Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the Incarnation from John 1:1–18
“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 men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man 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 received 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 lived for a while 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 testifies concerning him.
He cries out, saying, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” ’ From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the Only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”
So reads the Word of God.
There is an oft-repeated story of a mother who approaches her 4-year-old son, who is industriously drawing a picture. “What are you drawing, Johnny?” she asks him. “I’m drawing a picture of God,” he says, with all of the authority that only a 4-year-old can muster. “But, Johnny,” his mother says, ever orthodox. “No one knows what God looks like.” “They will when I’m finished,” he replies.
To a 4-year-old, it’s all easy. To us who are a little older, we may ask ourselves, “How shall we think of God? How shall we know him?” We cannot draw pictures; that is forbidden. Even if it were permitted, we would not know what to draw. Even to the favored few who, in extraordinary visions, were ushered into God’s throne room and granted sights that no one else has seen (Ezekiel, Isaiah, Paul, John of the Apocalypse), even to these favored few, there was a veil that was before their eyes.
They inevitably spoke in fantastic metaphor, picture, and simile: “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” That’s not something you can draw a picture of. So how shall we know God? The truth is, we shall know God only if he discloses himself to us. So the question then becomes.… How has God revealed himself? How has God disclosed himself? How shall we know God … by what means, by what vehicle?
1. We shall know God in his creation.
Romans 1 insists that by the creation we ought to know, first, his divine nature, that he exists and that he’s God and, second, that he is powerful since all of this didn’t come from nothing. We shall know him in his creation. But such a revelation says nothing of his character. From such information, he could be some divine mad scientist, and we’re the guinea pigs. Moreover, in this generation, we are very adept at taking even this disclosure of God and twisting it into another framework so that God is excluded. So how shall we know God?
2. We shall know him by his mighty deeds.
We shall know him in the flood. We shall know him in the burning bush. We shall know him in the plagues and at Sinai. We shall know him in his mighty deeds. But none of these events or deeds proved unequivocal or long-lasting in their result.
The flood did not greatly retard the drift to new rebellion and debauchery; Sodom and Gomorra come next. The burning bush was a mere curiosity to Moses until God spoke. The plagues and the Passover finally served only to harden Pharaoh’s heart, and Sinai, as awesome and as frightening as it was, did not prevent the people from erecting the idol of the golden calf a mere month later.
Events by themselves are impressive, but they are patient of many interpretations. When God speaks to his Son in John 12, some think it thunders. When Jesus casts out demons, some say it is by the Prince of Demons that he exercises such power. Events by themselves, apart from words, can be interpreted in many different grids.
3. We shall know God in his Words, for truly God is a speaking God.
That is extraordinarily important. God is not some vague “other” into whose consciousness we somehow drift. He is not some mere feeling, some unspoken unseen vat. We are made in his image, and as we speak, he speaks. He is a speaking God. He is not less communicative than the creatures made in his image. He is a speaking God, a talking God.
Not only did he speak to the plain hearing of many prophets in bygone ages, his words finally were inscripturated, written down, so that we may think about them, memorize them, and think God’s thoughts after him. Yet it has to be said even here that words, mere words, can be distant, impersonal, merely formal.
Supposing you had not met my wife; most of you have not. Supposing I attempted to describe her to you. I might say she’s 5 foot 1. She has brown hair, going gray. She has large brown eyes with golden flecks that I rather like. She is ramrod straight, plays a mean game of tennis, and is very gifted on Bernina sewing machines, silk and metal thread embroidery, needlepoint, and all those sorts of things.
Suppose now you wrote to her and asked for some information on five-string sergers and Bernina sewing machines, and she wrote back to you and explained some intricacies of how to do automatic buttonholes. So now, both from my description and from her words, you have some picture of her. Would you have a very good idea of her?
Suppose instead you came and lived with us for a month. You saw us when we got up; you saw us when we went down. You saw how we handle the children. You saw what we’re like at the meal table. You saw our sense of humor. You saw our lack of humor. You saw just what we are, how we interact with each other.
Then suppose I were to give you the same words, and she were to write you the same letter. Would not, then, words about her or words by her take on a whole new depth just because now you know her personally? In other words, personal knowledge of a person makes words about that person or by that person immeasurably richer than words without personal acquaintance.
