The Word Became Flesh - John 1:1-18

God revealed Himself to us through His Son Jesus, who became human, so we could become His children.

Lets begin…with The Prologue…  The first 18 verses of this book is considered the prologue.  A prologue gives us a glimpse of what is to come in this story.  It sets the tone, the pace, the theme, the purpose of the story and John does a masterful and beautiful job in his extraordinary story, and this is certainly evident in this prologue that has been foundational to the classic Christian formation of the doctrines of Christ.  Here divinity and humanity, preexistence and incarnation, revelation and redemption are discussed with deceptive simplicity.  

This prologue is divided up into four contrasting stanza’s – like verses of a song, smaller sections that make up the whole and help tell the overall message. 

John 1:1-5  -  the first stanza

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

From the beginning of this book John starts out telling us that Jesus was far from anyone else we could know

This passage looks conspicuously like the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1 – “In the beginning God created…”  Genesis begins with the creation that God spoke into existence, by the power of his word. 

The greek word for ‘Beginning’  here carries the meaning of ‘origin’ and the Word is identified as the ‘originator’ and existed before the beginning of all things. 

Unlike the other gospels, John does not have an account of Jesus’ nativity, the story of when the life of Jesus began in human terms.  Since Mark begins his gospel with “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ” It is possible that John is alluding to his colleagues and saying in effect, ‘Mark has told you about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry; I want to show you that the starting point of the gospel can be traced further back than that, it goes before the beginning of the entire universe.”  That God had a plan to reveal himself to his creation.

The word – Logos – a very interesting way to introduce someone – and John begins to introduce Jesus as the Word. Our same author wrote the book of Revelation, sometime before his gospel account while he was in exhile on the island of Patmos

In Revelation 19, when Jesus returns, John also acknowledges Jesus

 Rev 19:13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.

Throughout the centuries, scholars have written much about this word ‘logos’ as describing Jesus

John is making it clear that the Word has a divine nature and that it is a shared nature.  ‘the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

These first two verses are some of the crucial texts of the doctrine of the Trinity.  John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse.  The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God; if this is not true, then the entire book is blasphemous. 

There is power in words, words create energy and take on life.  You can say something that can change life – I love you, I hate you, I quit, - those few words can have significant power and impact.  Words cause people to do things.  Wars are started over words, peace is created by words and millions of human lives can be affected by those words.  Words are an inexhaustible energy source, and some people seem to never stop talking.

Jesus is identified – personified – as The Word – the divine Word – the God Word – and it says He was ‘with God…was God…with God’  He was present with God, a long side therefore had to be independent in His person, and at the same time he was divine Himself and yet he is distinct in His relationship as God.  Jesus was 100% God and it says…

3 Through him all things were made; without  him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Jesus was responsible for the creation of the world.  Not only that, but life is in him – He is an eternal, divine life source – I am not saying here that the life in him is divine but that he is the divine source of life that he gives life to humanity. 

Because we are alive does not make us God or divine – as some new age people would like to espouse.  But Jesus is divine and he is the source of life. 

John now introduces this concept of light / darkness – a theme we will return to throughout this gospel. 

The light of life shines in the darkness – darkness was already there, darkness existed before creation and God brings his light into the darkness.  There is a struggle between light and darkness.  The opposition to Jesus will be significant; the world that the Logos enters and God loves is a place of remarkable unbelief.  Those opposed to Him will try to defeat this Word.  But they will fail.

We come to the second Stanza -

6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

This John in v6,  is not the author but a different man – John the Baptist.  This man was a witness and the author uses a legal description – as one who testifies – as being on trial to discover what is true in a hearing. 

In this prologue, John the Baptist shows up to begin to bear witness to the fact that Jesus is different and distinct from himself.  The Baptist is not the light, but the witness to the light – that Jesus is coming to do something that no one else could ever do.  Jesus, this light is unique and distinct from anything else and he was going to challenge humanity regarding what they believed, and also invite all of humanity to place their trust in him – alone.

