[Play trailer from “Vantage Point”]
That movie, “Vantage Point” was one of my favorite movies from recent years. As you could see from the trailer, it is a movie that is focused on one event from eight different perspectives. And it is only once you see all eight perspectives that you can piece together the one truth about what has occurred.
In a sense that is what John has been doing with the opening words of his gospel. He has been painting a picture of the “logos” from several different vantage points. And then once we’ve seen the incarnation of the “logos” from all these different perspectives, he concludes by revealing the one main truth that he wants his readers to understand. Let’s read our passage out loud together one last time and then see if we can’t identify that one truth which changed the course of mankind forever.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…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.
John 1:1-5, 14 (NIV)
So far, we’ve seen the “logos” from six different vantage points:
• We saw that He is eternal, with no beginning or end
• We saw that He is a unique person, which means that we can have a relationship with Him
• We saw that He is fully God, possessing all the attributes of God
• We saw that He is the Creator and that His creative process still continues
• We saw that he is the source of all life, both physical and spiritual
• We saw that he is the complete revelation of God
All six of those vantage points lead us to the one truth that John reveals very clearly to us when we get to verse 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.
In this passage, John describes the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus Christ, an event that we refer to as the “incarnation”.
Many people claim that this is the greatest verse in the entire Bible, and while all Scripture is of great value, frankly I’d have a hard time arguing with that assertion. Just think about it. Infinity became finite. Eternity got squeezed into time. Invisible became invisible. The supernatural allowed Himself to be confined to the natural. Can you think of anything more amazing or more significant?
This week, as I was preparing for this message, I came across a couple of guidelines for determining how long a sermon should be:
The definition of a good sermon: It should have a good beginning. It should have a good ending. And they should be as close together as possible.
How long should a good sermon be? It should be like a woman’s skirt, long enough to cover the essentials and short enough to keep you interested!
Let me be real honest with you right up front this morning. The incarnation of the “logos” is such a crucial and important concept that there is just no way that I could shorten the message any more than what I’ve done. We’ll move through this just as quickly as I can this morning, and I’ll do my best to keep you interested and to keep the beginning and ending as close together as I can, but I need to ask you to do me a favor and stay with me. I don’t ask this for my sake, but for yours. And I promise that if you’ll do that, God will give you a whole different outlook and renew your sense of awe and wonder during this Christmas season.
So let’s take a look at this marvelous and wonderful event – the incarnation of the “logos”.
The “logos” incarnate
1. The “logos” became fully man without giving up His deity.
The Word became flesh…
John is very careful in the way he describes the process of the “logos” becoming flesh. This is a case where the NIV and most other contemporary translations are very accurate when they use the word “became”. Unfortunately many of us are more familiar with the KJV translation which renders that same word “was made”, which implies that the “logos” was created, in which case He would not be fully God.
In his letter to the Philippian church, Paul provides us with a much more detailed account of the process by which the “logos” became flesh:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV)
This is such a critical passage and an important principle that we need to spend a good deal of our time this morning making sure that we understand it the very best that we can. Frankly that’s quite a daunting task, but if we tackle one phrase at a time, I think that I can help all of us to get a pretty firm grasp on this crucial teaching.
There is rather widespread speculation that this section of Philippians may very well be a portion of an early Christian hymn. I actually did some very detailed research on that possibility for a paper while I was in seminary. The bottom line is that we can’t really know for sure since we don’t have any documents from that period of time that contain these words. In fact, the early church didn’t have hymn books or PowerPoint slides or even printed music of any kind. Most of the singing in the early church was probably rather spontaneous. However, we also know that they did use music to communicate doctrine since the New Testament hadn’t been written yet and the common people didn’t have access to the Old Testament in written form. So it is possible that Paul either knew of such a song or even that these words that he wrote actually became the basis for such a hymn.
In any case, Paul is communicating some very important doctrine in this passage. If we look at the larger context of this passage we find that He is using the example of the “logos” becoming flesh to teach the Christians in Philippi how they were to treat each other. In doing so, he also gives us some much needed insight into the process by which the “logos” became flesh. So let’s look at that portion of this passage in greater detail:
• Jesus is, and continues to be, by His nature God
Who, being in very nature God…
The first thing we see here is that the verb ‘being” is in the present tense. And the verb that Paul uses is not the ordinary verb “to be”, but a much stronger word that refers to a condition in the past which continues into the present.