That is why some people, of course, find the Bible so insufferably dull. They do not really know its author, but when men and women come to know God, then words by God, testimony to God, become rich and deep and alive. God has graciously bridged that gap as well, both under the old covenant and under the new. God has met specially with some men and women.
Today he pours out his Spirit upon us, and we come to know him whom to know is life eternal. Let us be frank, even here God is so different from what we are that when we speak of knowing God, it is not exactly like knowing one another. I have not seen God. It is hard for us, really, to understand what it means to have a personal relationship with such a God who is transcendent (above space and time), all-powerful, all-knowing. What does it mean to have a personal relationship with such a God?
Even that barrier God has graciously breeched for our good. That is what this passage is about. John 1:1–18. “The Word becomes flesh and lives for a while among us. We have seen his glory.” The passage opens with well-known words. Any Jewish reader in the first century would immediately pick up his ears when he heard, “In the beginning …” for that is the way the Old Testament begins.
This passage, though it mentions the creation, as does Genesis 1, immediately moves on to what Paul calls new creation. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word.” What does that mean? What a strange thing. The word behind our English word word has a very wide range of meaning in ancient literature but basically can be divided down into one of two options: it can refer to that which is internal thought, inner thought, and thus translated in some passages as “logic,” “reason,” or even “science.”
“In the beginning was the logic …” one translator wants to put it, “and the logic was with God, and the logic was God.” But that’s not the idea here, because in addition to referring to inner thought, it can also refer to outer expression. That is what is at stake here. The expression of inner thought; hence, message or word, in that sense. When we read, for example, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, “The word of the cross is to those who are perishing, foolishness …” it does not mean the word cross is foolishness; it means the message of the cross is, to those who are perishing, foolishness.
Likewise, a little farther on in this book, in John, chapter 8, Jesus says, “If you hold to my word …” That is, to my teaching, to my message. “If you hold to my word [the outer expression of all that I’m teaching you], then you really are my disciples.” That is the idea here. “In the beginning was the message.” Only it’s active. “In the beginning, God expressed himself, and that self-expression was with God, and that self-expression was God.”
What John is doing is he’s written his book, and he wants an introduction, a prologue, that captures everything he says about Jesus in few words. He can’t use a title like “Son of God” since he’s used it all through his book. He can’t use a title like “Son of Man” since he’s used that throughout his book. He wants one title that will capture everything he wants to say about this man Jesus to whom he bears witness.
He remembers that in the Old Testament, God’s word is the agent of creation. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” The word is the agent of revelation. “The Lord has sent a word [a message] against Jacob.” “The word of the Lord came to me.” The word is God’s powerful means of deliverance. “My word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire.” “God sent forth his word and healed them.”
He says, “That’s it! That’s what I’ll use to describe Jesus.” So he writes, “In the beginning God spoke. He expressed himself, and that self-expression was with God, and that self-expression was God.” Most Jews in Jesus’ day knew that God had not sent a prophet with a full-blown authoritative word of the Lord for 400 years. “Well,” John says, “God doubtless has been silent for these centuries, but the next word he spoke was Jesus Christ.”
The thought is very similar to the opening verses of Hebrews 1. There we read, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” The idea is not that Jesus is simply another prophet. The idea is that the very fullness of his message is none other than Jesus.
The New Testament writers do not see themselves as prophets to add something to Jesus. They see themselves simply as explaining this revelation, this final revelation. “In the past God spoke through his words, through prophets. In these last days there is the Son revelation,” the climax to which all the others point. It is God’s last word. It is his final word. So when John of the Apocalypse sees the return of Christ, he pictures him as the Word of God who is coming at the end.
“This Word,” we are told, “was with God [God’s own fellow], and he was God [God’s own self].” Perhaps John meditated long on such Old Testament passages as Isaiah 9, where we are told the Davidic king, the one who sits on David’s throne, is nevertheless the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
One writer says, “John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God; if this be not true the book is blasphemous.” Just so. Jesus is God’s last word. What then does John tell us about this Word of God and his relationship to us? What do we learn here of Jesus as God and man? Five things.
1. The Word creates us.
The middle clause of verse 1, “… the Word was with God …” is now repeated in verse 2 to set you up for verse 3. Verse 2: “He was with God in the beginning.” That is, however far back you push beginning, he was already there with God. He shares eternity with God, differentiable from God, yet at the same time the text says he was God. We’ll come back to that in a few moments.
