John 1:14-18
THE WORD BECAME FLESH
John 1:14-18
(December 19, 2004, Sermon Notes)
Before the world was created, God’s Word lived with God and had fellowship with him. But God didn’t keep his Word to himself. He sent him into the world to be his perfect revelation so that we could know him.
THE GLORY OF JESUS (1:14-15)
John tells us (1:1) that God’s Word is God. We might have expected him to enter the world with a blaze of light or thunder from above Instead, he became flesh. He didn’t just look human. He didn’t take a human body for a while. He became as fully human as we are. And he always will be.
John says the Word “dwelt among us.” Literally, the Word “tabernacled” among us. In the Old Covenant, God camped with Israel in the tabernacle and later in the temple. Because of Israel’s sins, however, God withdrew, but he promised to put his sanctuary in Israel’s midst permanently (Ezek. 37:26-27). Jesus is that tabernacle, the sanctuary, the place you meet God. He is God’s Word, who is God himself, tabernacling with us.
Jesus’ flesh didn’t hide God’s glory. John says that he and the other disciples saw the glory of God’s only begotten son. John the Witness pointed to Jesus and proclaimed his greatness (1:15). From then on, John followed Jesus. He saw his glory first at the wedding in Cana when Jesus turned the water of Old Covenant purification into the wine of New Covenant celebration. He saw it when Jesus healed people and raised Lazarus from the dead. And he saw Jesus’ glory above all at the cross (12:23).
Jesus’ glory is the glory of God’s son, “full of grace and truth.” Those words show up often in the Old Testament. They’re part of Yahweh’s name revealed to Moses (Ex. 34:6: “goodness and truth” in NKJV). God’s “grace” is his goodness to those who don’t deserve it. His “truth” is his faithfulness, his loyalty to his promises and his people. Jesus reveals the glory of God by embodying God’s grace and truth.
THE GIFT FROM JESUS (1:16-18)
Jesus is “full of grace and truth” and that fulness flows into our lives so that all who believe receive a share of it “and grace for grace” — that is, “grace instead of grace.”
The Old Covenant was God’s grace: it was grounded on grace, flavoured by grace. But the law couldn’t take away sin or bring people through death into glorified life. In Jesus, however, we have received a greater grace in its place. “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17).
“No one has seen God at any time,” John says (1:18). So how can we know God? We know him by his Word, and above all by his Word made flesh. Jesus has seen God. He is the son who is always “in the bosom of the Father,” the Father’s closest friend, and he reveals God perfectly. When you know him you know God and have fellowship with him.