sleeping with Bathsheba, a married woman, and then having her husband sent to the front lines of battle to be killed.

The prophet Nathan confronts David about this, and David repents. He’s sorry before the Lord. And even though David is still punished, Nathan responds, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” How is that right? How can God put away sin and still be just? It’s because one day it would be fully paid by Jesus on the cross. You can’t truly understand any part of the Bible without seeing the story completed in Christ.

And I would go one step further: you also can’t truly understand any part of your own life without seeing your story completed in Christ. Again, it’s like missing that key page that unlocks the rest of the novel. Does your job have a purpose beyond the product you produce or the wages you earn? On some days you’re great as a spouse and as a parent but other days you struggle—what if your family could be shaped by something that never changes rather than depending on your own performance?

The word “full” that John uses in verse 14 is significant. He uses it again as “fullness” in verse 16, which we’ll get to more in a moment. It’s not that apart from Jesus you can’t enjoy your job or do meaningful work—it’s not that you can’t be a good parent. Part of the biblical worldview is that, because we’re created in the image of God, even as sinners who have rebelled against God, his common grace allows us to experience parts of his goodness in all that we do, whether we’re following him or not. There’s people in my life who aren’t Christians who are nicer people than me. More talented than me. There’s real beauty in the world, even if it’s a broken world.

But when the Word became flesh, the fullness of God dwelt in his creation. And in his fullness, you can experience a life of fullness. Not just enjoying his grace for your work and family and friends and hobbies in part; through him those joys can be complete. Let’s keep reading in verses 16-17.

John 1:16–17 ESV

¹⁶ For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

If Jesus completes every storyline in the Bible, and through him comes grace and truth, then every part of the Bible is a means of grace to us. This is why John says that from Jesus we receive “grace upon grace” and then immediately follows that up with contrasting the Old testament law and the coming of Jesus. Both are grace, because both are from Jesus, but the former is fulfilled by the latter.

What do I mean by that? Let’s look at that phrase, “grace upon grace”—χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος. How do you have one grace stacked upon another? It means that, in some way, they’re related. And that middle word, ἀντὶ, is what gives us a clue. It’s where we get “anti” from. The sense here is literally grace instead of grace—one kind of grace has come to supersede and fulfill the previous kind of grace.

And this is how we see Jesus relate to the law. Why did God give the Israelites his law in the first place? It wasn’t what they had to achieve in order to be his people. God had already made that promise to Abraham. He didn’t give them his law so that they could experience his love only if they obeyed it. God rescued them out of slavery in Egypt and then gave them his law. It wasn’t a precondition for his love.

So his law didn’t make God’s people his people and it didn’t help God’s people earn his love. So why did God give them his law? Two main reasons: it revealed who God is, and it showed why we need him. Think about it: God’s sacrificial laws demonstrated that he is a just God who takes sin seriously. His ceremonial laws demonstrated that he is a holy God who requires devotion. And his moral laws like the 10 commandments demonstrated what God values and what’s true of his own character.

I’ve gotten coffee with a bunch of you, and I’ve gotten Starbucks with none of you. There’s a reason, and it tells you something about me and the way I like coffee. That I actually like coffee, and not just something burnt with various sugars and sauces on top.

The content of God’s laws gives us insight into who God is and what he cares about. But it also shows us why we need him—because we cannot keep his law on our own. We can’t do it. We fall short. Every one of us. And then, when we feel like we have a good day, we read Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount that the law isn’t just about our outwards actions but about our heart. Not just, “Do not murder anyone”, but do not harbor anger toward someone. And we start to realize really quickly, this is impossible. Who in the world can do all this?

And then comes Jesus. He is the grace upon grace. The Word of God’s law showed us what God values, but the Word made flesh revealed who God is. The Word of God’s law showed us how we can’t earn our way to God, but the Word made flesh showed us that his righteousness can be given to us. That’s grace. That’s grace upon grace. Through Moses, we learned the standard for righteousness; through Jesus we have a Savior who is our righteousness for us.

