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 any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. (John 1:14–18)

What would you name as the top 10 most important events in history? I saw a few polls on the Internet. Some had named the rise of cities, the rise and fall of Rome, the invention of the printing press, the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, the French Revolution, World War 2. Christians believe that far and away the most important events in history revolve around the events described in the verses we have just read. We would quote the words of C. S. Lewis: “The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle.” That grand miracle was summarised by Charles Spurgeon, “He that made man was made man.” If that is true, then there is no greater moment in history, no more significant event. It is quite simply the greatest story ever told, and it is a true story. If human history includes a moment when God became man, when the invisible God became visible, then there is simply no other event as important. I often hear unbelievers say that if extraterrestrials exist and visited earth, that would be the most important day in human history. Well, what about if the Creator of the universe visited Earth?

But this is not just speculation. If this truly happened, and if it is the greatest story ever told, then it dramatically affects your story, your history. Maybe the life and death of Julius Caesar doesn’t affect you that much. But the life and death of Jesus Christ does affect you. Even if what He said of Himself was not true, it still affects you. You cannot escape deciding about whether Jesus was truly God in the flesh.

The event of God the Invisible becoming visible by becoming man is known as the Incarnation, which comes from Latin words meaning enfleshed, God taking human form. As John completes this prologue for the whole book, he now brings it to a climactic highpoint with a clear statement of the Incarnation. What did this eternal Word do? What did the Light do? And in five verses, John summarises the greatest story ever told. The greatest story ever told is made up of three “G’s” – God-Man, Glory, and Grace.

I. God Becomes Man: The Moment of the Incarnation

And the Word became flesh

Here is one of the most staggering statements in all the Bible. The Word became flesh. Remember who this is?

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 nothing was made that was made.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1–5)

The one identified in verses 1-5: the one who had eternity, who was one of a Trinity, who was fully deity, the Creator of all things, the Generator of all life, the Revelator of all knowledge and truth, He, became flesh.

Became flesh means, He became human, He took on physical, embodied form. It is John’s way of making sure no one misunderstands what happened. Some false teachers in the first century taught that the Word simply took on the appearance of a human but He didn’t actually become one. Others taught that the Word merely possessed a human body for a time so as to discard it later, but didn’t become human. Ancient Greek philosophy recoiled at the idea that the infinite, transcendent God, could ever be joined with transient human existence.

But this is the world-changing teaching of Christianity, that distinguishes it from any other religion. It claims that the true Creator-God, did not only send prophets and angels and other intermediaries to speak to man. It claims this Creator-God became man Himself.

But there is an exquisite balance that has to be kept with this doctrine. Theology can sometimes be like balancing on a tight rope, and one false step to the left or right and you plunge down into heresy. That’s why as Christians worked through what this means, they developed statements that attempted to place guardrails on either side of the truth, so that our cars don’t veer into the ditches of heresy. One of these statements is called the Athanasian Creed. Listen to a few lines from this, where they are essentially taking this line of John 1:14 and explaining what it does and does not mean.

Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God’s taking humanity to himself.
He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person.

The framers of that creed said, John 1:14 does not mean that God became man by converting Himself into some new hybrid creature, half-God and half-man. He did not blend or mix deity and humanity into some new superhuman human or some sub-deity god. He didn’t become two people, like Siamese twins joined.

No, God the Son added a human nature to Himself. Instead, the Person that had always been the Word, now added to Himself the human nature of a human soul and a human body. Two natures, distinct and not mixed, but united in the Person of the Word, the Son of God, God the Son, Jesus Christ. Again, this is what John wants you to have in mind throughout the book, as you watch Jesus teach, and heal, and weep, and rebuke, and suffer and die. That one is the Word, who became flesh.

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

The Word became flesh. God became human. What does that look like? One of the great critics of Christianity later on became a Christian, and wrote much in its defence. Josh McDowell wrote books like Evidence Which Demands a Verdict. In that book, McDowell proposes a thought experiment. He asks, if God did become a man and enter human history, what would we expect?

He suggested eight expectations. Consider if these bear any resemblance to Jesus Christ.

• We would expect Him to enter the world in an utterly unique way.
• We would expect Him to be without sin.
• We would expect Him to manifest His supernatural power with supernatural acts – miracles.
• We would expect Him to live more perfectly than any human has ever lived.
• We would expect Him to speak the greatest words ever spoken.
• We would expect Him to have a lasting and universal influence.
• We would expect Him to satisfy man’s spiritual hunger.
• We would expect Him to overcome death.