That makes it clear to Paul’s readers that Jesus has always been God, He is God at that point in time and that He will continue to be God. And that is true because the very nature of Jesus is to be God.
The word translated “very nature” is rendered “form” in some other translations. In Greek there are actually two words for “form”. The other word is the word that is translated “appearance” in verse 8. But the one Paul uses here is a word that describes the essential nature of something that never changes.
Kenneth Wuest very accurately and completely translates this phrase as follows:
Who has always been and at present continues to subsist in that mode of being in which He gives outward expression of His essential nature, that of Deity…
This is a critical concept that we’ll touch on again in a moment. But for now, it is clear that when the “logos” became flesh, He did not give up His deity. He was God, he is God and He will always be God.
• Jesus did not surrender His deity
…did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing…
Because of time limitations I’m going to skip over the first part of this portion of the passage and focus on the last phrase - but made himself nothing.
This is one case where the NIV translation is very accurate. Some other translations render this same phrase “he emptied himself”, which has led to a doctrine that is known by its technical name of “kenosis”, which is derived from the Greek word used here. Unfortunately, that theology or doctrine results from not translating this word accurately based on its context. And while that may not seem like a significant issue, it has led to much confusion about what this phrase means.
Perhaps you’ve heard even some very godly men preach or teach on this passage and use phrases like “Jesus emptied Himself of His divinity” or “He emptied Himself of His deity” or “Jesus gave up His divine attributes”. I’ve even heard and read some who claim that while He was here on earth Jesus was not omnipotent or omniscient or omnipresent.
But since, as we’ve already clearly established, Jesus continued to be fully God in His incarnation, then, by definition, He must still possess all the attributes of God. That is certainly the case that John has been making all throughout the first chapter of his gospel as he has been describing the attributes of the “logos” that prove He is fully God.
In order to understand what Paul is writing here we need to remember the larger context of this passage. The main point here is Paul’s exhortation to humility. In making that point, Paul does not appeal to his readers to be like God. Instead, Paul appeals for them to be like the perfect man, Jesus, who in His humanity chose the role of servant rather than the sovereign king who He was.
In fact, there is only one brief statement about the deity of Jesus in this entire passage and the rest refers to Him as man. And the concept of Jesus making Himself nothing is contained within the section that describes Him as man. So the context clearly indicates that it was only as man that Jesus “emptied Himself”, or even more accurately “made Himself nothing.”
• Jesus was fully human
…taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!
Again, Paul uses the phrase “very nature” to describe the humanity of Jesus. As we’ve already seen, that word describes the essential nature of something that never changes. Both Paul and John are addressing a group called the Docetists who taught that all matter was evil and that therefore Jesus could not really be a man. They claimed that He only appeared to be a man and that He didn’t have a physical body. But the gospel of John and Paul’s letter to the Philippians both clearly refute that. Jesus took on the very nature of a human and therefore has a physical body.
The concept that Jesus could be fully man yet still remain fully God at the same time is one of those principles that is clearly taught in the Scriptures but is hard for us to understand with our limited human minds. Although it certainly falls short of explaining how Jesus could remain fully God when he became fully man, many of us experience something similar, but on a far more limited scale in our own lives.
When I was born I became an individual person. Then when I got married, I also became a husband, but I didn’t cease to be an individual. Several years later, I became a father, but I continued to also be a husband and an individual. And when next April I become a grandfather, I will not cease to be a father, husband or individual.
Let me wrap up this thought with the words of a couple of other people who express this truth much more eloquently than I am capable of:
Augustine:
"How did He ’empty Himself? By taking that which He was not, not by losing that which He was."
J.I. Packer:
He was not now God minus some elements of his deity, but God plus all that he had made his own by taking manhood to himself.
In other words, when Jesus became man, He did not lose or give up His deity, He merely added his humanity to it. He did not become less, He became more.
2. Since we could not enter His world, the “logos” entered ours
…and made his dwelling among us…
When we are born into this natural world, most of us eventually grow up and recognize that there is more out there than just what meets the eye. There is also a supernatural world where God exists. And because God created us with a longing to find and know Him, most of us begin to try to figure out how we can poke a little hole in this box we live in so that we can crawl outside the box and find God.
