WWUTT 786 The Word Became Flesh?

John 1 .14 says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God, who created the entire universe, became like the very creatures He created. But at no point did He ever cease to be God when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Reading John 1:14-18 and the Identity of the Word

Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 1, and today's reading will be verses 14 -18. The Apostle wrote,. 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 bore witness about Him and cried out, This was He of whom I said, And He who comes after Me ranks before Me, because He was before Me. For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known. So it's in verse 14 where we read, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And of course, we're talking about Jesus Christ here. Back to the start of the Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

And now the identity of the Word comes out more fully here, even in verse 14, where we read that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God actually taking on human flesh, which is incredible. I mean, this is the most significant event in human history, that the God who is the creator of all things, who established the entire universe by the speaking of a word, all things came into existence by His Word, and all things are held in existence, are kept from flying apart, are kept from destroying, you know, collapsing in on itself.

All things were made through Him and for Him, and in Him all things hold together, as Paul said in Colossians chapter 1. So it is by His Word that all things were made, and by His Word that all things are held together.

And this God, who created all things by speaking them into existence, now steps into the very mankind that He made in His image. God Himself, who sits enthroned above the entire universe, which is what, 13 billion light years across or something like that?

I can't remember what the exact distance is that they've theorized the distance of the universe is from one side to the next. But anyway, you know, the universe, however big we think that it is, God sits enthroned above it.

He's even greater than that. And yet He is now stepping into human flesh, stepping into the creation that He made in His image. He has put on human flesh to dwell among those who took the image of God that they were made in and blasphemed God with that image.

Do you get that? Do you understand that? Like God is not seen by us because we are so unholy. He is holy and we are not. So He has moved Himself away from us. He has distanced Himself from man. And part of the curse is we don't even seek after God.

We don't see Him. We don't seek after Him because of our rebellion against Him. This was all part of the curse. It would be more difficult for mankind to even know this God. And so God has removed Himself from us because of our sinfulness.

We who were made in His image and took that image, the mind that He gave us for the purpose of His glory, the breath that He breathed into us that we might declare His praise. And yet we use these things to exalt ourselves and blaspheme Him.

And yet God is now dwelling with the very creation who blasphemed Him in this way, who responded to Him so contemptuously, who rebelled against the law of God, that God had to curse all of creation because of, because of mankind and our sinfulness against Him.

And yet now He's stepping into human flesh and dwelling among us. And our, it's not that He came to us and then we went, oh my goodness, how bad we've been. Here God is with us now. No, what ends up happening, of course, as you know, the story is mankind goes even further to crucify the Son of God.

So it's not like the sinfulness stopped once God stepped into human flesh, into human flesh to dwell among us. The reason for His coming was that He would die for our sins. Die for the very creatures that blasphemed His name, die for the very creatures that were going to kill Him when He became a man and dwelt among us.

This is an incredibly significant event. There is not an event that is more significant than this event that God put on human flesh and dwelt among us. Are you beginning to understand the immensity of this event that God would come to be with His creation?

We often look back at things that we read about in the Bible and wonder what it would have been like to be there. Like what was it like to be in the garden of Eden, to actually see dinosaurs with our own eyes or see what those first fruits looked like?

Because the fruit that we buy now at the supermarket, I mean, this is cultivated fruit. It's been genetically modified or grown a certain way. Fruit that we have now isn't even what fruit looked like a thousand years ago.

So what did fruit look like in the garden of Eden, you know, 6 ,000 years ago, over 6 ,000 years ago? What would that have looked like? What would the garden have looked like? What did the animals look like?

Because now they've even bred to a certain state that they don't look like they did again, even a thousand years ago. So animals are different. Animals change. Genetically they change. They don't change into other animals, but a cow today doesn't look like a cow did 2 ,000 years ago.

So these animals change over time. What did the animals look like in the garden of Eden? What did Noah's Ark truly look like? Actually, no, the answer to this, and it wasn't a boat. I'm sorry. I still want to see the Ark encounter, but yeah, the Ark just it didn't look like a boat looked like a big barge.

It was like a giant barn. By the way, this is the one thing I think that that Noah movie got right a few years ago, the one that was starring Russell Crowe. Everything about that movie was terrible, except I believe the appearance of the Ark.

That's probably what it looked like anyway. So what did a global flood look like? What would living on the Ark have been like? Hey, God bless you if you think about that, if you actually want to know what that kind of living was like being on that Ark for a complete year.

What was it like for Abraham to see Sodom and Gomorrah smoldering after fire and brimstone rained down on the city like that? Would you have wanted to see something like that? What was it like for Moses to be on Mount Sinai and hear the voice of God come out of the burning bush?