Then we are told, verse 3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” The Word creates us. That too is told us in Hebrew 1. There we are told, “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.”
Paul, likewise, says in Colossians 1:15–20 that all things were made by him and for him. This verse judges it so important that it articulates the truth both positively and negatively. Positively: “Through him all things were made.” Negatively: “Without him nothing was made that has been made.” Why? Why this emphasis?
Have you ever met people who say, “I don’t mind if you want to worship God and talk about Jesus and things, but I just wish you’d get off my back, and I wish your God would get off my back, too. This is my life, and I’d like to live it how I please, thank you.” What would you say to that? It seems like their democratic right, doesn’t it?
The biblical answer to that, of course, is the doctrine of creation. We are God’s, whether we like it or not. We were made in his image and for him, whether we admit it or not. We will give an account to him, whether we anticipate it or not. All things were made by him and for him. Sadly, it is a mark of our deep rebellion that so many of us do not recognize it. That is itself a mark of our rebellion.
That we should even conceive of thinking that we could, let alone should, live our lives without his impress, without his authority, without his protection, without his watchcare, without his love, without his law, is already a mark of our profound disaffection and rebellion. It is, in short, a mark of our sin.
This sets up a whole worldview that is essential to understand biblical Christianity. There are currents and moves in our society that want to picture religion as something that simply fulfills us. Why should you learn to obey God when you can pay 300 bucks for a course that will teach you how to be God? Try some of the New Age movement. We seek self-fulfillment, but this very kind of self-fulfillment is another form of self-worship.
In the Scripture, we find ourselves only when we lose ourselves. We gain life when we die. At the end of the day, the Bible is not given to us, in the first place, to make us feel fulfilled but to make us holy. It is not to make us, in the first place, happy but to make us obedient. It is not to prepare us to live a long life here with the primary gods of the North American culture, reasonable income and good health. It is to make us full of eager anticipation and thorough preparation for the new heaven and the new earth.
Now I do not mean by this that Christianity is a kind of nasty masochism down here. The Bible insists that the joy of the Lord will be your strength. That’s all true, but it is in the framework of being rightly related to this God who has made us. Unless we see that our primary problem is rebellion against the God who has made us, we will not find, either, where the solution is.
The solution is in reconciliation to this God who has made us. It is not simply in trying to sort out our own problems or using this God as a super-spiritual genie to meet our needs and our greeds. The first appeal is be reconciled to God, the God who has made us by his Word, his last Word, Jesus Christ. The Word creates us.
2. The Word gives us light and life.
We read, verse 4: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” If you were reading this book for the first time, and you had read the first three verses which talk about creation, then when you came to verses 4 and 5, you’d probably understand them this way:
“In him was life.” That is, self-determining life was already in him, so that was how he could be the agent of God in creation. He already was life, and so this life became the light of men as he poured out his own life somehow so they would take of his life. This speaks of creation in another term. “The light shines in the darkness,” presumably the darkness of nothingness. Before he created things, there was nothing, just darkness. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t understood it.” It can’t; it’s just nothing.
Then when you go on and read the book, you start having second thoughts. Have you noticed that some books are designed to be read more than once and some books are not? Some of you, of course, may not be readers, and others of you may be quite ardent readers. If you’re a business person and you get on a plane here, taking a trip to LA, you might have all your financial reports up to date and you’re tired of your laptop computer. Now you just want to read a book, so you think of some book that will not engage your mind too heavily and you buy a Louis L’Amour or something.
When you get to the other end.… Let’s be quite frank, Louis L’Amour is not the sort of book that you want to read 15 times. You might read a police novel, a thriller of some sort, and once you’ve found out “whodunit” usually you don’t go back and read that book again and again. In fact, you might just throw it in the trashcan as you leave the plane.
The best books, including novels of course, are layered so that you read the book once, and you find out whodunit. Then you read it another time, and now you pick up all the clues you missed the first time. They say Agatha Christie once picked up one of the books she wrote in her early years and had forgotten whodunit, and she read it through to find out whodunit herself!
Even after you’ve discovered whodunit, then you might go back and pick up all the clues you missed the first time. If the book is very well written, you might read it a third time, because now you pick up the regional accents, the intonation, and the characterization. Each character in a well-written book has a certain kind of personality and touch. It becomes an enjoyable good read, even though you know where the plot is going.
