Trust in the Incarnate Word

By Joel R. Beeke

Teaching is hard work. When Jesus and His disciples got into a boat after a full day of teaching, the disciples were not surprised that Jesus fell asleep. The gently rocking waves of the Sea of Galilee might have lulled them to sleep, too. But on their way across the big lake, a terrible storm arose.

The southern end of the Sea of Galilee is a deep valley lined by cliffs. Wind can suddenly come roaring into that valley and whip the sea into a storm. [1] Andrew, Peter, James, and John had seen many storms in their lifetime of fishing, but this one overwhelmed them. The wind howled and the waves crashed. The boat began taking on water. It rode lower in the water so that each wave threatened to fill it. Fear gripped the men. Their boat was sinking; would they all die?

They turned to Jesus, who was still sleeping, and shouted over the roaring sea, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” Jesus stood up and rebuked the wind and the sea. In an instant, wind and sea were stilled. But the men were still terrified. “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” they asked (Mark 4:35-41; cf. Pss. 65:7; 89:9).

Why was Jesus asleep in the midst of the storm? Why didn’t the storm awaken Him? The obvious answer is, His humanity. He was tired. He was worn out after a long day’s work and needed rest to renew His strength.

How did Jesus calm the storm? Again, the answer is obvious: His deity. Jesus had such power over creation that His words instantly changed the weather. He did not use technology, magic charms, or rituals. Jesus didn’t even pray. He just said to the storm, “Be silent!” Christ has the power of God, and His disciples recognized it when they said, “Even the wind and the sea obey Him.”

But the mystery here is whether Jesus was tired or all-powerful. Was He drained of energy or full of energy? Was Christ limited so He needed restoration, or was He infinite in ruling over creation by His mere word? The answer, according to Scripture, is both. Jesus is both limited in His humanity and infinite in His deity as Lord over creation.

Jesus Christ the God-Man

John 1:14 says, “The Word was made 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.” As is typical of him, John uses simple words to express a very deep truth. Incarnation is a Latin word that means “becoming flesh.” In the Incarnation, God became human flesh. Contrary to the theologian Rudolf Bultmann, this is not “the language of mythology”; instead, as Robert Reymond says, this testimony of John is the language of eye-witnesses reporting what they know to be true. They say, “We beheld his glory” (cf. also 1 John 1:1-3). [2]

The reality of God made flesh in Jesus was experienced by the apostles and portrayed in the gospels. This reality is what compelled the church to affirm Jesus as both God and man. The Bible compelled the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) to state that Christ is one Person with two distinct natures, human and divine. As the Westminster Confession (VIII.2) says, “Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man” (cf. Larger Cat., Q. 54).

In the process of grafting, a person cuts a living twig off a tree. He then cuts into another tree, sometimes of another species, and presses the twig into the tree. The two are sealed together with wax or wrapping. Over time, the twig and the tree grow together into one unity, one living organism. Both the twig and the tree retain their unique genetic codes and their own distinct natures. But now the twig draws its life and bears its fruit from the roots of the tree. [3]

In a similar but more profound way, God grafted human nature into His divine Son. The result was not a hybrid demigod like Hercules or some kind of Superman. Rather, both the divine nature and the human nature retained their individual, essential properties. But now man was joined to God in one living Person, Jesus Christ. In Him, believers draw life from the divine root and bear fruit for God’s glory. In botanical grafting, two plants of the same genus or of like nature are combined. The miracle of the Incarnation is that God grafted the finite into the infinite. Thus, the Infinite One became bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. The Prince of glory became the Babe in a manger. The Son of God became the Son of Man. The Creator came out of the creature. He who made the world and was above the world came into the world. The Almighty One became a little Child. The immortal Son was clothed in rags of mortality. The Eternal One became a Child of time. God, who made man after His image, was Himself made in man’s image. He whose dwelling is in the heavens was let down into the hell of this earth. He who thunders in the heavens cried in the manger. The invisible God was made visible. God took our flesh and dwelt in it with His divine fullness so that our flesh could become more glorious than the angels — and through that flesh God opened up His gospel treasures by being Savior, Redeemer, Kinsman, Elder Brother, and Shepherd of His own. In short, the Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men might become the sons of God. How unsearchable are His ways!

