The God Who Becomes a Human Being (John 1:1–18)

Listen or read the following transcript from The Gospel Coalition as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Biblical theology from John 1:1-18.

Welcome to the seventh in a series of fourteen talks designed to introduce you to The God Who is There. My name is Don Carson. We’re trying to work through some of the Bible’s sweeping themes. Today I shall briefly tackle two more. First, the God who is coming is simply a way of getting at the fact that the Old Testament (the part that takes us up to the period just before Jesus) finds many ways to look forward to a visitation from God himself, a visitation that will change everything.

This trajectory of expectation, waiting for God to come, rushes forward until it bursts into the second theme, the theme that Christians call the incarnation, the God who becomes a human being. When you take the time to reflect deeply on what the Bible says about this event, you are likely to respond in one of two ways.

You may judge these claims so bizarre or so intrusive into your life that you decide to walk away. Or you may judge these claims bizarre, yes, yet spectacularly wonderful, drawing us on to look at Jesus with eyes of wonder and hearts full of frank adoration. Only those whose emotions and thought have atrophied are likely to remain entirely unmoved.

Well, we have finally come to the New Testament. You knew that we would get there if you waited long enough. So I hope that you will open your Bibles in the next few moments to John, chapter 1. This talk has a rather frankly amazing theme: The God Who Becomes a Human Being. It presupposes that this God keeps telling us that he’s coming.

In one sense, he comes to Abraham and calls him on his pilgrimage. He comes to Moses and gives him a certain task. He comes to David and establishes a dynasty. In the Old Testament through large numbers of the books of the prophets that I’ve alluded to, but we haven’t really looked closely to any one of them, God is repeatedly said to come.

He sometimes comes with judgment. People speak of the day of the Lord, the time when the Lord comes. “Oh, it will be wonderful when the Lord comes.” God says, “No, when I come the day of the Lord is going to be full of darkness, not light. There’s going to be judgment.”

Sometimes God comes, not only upon his covenant people with judgment, but the God of the Bible is the God of all the nations, so he holds all the nations to account. Righteousness exalts the people, but sin is a reproach to many people in the Bible, so God promises to come and visit the Babylonians with judgment or the pagan cities of Tyre and Sidon with judgment. He also comes to his own covenant people with judgment.

He also keeps promising to come with forgiveness, with the ultimate Davidic king, with transformation. We saw one of those passages briefly in the prophesy of Isaiah, chapter 9, words that we’re familiar with from Handel’s Messiah, from nowhere else. When, ultimately, there is a king coming who will reign on David’s throne. The increase of his kingdom will never end, and he will also be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.

Then there are other passages where you get this anticipation of someone who comes who is God. God is coming! Yet he’s tied somehow to this Davidic figure. One of the most remarkable passages in this respect is by another prophet, the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel, chapter 34. The prophet Ezekiel, who’s writing at the beginning of the sixth century BC:

“The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel’ ” Now that does not mean the people who keep the sheep literally, but the rulers, the nobles, the monarchs as they come and go, the leaders, the priests. “Prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; Woe to you, shepherds of Israel, who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.

You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.”

Then what God says in many different ways through verse after verse after verse is this. “I will not only judge the false shepherds, I will become the shepherd of my people.” “This is what the Sovereign Lord says (verse 10): I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable. I will remove them from tending the flock.”

Then he goes on to say (verse 12): “ ‘As shepherds look after their scattered flocks when they are with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land.

I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel. I will tend them in a good pasture. I myself will tend my sheep. I will have them lie down,’ declares the sovereign Lord. ‘I will search for the lost. I will bring back the strays. In other words, all these false shepherds are just ruining the flock. I myself will be their shepherd.’ ”

Then after saying this again and again and again, about 25 times, God himself is going to shepherd his people. He’s going to come. He’s going to do the job himself. He then says (verse 23), “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.” Somehow this promise of God himself coming and a Davidic king coming get merged into one.

When we come to the New Testament, the four first books of the New Testament are often called gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all begin a little differently, but they all begin in some way with the coming of Jesus. Before him, there is always mention of John the Baptist, who points out who Jesus is.

Then Luke’s gospel, for example, depicts an angelic visitation to Mary promising her a virginal conception, a miraculous thing, such that the child she carries would be called the Son of God. Then in chapter 2 of that book, the familiar Christmas story. In Matthew’s gospel, the thing is looked at less from Mary’s perspective and more from Joseph’s perspective.

