A Word in Season: The God-man (John 1:14)

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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.

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So wrote the apostle John in his gospel chapter 1 and verse 14.

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And with that language the word became flesh. John plunges us into the the depths of the divine purpose and working in the coming of Christ for salvation.

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There's a real simplicity and a real clarity and a real profundity in words of real brevity.

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It's only four words in English, only four words in the original Greek. The word, the eternal

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God who was with God and yet can be distinguished from God, the true son, the only begotten of the father, this one who's full of grace and truth.

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It is he of whom John speaks. And he became something.

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Now John's language is careful. He didn't adopt the appearance of something. He didn't change into something.

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He didn't mix up with something. He didn't become a part of something else. He became something.

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He took to himself humanity. He added flesh to his divinity.

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He who was and is and remains God also became man.

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There's a bluntness there. There's an earthiness. There's a concreteness to that statement.

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Would have been perhaps shocking to some of those to whom and against whom John was writing that the eternal word, the logos, the one who is spirit in the truest and fullest sense with all that that's assumed to mean about purity and dignity, that he should become flesh, that the the meat of our humanity should be his as well.

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And that simplicity then, that clarity, that directness of speech brings us face to face with this mystery, this thing that God has done and God has made known.

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You can't really summarize what John has said. You can only expand it and develop it.

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Whereas Matthew and Luke give us the human drama, Mark plunges into the

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God -man's activity, John draws back the veil and tells us what is taking place with, if you will, a divine perspective.

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The word is becoming flesh. But though that is simple on one level, though it's certainly clear, it is not shallow and it's not always easy for us to comprehend, because we're talking here about God becoming man, the maker taking to himself something that has been made, the creature assuming creatureliness.

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And in that there is a world of and a world of awe that these things should be brought about for the glory of God and for the salvation of man.

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And in that reality there's a great blessing for us, because this truth that God became man, that the word became flesh, that Jesus of Nazareth is the

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God -man, those two distinct natures in one person forever, means that as mediator he is suited to stand between God and mankind, that his righteousness that he provides for us is a

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God -righteousness, that the substitution which he undertakes means that he really can stand in our place because he is one of us, that the atonement that he therefore provides is absolute, it's entire, it's complete, it's all that we need, it is sufficient for us because he is both

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God and man, that the resurrection is the pattern for us, that what he now enjoys as the risen

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Jesus is what we too shall enjoy if we are raised together with him, that his sympathy for us is complete and entire, that he does know what it is like to walk this world as a human being, sin accepted, but subjected to all the pressures and sorrows and griefs that you or I might face.

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And then the example, that because he is truly man we can be told to live as he lived, to walk as he walked, that we can embrace that exhortation and that expectation that we shall be conformed to the image of God's son.

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And so here you have our Redeemer, God's promised Messiah, the word become flesh,