The sheer magnitude of the Incarnation is so incomprehensible; we could borrow the language of the Apostle Paul that we see it only through a glass darkly. Describing the Incarnation in human language is like painting a mountain on a grain of sand. We stand before this abyss of glory and know we can never reach the bottom. Therefore we must keep our steps on the path of God’s revelation and follow the Bible closely as we explore the mystery of this Incarnation.

We also must remember that John wrote his Gospel not merely for our understanding but for us to trust in Christ (John 20:31). The purpose of John 1 is that sinners will receive Christ, which means to believe in His name (John 1:7, 11-12) and to behold His glory (John 1:14; 2:11). We will examine John 1:14 for both those who are unbelievers needing to trust in Jesus for the first time, and those who are believers who need to grow in faith in their Savior.

John 1:14 says, “And the Word was made flesh.” Let us meditate on this great statement of the Incarnate Word. We will consider, first, “the Word,” and second, “flesh.” Throughout, we will keep in mind John’s focus on our need to trust the Word made flesh for our salvation.

Jesus Christ, the Word of God

“The Word was made flesh,” John tells us. The Father did not become flesh, nor did the Holy Spirit become flesh. Also, the divine nature did not become flesh. God’s essence did not change in the Word, as if He lost His divine attributes; rather, the eternal and only-begotten Son of God became flesh. The Holy Spirit did not choose to say, “The Son was made flesh,” although that is true. The Spirit chose to say, “The Word was made flesh.”

The Spirit uses “the Word” in this text to express the greatest thought of the Father’s heart. The Word is the great Revealer of God. God calls us to trust Christ as the Word of God, and we trust Him by listening to Him. Many of us are not good listeners. When someone else is speaking, our minds often race ahead to what we want to say in response. To our shame we then realize we have missed what the other person was saying.

So, listen to the Father’s Word. Give Jesus Christ your full attention. Acknowledge His authority above all others. Cultivate quietness before Him. When the living Word speaks through the written Word, let other voices be silent. Even if your traditions, culture, feelings, and opinions contradict the Holy Scriptures, listen to Christ. Do not assume that you already know what it says. Let God speak in Christ. He is God’s Word.

The truth that Christ is God’s Word leads us back to John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Here are three teachings about the Word who became flesh that illuminate what it means to trust in Christ. Remember them with the keywords eternal, beloved, and divine.

1. He is the Eternal Word. “In the beginning was the Word,” says John 1:1. This Word already existed when “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). So the Word was not created. [4] There was never a time when the Word was not. He is the eternal Word the Father speaks from everlasting to everlasting. Christ did not begin in Mary’s womb but existed as the Word prior to creation. He is not just two thousand years old, for, in John 8:58, He says to His disciples, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He did not say, “I was,” though claiming to exist two thousand years before Abraham would have been incredible enough. But Jesus says, “I am,” meaning He is the One who said to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I AM THAT I AM…. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” Jesus is the eternal Creator.

We must trust in Jesus by being in awe of Him. Psalm 33:6, 8-9 says, “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth…. Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Faith in Jesus requires fearing God — trembling in reverence that we are in the presence of the Word of God by whom the mighty mountains were made. Christ was ancient when the galaxies were born. Yet He is ever fresh and lively and new, for He is “I AM,” not just “I was.” The stars in the night sky make you feel small and insignificant. Likewise, the ancient mountains remind you that you were born only yesterday and will be gone tomorrow. Looking at Jesus should fill you with trembling, awe, and reverence. He is the eternal Word.

2. He is the Beloved Word. John 1:1 says, “The Word was with God.” Christ enjoyed personal communion with God the Father and the Holy Spirit from the beginning. John 1:18 says Christ “is in the bosom of the Father,” in the place closest to His heart. [5] The Father sent us His eternal companion and friend. God gave us the Word whom He delights to hear and to whom He loves to speak.

We see this also in John 1:14 and 18, where Christ is called the Father’s “only-begotten” which in Greek (μονογενής) refers to a son or daughter with a unique relationship to his or her father, like that of an only child. [6] Such a child is precious and beloved, as Isaac was to Abraham. John says in verses 12-13 that every lost sinner who trusts in Jesus becomes a child of God. But now he says that Jesus, the Word, is God’s “only begotten” Son. It is as if John is saying, “God has many children who are born again through faith in Jesus. But, dear friends, remember that Jesus is God’s Son in a unique way. He is more precious to the Father than all the angels of heaven. He is the One whom the Father has sent to you.”