Mary was betrothed to Joseph. Then he discovers she’s gotten pregnant. Don’t forget that in that society they couldn’t go off somewhere in the corner and have a little chit-chat and she could try and convince him it was a miracle. You didn’t have that kind of easy, free conversation. There were chaperones and guardians around all the time.

But God visited Joseph as well and insisted that this was his doing. She was a virgin and Joseph, when the baby came, was to give the baby the name Jesus. Jesus is simply the Greek form of Joshua, and Joshua means Yahweh saves. That is the name of God in the Old Testament connected to I Am Who I Am. God saves.

You are to give this baby the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. That’s already in the first chapter of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 21. Which means in a sense, the whole rest of the book of Matthew, the first gospel, is to be read as the gospel in which Yahweh saves his people from their sins. That’s what Jesus does. Every chapter of that book can be fed under that theme.

John’s gospel begins a slightly different way. It does not begin with the historical developments, Joseph and Mary and Bethlehem and the visit of the shepherds, things like that. It begins by thinking about the coming of the eternal Son, the coming of God in theological terms. Let me read the first 18 verses, sometimes called John’s prologue.

“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 people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

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. (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, ‘This is he of whom I said, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” ’)

Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”

Let me run through the thought of this very quickly. First, you cannot help but see that this one who’s coming is simply called the Word. “In the beginning was the Word.” We might say, “In the beginning was God’s self-expression, in the beginning God expressed himself, in the beginning was God’s self-expression and this self-expression was with God, God’s own fellow, and this self-expression was God, God’s own self.”

Already, your heart begins to flutter and your mind wonders, “What’s going on here?” How do you think in those terms? But that’s what the text says. This one who becomes flesh, who takes on human identity is one with God, God’s own agent in creation, God’s own self. Even the term Word is an interesting choice, isn’t it?

How do you think about Jesus? What title is adequate for him? I can imagine in John’s head going around and around various titles and names and expressions that could be used. He remembers, for example, that in the Old Testament we read again and again, “The word of the Lord came to the prophets saying …” So God has disclosed himself in revelation.

Or you remember John 1? God spoke and something came into being? By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, God’s word in creation. Even God’s word in saving people, transforming people, “God sent forth his word and he healed them.” Quoting from the Psalms. All these things that God’s word accomplishes: he reveals, he creates, he transforms.

He thinks, “Yes, that’s the appropriate expression that summarizes all who Jesus is.” He’s God’s self-expression. He is there with God in the beginning. God is one and yet there is a complexity in him from the very beginning. This Word is God’s own fellow and he’s God’s own self. Then what is predicated of him.

Well, first, he’s God’s own agent in creation. “Through him” verse 3, “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 people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That’s the way the book begins. Then we’re also told that the Word gives us light and life.

Some books you only read once. You have a trip, let’s say to LA, and you pick up a whodunit in the bookshop in the airport. By the time you get to LA you found out who did it and you decide this is not a book you’re going to keep in your library. So you put it in the seat pocket in front of you and the cleaners take it out and you’ll never read it again. In fact, it’s even possible six months from now when you make another busy trip to LA, you’ll buy the same flipping book and read it again because you don’t remember how it went. It’s possible.

But there are other books where you read them more than once, don’t you? There are books you like to pore over. Quality English prose. It might even be a whodunit, but it’s got the atmosphere exactly right or it describes a part of the world where you live and you enjoy thinking about it. You read it once for the plot. Then you read it for the characterization. Then you read it again for all the little touches and nuances. You get a real kick out of it.

The question is, did John write his book as a throw-away tract to be read once, or is it the sort of book where he wanted it to be read again and again? I think you can show that he wrote it in such a way that he expected you to see new things from it as you keep rereading it. If you read verses 4 and 5 without ever having read the rest of the book, all you’ve read so far is verses 1–3, how will you understand verses 4 and 5?

Verse 3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” You’re talking about creation. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all people.” That is, he had life in himself and he gave life to all human beings. That was their light. There was darkness and then there was light. “The light shines in the darkness.” The darkness of nothingness before he came along and created everything.

