The Eternal Word Becomes Flesh
THE WORD: BECOME FLESH
John 1:14
Rev. Todd G. Leupold Perth Bible Church Sunday, 12/23/07 AM
INTRODUCTION:
Video Clip: “God Grew Tired Of Us” (Wing Clips)
Perhaps, the more real question is: Have we grown tired of God? Even, especially, during this Christmas season? To what degree, TODAY, is the incarnation of Christ for us simply a good feeling, cause to be nice and generous to others, jolly songs, family bonding? Or, to what degree, is His presence and its implications REAL to you today?!
SCRIPTURE: John 1:14
In the past few weeks, we have already established that The Word is eternally existent, The Word is God, and The Word is Light and Life for all who believe. This morning, the last Sunday before Christmas Day, we will spend some time focusing on the significance that this same Word voluntarily and purposefully came to us in the flesh and ’as one of us.’
God Became One of Us . . . That We May Transform Into His Likeness!
The Word . . . as already discussed, refers to God, refers specifically to the Son, Jesus.
Became . . . This verb is significant. As explained in the Wycliffe Dictionary of Theology: “. . . whereas the earlier verses had spoken of the continued state and activity of the Word, a completely new and different state and activity is now posited. The Word was God; the Word now becomes what he was not – flesh. Yet, he became this without ceasing to be what he eternally was – God. Moreover, egneto expresses the activity of the Word; not ’was made’ as in the AV, but ’became’ . . . “ (p. 283)
Flesh . . . “sarx,” meaning the actual physical substance comprising a body, created life on earth.
I. GOD BECAME ONE OF US
A. Why?
WHY would God bother? WHY not just continue to guide and rule as Spirit and from
Heaven?
1.With God, Words are not enough
- Even from the beginning this has been true! We have already learned how the Word created and sustains all things. By the Word all things have been created and given their identity and purpose. Yet, God never stopped there. Before sin entered the world, Scripture tells us that God walked with Adam in the garden. After Sin corrupted the nature of all people and the world itself, God has continually appeared before His people in various ways and emanations – even dwelling amongst them in Spirit for a time.
- Simply creating and setting things in motion has never been enough for the Almighty! His desire has always been to have an intimate involvement and even relationship with His creation.
- Yet, never “face-to-face.” Never “like-to-like.” Never as anything other than as spirit and something “out-of-this-world.” That is, never until the incarnation of Jesus!
2.It was necessary for our salvation.
- Rom. 3:23; 6:23
- We all have sinned. The only way any can atone for any of our own sins is through
human death. But, if we die for a sin, that’s the end. Also, we have all sinned multiple
times but can only die once.
- Therefore, the ONLY possible way of salvation is for one who is a perfect man and
whose life is truly of infinite and eternal value to pay the price on behalf of all and apply
to those who seek it. There is, never has been, and never will be a human being who is
either perfect or infinite and eternal. Only God is those things. Thus, the ONLY means
for any to be saved from the price of sin (death) is for the Almighty God to become one
of us without losing any of Himself and then making the sacrifice on our behalf.
B. But, Why As A Baby Through Gestation & Natural Birth To a Virgin?
The late theologian, Lewis Sperry Chafer, explained it this way:
“. . . it was both natural and reasonable that Christ should enter that estate by the way of birth and pursue the normal process of development through childhood to manhood. Any other approach to this estate would not only be unnatural, but would have left Him open to grave suspicion that His manner of existence was foreign to the human family (Vol. I, pg. 355) . . . By such a procedure no question may be raised about the genuineness of His humanity or the permanency of it. It is true that, because of His unchangeable Deity, He could not be born of a human father. Had He been born of a human father and mother there would have been nothing to identify His humanity as the rightful property of His Deity. On the other hand, had He appeared with no relation to human parentage, there would have been no legitimate basis for the fact of His humanity. The divinely wrought arrangement by which He is generated of the Holy Spirit and born of a woman is the perfect solution of the problem.” (Vol. 5, pg. 47-48).
C. What Does It Really Mean or Matter That God Became One of Us?
1.He Has Walked With Us & In Our Shoes.
- Dan Schaeffer, in his book In Search Of . . . The Real Spirit of Christmas writes:
“. . . the God who came in the form of a babe came so that He could be closer to me – to you! He came to remove the barriers between Him and us. He wants to be with us! Whatever humiliation He might have to endure, whatever rejection He might receive, whatever pain He would have to bear would not be too much of a price to pay to be with us forever” (pg. 40).
2.There Is “Another World”
- Surely One such as He could not be produced from this world!
- There is hope, more than meets the eye, more than the limits and frailties of this world!
3.We Can Know the Heart of God
- John 1:18
literally, “from the bosom of the Father”
J. Vernon McGee remarks: “He (Jesus) did not come from the head of God to reveal the wisdom of God; He did not come from the foot of God to be a servant of man . . . He was God’s servant – He came to serve Him, and as He served the Father, He served men. He did not come from the feet; He did not come from the head; it was from the bosom of the Father that He came. He came to reveal the heart of God” (Vol. IV. pg. 370).
4.We Can Personally & Intimately Know the Father
- John 14:9-11
5.Almighty God IS Accessible to ALL
6.From The Beginning He Had A Plan & Fulfillment For Our Salvation
(from the problem of sin & evil).
7.Good News of Great Joy: Our Salvation Is “At Hand”
Paul Harvey, some years ago, penned a parable that describes this:
“This is about a modern man, one of us, he was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others. But he did not believe in all that incarnation stuff that the Churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense to him and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just could not swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as man. I’m truly sorry to distress you, he told his wife, but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve. He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he would much rather stay home, but that he would wait up for them. He stayed, they went. Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall.
He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another and another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. Well, when he went to the front door, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter they had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze. He remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter -- if he could direct the birds to it. He quickly put on his coat and galoshes, trampled through the deepening snow to the barn, opened the door wide, and turned on a light. But the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in and he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow making a trail to the yellow lighted wide open doorway of the stable, but to his dismay the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them, he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms -- instead they scattered in every direction except into the warm lighted barn.
Then he realized they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature, if only I could think of some way to let them know they can trust me. That I’m not trying to hurt them, but to help them. How? Any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. If only I could be a bird myself he thought. If only I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language, and tell them not to be afraid, and show them the way to the safe, warm barn. But I’d have to be one of them, so they could see and hear and understand.
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind. He stood there listening to the bells. Adeste Fideles (All Ye Faithful). Listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.”
God Became One of Us . . .
II. THAT WE MAY TRANSFORM INTO HIS LIKENESS
2 Co. 3:17-18
Col. 3:10
Phil. 2:1, 5-7
Even beyond salvation, Jesus has offered us the incredible gift of the opportunity to grow and live in His image! To show through our lives, actions, and attitudes who Jesus is to all those we may come into contact with! This, my friends is the real gift of celebration of Christmas!!!
The Work of Christmas
by Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.
BENEDICTION:
May the God who has been born again as man assist us in this birth, continually helping us, weak men, to be born again in Him as God. Amen.
(Meister Eckhart from Whom God Hid Nothing)