I have been married to my wife for more than twenty years. She is my dearest friend. As I reflect on our time together, I see how, in God’s grace, we have grown together. Imagine how close a husband and wife might become after being married for sixty years! How close then are the Father and Son, who have been loving companions from eternity! They have done everything together. Their hearts are one. They are even one in essence.

No book in the New Testament highlights the love relationship of the Father and Son as much as the Gospel of John. John includes more than 120 references to the Father/Son relationship; and eight times the book says that the Father loves His Son (3:35; 5:20; 10:17; 15:9; 15:10; 17:23; 17:24; 17:26). Love, particularly the love of the Father for the Son, is the preeminent motive for all of God’s divine activity (John 1:18). [7]

So trust in the beloved Christ as the gift of God’s love. God so loves people that He has given them the Word who was with Him from all eternity. He has given them His Son, who is the supreme eternal and infinite object of His fatherly love. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God loves sinners so much that He gave them the One He loved most; He gave the best He had for the worst He could find — sinners like you and me. Are you trusting that love and abandoning yourself to it? Christ is the beloved Word.

3. He is the Fully Divine Word. John 1:1 goes on to tell us that the Word who became flesh “was God.” This is not to be translated as “a god” or “godlike,” but “God” with a capital “G,” as the grammar and context make clear. [8] Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that since the Greek word for “the” is not present before “God,” this verse should be translated as Christ being “a god” or “godlike.” [9] But this is a misleading argument. The word God is also used without the Greek word for “the” in John 1:6, 12, 13, and 18. Not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses translate those verses as “a god.” So John 1:1 plainly refers to God Almighty, not a god, even without the word “the.” Greek grammar teaches us that the absence of the article (or “the”) only intensifies the noun, making it a categorical assertion. Christ was and is God, as fully divine as the Father.

Furthermore, as Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God,” John 1:1 also says, “In the beginning was the Word.” This parallel places the Son at the center of the Father’s work as Creator, as verse 3 affirms: “all things were made by him.” The plan was the Father’s, but the voice of command saying, “Let there be...” is the Son’s.

Christ is therefore the full and comprehensive revelation of His Father. Every attribute we may affirm of the Father is true of the Son. Jesus lovingly rebuked Philip when Philip asked Him to show him the Father by saying, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Isaiah 9:6 says Christ is “the mighty God” (cf. Isa. 10:20-21). Truly, as John says, we behold in Christ “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14), for in Christ we behold the very exegesis and exposition of the Father.

Again, this text calls us to trust Jesus and tells us what it means to trust Him. Since the Word who became flesh is fully God, we trust Jesus by worshiping Him as the Son of God. We trust Him in a way that stirs us to adore Him. People can mean different things when they say, “I trust you.” They may have historical faith, merely believing that someone is telling them the truth as if it were a reliable news report. They may have functional faith, or the confidence that someone will do a job for them, such as put siding on their house. They may have relational faith, trusting that someone will be a faithful friend or faithful spouse. Such faith is appropriate with human beings. But none of these kinds of faith is sufficient when it comes to Christ.

The Lord calls us to trust Christ as fully God. Saving faith in Christ is an act of worship in which we adore Him with all that we are, and abandon ourselves totally to Him as our all in all. Thomas struggled to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. But when he saw Christ and His wounds, faith broke through doubt and made him cry out, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). We too must fall down and worship Christ as our Lord and our God. That is saving faith. [10]

We have begun our discussion on “the Word became flesh,” by considering that Jesus is the Word of God. On the basis of the Bible, we confess with the Westminster Confession (VIII.2) that Jesus is “the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father.”

We must give our full attention to this Word. We must sit at His feet in reverent awe, rejoicing that the loving Father has sent us His most beloved Son. We must bow down and worship our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, the Word Become Man

“The Word was made flesh,” John tells us, meaning that He entered completely into the human condition (John 17:2). [11] The Word took on human nature, taking the nature of a servant (Phil. 2:7). The Son of God embraced all that it means to be human. Paul says in Colossians 2:9, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Without ceasing to be God, Christ became flesh.

