our Bibles to the gospel of John
1. John 1. John 1. 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 anything made that was made. In him was
life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth
in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was
a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a
witness, to bear witness of the light, that all through him might
believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was
in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew
him not. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. 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." It is generally accepted, and
I believe rightly so, that John The apostle John was the last
of our Lord's apostles to die, the last of his apostles to leave
this world. And it is also thought that this
was the last of the inspired Gospels, of the four Gospels,
this was the last to be written. And John, he doesn't repeat what
the others had written. But he gives us some things that
the other gospel writers did not give us. Two examples I just
mentioned to us tonight. John chapter 6, where the Lord
Jesus spoke of himself as the bread of life which came down
from heaven. And then that prayer in John
chapter 17. We refer to this as Christ's
high priestly prayer. We only find it here. in the
Gospel of John. Matthew and Luke tell more of
the Savior's birth, but I want you to notice that the Apostle
John does it in five words. The Word was made flesh. Let that sink in. The Word was
made flesh. How much is contained in those
five words. The Word was made flesh. All my hope of salvation, and
yours too tonight if you know Christ as your Lord and Savior,
all our hope concerning eternity is contained and expressed in
those five words. The Word was made flesh. Now let's look tonight at this
passage which I've read, these four headings. First, who? Who
is the Word that was made flesh? Now John tells us in these first
four verses that the Word who was made flesh is God. He mentions at least these three
attributes of deity. The Word that was made flesh
is God. He speaks first of all of his
eternity. Only God is eternal. Only God
has no beginning nor end. Only God is eternal and that's
what he says in the first verse, in the beginning. Now what beginning
is he talking about? Well you remember Genesis 1 and
verse 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
That's the beginning. We might say, when time began. In the beginning, the Word was
the Word. In the beginning was the Word. And we know that only God is
eternal, uncreated, without beginning. And in verse 2, again he declares,
the Word was in the beginning. So the first attribute that is
ascribed to this one who is called here the Word is his eternality. Eternal. The Word was in the
beginning. The Word was God. The second attribute is his power
or the fact that he is the creator of all things. We see that in
verse number 3. All things were made by him,
and without him was not anything made that was made. You remember
the verse, let me read this to us in Hebrews chapter 11, and
I believe it's verse 2 or 3. Verse 3, Through faith we understand
that the words were framed by the word of God, so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Only God is eternal. Everything else, all matter,
is created. Matter is not eternal. God is
eternal. And God has created all things. And this is what this one who
is called the Word here in the beginning was the Word. And all
things were made by him. That is the Word. Who is the Word that was made
flesh? God. God. I read these verses this morning
out of Jeremiah chapter 10, but let me read them to us again.
Jeremiah chapter 10, verses 10 and 12. The Lord is a true God. He hath made the earth by his
power. He hath established the world
by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. Have you ever thought of how
many times we read in the scripture of the Lord as though he stretched
out the heavens? Just like you'd stretch out a
piece of material. So God, the Word, he stretched
out the heavens. Now the heavens are three heavens,
we believe. They're the heavens that the
birds fly in. They're the starry heavens. And
there's the third heaven where God especially has a throne. He stretched out the heavens.
The Word did. So we see his attribute of eternality,
his attribute of power, omnipotence, and then third, he is life. Verse number four. In him was
life. All life is from God. All life. You know there's plant life,
that's a very low form of life. There's animal life, and then
there's human life. There's spiritual life, there's
physical life, and there's eternal life. All life is in him, in
Christ. When God created man, the scripture
says he made him from the dust, made his body, that is, from
the dust of the ground, and then he breathed into him the breath
of life and he became a living soul. Now when God created the
fish, And when God created the animals, the beast of the field,
he never breathed into them, any of them, the breath of life.
He gave them life, yes, but it's only man that he breathed into,
the breath of life, that is, the soul. The soul. Man has a soul. And the soul
of man is immortal, in the sense it will never cease to exist. This life, in him we live, we
move, we have our being. God that made the world and all
things therein giveth to all life, the Apostle said to the
Athenians in Acts chapter 17. If you can just imagine a fountain
that's flowing with water, the fountain of life is Christ the
Word. All life, all life. even the simplest forms of life
that I mentioned, all life comes from him, the attribute of life,
of living. When John says in verse 1, in
the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, that tells
us that the Word is the person of the Son. He is God, and yet
he is the person of the Son of God. Many people, when they hear
about the Trinity, they seem to think that we are saying that
there are three gods. Nothing could be farther from
the truth. We know that Scripture says that the Lord our God is
one Lord. He's one Lord. That was taught
from the very beginning all the way through. And yet he reveals
himself also as the Son of God, who is God, the Spirit of God,
who is God, and the Father. The Word, the Eternal Son of
God, you see what I'm saying, the Eternal Son of God, who was
made flesh, the Father, the Eternal Father, That is, God the Father,
he was not made flesh. God the Holy Spirit was not made
flesh. The Word, the Word was made flesh. The Son of God was made flesh. This shows us that from the very
beginning, he had no beginning, but from the beginning of time,
he has always been with God, as the Son of God. This day have
I begotten thee, the day of eternity. He's one with the Father and
one with God the Holy Spirit. Now this is a great mystery.