What did the plagues in Egypt look like when all of these curses came down on this pagan people because Pharaoh was too hard hearted to let the children of God go? What did the promised land look like when they first went in and they said, we are like grasshoppers to these inhabitants of this land and they're bringing back clusters of grapes that are as big as a man?

What did that promise land look like? A land that was flowing with milk and honey? What did it look like when David faced Goliath? What did it look like when the temple was first built? That first temple that Solomon constructed, which was so beautiful and so glorious that when we read in the book of Ezra about the temple being reconstructed, the second temple period, it did not look as gorgeous as it did the first time.

And the people wept, those who remembered the original temple because it just didn't look the same. What did it look like when Elijah challenged the priests of Baal and he calls down fire from heaven that consumes the altar that Elijah had constructed?

What did it look like when chariots of fire separated Elijah from Elisha and then Elijah was carried up on a whirlwind? What did Jerusalem look like at the time of the birth of Christ? What was it like when the Magi came in and that star that was shining on a house in Bethlehem and that's how they knew where the Christ child had been born?

Or what was it like when the angels sang to shepherds, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men? What did it look like when Jesus performed the miracles that he performed? What was it like when he was led down the Via Dolorosa and crucified on Galgatha?

What would these things look like? What would they have looked like to us? We can think about those things in our imagination. We can view what other people have thought about in paintings or what they've made in movies and we can kind of try to figure out if what they think of was accurate or not.

We ponder these things and somewhere in our hubris, somewhere in our pride, we think that we know better than the Bible characters did. You know, hey, if I was in Peter's shoes, I would not have said to Jesus, hey, far be it from you, Lord, to do this thing, to go and be crucified.

I would never let something like that happen to you. Wasn't Peter listening? Didn't he hear Jesus just say, I'm going to be turned over to be crucified, but do not fear because I'm coming back. Did they just totally miss that?

So we think we would know better than the disciples and we wouldn't have done as stupid things as Peter did. But Peter himself said in 2 Peter chapter one that we have the word of God more fully confirmed.

We actually exist in a generation now that's better than what the disciples had and what the apostles went through 2000 years ago because we have the completed word of God. We have a printing press. We have Bibles and so many different translations and styles and forms.

And we have study Bibles that will even explain to us what it is that we're reading. We exist in a generation now that's better. We can see the more completed picture better than the disciples saw it.

You know, all of the disciples did not get to see what John saw when he wrote the book of Revelation. That was something that was given to him. There's maybe a guess or an idea that Paul got to see what John saw because he talks about these exceedingly great revelations that he saw in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

But he wasn't allowed to talk about it. John was the one who got the privilege of writing about what it was that he saw. But Paul couldn't talk about those things. So John wrote the Revelation. Paul maybe saw it but didn't get to write it.

But not all the apostles got to see what it was that John saw. And so we have the completed picture, God's full plan of redemption from Genesis to Revelation. Now, there are things that haven't happened yet.

So the Bible tells us what's about to happen, but we haven't seen those things transpire. Nonetheless, we've got the word of God more fully confirmed. And until that day when our faith shall be sight, we get to know and see more than the disciples got to see.

So the only reason we get so puffed up with pride to think that we would not have been as dumb as those Israelites would have been or as those disciples were when Jesus told them something, they just didn't understand what he was talking about.

The reason why we can be so full of ourselves in those situations is because we've got the Bible. We can read the story from beginning to end. You can read the last chapter before the last chapter has even happened yet.

That's that's the benefit that we have. So we think that it would be better for us to have been there and seen it. But the reality is it's actually better for us now in this age in which we live to be looking back on those things that were done and have the word of God more fully confirmed.

Jesus even said to his own disciples in the upper room, and we're going to get to this as we continue through John, but he said to his disciples, it's better for you that I leave you. That blows our minds because we're thinking, wouldn't it be better for the son of God to still be here that we could still have Jesus with us and we could ask him questions and fellowship with him and break bread and all these kinds of things?

And yet Jesus says to his disciples, it's better for you that I go away because I'll send the Holy Spirit to you who will dwell within you. When Jesus was on Earth, he could only be where his body was.

He couldn't be where everyone was at all all the time. He wasn't omnipresent when he was in the flesh. He was limited. He took on the limitations of humanity when God stepped into the creation that he made when he put on human flesh and dwelt among us.

He accepted the limitations of obeying the will of the father, and that meant that there were certain things that he could not do and certain things that he could not see while he was inhabiting this flesh.