The Incarnation is an act of beautiful and astonishing humility. When a person who is great and powerful treats you with kindness and respect, as if you were on the same level with him, you are deeply touched by his humility. Christ’s Incarnation displays infinitely more humility than the President of the United States might by taking the place of a lowly private in the Army. God displayed His greatest glory with the greatest act of humility. The Incarnation overthrows all glory-seeking and calls us to be servants (Phil. 2:1-13).

From the outset, John’s statement about the Word becoming flesh was scandalous. The Greeks resonated with the term Word. In the culture of their day, the Word (or Logos) was the principle that ruled the world and brought order out of chaos. [12] The Word was somewhat like logic and the laws of nature viewed as a divine spirit. But the Greeks would have been shocked to hear that the Word became “flesh,” for they sharply divided the spiritual world of ideas from the physical world of things. The two could not mix, like fire and water. In the Greek order, bodies imprisoned spirits like a bird trapped in a cage. So to say that the divine Word became flesh was offensive to them. [13]

Before judging the Greeks, we should realize that our culture also thinks the world is split into two parts, the subjective and the objective. On the one hand, we recognize the personal and private realm of spirit, feelings, values, faith, and religion. On the other hand, we affirm the public realm of science, facts, measurable results, and visible things. The debate of evolution versus creation often reveals that people assume that science and religion cannot mix. They think spirituality is a matter of personal feelings, not objective truth. As a result, many people live schizophrenic lives with faith in one compartment and daily life and work in another. [14]

But God does not have a divided mind. God is an infinite Spirit. He created and rules the finite world, which consists of spirits and physical matter in close relationship with each other. In the Incarnation, the eternal Spirit joined Himself with matter. The Word became flesh. Flesh in the Bible implies three truths, which can be summarized in the keywords: body, soul, and death. Let’s look at each of them.

1. Christ Took on a Human Body. Jesus spoke of His body as “flesh,” as in flesh and blood (John 6:51-56). When the Word became flesh, He became physically human with a body. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”

One of the first heresies the Christian church faced was Doceticism, which denied Christ’s true physical humanity (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7). This heresy said the body of Christ was only an appearance, a fantasy. It was not historical, touchable, visible, woundable flesh and blood. Contrary to this heresy, the Incarnation of Christ brings together God and the flesh and blood of our humanity.

The Incarnation also challenges our cultural assumptions. The gospel is not concerned simply with ideas, but with facts and objects. It enters the world of physics and biology and history. God’s Son became as physical as you. He took on our feet, our legs, our chest, our arms, our mouth, our hair, our eyes, our ears. His hands were roughened by the wood of the carpenter’s shop; His back was torn by the lash of the scourge. He was truly human. When He died, He was truly dead. His pulse stopped and His brain activity ceased. When He rose from the dead, His physical body arose to new life. He spoke. People touched Him. He ate fish. Jesus was fully human.

Jesus came to “regenerate” all of creation, including our bodies. Like a diver descending into the depths of a sea to bring up lost treasure, Christ came to earth in a body so that He could raise our bodies into glory. His resurrection is the beginning of a new creation that rises like a phoenix from the ashes of the old fallen order. Philippians 3:21 says, “For our conversation [or citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

So trust in Christ as the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). Faith in Christ does not just look forward to an afterlife. Paul is insistent in 1 Corinthians 15 that faith in Christ trusts in and looks for the resurrection of the body. So believers in Christ should not fear death. They should not fear cancer or a car wreck. The Son of God has taken your flesh into glory, and He will glorify your flesh with His one day. Violence, disease, accident, or death can do nothing to you that Jesus will not restore and make whole again.

As a believer, you have the best of both worlds. You have the best of this world because you are united to Christ here and now. You have the best of the world to come because you will be united to Christ in glory forever with a body that will be radically and comprehensively free of all sin. With that body you will praise Immanuel forever! Truly, the best is yet to be!

2. Christ Took a Human Soul. Flesh refers to the entire person, including the human soul or spirit. The Bible says in Hebrews 2:16-18, “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor [or help] them that are tempted.” He became like us “in all things” except sin, even like us in our sufferings and temptations of the soul.

Ancient heresy also refuted Christ’s becoming like us in all things. Apollinarianism denied Christ’s human mind and heart. It said the Word took over a human body as if an alien force were operating an android of flesh. But Jesus had real human thoughts, experiences, and feelings. He was human from the inside out.

