The Word Became Flesh
John 1:1-14
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. 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.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… A most blessed Christmas to you! We heard in this past Sunday’s Epistle St. Paul exhort us in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” While that is the will of God for us every day, we rejoice all the more on this day of our Lord’s nativity. The child born to the Blessed Virgin Mary is a special child in that He is given from God not just to Mary, but to all mankind.
It is as the prophet Isaiah foretold in his ninth chapter, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.” (Is 9:6). The child that is born for us – this Son that is given to us – is no mere child, just as His birth is no ordinary birth. This child who comes into the world is God’s Son and He is God Himself. The child born of the Virgin Mary, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manager is God the Word, the one of whom St. John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The Word is eternal, being with God from the beginning. The Word was God, John says. Notice that He does not say that the Word became God, or that the Word was created by God. The Word was not fashioned like the rest of creation. The Word simply was. He has always existed in a way that is indescribable and unfathomable to our finite minds. Paul describes Him in a similar fashion in this morning’s Epistle lesson. He is “the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person” (Heb. 1:3).
This is the One who is born in human flesh on this day. “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 eternal Word of God, the brightness of the everlasting Light, the One by whom all things were made that were made, comes into the world through the womb of the Virgin Mary. In Him we see “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” So the One born of Mary is the eternal Word of the Father, the brightness of the Father’s light, and the Only-Begotten Son of God, “begotten 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.” The Son born of Mary is therefore the Only-Begotten Son of God.
This is why we ought doubly to rejoice on this day: The Son of God becomes a Son of Man. He does not become flesh by changing from God into man so that He ceases to be God, nor does He become a third thing, a hybrid of God and Man. The Word became flesh – that is, the eternal Word wrapped Himself in human flesh and clothed Himself with our full humanity in the womb of Mary. As St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, Christ, “being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7).
The Word becomes flesh; the Word becomes the whole human existence: human body, human soul. And to do this, He empties Himself of all divine prerogative and condescends to live a fully human life: hungering, thirsting, being tempted, growing weary, and even suffering and dying in the flesh. This is called Christ’s State of Humiliation – everything He experienced as a human, from His conception to His death and burial. And it is the pious practice of many Christians to bow the head during those phrases in the Creed that describe Christ humbling Himself and becoming like us in every aspect. He assumed a full humanity, body and soul, a whole humanity in order that He might save every part of our humanity.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He didn’t do this out of necessity, as if His nature drove Him to become man. He didn’t assume human flesh in order to be a tourist among us or to perform an experiment to see what it is like to be man. Everything the eternal Word does is for us and our salvation. The Son of God became a Son of Man so that all men who believe in Him might become sons of God.
Mankind rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, and that sin of Adam and Eve is passed on through every successive generation so that all are sinners and therefore all continue in sin. Adam and Eve’s transgression brought corruption into their souls and death to their bodies. The corruption of sin infects everyone throughout human history. Death, which is the earned wage of sin, stalks all humanity, a fact which we are all too familiar with in our own lives. We die because we sin. We sin because we are born of the line of Adam and Eve. Without a gracious God to intervene, all humanity would be lost in sin and death and remain forever in the kingdom of the devil.
This can cheap cialis lead to several problems involving high blood sugar. The relaxed muscles then work efficiently generic cheap viagra djpaulkom.tv in time of need. People should take these issues into consideration as a very serious problem and brand viagra 100mg the seriousness of the problem is far beyond just maintaining an erection. Even though, it is suggested to the patients to overly depend on buy viagra online http://djpaulkom.tv/video-da-mafia-6ix-residence-evil-from-watch-what-u-wish/ and not consult a sexologist to ease the issues and treat ED from within.
This, therefore, is the reason for the incarnation. In love for His creation, God the Father would not allow the creation to languish in sin and corruption. In compassion for us poor sinners, God the Father sent God the Son into world to redeem the world. In mercy, God the Father sent God the Son to become flesh so that through Him all flesh might made incorruptible and taste everlasting life once again. “God so love the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son” to become flesh, to become man, to redeem man from sin and death.
We rejoice in this incarnation of the eternal Son of God because by it He became our brother in this life, made like us every way, except without sin. And as our brother in the flesh He did what Adam and all sons of Adam were unable to do: He became like us so that He might suffer and die in our place to atone for all of our sin.
Paul says again that “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). God the Son was made a little lower than the angels, meaning He was made man so that He might suffer and “taste death for everyone.” He tasted death upon the cross for all mankind to atone for the sins of the all mankind. For “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). The sacrifice of a mere man could never suffice to pay the debt of even that man’s sin. The death of a creature, someone created by God, would never suffice as the propitiation for the sins of the entire world. Therefore, it must be God’s blood that is spilled and God’s death as payment for men’s sins.
This is why He became flesh, so that He might suffer in the flesh for all our sins, die in the flesh for all our transgressions, and atone for the corruption which sin has brought about in our flesh, and to do away with all of it.
That atonement, which the incarnate God wins upon the cross, He then gives to all who believe in His Gospel. That atonement acquired by God the Son through His bitter sufferings and death is presented to you in the Gospel and is received only by God-given faith. St. John writes, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” There will always be men who reject the Gospel and cast it aside in unbelief. Those who do not believe the Gospel are not justified before God. But all who receive Him in the Gospel and believe that in Christ God is gracious to them have forgiveness and salvation.
And faith is what grabs hold of the gifts Christ wins for us in the flesh. Faith is how we receive the promise of the Gospel that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. By faith we receive the forgiveness of all of our sins, eternal life, and the adoption as sons, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). This is what St. John means when he writes, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God.” Through faith in Christ and His atonement – that His work is for us and for our salvation – that is what makes one a child of God. This means that the Son of God became man so that all who believe in Him might become sons of God and enjoy all the blessings of divine sonship.
It is faith, therefore, that makes us into sons of God, not in the same way that Christ is the Son of God. He is the Son of God by nature and essence. But we are sons of God through faith, adopted into the heavenly family. In this adoption Christ gives us the forgiveness of all our sins. By faith He gives us a new, incorruptible heart in which the Triune God dwells. And because we are sons of God by faith, we share in all the divine blessings which Christ has by nature, so that we are joint-heirs with Christ of His heavenly righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
This is why rejoice at the incarnation of the Son of God. God the Son takes on our flesh to purify human flesh from the corruption of sin. He tastes death for us so that all who believe His Gospel will have life even though they die. This is the reason we join with angel choirs and praise God for His great work of salvation. God the Word became man to suffer and die to atone for our sins so that when we believe that our sins are forgiven, they are no more.
This is why we rush to Bethlehem with the shepherds to “see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us” (Luke 2:15). God the Son became man so that all who believe in Him might become sons of God by faith, sons that enjoy all the eternal inheritance of Christ for our salvation and His eternal glory.
So, yes, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” But rejoice especially today that Christ has assumed our flesh and made us, by His gift of faith, into Sons of God.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
