THE WORD BECAME FLESH

“The word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 (NIV)

What a power-packed statement! Not a baby-in-a-manger, once-a-year-at-Christmas-time story but something that really happened and something that changed history and the destinies of millions who believe in Him. Jesus came from the other side, stepped down from His position in glory with the Father, put on a human body and ‘tabernacled’ for a while right among His own people. John adds his own testimony, ‘We have seen His glory…full of grace and truth,’ perfect and complete. Not many people saw His glory. Oh! They saw Him alright, but they didn’t recognise or acknowledge that He was the Son of God or that He came here to display Father’s glory.

The real Jesus, the second Person of the Godhead, the one who was constantly working with His people for thousands of years, the one who spoke with both mercy and severity, came Himself, disguised as a human being, living in the tent of a human body for a little while, like His own people in the wilderness, to show and tell the whole story of redeeming love.

What did John and his fellow-disciples see? They saw in Jesus the perfect balance of grace and truth in action. He Himself was the fulfilment of everything the tabernacle – the ‘mishkan’ – represented. He is the way to the Father; He is the truth about God and He is the life that God gives us when we believe in Him. He takes us to the Father through the blood He spilt on the cross. We are allowed into the Holy of Holies to fellowship with God because Jesus came to earth as a human child.

Through the revelation of grace and truth that He brings in Himself, those who believe in Him are made both clean and holy through the offering up of His own blood which was sprinkled on the mercy seat to make atonement for the sin of the world.

Grace and truth are the whole picture, God acting out of the fullness and perfection of who He is; grace shows us how great His love is, and truth shows us His justice. Because God is both true to Himself and gracious to us, Jesus paid the debt for our sin Himself by becoming God’s sacrificial lamb so that He can cleanse us of sin and accept us into His holy presence.

But every human being must make his own choice. Jesus came, presented Himself to the world and delivered His message by being the message. Everyone who sees and hears the message can either accept or reject what he sees and hears and take full responsibility for his choice. But for John the issue was clear, and he saw and believed.

It isn’t the birth of Jesus we should celebrate. We should remember every day that He came from the other side to be with us and to die for us.