In the Bible, the word flesh can refer to the human way of thinking (John 8:15). Scripture tells us that Jesus grew intellectually from a child to an adult (Luke 2:40, 52). It tells us that Jesus in His human mind did not know the day of His Second Coming (Mark 13:32). That should not shake our confidence in Christ’s teachings, for the Holy Spirit filled Christ’s human nature with truth that was without error. But Jesus had a human mind. If you cannot believe that Christ had some mental limitation in His human nature, how can you accept that Christ died? God’s nature is immortal. Jesus was truly God, but He was also truly man.

In Scripture, the word flesh can also refer to human feelings and desires (John 1:13). Jesus wept, displaying sincere grief, says John 11:35. Jesus also rejoiced (Luke 10:21). As a godly man, Jesus ordinarily experienced the peace of His Father’s presence and love (John 8:29). Yet, as Surety of His people, Jesus went further into the black hole of sorrow and despair than any other human being. At Gethsemane, He was amazed, weighed down with sorrow, and afraid. These emotions did not lightly touch Him; He experienced them in horrendous depth. He was terrified of the impending encounter with the wrath of God. On the cross, He went deeper into darkness than any of us have ever known. He was no stoic. He had strong human feelings.

Jesus “dwelt among us” (John 1:14); He came to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He had to experience that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23) to be Savior for His own. He came to deal with cosmic sin. The only way our sin could be dealt with was by agony and bloody sweat, by His dying and burial in the grave, by His entering the lake of fire for us, and by His going into the bottomless pit for us to suffer the wrath of a sin-hating God. The unthinkable happened as the God who could not bear the sight of sin looked at Calvary. There the Son of God hung in the naked flame of God’s holiness as He bore our sin (Isa. 53).

Have you ever considered what the agony of Golgotha was all about? What do you see when you look at the cross? You see the absence of all that is pleasant and beautiful and refreshing, and the presence of everything that is ugly and atrocious and revolting. Everything about the place is odious. There is no order or harmony or decency at Calvary. It is a place of skulls and bones and putrid flesh. It is a place of crosses stained with blood and victims writhing in pain, compounded by vile insults from people gathered around to watch. Only one person speaks on Jesus’ behalf; he is a fellow human being who is being crucified with Him. He is a thief about to die. The pure-minded women are silent, the disciples are hiding for fear. His friends have forsaken Him, and so has God the Father who has always loved Him. The Father has now turned away from His Son.

Sin is fearful in the face of Sinai’s thunderous lightning, but sin is most bitter in the torn flesh of Christ’s suffering. Have you realized by faith that Christ has taken your sin upon Himself? That the bridegroom has taken all the liabilities of His bride to Himself and is paying the wages of sin for her? He took the sinner’s place, being separated from all that is good and lovely, even the very light of God’s countenance.

Do you truly trust in God’s good news as an unworthy sinner? If you remain as you are in your present condition, despite the gospel, Christ’s death will do nothing for you. As long as you can live without Jesus Christ as your first love, your one hope, and your only Savior, you do not truly know that you are a sinner. Oh, that you would be pricked in your heart today to know that you are a lost sinner before a holy God! Then this glorious gospel of our blessed God would be good news to you today. Then you will know the wonder that sinners should be the object of God’s eternal love.

Then you will know the wonder of unconditional election. Without election, our salvation would be hopeless. God knew from all eternity that not a single sinner would seek after Him. If God had not taken the initiative to save sinners, the entire human race would have perished. No human merit of man entered into God’s decision of sovereign election. Unconditional election is the foundation for an unconditional gospel that declares to you that salvation is available without money and without price and without any human merit or qualifications.

So trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. No matter what you feel or experience, Jesus understands. Jesus is a Person with fully human affections. He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). Pour out your heart to Him as your best friend (Ps. 62:8). He is the most compassionate friend a sinner can have.

A man who wanted to improve his relationship with his wife read in 1 Peter 3:7, “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife.” He wondered what it meant to live with his wife “according to knowledge.” This man knew nothing about horses, but his wife loved them, and so the couple owned some horses. The husband now decided to learn about horses. He started helping his wife in the barn. She laughed at him because he had no idea of what he was doing. But he kept helping because he loved his wife. So he entered her world and the couple drew closer together in understanding.

