The Word Made Flesh. Part 1
CCCAG January 28st, 2018
Scripture- John 1:14-18
ILLUSTRATION:
When I lived in Kenosha, I volunteered at the county jail as one of the chaplains who would come in and hold services or be on call in case one of the prisoners wanted to talk to a pastor. One of the fruits of that is very occasionally, one of the prisoners who attended the service in the jail would start attending our church once they were released from jail.
I remember one of them asked me to attend a hearing on another charge that wasn’t taken care of before he had served his other sentence because of a backlog in the state crime lab. The public defender was going to argue that the case be dismissed because the system was denying his client his right to a speedy trail. If it wasn’t dismissed that morning, he was looking at potentially 10 years in state prison.
As we sat outside the courtroom, the time passed that the case was to be called. Then the bailiff came out and said that the judge had a sudden family emergency and they were trying to move his cases to one of the 7 other judges so we should just wait for a few minutes while they figure it out.
A few minutes later, the bailiff came back out holding a sheet of paper and announced the last names of the cases, the time, courtroom, and judge that the cases assigned to the judge who had left were assigned.
The case my friend had was reassigned from a judge who was known to be fair and somewhat merciful to Judge Bruce Schroeder.
The person I was there with immediately fell apart and started crying. Judge Schroeder has a nickname among the criminals in Kenosha County as “The Hammer”.
Judge Schroeder is the favorite of the police and District Attorney’s because of his harsh treatment of law breakers and the long sentences he gave. He rarely sided with defense attorney’s in his rulings, and had very little mercy on anyone who stood before his bench.
IF the law said 10 years, you got ten years. If he could legally add to the sentence “with no chance of parole”, you got that added on.
He was also in the paper a lot for the long editorial comments he would rant from the bench on law breakers. It would then end with a huge slam from his extra-large judges gavel before the guards led them off to be sent to prison.
Many people look at God as being like Judge Schroeder- merciless, and taking great joy in using the law to crush people before leveling the maximum sentence allowable by law.
About 10 years ago, Sociologists from Baylor University released the results of a study looking into America's different views of God. Part of the study was a survey conducted by the Gallup organization, which identified four distinct views of God's personality and interaction with the world. Baylor researchers outlined the results as follows:
• Those who believe in an "Authoritarian God" who is "angry at humanity's sins and engaged in every creature's life and world affairs": 31.4 percent.
• Those who believe in a "Critical God" who "has his judgmental eye on the world, but he's not going to intervene, either to punish or comfort": 16 percent.
• Those who believe in a "Distant God" who is more of a "cosmic force that launched the world, then left it spinning on its own": 24.4 percent.
• Those who believe in a "Benevolent God" who is forgiving and accepting of anyone who repents: 23 percent.
That’s a large and divergent view of God isn’t it?
These are not new views though. They have existed for century’s.
For the Apostle John, who’s Gospel we are reading, God to him growing up in Galilee in the 1st century was seen as a Judge Schroeder, or an authoritarian critical God that wanted to use the law found in the Old Testament to pound lawbreakers over the head and send them straight to the fires of hell.
Then Jesus came.
John describes it this way-
John 1:14-18 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Prayer
The Apostle John was one of the most educated of the original disciples. His writings can be difficult to grasp because his words carry so much depth that it is very hard to get into every nook and cranny seen just in verse 14 about the Word becoming Flesh and dwelling among us.
When I sat down and started to pray and meditate through this idea, and then began studying what it means and the implications of what it means it blew my mind. It was like standing in the ocean when the tide comes in, suddenly you feel the overwhelming rush of water that sweeps you off your feet. That’s how I feel as I read John’s Gospel about Jesus in these verses-unable to understand the incredible depth of what John is saying about Jesus in these verses.
I’m going to try and unpack this in a way that isn’t incredibly boring to everyone who isn’t a theology nerd like me while still doing justice to what John was trying to convey with this simple thought.
1. The Word became flesh
Being an educated man, John wrote his Gospel in Classical Greek. This is important as much of the meaning can be lost in translation. It doesn’t come through in English all the depth of what he is trying to say in this verse. This might be a review for some of you as this was covered recently, but to make sure you understand where we are going this morning-
The Greek word for the English word for word here is logos. It has a lot of different meanings in the Greek language and it’s meaning is determined by the context in which it is used.
For example-Logos is the root word of our English word logic- which means it can point to being a philosophical truth.
It can mean a legal plea or defense of a subject. One of the ways we prove what is true is to use logos or logic to prove that this truth is valid.
Or what I believe John is referring to here is the Word is the fullness of the Law of God.
The word that became flesh is referring to the Torah, or the law that the Hebrew people lived under for 1000’s of years. If they followed the law, they had blessing and God’s presence. IF they broke the law, they had increasing judgments and eventually were conquered by other nations. You see this in the book of Judges with the Philistines and other surrounded nations.
You see this in the kingdom era- 1st and 2nd Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles as well as the prophetic books- when Israel or Judah sinned, and God allowed Assyria and Babylon to conquer them and carry them away. All of these historical accounts were meant to be illustrations for future generations that God is serious about following His commands found in the law.
But then Jesus came, and the Word or law took upon itself flesh. To many, this seems like God changed His character sometime during the Old and New Testament. It’s like God took a 400-year vacation to some warm beach somewhere and came back a new God- nicer, calmer, and more gentle than He was in the Old Testament.
That isn’t the case at all.
There really isn’t any difference between how God handles His word in the Old Testament then in the New Testament.
For you bible students- a pop quiz
What was the scriptures or the law written on originally? When Moses was dictating the law what material were the scribes writing on?
Parchment. What is parchment made from? Animal skins.