Now the question is.… When John wrote his gospel, did he intend you to read it more than once? You see, there are some books, in all fairness, that are not designed to be read more than once. Tracts are often like that too, aren’t they? Of all the New Testament evangelists, so far as I can see, John is the most layered. He does all kinds of things that draw you in so you can read the book very simply. It’s easy Greek, and it’s easy English.
A child learns to recite John 3:16. All the stories are simple, yet when you go back and read this book and read this book again and again and again you start seeing some depths and some characterization, even in the pen-sketches of people. Isn’t that correct? Look at the man who was healed in John 5, the man who was 38-years paralyzed. He’s an international-class twit. Just in a few clauses here and there, John has filled out a whole character. He’s slow, he’s dumb, and he’s mean.
Then you turn to John 9, the man who was born blind. It’s another whole character. He’s fast with the mouth. He’s willing to take on all the theological characters of their day. He’s a real smoothie, and you’re drawn to him. John has done this by a few Greek pen clauses. In exactly the same way, John’s gospel is written in such a way that after you’ve read through it at one level, you can go back and read different levels.
So after you’ve read verses 4 and 5 for the first time, and then you read through the book two or three more times, you discover that regularly, in John’s gospel, light is a metaphor for the coming of Jesus when the Word becomes flesh. Later on, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world,” (John 8:12). Already in John 3, verses 19 and following, we read, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
He’s talking about his own coming into the world. In fact, after this verse, every reference to light speaks of the coming of the Word made flesh into the world. Now when you go back and read verses 4 and 5, you see another connection you didn’t see the first time. Verses 4 and 5 can be read not only with verse 3, which establishes the link with creation, but also with verses 6 to 9. There you have the testimony of John the Baptist.
John the Baptist did not witness the creation. He wasn’t born yet. John the Baptist did witness the incarnation and bore witness to him who is the light made flesh. So we read, “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light …”
“That light of which I have already spoken,” John says. “… so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light.” No, there is only one who is the Word. There is only one who is the light. “He came only as a witness to the light. […] The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.”
You see, there is a sense in which this light, by creation, gives light to every man. It is what theologians sometimes refer to as the image of God. In him was light, and that light was the light of man. He made us what we are (moral beings, spiritual beings, sensitive), whether we like it or not, even our fits of anger, rebellion, and denial to the God who has made us. He is tied to us as the light not only by creation (verse 3), but also as he came to us in the incarnation, witnessed to by John, touched, handled, seen, spoken of. The light comes into the world. The Word gives us light and life.
You see, both interpretations are true, and John means them both; it’s why he ties them first to verse 3 and secondly to verses 6 and following. The Word gives us light and life, both by his creative power by which he stamped in us the very character of God, the image of God, and by coming to us again and revealing God to us with such stunning clarity. He is supremely wellspoken of as the Light of the World.
3. The Word confronts us and divides us.
We read in verse 10, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him.… There’s a reference to creation again.” … the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own [people] did not receive him.” That’s what is meant.
What is this world of which John speaks? The word world, of course, in the original is well known to many of us. It’s kosmos, which is related to the verb kosmeÛ, from which we get the word cosmetics. In the 50s and 60s, many Christians thought worldliness could, in some measure, be tied to cosmetics through precisely such word links as that. More broadly, “Never drink, smoke, swear, or chew and never go out with girls that do.” It’s worldly.
John’s analysis of world is much deeper than that. For John, world is one of his favorite words, so far as usage is concerned, but one of his most abominated words in terms of its contexts. In all but a handful of 70 or so occurrences world, for John, refers to the whole moral created order in disgusting defiance against God. That’s the way he pictures it here.
“He was in the world [the world that he had made], and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” Of course, that is part of the continuing saga of Old Testament revelation, isn’t it? “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually provoke me to my very face.” He came to his own people, and they too turned from him.
Shall we think more harshly of the Jews for that reason? That’s never the point in Scripture. The Jews are merely emblematic in that regard of all of what we say and do. “It was my sin that held him there.” We sometimes sing these things better than we say them in other terms. In Britain, we sing the hymn:
My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh and die?
He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend.
Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!”
