Tuesday, Dec. 2nd

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Tuesday, Dec. 2

John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 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 bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

A few years ago actor and director Mel Gibson made a film  entitled, “The Passion of the Christ.” The movie was a graphic and powerful portrayal of the sufferings of Jesus during his final hours on earth. While the film did touch on the resurrection, it focused mainly on Jesus’ suffering, his “passion.”

Along the way Gibson included a number of “flashback” scenes that told something of the story of Jesus’ life before the cross. One scene, in particular, I found very moving.

In the scene Jesus is an adult man working in his small carpentry shop, which seems to be behind the home he shared with his mother. Mary watches her son as he finishes work on a table and then asks him if he is hungry. He says, “Yes, I am.”

Just a simple scene from an ordinary day. We don’t know much about Jesus’ life before his public ministry began, but we do know that he was a man who got hungry.

John concludes the brilliant introduction to his gospel with:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Word and flesh.

He wants us to see right off the bat that Jesus is both God man; fully divine and fully human. This is crucial because if Jesus is not the eternal Word; if Jesus is not God, if Jesus was just another good, religious, moral, human teacher, then all Christian theology collapses.

Throughout history there have been two major categories of heresies (false teachings) when it comes to Jesus. One set of heresies claims that Jesus was only human and not divine.

There have been a number of variations of this heresy throughout history, including include Arianism, Ebionitism, and Adoptionism. They each deny that Jesus was truly God, but rather was simply a extraordinary man that God blessed with supernatural powers.

This is also the most popular misunderstanding about Jesus in our culture today. Many, many people believe that Jesus was a great man in history; an influential spiritual teacher like Buddha or Gandhi or Mohammed, but do not believe Jesus is God.

The problem is, of course, that Jesus himself claimed to be God.

John 14:9

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

Furthermore, claiming to be the Son of God was the very very reason he was put to death on the cross.

John 5:18

For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Some of the earliest creeds of the church, creeds that Christians still recite together today, were developed to correct this false teaching about Jesus.

Nicene Creed (325 AD)

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

This part of the creed focuses on the divinity of Christ; stating clearly that Jesus was indeed God.

The significance of this claim cannot be overstated. For if Jesus was not fully God then God did not take on flesh; and if God did not take on flesh then he did not give himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins and Christianity is nothing but a religious hoax.

But, scripture says, Jesus was also flesh; he was fully human.

The Chalcedonian Creed is very long but includes this pasage:

...our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin...

This creed was written to combat the heresy of Docetism; which claimed Jesus was divine but not really human. Jesus only seemed to have a body; only seemed to be human.

Again, the problem is that the Bible goes to great lengths to establish the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth.

He was born of a human mother.

He was tempted.

He wept at the death of a friend.

We’ll talk much more about this in a minute, but he experienced physical hunger, thirst, pain and death.

John says that not only was Jesus the eternal Word of God, and therefore God himself, but that the “word became flesh.”

Jesus didn’t “seem” to be human.

Jesus didn’t just “inhabit” a human body.

Jesus was the God with skin.

But why does flesh matter?

The incarnation matters because it makes the gospel possible! Flesh makes forgiveness possible!

In Hebrews 9:22 Paul writes:

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Blood only comes from real flesh, from a real physical body. If Jesus were only divine, only spirit; or if Jesus was a heavenly being, like an angel, he would not be flesh and blood. But because He took on human flesh could He be the sacrifice to atone for our sins.

In 1 John 1:7 we read:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

The incarnation matters because it makes death and resurrection possible.

If God did not become flesh, Jesus could not have really died; and therefore could not have really risen from the dead.

In 1 Corinthians 15:14-17 Paul writes:

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

What we need to see here as that the Word became flesh not just so we can put manger scenes in our yards or send quaint Christmas cards to each other! The incarnation matters; the baby in the manger matters, because without him, without his flesh, there is no gospel!

Pastor Brian Coffey