Jesus Christ in the flesh was not omnipresent. He couldn't be all places at all times everywhere, but now that Jesus has ascended to the and is seated at his right hand and is interceding for us, we have a mediator between God and man.

That's Jesus Christ. That's one of the benefits that we have of Jesus Christ going back to be with his father. Not only do we have Jesus there, but now he is omnipresent and he is with all Christians everywhere, and he has sent his Holy Spirit to dwell within every believer's heart.

So that was not something that we could have had when Jesus was here in the flesh that we have now. I hope this is encouraging to you because as we think about Bible events and things like that, and we wonder, well, why didn't I get the privilege of being able to fellowship with Jesus like the disciples did?

What you have now is better than what they had because you have Jesus on the throne interceding for you and you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. And the promise that Jesus gave to his disciples at the very end of the book of Matthew is so true for you now.

And that is, I will be with you always to the very end of the age. Jesus could not have done that if he was still here in his body, but having gone back to the Father and given us the Holy Spirit, he is fulfilling that which he told his disciples he would fulfill.

Lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. There's nothing that is happening on earth to us, to any of his children that they are experiencing alone. Jesus is with his followers, his brothers and sisters, as he described everyone who obeys the will of the Father in the Gospels.

As Jesus even said to Paul when he appeared to Paul, also called Saul on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter nine, he said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Well, Jesus was in heaven. How could Saul possibly persecute Jesus?

It is because Jesus so closely associates himself with his own followers, his own disciples, that whatever is done to the least of these, as Jesus said in Matthew 25, you have done it also unto me. And so Jesus is with us.

And whatever happens to us as Christians, as believers in the name of Christ has happened to Christ. Jesus said that when the world hates you, remember that they hated me first. And we rejoice, as Peter wrote about and Paul wrote about, we rejoice to go through the sufferings that we go through while we're here on the earth, because we share in Christ's sufferings.

To know that we share in what Christ has gone through is cause for rejoicing for us. So therefore, we understand what James meant when he said in James chapter one, when he said, we need to count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

It is in this way we rejoice in our circumstances that we are being shaped more and more into the image of Christ, who for the joy of the Lord that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated right now at the right hand of the throne of God, as it says in Hebrews chapter 12.

Christ Did Not Cease to Be God

So we read in John 1, 14, that the word, our savior, Jesus Christ became flesh and dwelt among us. He put on flesh. He stepped off his throne in heaven and came to us in the flesh. Now, this doesn't mean that he was no longer God.

He was only man and no longer God. That's what Bethel Church teaches, by the way. That's exactly what Bill Johnson has taught. Todd White believes the same thing, that when Jesus was here on this earth, he wasn't God.

He was devoid of all Godhood and was completely and fully man and only man. And everything that he did was as a perfect human being to display for us that any of us can do exactly what Jesus did. He was the perfect human being and the perfect model for us to follow.

But that's simply not the case. Jesus was still God. He did not give up his Godhood. He became flesh and dwelt among us. There are indeed things that he accepted when he stepped into human flesh, for one being that I mentioned he was no longer omnipresent.

And there were even certain things that he put aside knowing for the sake of putting on human flesh and dwelling among us. But at no point in this did he ever cease to be God. And there are numerous examples of this, not only because Jesus claimed to be God, but also because of the miracles that he did.

You know, a guy like Bill Johnson or Todd White, they'll say that any of us are capable of these miracles because Jesus modeled perfect humanity and God meant for us to be able to do these miraculous things.

God can speak things into existence. We can speak things into existence. Of course, none of that is true. And they can't even verify all of that except for just fooling people into thinking that that's what they're actually doing.

But but Jesus miracles were to verify that he was who he said he was, that he came from where he said he came from, which was from his father in heaven. It was because he was very God and very man. Another example of his Godhood we see coming up a little bit later on in the Gospel of John, when Jesus was about to be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and they asked him if he was Jesus Christ.

And he said, I am. And just saying that everybody fell to the ground because Christ had proclaimed himself as the great I am. When Peter lopped off the servant of the high priest's ear and Jesus told him to put his sword away, he said, don't you know that I could call down ten thousand legion of angels?

You know, who are you, you puny man pulling out your little scabbard and cutting off the servant of the high priest's ear? How big a guy you are? I could call down ten thousand legions of angels. Now, Jesus couldn't do that if he was merely a man.

But he was very God and very man. And throughout that whole time that he was God in human flesh, he was obedient to the will of his father. He was still the son of God who had come to man to bridge that gap between man and God that had divided us because of our sin.

Perhaps the most well-known passage that speaks into this understanding is Philippians chapter two, starting in verse five, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Amen.

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.