John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us, (and we beheld his glory… 1. It will be quite unnecessary for us on the present occasion to entangle ourselves in any philosophical discussion of the name employed by St. John — "The Word." He who became flesh is the Word, the Revealer of God, at once Power and Wisdom, Light and Life. Creation is part of His handiwork, as the Revealer of God. In order to reveal the Father, the Word must live a man's life amongst men. This, then, is St. John's contention. By sight, and by touch, and by voice, says he, I became acquainted with a certain human life; a life, which had a peculiar charm, a special glory about it; and that glory I can only describe as the glory of a well-beloved and only son from a father. Utterance, action, suffering, all were one continuous and incessant testimony to an unseen Father in heaven. 2. Thus, then, it appears, on St. John's showing, that that which became human was truly Divine; and that which became subject to the conditions and limitations of space and time was truly Eternal. Let us endeavour to draw out one or two of the thoughts that are involved in these two statements. (1) The Divine became human. That is to say, the Divine laid hold of the human in such a way as to make the human, so far as it could be made, a true image and reflection of itself. All, then, that our faith in the Incarnation warrants us in asserting is, that in Jesus Christ we have "authentic tidings of invisible things," that in Him the Divine and human are so united and blent, that we can draw certain and reliable conclusions as to the nature of God, so far as that nature can and need be known by us. And oh! think what this means! Think what the difference is between saying, "Jesus is only a man seeking God, adding one more to the many guesses as to the nature of God:" and saying, "In Jesus we see God seeking man, and seeking him out of pure love in order to save him": "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." When we "have told its isles of light, and fancied all beyond," there must yet be heights and depths in that High and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity which no fancy, however soaring, can penetrate. In this sense, and under such limitations as these, did the Divine become human, or the Word become flesh. If I make the Incarnation the measure not only of that in God which it is necessary for our eternal life to know, but also the measure of God Himself, I am exposing your faith and my own in the truth of the Incarnation to a very perilous strain. For my own sake, and for yours, I dare not do this. (2) As we may say, in this guarded manner, that in the Incarnation the Divine became human; so we may say also, somewhat paradoxically, that in the Incarnation the Eternal became temporal, clothed itself in forms of time and space, in order to reveal that which was before the foundation of the world, which is from everlasting to everlasting. We all know, I should suppose, how easy it is to drift into a notion about the work of Christ, which amounts really to this: that He came not to do the will of God, but to alter it. The Divine did not become human, the Word was not made flesh, if the will of the Son on earth was not at all times and in all things at one with the will of the Father in heaven; and if we may not accept the words, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," as a full and adequate statement of the mission of Jesus Christ. The work of Christ is, in fact, the invisible becoming visible, the Eternal becoming temporal, the Infinite, finite. The Incarnation is, in short, the sacrament of the eternal grace of God; an outward and visible sign, an effectual sign, of a grace, of which time is no measure. 3. "Rejoice in the Lord alway." We can see now what the real ground of all such rejoicing is, and how solid it is. The Incarnation unlocks for us the secret of the Divine, Eternal Will, the Will which is at the root of all things, and which rules all things, and shows us that its first and last word is love. (D. J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And 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. |
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