“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. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me. And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
John 1:14 has to be the most profound and full verse in all of scripture. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. There is absolutely no doubt, to any Greek or Hebrew reading this that the writer John was referring to God when he said the Word. In the Old Testament God was referred to as the Word many times: the Word of the Lord came to Abram, the Word of the Lord came to Moses, the Word of the Lord came to Isaac and Jacob, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and on through the prophets. For the Greeks there was a word “Logos” which meant Word. It was a philosophical essence of all reason, it wasn’t attached to a specific person or being, it was consider to be a floating essence responsible for all things and responsible for keeping all things in the universe in place. So for the Jew and for the Greek, when John wrote this Gospel they would have had no doubt that he was referring to God as being the Word, weather they believed that Jesus was He or not. When reading this gospel they would have either believed him, or labeled him a heretic, but would understand that John was saying that God became a man. It wasn’t until modern times, man becoming disconnected from “Logos” and would have denied that John meant anything else other than God becoming a man and dwelling among us. All modern cults have two things in common:
1. They have just enough truth to make someone think that they are Christian.
2. They all deny the Deity of Jesus Christ, that He is God.
The major theme if this gospel is the Deity of Jesus Christ!
Think about how powerful and amazing this is, God became a man. The ancient one who sits on the throne, the one who spoke the universe into existence, the one who always has been and is and is to come, the first and the last, the Alpha (beginning) and the Omega (last), the One who is infinite became finite, the One who is everywhere became incarnate. God became a man and dwelt among us, with the same type of body we have and living with all the same problems we live with everyday. God knows your problems; God understands your problems, because He became one of us with one major difference, without sin. John said, “and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”. The glory of who He was concealed in human flesh. (He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him ~John 1:10). John was on the mountain with Peter and James, he saw Jesus transfigured, and he never forgot it, (and He was transfigured before them. His face shown like the sun, and His clothes became as white as light ~Matthew 17:2), and then they heard the voice of the Father declare Him, (This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him! ~Matthew 17:5).
The writer wanting us to know he wasn’t the only witness told us that John the Baptist bore witness of Him as well, and not only John but every believer who has received His fullness in grace and truth bares witness of Him. John had been preaching repentance and telling people that there would be someone coming after him and that they should be waiting for Him and that He existed long before him, and when Jesus began His ministry and John knew Him he declared Jesus as being the one he was talking about. John was born before Jesus and began his ministry before Jesus but yet He was before him because He always has been, because He was in fact God. Jesus told the people in the temple about Abraham and they said: (You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham ~John 8:57)? Jesus told them: (Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM ~John 8:58). They picked up stones to kill Him but He disappeared. In His fullness which every believer has, He brought truth. Truth that He was the Way to eternal life with the Father in Heaven, and by grace through Him all of your sins are forgiven, verse 16 says “and grace for grace” as though grace never stops, it just keeps flowing out of Him, just like the ocean waves, just one after another. And it is a good thing that it never stops, if grace ever stopped flowing from Heaven we would be in trouble.
Verse 17 talks about the law being given through Moses and grace and truth coming through Jesus Christ. Why do people try to change this, seriously why? What does the law do but show us what terrible people we are, it gives us the knowledge of sin, and makes us aware that we need a savior. Most people just bounce along in life and think they are pretty good people and they are doing well; good people go to Heaven right? That would be true if there were any good people but there are not, (for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God ~Romans 3:23). Then there are others who think if you follow the letter of the law you will be good enough, that is what the Jewish people try to do and they fail. What are you if you break one of God’s laws just one time? No matter how often you get it right, if you break one of God’s laws even once you are a law breaker, it doesn’t matter if it is once are a billion times you are a law breaker. And still others even try to make rules to follow on top of God’s laws to try and make sure you don’t break the laws, and that in itself breaks the law. So my friends what is the single purpose of the law? The single purpose of the law is to bring the knowledge of sin (for by the law is the knowledge of sin ~Romans 3:20). And for this purpose the law must be preached, because without the knowledge that you are a sinner, you cannot appreciate and appropriate grace. God set it up this way, first He gave us the law through Moses, then grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. I don’t mean sometimes, I mean every single time the gospel is preached, law must be preached first and after the law has been preached you give grace and truth in Jesus Christ. That is the way God made it and that is the way it should be done, any other way is not the gospel at all but some other gospel that did not come from God!
Verse 18 says that Jesus declared God. At no time in human
history past did man see God! God through the Word spoke to His prophets and His prophets in turn told the people God’s will. We knew of His creative ability because of creation and we knew of His moral character because of the law, but we did not know Him. Human beings exist in time and space. We take up a certain amount of space and exist along a plain of time moving forward. God exist outside of time and space, God is eternal. Since we as human beings cannot go outside of our existence to perceive God, what had to happen, God had to come into our existence and that is what He did in the God Man Jesus Christ. Jesus was in the bosom of the Father at all times even before creation. He said, (“He who has seen Me has seen the Father ~ John 14:9), and further said, (“I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ~John 14:11). Jesus was the complete embodiment of God in a Man. He revealed who God is to us, what God is like, His moral character, what is important to Him, who is important to Him, and His love for us. God came into our existence and was revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