In other words, you can understand verses 4 and 5 entirely with respect to verses 3 and 4. I suspect if you are reading it through the first time, that’s the way you’d understand it. Then you read 6: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.”

You start seeing how light has now got overtones, not of physical light and the nothingness that existed before the creation. No, light has some sort of overtone of revelation or truth or something. Light that is revealed. The same sort of moral or revelatory overtone is clearer and clearer as the book goes on.

Thus we read a little farther on in the book that, “men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” People choose the darkness because they’re afraid to come to the light. Chapter 3, verse 20: “All those who do evil hate the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. Those who live by the truth come into the light.”

You see in this kind of context light is not the light of creation: it’s the light of revelation, it’s the light of truth. Now you go back and reread verses 4 and 5 in the light of all this. By the time you get to John, chapter 8, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” In him was life. That life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, the darkness of moral corruption and rebellion, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Now you have another set of overtones, do you see? You ask, “Which is true, Jesus as the agent of physical light and life and creation or Jesus as the one who brings revelation and transformation and overcoming moral darkness?” The answer, of course, is, “Yes.” Because you’re supposed to read it both ways. It’s the way the book has been written. You read it and reread it and see more and more connections. The light gives us light and life.

Then we’re told, verses 10–13, that the word confronts us and divides us (verse 10): “He was in the world [that is, the world that he had made], and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own [his own home, his own people]. His own people did not receive him.”

People did not look on Jesus and say, “Ah, you’re finally here, the light of the world.” Many were puzzled by him. Some were repulsed by him. Because even if they did see the light, they were ashamed in his presence and preferred the darkness to the light. So his very coming did not guarantee a universal revival, everybody turning to him.

Some did receive him. “They believed in his name,” we’re told, verse 12. “To them he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent …” It’s not just natural children that are in view. “… nor of human decision …” From sexual intercourse. “… or a husband’s will …” Assuming he’s taking some sort of primary role in the conception. No, no, no. “… but born of God.” These people are not simply humanly born; they’re born of God.

Now that’s a theme we’ll come back to next week. That is, they are different because God has done something new in them. There is a new creation. There is a new birth. He’s starting something over in them and they truly believe who Jesus really is. Then, verses 14–18. With this we close.

You may recall that earlier this morning we looked at the remarkable passage rather briefly, Exodus 32, 33, 34, where Moses comes down from the mountain and the people are in an orgy of idolatry. Moses prays before God, wants to see more of God’s glory, “Show me your glory.” God says, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, but you cannot see my face and live.”

There are six major themes in those verses that are picked up here in these verses. You know how when you’re dealing with a community that knows a book or a film, you just quote one line and the whole scene comes back to mind? My son, for whatever reason, has a formidable memory when it comes to movies.

So you simply drop in one line and he’ll tell you the whole scene. Or you say, “Do you remember the third film in the Star Wars series where something or other happens?” He’ll quote the whole thing! He’s got this formidable mind for audio-visual recall. What can I say? I don’t have it. For people steeped in the Bible as many of the first readers were, if you read through these verses together, your mind is going to go back to Exodus 32, 33, 34. Let me show you and we’re done.

“The Word became flesh …” The Word became a human being, that’s what it means. This Word became something that he wasn’t. He already existed. He was God’s own agent in creation, but now he becomes a human being. “… and made his dwelling among us.” Now the expression is quite literally, “He tabernacled among us.”

For anybody with an Old Testament background, you can’t help but remember that the tabernacle was what God set up at the time of Sinai. A tabernacle with this special, most holy room where only the high priest could go in on behalf of everybody else once a year with the blood of the sacrifices. It was the place where sinners met God.

It was the great meeting place between a holy God and sinners provided for by this blood of the bull and the goat that was brought in by the high priest. It was the great meeting place between God and human beings. Eventually, it’s the temple that replaces it. Now in this chapter we’re told, “The Word became flesh and he tabernacled among us.”

In the very next chapter, chapter 2, Jesus insists that he himself is the temple of God. That is, Jesus insists that he becomes the great meeting place between rebels and this Holy God. “If rebels are going to be reconciled to this God, they’ve got to come through the temple. I’m the temple.” Much of John’s gospel explains how that’s so.

Look what else is here. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us [he tabernacled 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.” We have seen his glory? What was it that Moses asked for? “Show me your glory.” God said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.”