We see this occurring all throughout Scripture. Adam and Eve ate the prohibited fruit because they thought it would help them escape the box and find God. At Babel, the people thought they could build a tower that was high enough that they could escape the box and find God. Even the religious leaders thought that they could get outside the box and find God by meticulously keeping a set of rules and engaging in certain rituals.
Even in our day, we find people trying to escape the box and find God in all kinds of ways. “Just read this book or publication and follow what it teaches and you’ll escape the box,” we’re told. Or sit cross-legged and chant some magical words and you’ll escape the box. Or we can escape the box by going to some place with magical properties or even, as I experienced in one place I worked, by hanging a crystal over the toilet to keep the good energy from escaping when the toilet was flushed.
Alternatively we’ve been told that we’re not in a box at all because the box that contains God is really inside of us and all we have to do is look inside. Or increasingly, we’re told that the box is all there is and that there is really no God so therefore we don’t need to try to find Him at all.
But eventually all those attempts to get outside the box and find God fail. So instead God entered into our world. The “logos” came to this earth and dwelled among those who He has created. The phrase “made his dwelling” literally means that he pitched his tent here on earth. It is the verb form of the word that is used for the Tabernacle in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament, the Tabernacle, and later the Temple was the place where God “pitched His tent” among His people. Although God is omnipresent and His presence certainly wasn’t limited to the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle was the physical representation of His presence as well as a picture of what Jesus would do thousands of years later when He literally came to tabernacle with us. It is also a picture of the permanent state of existence for those who are followers of Jesus as described by John in the book of Revelation.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them
Revelation 21:3 (NASB)
Unfortunately, I think that we often lose our sense of awe and wonder over the fact that when we were totally incapable of entering into God’s world, the “logos” became flesh and entered into ours.
3. The “logos” incarnate is the perfect balance of grace and truth
We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Because of our limited time, we will only focus on the last part of this sentence, but let me quickly deal with the first part.
We’ve already seen in Philippians 2, that when he put on His humanity, Jesus willingly limited the demonstration of His glory while He was here on earth. So it may very well be that when John writes that “we have seen his glory”, he is referring here to an event that he personally experienced in which Jesus’ glory was made manifest – the Transfiguration. It is also possible that He is referring to the miracles of Jesus in which His glory was revealed, at least to some extent.
I also want to look briefly at the phrase “the One and Only” or as it is translated elsewhere “the only begotten”. Once again, I really like the NIV translation here. Unfortunately in our culture, the word “begotten” is associated with physical birth and therefore this passage has been used by some to claim that Jesus is merely the result of a physical union between God and a human being and therefore He is not God. But the word that is used here literally means “unique” or “one of a kind”. It indicates that His relation to the Father is unique since only He and the Father are one.
But the key idea that I want us to focus on here is the perfect balance of grace and truth that exists in the “logos” incarnate. As humans we often have a hard time balancing those two concepts. If we stress grace, then we are prone to discount the importance of true repentance and of living godly lives. On the other hand, if we swing too far to the truth side, we can become judgmental, harsh and unloving.
But both grace and truth are required for salvation. Let’s look at a familiar passage where we can clearly see that:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…
Ephesians 2:8 (NIV)
The grace is apparent here – it is by grace that we have been saved. But there is also truth here. Isn’t that what faith is - believing in and trusting in the truth? The essence of salvation is that we are saved by grace when we believe and trust in the truth. And the only way we could have possibly known that is through the incarnation of the “logos”. In his life here on earth, Jesus demonstrated this perfect balance of grace and truth as He lived out His life.
One of the best illustrations of that balance occurs in John 8 when the religious leaders brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus. And those religious leaders wanted to focus only on the truth. According to the Law of Moses she was to be stoned to death for her sin. But actually they were only focusing on the part of the truth that they wanted to enforce. First of all, they failed to bring the man who was involved, who was also to be put to death according to the Law of Moses. But even more importantly, they failed to recognize the truth of the sin in their own lives.
But Jesus who is truth, very wisely pointed out to them the truth about their own sin when He said, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. And when they all went away, one by one, Jesus turned to the women and demonstrated the perfect balance of grace and truth in His words to her:
Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
John 8:10, 11 (NIV)
Jesus demonstrated grace by not condemning the woman for her sin. But He balanced that with the truth that she was no longer to continue that sinful lifestyle.
