The Word Became Flesh

John 1:14

“And the Word became 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.”

“The Word became flesh” is what we call the incarnation–God becoming human. Since God is spirit, and the fact that “no man has seen God at any time,” how are we to know God? We can not see a spirit, or ghost, or an invisible being.

In the Old Testament, Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden, But they did not see Him, they only heard His voice. God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, but He did not see God, only the fire in the bush. Abraham realized that the two men he was talking to were angels in human form and only afterward concluded that one of them must surely been the Lord. Holy God spoke to the prophets in an audible voice and they quoted Him in their preaching. The Lord appeared to some in dreams, and some in visions, but it requires unusual faith to realize that God is speaking.

However, God chose to reveal himself in human form, so we could identify with Him in a more personal way. God took on a human body. It was not a human becoming a god. “The Word”, one of the Bible references for Christ, became flesh. He, Christ, took on a human body, so He could communicate face to face with mankind, then submit to the death on the Cross. The Bible describes it as “being in the form of God ... and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:7-8).

Although the “Trinity” is hard for us to understand, Jesus showed us in daily living what Holy God is like. He revealed the attitudes and purposes of God. He taught and demonstrated the character of God. And perhaps more important to us, He revealed the very love of God.

Jesus told Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus was not at first, God and them became a man. He was fully God all the time, but also, here on the earth for about 33 years, He was also fully man. He needed sleep, became weary and needed to sit on the side of a well to rest. He became hungry and thirsty. He had to walk from place to place. He bled like a very human man, and He died and was buried like a very human man. That is why the preacher will call him the God-man. He is very God, and very human all at the same time.

Perhaps the picture we need to capture in our minds, is that God wanted us to know His love for us, so much that He (God) took on a human body so that He (God) could pay the penalty for our sins, then offer us forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9). We are the sinners that should be condemned to Hell, but He (God) in the body of Jesus Christ died for our sins, so He could give us the opportunity to be forgiven and cleansed, if we would repent and ask Him for it. The Word became flesh so that we could become the children of God.