One of the great difficulties of Christianity is the issue of WHO Jesus is.  Some would want to say he was just a good man that God used, a prophet, a teacher, but not divine, not God.  Others would say no he was not really a man, but an apparition of God, a spirit that appeared as a man, an idea or ideal of God and goodness, a source of knowledge but not really human.   From these two false ideas about the identity of Jesus, most heresies have sprung up.  And John is going to address the issue of WHO Jesus is – throughout the gospel we see over and over people challenging Jesus on just who he says he is and only in the gospel of John do we find Jesus identifying himself by saying “I am…”

Our author – John continues with our third stanza – he returns to his description of Jesus…

10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus – the Word – the divine – the Light – the source of Life –.  The light of God enters into the darkness of the Kosmos, the world.  The eternal enters into time and space.  The word kosmos – world – is going to appear 78 times in the 21 chapters of this book  some of the times it is going to appear positive, 3:16 “God so loved the kosmos”;  other times it is neutral 8:26 “what I have heard from Him [God] I tell the world”; but for the most part the reference to kosmos is negative.  Kosmos is not the created order of things, or the natural environment, but it is the sphere of creation that lives in rebellion

John 7:7 “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.”

When someone creates something it belongs to that person.  Write a book, or record a song and it is yours, and you should receive the royalties from it.  Paint a painting and it is yours, you own a Picasso, it will always be his work even though you paid a large sum of money for it to hang in your living room. 

Jesus came to his creation but his creation claimed they did not belong to him.  We live in a rebellious world.  Those who receive him, place their trust in him, give their lives to live as he made them to be and designed life to be lived, He gives these people the “right to become children of God” 

There is a lie in our world today that all people are God’s children.  Is that what this passage says?  Jesus comes to redeem his creation and restore their right to be a Child of God. 

This would mean the right has been forfeited, the privilege severed and unless it is restored humanity will eternally be orphaned.  Orphans are vulnerable, often treated with little dignity, struggle with their own identity.  And Jesus comes to restore us to our rightful place that He created us to be as a child of God.

Then we get perhaps the most important verse in the entire Bible…

 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word did not appear to be human – but became flesh.  This statement would have stunned a Greek audience, that a divine spirit would take on the mundane, weak, flesh of humanity.  To the Greeks the gods were powerful and distant and only interacted with annoying humans as little as possible and would demand some sacrifice from them.

The next statement was equally stunning to the Jewish audience, the Word dwelt among us and revealed his glory.  The word ‘dwelt’ carried the connotation of the tabernacle of God.  In other words – Jesus is the ‘place’ of God’s dwelling with Israel as He dwelt with them in the desert and the glory of God that once was restricted to the tabernacle or temple is now visible in Christ – a man.

Then we come to the final stanza of our prologue…

15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

The author flips back to John the Baptist and his witness and reinforces the eternal reality of Jesus…John was born several months before Jesus was born, you can read the account in the synoptic.  John comes on the scene as a prophet before Jesus arrives, but the Baptist wants to make it clear that he is in no way superior to Jesus.    His eternal pre-existence surpasses John in every way.  John was a man, but Jesus was not like him.  John came to testify to the truth, but Jesus came delivering truth. 

John, our author, pens an extraordinary prologue to his gospel of Jesus to tell us and show us that Jesus is unlike anyone you and I have never encountered before. Jesus was both divinely God and humanly flesh at the same time in time and space.   In the structure of his stanzas John shows us that divinity and flesh merge together in the person of Jesus Christ and this Jesus came to earth for the purpose of restoring our relationship with God by becoming His children. 

Jesus is not only God who is distant, disconnected, diety who makes demands upon us

Nor is Jesus like you and I, independent, self-sufficient, self-determined individuals who try to satisfy God based on our good efforts.

We are not his equal. And Yet he becomes like us to bridge the distance between ourselves and God his father.  It is not the geographical distance but the spiritual distance – the realm where real energy and powers exist eternally. 

Jesus – who existed eternally in spirit, who by his power created every physical thing you know to exist and every spiritual thing that has life; this Jesus took up human flesh and lived as a man, a man like no other – who was full of grace and truth, the complete embodiment of love, that he would sacrifice himself to bridge the spiritual chasm that we – you and I – might become the children of God. 

We become God’s  children by believing in Jesus.  Not merely the intellectual understanding but the taking hold of your will and ‘standing’ behind his NAME.  I am placing my trust for my life into his name and that changes everything for me and every person who does the same.  When we place our lives in his hands we, scripture tells us, receive one blessing after another, we live a blessed life, I am not talking materially but spiritually, where we live lives of grace and truth, and we have the ability to know God, truly for who he is.  We also are finally able to know who we are and we can begin to know how we are to live lives that are truly alive.

This is what he invites us to experience