There's no question about this. It's a great mystery. It's beyond
our ability to comprehend. But that doesn't bother me. I
would hate to think that the God I worship was small enough
that I could comprehend in my finite mind everything about
him. I just believe what the scriptures
teach us. There's one God, and yet from
the very beginning, the pronouns which were used in the week of
creation tell us that, or at least they hint at the fact that
there were three persons in the Godhead. make man in our image. That's the way the scripture
speaks. It's not let me make man in my image, but let us make
man in our image. So who is, rather, the word that
was made flesh? The eternal Son of God, one who
is equal with the Father in every attribute. Everything that's
true of God the Father is true of God the Son, and also God
the Holy Spirit. Second, how was he made flesh? The word the eternal Son of God
took into union, or he joined to himself, that is the person
of the Son, he joined to himself that body which was prepared
him by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. You know, this was
foretold in the Old Testament from the very first, the seed
of the woman. And then through the Old Testament,
more and more was revealed about him, until Isaiah the prophet
said, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and
shall call his name Immanuel. And you know that name, Immanuel,
means God with us. Aren't you thankful tonight that
God came into this world as a man? God with us, and even more thankful,
he is God for us, and even more thankful, he is God in us. Turn with me to Luke chapter
1. Luke chapter 1 and verse 35.
This is the angel that God sent to announce to Mary that she
should bring forth a child, and of course her question was, how
shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered,
Luke 1 and verse 35, and the angel answered and said unto
her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing,
that holy one which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. Much of the heresies which have
plagued the Church have centered on the person of Jesus Christ. The Greek philosophers taught
that matter is evil. All matter is evil. And therefore,
their way of thinking and the Gnosticism came early on into
the church. Their way of thinking was that
either one of these two things must be true. Number one, he
is a God, but not the God Almighty. Maybe the first Maybe the highest,
maybe the holiest of all of God's creatures, but still a creature. Because their way of thinking,
God could not be made flesh, for then he would be tangible.
Then he would have a body of matter, which to them is evil. All matter is evil. So that's
one era. And it's still here. It's still
around. The false witnesses of Jehovah,
that's what they teach. And it's nothing new, even though
the sect, the cult, the Jehovah's Witness cult is relatively new,
goes back about a hundred years. But the teaching goes all the
way back to at least the second or third century A.D., the Aryan
controversy. That's one era, that he cannot
be God because he was made flesh, and to be flesh would mean that
he is evil. So he must be a lesser God. The second era was This has been
around a song also. He only appeared to have a body.
He really didn't have a body, but he appeared as though he
had a body. And you see, both of these heirs,
as old as they are, they completely destroy the gospel. They completely
destroy the gospel, and they're foreign to the word of God. The
Word. We've already seen the Word who
is eternal, who is all-powerful, who has life in himself. The
Word was made flesh. And yes, he was made flesh. He
is our kinsman, redeemer. He is born of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. And both of these eras, both
our eras, both are refuted in this one statement. The Word
was made flesh. There are basically five ways
that God has revealed himself to men. First, theophany. Now, that's just a high-sounding
word that you read in textbooks and theology books, theophany,
which means that God appeared in a visible form and spoke with
man. God, before the fall, he spake
to Adam. That's one way that God has revealed
himself to men. In a theophany, he appeared.
Before the incarnation, before the word was made flesh, he appeared
in the form of man or an angel and spoke to men. Number two,
dreams and visions. God revealed himself through
visions and dreams. You remember Jacob when he was
running away from his brother Esau. He stopped and spent the
night in that place, and he had a rock for his pillow. Oh, I
tell you, I see that man advertising, my pillow. Jacob had a rock for his pillow.
But he had a dream, and God spoke to him. God revealed himself
unto him. Remember, he saw that ladder
that extended all the way to heaven, and angels ascending
and descending on that ladder. He was set up upon the earth.