The Lord of glory also entered our world. Christ pursues emotional intimacy with us more than any person near to us. Trust Jesus, then. Walk with Him daily. He has lowered Himself to meet you where you are. That should fill you with gratitude and joy in His love. He took a soul so that He could be our soul-mate.

3. Christ Took on Human Death. In the Bible, flesh implies mortality, or subjection to the power of death. [15] Jesus took on every aspect of our humanity except sin (Heb. 4:15; cf. Rom. 8:3). His humanity therefore involved mortality. God became man in mortal misery, which was the consequence of the sin of the first Adam.

The Son of God became flesh to unite God and man in His Person, but also to unite God and sinners in His death. He says in John 6:51, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” The Word became flesh to give His flesh for the world so that He would give life to the world.

The broken covenant between God and man could not be restored until the demands of God’s justice were satisfied. The divine Lawgiver, Jesus, was born under the law to redeem us from the curse of the law (Gal. 4:4-6). The incarnate Word willingly became subject to the curse of the written Word (Gal. 3:13-14). He felt the pangs of death (Ps. 116:3) in all their bitterness on the cross, even to the point of being forsaken by God. Through all of His suffering, He was fully conscious, sensitized with the purity of His own mortal humanity. What a mystery! But because of Jesus’ suffering and accursed death, we may now become the recipients of God’s blessing.

A man and his wife flew thousands of miles over land and sea to get to Russia. They spent tens of thousands of dollars and filled out complicated legal paperwork through a translator. They did all that to adopt a child. They wanted to take an orphan into their home so that they could love the child forever. That is what Christ did for us. He went the distance. He paid the price. Without the cost of His death, we would be eternal orphans cut off from God’s family. But He satisfied all the demands of the law so that our sins might be forgiven and we might be welcomed into the Father’s home.

No wonder John writes, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John 3:1a). “Behold!” is John’s way of saying, “Look at this!” The apostle is overwhelmed with the wonder of God’s adoption of believers. He asks us to gaze with him at this wonder. Have you, by faith, comprehended the magnificent doctrine of adoption?

John’s sense of astonishment is more evident in the original Greek, which says, “Behold, from what country or realm does such love as this come?” Matthew 8:27 uses similar words to describe how astonished the disciples were when Jesus calmed the winds and the sea, literally saying, “From what realm does this man come that even the winds and sea obey Him?”

God’s adoption of believers is unparalleled. The world does not understand such love, for it is beyond the realm of human experience.

John is astonished because God showed such amazing love while we were still rebelling against Him and His kingdom. God calls us sons of God; He brings us into His family, giving us the name, privileges, and blessings of His own children. He invites us to know Him as Father, to dwell under His protection and care, and to come to Him with all our needs. John is overwhelmed at the thought of being a full member of God’s family.

Do you stand in awe of the wonderful love of the Father who gave His own Son for your salvation? I hope you are amazed! You cannot trust the Incarnate Word unless you trust the crucified Lord. He was born to die. It was not enough to bridge the gap between the infinite and the finite. Christ bridged the gap between the Righteous and the unrighteous. Therefore, trust in Christ as the One who became flesh to die for our sins. Trust in the infinite value of His death, for the Person who died was none other than God.

The Synod of Dort (II.3-4) declared, “This death of God’s Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world…. This death is of such great value and worth for the reason that the person who suffered it is, in order for Christ to be our Savior, not only a true and perfectly holy human, but also the only begotten Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit.” What more could you ask for as an atonement for your sins? Guilty sinners need no other mediator.

Put your trust in the Word who became dying flesh for the sake of dying sinners that they might live in Him.

The Word of God became flesh. On the basis of God’s revelation, we confess with the Westminster Confession (VIII.2), “The Son of God...did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof; yet without sin.” The Son of God took upon Himself body, soul, and even death. This invites us to receive Christ and to trust in Him, for He is the atonement of sins. He is the Friend of sinners. He is the Resurrection and the Life of fallen, frail, dying men. Rest your heart on Him!

God Offers You the God-Man

John concludes in John 1:14 by telling us that the Word made flesh is “full of grace and truth.” He who is “the truth” delights to give Himself away to sinners in grace — to sinners who have merited only death and hell. What a wonder that He offers Himself graciously to us!

You remember the story of John 4. Jesus left Judea. On the way to Galilee, He and His disciples passed through Samaria. While the disciples went into a village to buy food, Jesus sat down beside a well. It was about noon, and the hot sun was beating down. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well, Jesus asked her for a drink.