Is all their breath,
And for His death
They thirst and cry.
Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries!
Yet they at these
Themselves displease,
And ‘gainst Him rise.
They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He
To suffering goes,
That He His foes
From thence might free.
In life no house, no home,
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was his home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein he lay.
Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In Whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend.
“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” Christianity is never, ever in the Bible a picture of fallen humanity clamoring after God. It is a picture of fallen humanity running away from God and God coming after us like the hound of heaven.
So he confronts us. The Word confronts us. Are there no exceptions to this rebellion? Yes! Verse 12: “Yet to all who received 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.” You see, these people are not intrinsically better. They too constitute the world.
The Word does not divide us on the basis of what we people are, as if some people are good and some people are bad, some people recognize him and some people don’t. That is Gnostic thought; it is not Christian thought. Rather, he comes to the world, and the world rejects him. He comes to his own country, and his own people reject him. Yet, some do receive him. Some do believe in him.
Finally, it’s not because of some profound genesis on our part. The analogy here is of sexual genesis pictured as in the ancient world where the man takes all the initiative. That is, natural descent, human decision, a husband’s will. It’s not that kind of genesis but these people are “born of God.” So they’re described three ways. They receive the Word, they believe him, and they are born of God. All three.
There are so many things in John’s prologue that anticipate the mighty themes you find throughout the entire book. This is one of them. This is preparing the way for Nicodemus in John 3 and the new birth. So the Word come to us, he confronts us in our sin and our lostness, and he divides us. He divides us on the basis of new birth. He divides us on the basis of who receives him and accepts him by faith.
So this text already asks us.… Do you know this disclosure of God? When Jesus comes to you, do you bow before him and receive him? Do you trust him? Have you been born of God? Or is he someone who you can write off, because by nature in birth and heritage, you (just like everyone else here, just like me) are part of the world that wants to reject this Word?
4. The Word incarnates God for us.
I don’t know another word in English. He enfleshes God for us. Here’s the high point, verse 14: “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.” No one can doubt what coming of the light John is now talking about. “The Word became flesh …” Not “The Word assumed a body” or “The Word hid in a body,” but “The Word became flesh.” The expression means he became a human being.
What does that mean? Throughout the centuries of the church, Christians have tried to think that one through and put it in appropriate terms. How can one who, according to the first verse is not only with God but who is God, who partakes of the very characteristics of deity.… How can he also partake of the characteristics of humanity? “He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps,” yet we find Jesus asleep in the back of a boat.
God knows all things. He even knows the things that would have been under different circumstances, what philosophers call “third knowledge” or “middle knowledge.” He knows what might have been under different circumstances, according to Matthew 11. Yet Jesus speaks of his own second coming in these terms. He says, “Of that day, of that hour, knows no man … not even the Son.”
So how shall we understand this? Some theologians have wanted to handle it this way: whenever they find something in the Gospels that speaks of Jesus’ humanity (he weeps, he is hungry, he is surprised), they assign it to Jesus’ humanness, and whenever they find something that clearly refers to his deity (he creates things, he forgives sin), this they assign to his divine nature.
Throughout the history of the church, that has been a large part of the Christian way of explaining this. I confess, I’m a bit troubled by it when it’s put quite so boldly, because it almost sounds as if there were two Jesuses. That’s not quite the picture we have in the Gospels either, is it? Others have tried to say, “Well, he so emptied himself when he became a human being that he could do this sort of thing.” But then there are a lot of traps, it needs to be said.
For example, some have said, “He emptied himself of his divine nature.” Then he would no longer be God. Others have said, “Well, he emptied himself not of his divine nature but of the characteristics of his divine nature. He emptied himself of the “omni” attributes; that is, his omnipotence (his all-powerfulness), his omniscience (his perfect knowing), his omnipresence (his ability to be everywhere). He emptied himself of these things. That troubles me too, because how can you so quickly distinguish function from being?
If I see an animal that looks like a horse, smells like a horse, runs like a horse, has the hair of a horse, and has all the attributes of a horse, I’ve got a horse. You take away 50 percent of the attributes of a horse, and I’m not sure what you’ve got left, but it’s not a horse! So some say that instead what he does is empty himself of the use of his divine attributes. Well, that’s closer. On the other hand, he forgives sin and then says, “Who can forgive sin but God alone?”
