The Word Became Flesh

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...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,” –John 1:1-3, 14 (ESV).

John in his gospel does not give an account of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.  Rather, he begins immediately to introduce Jesus as the Word,  John wrote his gospel with a Greek readership in mind.  The Greek thinkers were very philosophical.  To them Word, or Logos, referred to the.Power that ordered the universe.  Word was one way they thought of God.  The Jews, likewise, would have been very familiar with God as Word.  They thought in terms of God as the Word found in the law (see Deuteronomy 30:11-14).  They considered Wisdom as God personified, an idea strongly propounded in Proverbs 8.  So when John introduced Jesus as “the Word made flesh,” God being in the Word was not an idea completely unfamiliar to them.  The only difference was that a special Messiah who would bear the Word of God to the people had been expected over so many centuries that the Word finally being upon the earth in person was new and different.  Could that be why so many scoffed at Jesus?  What they expected of the Word was not how the Word lived, ministered and presented Himself, especially to the critical Sadducees and Pharisees.

John makes several significant statements about the Word:  The Word is God.   The Word is Creator.  The Word is life, the sort of life that becomes the light of men.  And the darkness cannot extinguish the light that is the Word.  But the greatest statement John made was that the Word became flesh.  He came into our world and had all the characteristics of a flesh-and-blood person.  Indeed He did, for he was wholly human—while at the same time wholly divine.  This is the doctrine of the incarnation.  The Word became flesh means that God entered the sphere of time and space and took on all the characteristics of a human being.  He was the Son of Man, further identifying Himself with mankind. 

In becoming human, Jesus emptied Himself for His span of life of all the glories of heaven.  He was limited by time and space while He was upon the earth.  He was tempted in every way like as we are, yet was without sin.  Someone has aptly said that the Prince became a pauper.  He exchanged heaven’s glory and riches for a place where he did not have a home to call his own.  Poverty and wandering marked His earthly condition.

Then as Word He could communicate.  And think how Jesus did that so effectively!  He went about teaching.  We fortunately have His teachings compiled for us in the gospels.  As Word he introduced us to God the Father:  “I and my Father are one,” He said.  The incarnation of Christ as Word shows us the glory of the Father and leads us to Him.  And the ultimate Word is that Jesus became the sacrifice for our sins, therefore bridging that barrier of communication between Holy God and sinful man.  Through His sacrifice He speaks grace and truth to us.  And it is through God’s revealed grace in the Word made flesh that we can know Him and come to peace with God.

Prayer.  This Christmas, Father, help us to keenly accept the glory of the Word made flesh, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.   And because of Your grace, implemented by the Word, we can know and understand the reason why “the Word was made flesh” that night in Bethlehem. And we can see why the Word was slain that dark day thirty-three years later on Golgotha’s hill in Jerusalem.  Then, Father, You took Him back to heaven where we will some day join the Word.  Selah!