And how we do get access to that? How can we receive this grace from Jesus that reconciles us to God in spite of the ways we sin and fall short of his righteous standard? Once again, we look to that key word in the start of verse 16. It’s from his “fullness”. We don’t receive God’s grace through our effort, our knowledge, our background, or even our own decisions. We looked at that last week in verse 13 when John described the new birth that’s given to people as they come to know and believe in Jesus. If we did something for it, then it wouldn’t be grace.

No, we can experience the grace of God through Christ because of who Jesus is, not because of who we are. Because, in his fullness, through his incarnation, he is both God and man. As man, he is able to represent us to the Father. As God, he is able to atone for our sins to the Father. Only in Jesus do we get the full truth about who God is and are able to fully experience grace because of what Jesus paid for by his death and resurrection.

This is an incredibly practical, theological truth for the Christian. Because if the fullness of Jesus is God and the fullness of Jesus was given for us so that we might be made right with God, then that means the fullness of Jesus is available to us as we strive to live our lives glorifying God.

When I was kid, Pokemon cards were a big deal. I’m 36, by the way, if that statement made you start to wonder. My mom would bring me to what used to be Books-a-Million in Covington on Saturdays back in the day (it’s 2nd and Charles now), and there would be 50 or more kids there every weekend because of Pokemon cards. But they weren’t playing the actual card game. I don’t know how many kids ever knew even how to play the game. I didn’t.

Instead, kids would show up to buy packs of cards and show off their collection to each other and try to trade them for cards they didn’t have. For all I know the game was a lot of fun. But I never played it. I never got the most out of my collection. I didn’t use it for all that it was intended. I was mainly just trying to find another holographic Charizard.

When you become a Christian, don’t miss what verse 16 is saying: you have received grace upon grace from God through the fullness of Jesus Christ who has been given to you. But just like my old Pokemon collection, we can be so content with just having the Jesus card in our deck that we never actually use it the way it’s intended or to the level it’s capable of.

The grace found in the fullness of who Jesus is and what he’s done for you is not just what makes you right with God—it’s what grows you to reflect him more as you increasingly change and live every aspect of your life to the glory of God. We’re not saved by Christ’s fullness and then perfected by our own performance. It is the work of God through the fullness of Jesus all the way through.

If you can’t answer how the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection shapes the way you think about your job and the way you work within your job, for example, then he might just be a Pokemon card that you’re bringing to work with you but not really using the way you could. We could say the same about our family life, our friendships, our hobbies, the way we approach our goals or our times of suffering. The fullness of who Jesus is and what he’s done is able to bring fullness to every aspect of who you are and what you do.

And verse 18 tells us why, summarizing this whole section and bringing the prologue to John’s gospel to a close.

John 1:18 ESV

¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

The incarnation of the Son of God, the fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, tells us that we can know God personally. Think back to Exodus 33-34 again. Moses asks God to show him his glory. We’ve already covered God’s initial response and how he showed Moses his goodness. But in Exodus 33:20, God also gives the reason why he’s only passing by Moses and not appearing to him in full. He says,

Exodus 33:20 ESV

²⁰ But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”

Nothing better demonstrates the beauty of the incarnation than this verse. Because before, looking upon all of God brought death. But through Christ, looking upon all of God brings new life. Before the incarnation, God and man were separated because of our sin, but through the incarnation God and man are united through the Son.

Because of Jesus, we never have to live in shame of our sin before God or apart from relationship with God. You can know God personally by trusting in Jesus relationally. Yes, the ways we rebel against God’s rule and try to be the ruler of our own lives separate us from him. And the law we find in the Old Testament highlights that we cannot do enough to make things right.

But the same Word of God that created the world and wrote the law is the Word who became flesh to fulfill the law and create new life. Whether you are a Christian needing to refreshed this morning or a non-Christian exploring faith, the invitation of these verses are the same. You can know God by looking to Jesus and believing in his name. It is through him alone that we can experience grace upon grace, not just for eternity, but in every aspect of your life today.

Let’s pray.