No, in some mysterious way, he so humbles himself and empties himself of his glory by taking on human flesh that he resolves not to use those divine attributes, powers, and functions that are rightly his. He does not use them. He does not make appeal to them, except for when the heavenly Father gives him express sanction. He lives and walks as a human being in all respects as we are, save only for sin. That is amazing grace!
What grace is this that brought my Savior down,
That made Him leave His glorious throne and crown.
The one who made the earth, the sky, and sea.
Who put the stars in every galaxy! What condescension,
Oh how can it be! What shame He suffered oh what agony!
And then the death He died, for sinners crucified,
What grace is this! What grace is this!
The Word became flesh. God’s own fellow became flesh. God’s own self became flesh and lived for a while among us. It is precisely at this point when we think again about God becoming flesh that the witness of John is kicked back in.
You see, this takes place in the historical arena. If you could prove that Gautama the Buddha never existed, Buddhism wouldn’t be affected that much, because it’s a structure of thought. Historical solidity is not important. But in the biblical way, that’s not truth. If Jesus never existed, Christianity is destroyed. If the tomb wasn’t empty, Christianity is destroyed.
At the very moment when John brings up the incarnation again, he also brings up the witness again. “John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me has surpassed me.” ’ ” This was unheard of in the ancient world, where the older is always to be more honored. “He who comes after me has surpassed me.” Why? Because, finally, he is older: “He came before me.” He came before the worlds. He made all things. He was with God in the beginning. “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.”
Now when John says, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth,” it must be remembered that John is writing to first-century, Greek-speaking Jews in the Diaspora, scattered all over the Roman Empire and beyond, who knew their Greek Old Testaments. They could pick up echoes of the language as they went along.
The story that John is referring to here is found in Exodus 32, 33, and 34. In Exodus 32, you have the terrible story of the golden calf (a terrible account of rebellion), then God’s anger and wrath, followed by Moses’ intercession with God to turn away from his wrath. Then in the despair of Moses’ blackest hours, God says, “Take the tabernacle out from the center of the tent. Pitch it outside, for if I am present in all my glory in the midst of this rebellious people, I will destroy them utterly.”
Moses pitches the Tent of Meeting outside the camp. Chapter 33, verse 7: “Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the ‘tent of meeting.’ Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.
As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp.”
At this point, Moses is still in dark despair, and he starts pleading with the Lord. “If you want me to take on this rebellious lot across this desert, you must show me more of yourself. You say, ‘Lead this people,’ but you’ve not let me know whom you will send with me. I’m scared. You’ve said, ‘I know you by name,’ and that you have found favor with me. If I have found favor in your eyes, teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you.”
The Lord replies, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” That’s not good enough for Moses. He says, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?” You want to pitch the tent of your presence outside the camp? You’re already removing yourself from us.
“What else will distinguish me and your people from all other people on the face of the earth?” That is what makes us your people. That is what distinguishes us. “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.’ Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’ ” I’m asking for more. That’s not enough.
“And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ ” Sovereign dispensing of mercy is mine. “But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’ ” There is a limit to how much you can see, Moses.
Then the Lord makes the arrangements. Moses goes and hides himself in a cleft in the rock. God goes by, covering over the cleft. As the Lord goes by, he intones (chapter 34, verse 6), “ ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness …’ Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.”
John 1:14 is full of allusions to this passage. “The Word became flesh and tented for a while amongst us.” That’s the idea. Moses said, “Show me your glory.” The Lord showed him his goodness, full of love and faithfulness. Now centuries later, a millennium and a half later, John says, “The Word became flesh. He tented amongst us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only Son …” The perfect reflection of deity. “… who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
That’s John’s translation for the same two words in that Moses account. “The Lord, the Lord, full of love and faithfulness. Full of unrestrained mercy and covenant reliability. Full of truth.” Now John says, “full of grace and truth.” It is as if John is saying all the revelations that God has graciously given in the past have now coalesced and are outstripped and surpassed by this wonderful disclosure of himself in his Son, the Word. “The Word made flesh, who tented for a while amongst us, and we have seen his glory.” The Word incarnates God for us.