John plays with this theme of glory right through his book. In chapter 2, for example, when Jesus performs his first miracle: turns water into wine at the marriage in Cana in Galilee. We’re told at the end of it that the disciples saw his glory. The others saw the miracle. They saw that it was saying something about who Jesus was. They saw his glory. Eventually you get to John, chapter 12, where Jesus is to manifest God’s glory by going to the cross.

Where is God’s glory most manifested? When Jesus is glorified, lifted up, and displays God’s glory in the shame and ignominy and brutality and sacrifice of a cross. When we think of God’s glory, we think maybe of some spectacular, visionary scene with the Chicago Symphony playing along with the Boston Symphony, and presumably there’s one here in Minneapolis, joining in together and maybe a great choir of voices and a spectacular array of lightning and thunder in the background. “Glory!” Or maybe it’s a supernova that you see through a telescope.

But the most spectacular display of God’s glory is in a bloody instrument of torture. Because, you see, that’s where God’s goodness was most displayed. Oh, it’s nice to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” but you also have to sing, “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame.” Because there God displayed his glory in Christ Jesus who thus became our tabernacle, our temple, the meeting place between God and human beings.

Do you see the end of this verse? “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.” When God intones who he is before Moses in that cave in Exodus 34, he describes himself in a variety of ways. The words are hard to translate, but they include that he is full of love and faithfulness.” In Hebrew, they’re the same words for grace and truth.

God displays himself not only as the God who will punish sinners, but he’s full of grace and truth and forgives. Now John, reflecting on who Jesus is, who manifests God’s goodness, his glory on the cross. He says he was full of grace and truth, the grace and truth that brought him to the cross and paid for our sins.

Indeed, John bore witness to him, John the Baptist. All the biblical writers tell us that the forerunner announced who Jesus was before Jesus came. Then he adds, “Out of his fullness, out of the fullness of Jesus, we have all received grace in place of grace already given.” That is exactly what is meant.

We had received a grace. Now we’ve got a grace that’s substituted for it. It doesn’t mean grace on top of grace merely added up like presents around the Christmas tree piled up, one on top of another, blessing after blessing. That’s not what is meant. We have all received a grace in place of a grace already given. What does that mean?

The next verse tells us. “For the law was given through Moses.” That’s taking you back to Exodus 32, 33, 34. The law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. In other words, the gift of the law was a gracious thing. It was a wonderful thing. It was a gracious gift that God gave to his people as he brought them along the pilgrim way in preparation for who Jesus was.

But grace and truth par excellence. That came through Jesus Christ. Not in the display of glory to Moses in a cave, in the display of Jesus in a bloody sacrifice on a cross. The law covenant was a gracious gift from God, but now Jesus is going to introduce a new covenant, ultimately grace and truth. This is a grace that replaces that old grace. It’s a new covenant.

In fact, it’s more than that. No one has ever seen God. Isn’t that what God said in Exodus 33? “No one can look on my face and live.” “But the one and only Son who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father has made him known.” Do you hear what this text is saying? Do you want to know what God looks like? Look at Jesus.

No one has seen God and God in all of his transcendent splendor, we still cannot see until the last Day. But the Word became flesh. God became a human being. That’s why later in this book just before Jesus goes to the cross he says to his own disciples, “Have I been with you all this time and yet have you not known me? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Do you want to know what the character of God is like? Study Jesus. Do you want to know what the holiness of God is like? Study Jesus. Do you want to know what the wrath of God is like? Study Jesus. Do you want to know what the forgiveness of God is like? Study Jesus. Do you want to know what the glory of God is like? Study Jesus. All the way to that execrable cross, study Jesus.

May I tell you a concluding story? It’s an old story now. My first degree was in chemistry and mathematics at McGill University in Montreal, a long time ago now. Somewhere along the line, I befriended a wonderful Pakistani gentleman. He was twice as old as I was. He had come to McGill to do a PhD in Islamic studies. McGill had a very fine Islamic institute at the time.

He had left his wife and two children behind in Pakistan. So he was lonely, and somewhere along the line we were in a men’s dorm and I befriended him. It dawned on me after a while that he was trying to convert me to Islam. I was a bit thick, but eventually I realized that’s what he was trying to do.