At first she was shocked that He would talk to her; Jews and Samaritans hated each other. But Jesus then said something that intrigued her. He offered her living water that would become a spring or fountain welling up within her soul to forever satisfy her thirst. She asked Him for this living water. Jesus then exposed her sins. He told her she had had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband. Then He told her that He was the Christ. She was so amazed that she ran off to tell her friends about the Savior (John 4:1-42): “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (v. 29).

Jesus likewise comes to you, humbly and lowly in heart, in our very nature. He understands what it means to be weary, hot, thirsty, and in need of a helping hand. He knows what it is like to be misunderstood and criticized and opposed by people. He too has suffered the miseries of our Fall. Indeed, He suffered more than you can understand.

He also comes to you as God. He knows you completely. He knows all about your sins, whether public or private. Yet He offers you full pardon, the peace of God, and access to the Fountain of living waters.

“The Word became flesh.” As a man, Jesus, like us, was an empty cup that needed to be filled by God. As God, Jesus is the river of living water (Ps. 46:4) that can satisfy our souls forever. God took the cup of Christ’s humanity, filled it with Himself, and now offers this cup to you. God offers Himself to you in Jesus. By the Spirit’s grace, receive this cup and drink of God. Trust in Jesus, the Incarnate Word, who in His passive and active obedience fully pays for sin and obeys the law, so that God can be fully just in justifying the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Receive His precious gifts of pardon and eternal life. Look to Him to support you and save you in the midst of the storms of life. Submit to His divine authority as He exposes the secrets of your heart, and calls you to repentance. Then vow, by God’s grace, to live forever in, by, and for this Incarnate Word.

Notes

1. The Reformation Study Bible, ed. R. C. Sproul (Orlando: Ligonier, 2005), 1422. Thanks to Paul Smalley for his assistance on this article, which is slightly enlarged from an address I gave for a regional conference of the Philadelphia Conference of Reformed Theology (PCRT) in Quakertown, Pennsylvania on November 12, 2010.
2. Robert L. Reymond, John, Beloved Disciple: A Survey of His Theology (Ross-shire, U.K.: Christian Focus, 2001), 180-82.
3. Ray R. Rothenbergarand and Christopher J. Starbuck, “Grafting,” http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6971, accessed 9-4-10.
4. Note the contrast between the imperfect of the verb “to be” (John 1:1) and the aorist of the verb “to become” (John 1:3, 10, 14). The latter term is clearly associated with creation, including the world and humanity. The former indicates an already continuing existence apart from the creation of the world and mankind. When the world began, He already was. “In short, the Word’s pre-existent being is antecedently set off over against the becoming of all created things” (Reymond, 35).
5. Luke 16:22-23; John 13:23-25.
6. Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38; John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; Heb. 11:17; 1 John 4:9. Cf. LXX Judges 11:34; Tobit 3:15; 6:10, 14; 8:17; Aquila Gen. 22:2; Prov. 4:3; Jer. 6:26; Symmachus Gen. 22:12; Prov. 4:3; Jer. 6:26. Especially significant in the Greek OT are the times in Gen. 22 that Isaac is called the “only son” of Abraham. Cf. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 128, n2.
7. Bartel Elshout, “The Father’s Love for His Son,” Puritan Reformed Journal 2, 2 (July 2010):15-31.
8. On the grammar of John 1:1 and Colwell’s rule, cf. Reymond, 36, esp. note 19.
9. The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1985), 401, 1139.
10. Both before and after Thomas’s worship of Christ the context speaks of believing in Christ (John 20:25, 27, 29, 31), showing that his outburst of worship expressed saving faith.
11. Christ’s humanity is not fallen humanity, but only finite humanity—humanity as God created it at the beginning, “without sin.” Sin detracts from our humanity, making us behave as brute beasts.
12. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 102-103.
13. “If the Evangelist had said only that the eternal Word assumed manhood or adopted the form of a body, the reader steeped in the popular dualism of the hellenistic world might have missed the point. But John is unambiguous, almost shocking in the expressions he uses” (Carson, John, 126). Then, too, it was no less offensive to Jews, to assert that the infinite God could take on finite flesh.
14. Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004).
15. Ps. 73:26, 78:39; Isa. 31:3, 40:6; 1 Cor. 15:50.