5. Above all, the Word supremely reveals God to us.
We read, verse 16: “From the fullness of his grace we have all received …” And then the NIV has “… one blessing after another.” Which in English sounds as if one is piled on top of another or something like that, but the idea here, judging by the text, is not one blessing piled upon another, although that is wonderfully true. Verse 16 is explained by verse 17. Verse 16 does not say, “One grace piled on another,” but, “From his fullness we have all received one grace instead of another.” It’s a substitution word.
The idea is this: From the fullness of him, we have all received one grace, now substituting for another grace. “For the law was given through Moses.” That was grace enough! Does not John elsewhere say in this book, “Salvation is from the Jews”? God did graciously reveal himself to Moses at the time of Sinai. That was a gracious gift. Grace and truth, par excellence. The same two words, grace and truth, came through Jesus Christ.
Do you know when I first understood the power of those words? I first understood it in the autumn of 1964, when I was talking to a Muslim at McGill University. He was a Pakistani who had left his wife and two children behind in Pakistan. He was pursuing a PhD in Islamic studies, which would be like a PhD in theology for us. McGill has one of the best Islamic institutes in the world.
I was a lowly student in chemistry and mathematics without any training formally in theology. He’d come with me to church every once in a while; he wanted to find out about these funny Christians. He was a bit lonely, and we got on quite well together. Then that Christmas I brought him home with me.
I’d given him the gospel of John somewhere along the line, and he’d begun to read it. It was the first part of a Christian Bible he’d ever held in his hand. That Christmas, as it happened, my father was in the hospital with some heart problems. It didn’t prove serious, but it took him out of the picture. My mother and I were shuttling back and forth to the hospital constantly.
Then the last day, I thought, “That’s not quite fair to my dear friend Guraya; I must at least show him some of the sites.” So I took him on a small tour of Ottawa and ended up at the Parliament buildings. I’m sure you know the Parliament buildings: the pseudo-gothic structure, the rotunda at the back where the library is, the Senate chambers, the House of Commons. We were on a guided tour of about 30 people and came back to the central foyer with these large pillars and their fluted arches.
There the guide explained, “In each of these fluted arches is a figure representing some facet of government. There is a figure representing Aristotle, for government must be based on wisdom. There is the picture of Moses, for government must be based on law.” He went all the way around the fluted arches. “Any questions?”
Mohammed Yusuf Guraya pipes up. “Where is Jesus Christ?” I didn’t know where he was coming from. I was looking for a crack to fall into. The guide didn’t know where he was coming from. So the guide said, “I beg your pardon?” Like most foreigners, Guraya thought the guide hadn’t understood his English. So he said it more slowly and louder. “Where is Jesus Christ?!” Now there were three groups in the foyer who were listening to a Muslim Pakistani ask where Jesus was in the foyer of the Canadian Parliament buildings.
The guide said, “Why should he be here?” Guraya looked shocked. He said, “I read in the Christian Bible that the law came through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Where is Jesus Christ?” I thought, “You preach it, brother.” For here was a man steeped in the dictates of a religion that did understand law, that did understand demand, that did understand obedience, and could even see law as a grace, but now, for the first time, he was being struck with the excellency, the superlative excellency, of grace and truth in Jesus Christ.
That is what the text says. No one has ever seen God. Even in those descriptions where someone is alleged to have seen God in the Old Testament, there’s always a caveat. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord,” Isaiah says, but when you read the description, the fine print as it were, in all the footnotes you discover that what he sees is a trailing edge of the hem of Jehovah filling the whole temple. No one has ever seen God.
That God, the unique one, the Word who is at the Father’s side (that’s the same way of saying the Word was with God) … He has made him known. He has narrated him, is what it means. He has “exegeted” him. He has explained him. That is why John says, “We have seen his glory.” Above all, the Word supremely reveals God to us. If these truths are vital to you, if they lie at the heart of your knowledge of God, then you are ready to sing with the whole church in every age:
Thou art the everlasting Word,
The Father’s Only Son;
God, manifestly seen and heard,
And heaven’s beloved One.
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art thou,
That every knee to thee should bow!
If you’ve come in here this evening, and you do not know God, do you know how God has supremely manifested himself to you? In his great mercy, considering our rebellion, he’s disclosed himself to us in creation, in mighty acts, in deeds, even in words, but supremely in his Son. If you want to know God, study Jesus and cast yourself upon him, for you will know him. You will know him. That is God’s last Word to us. Amen.