The law was written on dead flesh in the Old Testament. Papyrus, or ancient paper was invented in Egypt hundreds of years prior to Moses so they could have used that, but I believe by divine design they chose animal skin. Even then the word was on flesh.
The word then became living flesh and dwelt among us- the Greek word for dwelt literally means tabernacle. We will talk about that more next week.
Second question for you bible students-
In the Old Testament- What were the coverings of the tabernacle made of? Animal skins. The law and the flesh it was written on was covered in more flesh.
Why does that matter?
It was all prophetic. The more I read the Old Testament, the more I see how God was using everything within the both the ceremonial and moral law to point forward to this verse right here.
This was prophetic and pointed right to John 1:14- the ultimate fulfillment of the word made flesh.
Why was the Word made Flesh? Why did Jesus take on human form and live among us?
2. Why the Word Became Flesh
In the beginning of the message I was speaking of a judge that had little mercy upon lawbreakers.
This is how the people of John’s day viewed God. In our time, some in our society would applaud such a judge- they are the law and order kind of people who believe that the laws are there for a reason, you break the law at your own peril. I probably lean toward this side.
However, there is a significant portion of our society that cry out for a more merciful way of dealing with criminals. They say they are products of their environment, or they had bad upbringings, or they were caught up in the wrong crowd. They bring up every extenuating circumstance they can while asking for mercy, rehabilitation, and lesser punishments for law breakers.
The Word becoming flesh is the balance of those two opposing views.
The holy requirements of the law were seen in the presence, personality, words, and actions of Jesus while He lived on this earth. Jesus was the only person to live perfectly obedient to both the law, and the will of Father God during the course of his entire life.
He committed no crime, and therefore was guilty of anything deserving punishment.
We are. We have committed high crimes against God’s law, and are deserving of the harshest punishment, but that is where mercy comes in.
The mercy of God is seen through Jesus taking the pun the blows, taking the whip, and dying a substitutionary death on the cross.
Paraphrasing what Saint Paul said in 2 Cor 5:21 “He who was without sin became sin for us, so that in Him we might have the same righteous requirements that God expects of us”
That’s the first and primary reason the word became flesh. The law meant only to punish sin took on the weakness of flesh, so it could experience and take the punishment we deserved, so that we could still enter God’s presence both during this life and the life to come.
The second reason that the word or law became flesh is found in Hebrews 4:15. I’m going to read that from the Message version-
Hebrews 4:15
Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.
When I was in the National Guard I was sent to a specialized training- how to be part of a response force to a state prison. Normally, the Posse Comitatus law forbids the American military from engaging in civilian law enforcement except during declared times of emergency when Martial, or military law is put into affect. National guardsman have an additional caveat under the law in that in case of massive riots or prison guard strikes, we can go into the state prisons and take over.
Part of that training is learning how to use less than lethal force to subdue a violent prisoner, which includes pepper spray and a taser. To be certified in either, you need to experience what it is like to be on the receiving end of both. So, you get pepper sprayed and tazed during this training.
This was in my younger, before Jesus days when I was a bit of a smart alec, and I asked the instructor- “We also qualify on pistols and rifles, are we going to have to be shot as part of this training?”
The instructor laughed and said no. The reason that we receive are required to receive this training is this-
IF we find ourselves in a situation where we needed to pull a trigger to defend our lives or the lives of others, we have clear guidelines for that.
Less than lethal force is a bit more murky, and the reason they want us to experience what it feels like is so that if we feel the need to use it, we will be a bit more hesitant because we know how much either one hurts.
In other words, we had to take the place of a prisoner and receive his punishment for wrongdoing…for just a moment.
The Word, Jesus became flesh so that the argument of “God doesn’t understand what it means to be human falls flat.”
Jesus knows what it is to be hungry- HE fasted for 40 days and nights.
Jesus knows what it is to be tempted- he faced the devil in the desert in a death match of obedience.
Jesus knows what it is to be betrayed- all of his closest friends abandoned Him at his moment of greatest need. One of the original 12 betrayed him.
The person Jesus picked to lead His church denied him to his face,
Jesus knows what it like to face unfair criticism
Jesus knows what it means to have people lie about Him.
Jesus knows what it’s like to experience pain
Jesus knows what it’s like to experience fear
Jesus knows what it’s like to experience doubt.
Jesus knows what it’s like to have a prayer go unanswered, or for God to say no. (Gethseneme)
We have a high priest who can sympathize with any human weakness you can come up with- yet he didn’t sin in any of it.
Mercy triumphs over judgement. The word becoming flesh triumphed over the consequence of disobedience to the law- for anyone and everyone who would accept the grace of God shown through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus our LORD.
That’s what the Word becoming Flesh means to us today. Let’s look at one more side of this-
The Word becoming flesh is the death of religion.
Illustration-
There was a missionary who was speaking to a pagan and telling him of the Gospel. The pagan had several questions of the missionary-
“Where is the temple in which you worship your God”
The missionary said, “We don’t have a temple. WE worship our God in Spirit and in truth, for HE resides within us”
“What sacrifices do you bring to appease your God”
The missionary replied, “Oh no, there is no sacrifice we can bring. Our God took upon himself human flesh and died in our place, so that we can live with HIM now and forever”
The pagan was growing frustrated and asked, “But what mighty deed must I do to win your God’s favor?”
The missionary replied with tears of joy in his eyes, “That’s the best part- our God has done the mighty deed and presents it as a gift for us. All we have to do is except it”
I want to close with this thought and prayer for all of us- that we understand Eph 3:18 which asks the that Holy Spirit gives us-
…the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.
All Stand
Because that will enable us to trust Jesus with everything in our lives-
Our struggles
Our addictions
Our desires
Our failures
Our successes
And our eternal souls.
Conclusion
Altar Call