But there is a very personal application of the Incarnation to you and to me. This also means you cannot dismiss Jesus, or ignore Him. Once a man claims to be God, we have what C. S. Lewis called a trilemma – a 3-option problem. If He is not God, but thinks He is, then He is mad, a lunatic, and you should not worship Him or even admire Him. If He is not God, and knows He is not, but still tells you He is, then He is a liar, which is even worse. He is a deliberate deceiver, and does not deserve respect, admiration, or anyone listening to His teachings. The third option is that He says He is God because he is. Jesus is either a lunatic, or a liar, or He is Lord. But He cannot just be a good man, or a wise prophet, or a sage, or a great teacher. Those options are no longer available once the prophet, sage, teacher claims to God in the flesh. The Incarnation forces upon you a decision: it either happened or it didn’t. Jesus was mad, bad, or God.

In fact, it is upon the basis of the Incarnation that Christians can make the very bold claim that there is only one way, that Jesus is the only way. If Jesus hadn’t claimed to be God, then we would take our place among a thousand other religions as just the flavour we prefer. But if God became a man, and that man is Jesus of Nazareth, then the argument is over – there is one way, and it is Him.

But the story of the Incarnation doesn’t just stop at the fact. We want to understand the reason for this Incarnation. Why should God do this? Why couldn’t or didn’t He remain in Heaven and just send prophets and messengers and angels?

II. Glory Revealed to Man: The Message of the Incarnation

and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Here is what the Incarnation meant. John says that He dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.

The word he is using for dwelt is the Greek word meaning tent or tabernacle. In one way, that simply means to live among us, to take up residence. But in a second way, the reference to tent and tabernacle pushes us back to Exodus, where we read that the Tent of Meeting was set up, even before the Tabernacle, the final tent, had been created. And it was in this tent that people sought the Lord. And when Moses would go in, the pillar of cloud, representing the glory of God, the presence of God would descend upon it. There, in some manifest form, Moses spoke to God face to face. He saw God, and made the request, Please, show me your glory. God answered that by hiding Moses in the cleft of the rock, and passing by, allowing Moses to see the back parts of His glory when God proclaimed His name.

So when an Israelite thought of tent, they thought of meeting with God, God manifesting Himself, showing His glory, revealing Himself to Israel. So much so, that the Hebrew word for tent, mishkan, and the word for dwell, shakan, are forms of the later Hebrew word for glory: God’s shekhinah glory: the manifest glory of God.

So what could John be saying? When God manifested Himself before in cloud and fire, when Moses face shone, all of that has now come to a climactic moment: God has tabernacled with us in human form. John says, we beheld His glory, just as Moses asked for and beheld the glory of God, so those who saw Jesus were beholding the glory of God.

Verse 18 tells us that no one has seen God at any time. That is, no human eyes, have seen God in His invisible, infinite essence. Not only so, but even when God made Himself visible, it was lethal for a human to be exposed to the full manifestation of that. Even Moses was told that He could not see God and live, but only a passing-by manifestation and only the back parts.

But now, in the Incarnation, the only begotten Son’s glory is the glory of God. The Son of God declares the Father, and the word for declared is where we get our English word exegete, or exegetical. The Son expounds the Father, explains the Father, makes known the Father. The Son is the living sermon that explains the invisible God. The Son takes what is infinite, unknowable, unapproachable, invisible, incomprehensible, and because He is among us, God’s nature is now knowable, approachable, visible, comprehensible.

The reason He can do this is because of His relationship with the Father. Twice John tells us of His unique status and closeness to the Father. Verse 14: the glory as of the only begotten of the Father
Verse 18: The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father

What does this mean, the only begotten, and in the bosom of the Father? These are strange terms to us. The word translated only begotten means, “the only one of its kind”. It means radically unique. Jesus has no siblings of the same kind as He. There is only one Son of God in the sense that Jesus is the Son of God.

It also means, uniquely from the Father. The Son is the Son because He is eternally related to the Father as the Son, just as the Father is eternally related to the Son as the Father. This is their eternal relationship. It is one of such closeness and kinship, that the human analogy is that of children who come from parents. Children share their parents DNA. Children resemble their parents. But the analogy breaks down because parents give birth to children and there is a time when the parent exists but the child does not. That is not the case with the Father and the Son. Eternally the Son has been the Son of the Father and eternally the Father has been the Father of the Son.

By the way, some ancient Greek texts of John do not read only begotten Son, but only begotten God, which is the reading you’ll have in the ESV, NASB, and CSB. It’s an awkward reading, but if it is original, it only strengthens the case for the deity of Christ. However, I go with the majority text reading of the only begotten Son.

The other words are also an image of closeness, who is in the bosom of the Father. The image that is used is one of lying upon the chest. It is the same term used for what John did at the Last Supper. As he reclined, he could lean back upon the chest of Jesus, obviously a sign of deep friendship and love. It is also used of Lazarus being in Abraham’s bosom, meaning the place of safety. The relationship between the Son and the Father is so close, so loving, one of such union, that theologians speak of coinherence, that the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. They are distinct, but so closely that to see one, is, in a way, to see the other.