Incarnation - The Word became flesh

So after much discussion on the Holiness of God and the sinfulness of man we finally made our way into the meat of the Gospel. We left off with a problem. Man is sinful and God is Holy. Man deserves hell. That's where the Gospel comes in. The Gospel is the good news about the redemptive plan of God that is realized in Jesus Christ. We saw this a little bit in Gen 3:15, when God said that the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head.
For the next couple of entries we will talk about the incarnation.

The incarnation is simply God became flesh, more specifically the second person of the Godhead, the Son.

This is most clear in the first chapter of John which the passage we are looking at in this entry.

The Word...
John 1 begins from the very beginning of time and for vv 1-5 it is clear that the Word is God, John is saying that the Word is the same God that created the universe in Genesis (v3. all things came into being through Him). The Word was not only God but also had a relationship with God (v1-2), He was with God. Lastly, the Word was not just a thing but a person, the Word is referred to as He not it.

...Became Flesh
The climax of the passage is found in v14 when John declared that the Word became flesh! God, who was from the very beginning, became flesh and dwelt among men. Furthermore, v17 clears up who this Word is. He is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Word that is from the beginning. Jesus is God in flesh.
So what does it mean that the Word became flesh? Did the Son ceased to be God when He took on flesh? Or did He temporarily lose His God status to become man? The answer is No! God the Son did not cease to be God when He became flesh. He was fully God and fully human in the person of Jesus. The nature of God was united with the nature of man in the person of Jesus Christ. We will talk more about it in the next entry, as I don't want to go outside of this text in John 1 here.

Why did the Word become flesh?
So is this bad news that God became flesh or good news? It could be bad news in the sense that God came to administer pure justice and kill off all the unrighteous people. That would be very bad news. But the whole point of these entries are to talk about the Gospel, the good news, and in fact the incarnation is very good news for those who receive Him! In the Word was life and light, but the world did not receive Him. But the good news is that for those who do receive Him we can become God's children. That's great news!
Furthermore, the fullness of grace and truth (v14) is now among men because of the incarnation. And in His fullness we have all received grace upon grace, or as NIV would put it, one blessing after another (v16).
The incarnation also meant the realization of grace and truth in respect to the law of Moses (v17). V17 had always given me trouble. Here the Law seems to be contrasted with grace and truth, as if they are opposites. But the Law is true! How can it be oppose to grace and truth? What it is saying is that the Law was established through Moses and realized in Jesus. The Law is not on the opposite spectrum of grace and truth but it IS grace and truth and is realized in Jesus, the fulfillment of the Law. This is good news for us, because now we know what the Law is really about. Every time we read the OT and the 5 books of Moses we can now understand it in light of Jesus, He is the full embodiment of grace and truth.
Lastly, in the same line of thought, the incarnation allow us to know God. Jesus was the full, complete, perfect revelation of who God is, because He is God! The person of Jesus explains the Father, He makes the Father known (cf. Jn 14:7-9).

Because of the incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, we can now know the Father, know the Law, know grace and truth, experience true life and light, receive grace upon grace, and become children of God! The incarnation is truly good news and it's only the beginning of the whole Gospel.

Next we will talk shortly about the topic of hypostatic union. Big word, big concept! Stay tuned!