The Word became Flesh

The starting point

Each of the gospel writers, under the inspiration of God, has a different approach to the way they tell of the life of Jesus on earth. Consider the starting point of each gospel:

• Matthew writes with a Jewish audience in mind. He, begins with the human genealogy of Jesus, starting with the great Patriarch Abraham. He wants to show that Jesus is the promised Messiah – the true King of all the world.
• The gospel of Mark begins with John the Baptist appearing in the wilderness, telling the good news of Jesus the Messiah, the One written about by the prophet Isaiah.
• Luke writes an ‘orderly account’ of all the life of Jesus, He begins with an angel telling the priest Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth will bear a child John, whom they will name John.
• But the Gospel of John is different. It is written much later than the other gospels and it goes back to ‘the beginning’. His starting point echoes Genesis 1:1. John wants us to grasp the amazing reality that Jesus Christ is truly God, come to earth as a man – taking on human flesh.

Jesus Christ is truly God

John 1:1-4

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 all mankind.

John begins by referring to Jesus as ‘the Word’. The Greek for ‘Word’ is ‘logos’ – meaning ‘word’ or ‘reason’. He is the One who brings order and meaning to the universe in which we live. He is the eternal Word – he was there at the beginning with God. It is through Jesus that all things in creation were made. And Jesus is the source of all spiritual life and light. These four verses should be enough to make us fall down before him in worship.

The writer to the Hebrews also begins by telling us that Jesus is God’s final word to this world. Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and ‘the exact representation of his being’. See Hebrews 1:1–2.

Jesus is not only the ‘reason for the season’ – he is the reason for everything. Jesus is truly God.

Jesus Christ is truly human

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

How amazing it is that Jesus, the eternal Word, should come to earth to live as a man. Jesus, the divine Son of God, chose to ‘take on flesh’ in order to bring sinful people like me and you back to God. Yes, Jesus was truly a man: he hungered, he thirsted, he wept, he rejoiced. He talked to his Father in prayer, and he studied the Scriptures. Finally, he was killed on a cross to take the punishment that we deserve for all the wrong things we have done. Yet all the time he was truly God as well as being truly human.

This Christmas let us once more give thanks that the baby in the manger was truly human and truly God. The child who listened to the teachers in the temple was truly human and truly God. The one who healed the blind, and the sick, and the lame was truly human and truly God. And the one who felt the nails being hammered into his hands as he died to save us was truly human and truly God.

O come let us adore him – Christ the Lord!

Let’s praise God in song!

Once in Royal David’s City (Daniel O’Donnell); From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable (Stuart Townend); O Come All Ye Faithful (Martina McBride); His Name is Jesus (Phil Wickham); Holy Forever (Chris Tomlin).