That speaks of his flesh, but he reached to heaven. That speaks
of his Godhead, his deity, and the only way to heaven. But Jacob,
when he woke up the next morning, this is what he said. Surely
the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. God revealed himself
to Jacob in that dream. And there's many other instances
in the Old Testament. The third way that God revealed
himself unto men, he enlightened the minds of chosen men to perceive
spiritual truths that they might speak to the people. For instance,
to Jeremiah he said, gird up thy loins and arise and speak
unto them all that I command thee. And then a fourth way,
God influenced certain men to write the message to give to
the people. Again, we see the example of
Jeremiah, when God told him, Take thee a roll of a book, and
write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against
Israel and Judah. So that's four ways that God
has revealed himself unto men. Theophany, first of all, dreams
and vision, enlightening the mind, giving them his word, and
fourth, influencing men to write the word of God, but the fifth
way, in his Son. Remember that scripture
in Hebrews chapter 1? verses 1 and 2. It's all summed
up there in those two verses. God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
or in his Son. So who was made flesh? the eternal
Son of God. How was he made flesh? By taking
into union with himself the body that God prepared for him. And third, why was the Word made
flesh? Well, look with me, turn with
me to Hebrews chapter 10. Why was the Word made flesh? In Hebrews 10, beginning with
verse 5, wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not,
but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, Sacrifice
and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldst
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law,
then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. Why was the Word
made flesh? To do God's will. Lo, I come to do thy will, O
God. And God's will to glorify himself
in the salvation of his people, his people who had fallen in
Adam, it would be accomplished by the Word, that is by the eternal
Son of God being made flesh. There's such a union. between
the word and the flesh that we speak of him as one person. He is one person. And so that
what could only be said of the humanity may be said of his deity. For instance, when the Apostle
Paul speaks of God purchasing the church with his own blood. Well, we know that God doesn't
have blood. God is spirit. But his son, who
was made flesh, he had blood. But you see, there's such a union
in the deity and the humanity in this one person that what
may be said about what could strictly only be true of the
humanity or the deity may be said about the person, the oneness
of him. He came to do God's will in the
salvation of his people. If you look back with me now
to Isaiah for a few minutes, Isaiah chapter 45 and Isaiah
chapter 49. Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 21. Tell ye, and bring them near,
yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared this from ancient
time? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord? Now watch this. And there is
no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. We need a Savior who is God. We have sinned against God, who
is infinite, and we need a sacrifice that will satisfy God Almighty. And the only way that's possible
is for God himself in flesh to give himself as that sacrifice. There's no God else beside me,
a just God and a Savior. There's none beside me. Look
unto me. Look unto me and be ye saved. And that's a message that we
preach continually. Look to Christ. Don't look to
the church. Don't look to the waters of baptism.
Don't look to the preacher. Don't look to any plan. any so-called
plan of salvation. Salvation is in this person,
the Word who was made flesh, who came to do God's will. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all ye ends of the earth. There is none beside me. Look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God and there is none else. And then look in chapter 49 of
Isaiah. The point I'm making here is
that God is our Savior. Isaiah 49 and verse 26. And I will feed them that oppress
thee with their own flesh, and they shall be drunken with their
own blood, as with sweet wine. And all flesh shall know that
I, the Lord, thy Savior, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One
of Jacob. The word was made flesh that
he might be our Savior, our Redeemer. And we know that we are not redeemed
with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with
the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. So when we read John chapter
1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh. Who was made
flesh? The Word. the eternal Son of
God. How was he made flesh? By taking
into union with his person that body that was prepared him of
the Holy Spirit. Why was he made flesh? That he
might save his people. He came to do God's will. Now,
in closing, what does this mean to us? Well, look back in our
text, John chapter 1. What does this mean to us? Verse 12 tells us, but as many
as received him, as many as received him, to them gave he power, the
privilege, the right to be called the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. It means everything to us. What
does it mean to us that the Word was made flesh? It means everything
to us. For as the Apostle Peter declared,
neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved. Now, listen to these words of
Isaac Watts. Till God and human flesh I see,
my thoughts no comfort find. Let me repeat that again. Till God, God, the Son of God,
till God and human flesh I see, and I'm not talking about seeing
with these eyes, the eyes of the soul, till God and human
flesh I see, My thoughts know comfort fine. The holy, just,
and sacred three are terrors to my mind. But if Emmanuel's
face appear, my hope, my joy begins. His name forbids my slavish
fear. His grace removes my sins. While some on their own works
rely, and some of wisdom boast, I love the incarnate deity, and
there I fix my trust. I love, he said, I love the incarnate
deity, and there I fix my trust. The incarnation. the word was
made flesh. What does it mean? What does
it mean to you? What does it mean to me? It means
everything to us. For apart from him there is no
salvation. Apart from God being made flesh
and satisfying God's holy law on behalf of his people and suffering
the justice that our sins deserve. And the only way he was able
to suffer that justice, that penalty, and satisfy God Almighty
is because he is God. The scripture says, In him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Till God and human flesh
I see, my thoughts no comfort find. Amen. Let's sing a verse
of the hymn before we're dismissed.