The Word Become Flesh

The Word Become Flesh

John 1:1, 14

A child born, a Son given...Who is this child other than the enigma of the ages – the Word, God made flesh. What does this mean? How does it impact me? What is the message it proclaims?

I. The Mystery of the Word become Flesh

A. John 1:1-3, 14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made... 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.”

B. Steven Cole says that “John 1:14 is one of the most wonderful and yet unfathomable verses in the Bible! How can God, who is spirit, become human flesh? How can the eternal become temporal? How can the unchangeable God take on a human body, subject to change? How can the immortal die as the substitute for our sins? How can the man, Jesus, whom John saw, also be the eternal Creator of the universe?” – Steven J. Cole, The Eternal Word Made Flesh, 2006

C. God spent His first nine months on earth as a preborn baby. Fully alive. Fully human. Fully God. That is why the ancient creeds affirm that Jesus was “conceived of the Holy Spirit.” He didn’t become the God-man at Bethlehem. He was God incarnate from the moment of conception... The Son did not cease to be God when he became a man. He added manhood but he did not subtract deity. He was fully God and fully man—the God-man. ...Ponder that for a moment. The Almightiness of God moved in a human arm. The love of God now beat in a human heart. The wisdom of God now spoke from human lips. The mercy of God reached forth from human hands. God was always a God of love but when Christ came to the earth, love was wrapped in human flesh. Jesus was God with skin on. - www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/1998-12-20-When-Did-Christmas-Begin

D. Luke 2:40, 52 “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him... And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”

E. Jesus Christ grew up like any child would grow. He had to learn to crawl and then to walk. He had to learn speech. He matured as a human. His body was subject to the same frailties that our bodies are.

F. John 1:3 “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

G. Vincent says, “"He became that which first became through Him."

II. The Implications of the Word become Flesh

A. Hebrews 2:17 (NKJV) “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful (sympathetic) and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

B. Jesus Christ clothed Himself in the same kind of body we are have. His physical body had the same the limitations that our body has. experienced hunger. Jesus Christ stepped into our weakness and frailty with us.

C. Jesus knows what it means to be hungry

• Luke 4:2 tells us that for forty days Jesus went into the wilderness and we read “...and in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.”

• Again in Matthew 21:18 we see Christ hungry.

D. Jesus knows what it means to be tired and become exhausted.

• John 4:6 “Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour”

E. Jesus knows what it meant to be poor.

• One commentator states that Christ grew up in the darkest district of Palestine; in a little country town of proverbial insignificance; in poverty and manual labor; in the obscurity of a carpenter's shop

• Matthew 8:20 “And Jesus saith unto him, ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.’”

F. He knows the sorrow of rejection

• Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not!”

• John 1:11 “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

G. He knows the sorrow of having a close friend and family member die