I thought maybe I should return the favor. Except that he was a trained Muslim theologian and I was studying chemistry, you know? I remember walking down the hill one night on Pine Avenue. He had agreed to come to church with me. He wanted to see what it was like. He said to me, “Don, you study mathematics, yes?” “Yes.”

“If you have one cup and then you add another cup, how many cups do you have?” Well, I studied mathematics, so I said, “Two.” “If you have two cups and you add another cup, how many cups do you have left?” I said, “Three.” “If you have three cups and you take away one cup, how many cups do you have?” I said, “Two.” So far, I was hitting on all cylinders. So he says, “You believe that the Father is God?” “Yes.” Uh, oh. I could see where this was going.

“You believe that Jesus is God?”

“Yes.”

“You believe that the Holy Spirit is God?”

“Yes.”

“So if you have one God plus one God plus one God, how many Gods do you have?”

Sigh. I was studying chemistry, how was I supposed to answer that? The best I could do was, “Listen, if you’re going to use a mathematical model, then let me choose the branch of mathematics. Let’s talk about infinities. Infinity plus infinity plus infinity equals? Infinity. I serve an infinite God.”

Well, he laughed. He thought that was a great joke. That was the level of our friendship. We weren’t getting anywhere. Suddenly it dawned on me about November that he had never read the Christian Bible. He didn’t own one. He had never held one in his hands. So I went and bought him one. I brought him a Christian Bible.

He said, “Where do I start?” He didn’t know how it was put together. He didn’t know about Old Testament and New Testament. He didn’t know about the Gospels. He didn’t know about Moses and where he fit in the whole thing. He had heard all of these names, of course, from the Qur’an, but he didn’t know how the Bible worked.

I didn’t know what to suggest to him. I said, “Why don’t you start with John’s gospel?” So I showed him where it was. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Start with John’s gospel. But of course, coming as he did from Asia, he didn’t read books the way I would read a book. You know, how many pages can I get through tonight? The more, the better!

No, he had a different style of reading where you’d read something and then you’d stop and you’d think about it, turn it over in your head, go back and reread it. He was meditating. He was reflecting. He was thinking about it. He didn’t stop and ask me any questions. He just read quietly. That Christmas, I brought him home to my parents, who at that point lived on the French side of our capital city Ottawa in a place called Hull.

It transpired that my father had heart problems. My mother and I spent most of our time in the hospital. My dear friend Mohammed Yusuf was left largely on his own. By the end of that Christmas break, it turned out that Dad was fine. I asked to borrow the car … we only had the one … so I could take Mohammed Yusuf to see some of the sights in the capital city.

We went here and there. Eventually, we went to our Parliament buildings. In those days, there was much less security than there is now. We got on one of these guide tours, 30 of us being brought around the rotunda at the back where the library is, the Senate chambers, the House of Commons, the rogues’ gallery of the Canadian prime ministers from Sir John A. Macdonald, and so forth.

All of these comments that filled in a bit of Canadian history, we listened. We got back to the central foyer where there are these huge pillars. At the top of each pillar is a little fresco where there’s a figure. The guide explained there is Aristotle, for government must be based on knowledge. There is Socrates, for government must be based on wisdom. There is Moses, for government must be based on law. He went all the way around and he said, “Any questions?”

My friend piped up, “Where is Jesus Christ?” The guide did what guides do under such circumstances. They simply say, “I beg your pardon?” So Mohammed did what foreigners do under such circumstances. They assume that they’ve been misunderstood because of their thick accent. So he said it more clearly and more loudly, “Where is Jesus Christ?” Now there were three groups in the foyer of the Canadian Parliament listening to a Pakistani Muslim ask where Jesus was.

I was looking for a crack in the ground to fall into. I had no idea where this was coming from. Finally, the guide blurted out, “Why should Jesus be here?” Mohammed looked shocked. He said, “I read in the Christian Bible that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Where is Jesus Christ?” The guide said, “I don’t know anything about that.” I muttered under my breath, “Preach it, brother!”

Do you see how it looked to Mohammed’s point of view? He was a Muslim. He understood about a god who has laws, who has standards, who brings terror, who sits in judgment over you. A god who is sovereign and holy and powerful. He understood all of that. But he had already been captured by Jesus, full of grace and truth, who displays his glory profoundly in the cross and becomes the meeting place between God and sinners because he dies a sinner’s death.