#128 – The Incarnation of God in Christ

THE INCARNATION OF GOD IN CHRIST

John 1:14 “And the Word was made 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.”

I have mentioned the incarnation in a meditation before. But this verse must focus entirely on that subject. John dips deep into the mysteries of God and comes up with the astounding truth of God becoming a Man. Without this truth we do not have a Saviour in Christ. It took the incarnation to qualify him for the life he lived, i.e., a life of absolute sinlessness. He lived the life he lived to qualify him for the death he died, i.e., a substitutionary death. He died the death he died to give me the gift of grace, i.e., eternal life. His good example cannot save us. That would be the equivalent of keeping the law. If I can’t keep the law in written form, I can’t follow his perfect example. You see I am not perfect and no matter how hard I try, I can’t reach that standard of righteousness. So, my only hope is to have a Saviour who would pay the debt I owe and give to me the righteousness that I can offer to God as the holiness I need, if I am ever to see God. This is the gospel. Jesus died to pay for my sins and give me his perfect righteousness (Rom. +5:17). That is a good trade and that is the gift of grace.

There are four things that stand out in this verse. First, the Word made flesh. John says, “And the Word was made flesh.” The Word is capitalized in our KJV and rightfully so. It is the same Word (Logos) that is in verse one. This Word that was in the beginning, that was with God and was God is now made flesh. The word “made” (ginomai) means “became” and is an aorist tense, middle voice and indicative mood. The aorist tense means that he became flesh at a point of time. This is the Christmas story. It was in a stable because there was no room in the Inn. Jesus was the eternal Logos, uncreated, eternal, coexistent and coeternal with the Father. But he became something when he “became” flesh that he had never been before, i.e., a Man. It is middle voice. The middle voice is where the subject acts in its own behalf and participates in the result of the action. Jesus, the God man, wholly God and wholly man, has united man with himself so that Man is now the image of the invisible God. Hebrews 1:3 says of Jesus, “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”

God made man in his image. Genesis +1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” And later when God made a law concerning murder he says in Genesis 9:6, “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” The image of God is marred in man through sin as recorded in Genesis chapter three. But it is restored completely in the person of Christ. The image could never be restored through obedience. If this could have been done then the Law of Moses would have been the answer. The only solution for sinful man is for God to become a man and do as man what man was created to do, i.e., be perfect in his relationship to God. But this is not all. He did not become God incarnate just so there would be one man that would be as God created man to be, i.e., the perfect image of the invisible God. But he did this so that man as a sinner could be reconciled and restored and he could lead a host of the redeemed into the presence of God, all with the restored image of the invisible God. 2 Cor. +5:19 says, “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” There you have it. The purpose of the incarnation is the reconciling of the world. John says, “The word was made flesh.”