There is so much more that we could glean from this passage, but I want to make sure that we take a few minutes to make this really practical for us. Once again there are almost unlimited implications of the incarnation, but let’s just focus on two of the most important.
THE “LOGOS” INCARNATE - IMPLICATIONS FOR US
1. Understanding the incarnation is the key that unlocks the gospel
Let me take you back to the words of J.I. Packer from his book Knowing God that I shared with you as we began this series seven weeks ago:
It is from disbelief, or at least inadequate belief, about the Incarnation that difficulties at other points in the gospel story usually spring. But once the Incarnation is grasped as a reality, these other difficulties dissolve.
After spending seven weeks marveling at the incarnation of the “logos” I am even more convinced of the truth and wisdom of those words. If we can really grasp the significance of the incarnation and view it with awe and wonder, then we won’t have any problem believing that Jesus died on a cross for our sins or that He came back to life to prove His victory over death. And we won’t have a problem trusting in Him alone, the one who is full of grace and truth, as the means of our salvation.
When I first decided to preach on this passage nearly a year ago, and even when I started seven weeks ago, I certainly did not sense how God was going to use this time as a means of so clearly presenting the gospel. But if you’ve been here for even a few of these messages, then I am confident that God has very clearly revealed to you His plan for providing you with the ability to have a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus, the “logos” incarnate. And now that you’ve been exposed to that information, God is calling you to respond.
In the Book of Hebrews, we find this same warning three different times:
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…
Over the past seven weeks, some of you have heard God’s voice through these messages on the “logos”. And my prayer for you today is that you won’t harden your heart, but that instead you’ll commit your life to Jesus Christ, the “logos” incarnate.
In just a moment we’re going to give you a chance to respond to God. In your bulletin insert, I’ve included a sample prayer of what you might pray to God during that time if you want to commit your life to Jesus. This is just a guide, so feel free to use your own words as you pray. And then, if you pray that prayer today, please let us know about it so that we can rejoice with the angels in heaven over that decision and help you grow in your walk with God. There is a section on the flap on your bulletin that you can complete and either place in the offering plate or hand to Pastor Dana or I after the service.
But if you’re one of the many people here this morning who have already made that decision, there is another important implication for you.
2. The incarnation brings meaning to our lives here and now
The incarnation is God’s way of showing us that He is not just concerned about what will happen to us for eternity, but that He wants us to experience an abundant life right here and now as well. By coming here to earth and living as a man for a period of time. God let us know that life here on earth has value and meaning.
Many of us are familiar with Eugene Peterson as the author of the “Message” paraphrase of the Bible. But he is also a long-time pastor and prolific writer. Ironically, even though the Message is written in such simple language, much of Peterson’s other writings are very deep and thought-provoking. In his book Christ Plays in a Thousand Places, Peterson made these observations about the incarnation:
Jesus prevents us from thinking that life is a matter of ideas to ponder or concepts to discuss. Jesus saves us from wasting our lives in pursuit of cheap thrills and trivializing diversions. Jesus enables us to take seriously who we are and where we are without being seduced by intimidating lies and delusions that fill the air, so that we needn’t be someone else or somewhere else. Jesus keeps our feet on the ground, attentive to children, in conversation with ordinary people, sharing meals with friends and strangers, listening to the wind, observing the wildflowers, touching the sick and wounded, praying simply and unselfconsciously. Jesus insists that we deal with God right here and now, in the place where we find ourselves and with the people we are with. Jesus is God here and now (pp 33-34).
Being a follower of Jesus is not just for the hereafter, it is for the here and now. It is to be a way of life that is lived out amid all the confusion and heartache and pain that we find in this world. It is to be a constant life of worship that is demonstrated in our everyday lives – in our families, our work, our communities, and in this church body. And the incarnation is our proof that it is possible to do just that regardless of what we may face.
My prayer for you this morning is that this Christmas, amid all the lights, the decorations, the cooking, the parties, the gift buying and just the general busyness is that you’ll take some time to meditate with awe and wonder at the great miracle of the “logos” becoming flesh and allow that to become the centerpiece of your celebration.
