When Word Became Flesh

By Khen Lim



Image Source: hairfieldink.com

All of us would have our favourite Bible verse. I too have mine. It’s Matthew 11:28 but of late, the significance of John 1:14-18 has grown on me as a result of a greater understanding of what it means.

As the Word became flesh, we should take a look at the doctrine of the incarnate Son of God concerning His divinity and humanity. Early Christians remarked, “Very God of very God,” a marked separation that distinguishes Christianity from every other promise of salvation but it has been this simple or uncomplicated. While the doctrine of incarnation of Christ teaches us of His dual concurrent nature as the unique Son of the heavenly Father and Son of Man, there have been times when man has debated this duality.

Even though Christians all over the world have been proclaiming the message of His incarnation for two thousand years, it remains an amazing fact to some, shocking to others and even scandalous to many of the rest. The incarnation simply puts Christianity at a position where no one can reduce it in any of the following ways:

It is never a philosophy.

Socrates is a Greek scholar but Jesus isn’t like him or for that matter, Plato or even Sophocles. Jesus’ teachings were not on the philosophies of reality, the science of the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sakes or the sublime nature of the universe. Christianity, in other words, cannot be reduced to a university course elective on Philosophy.

It is not an ethical or behavioural code.

As the modern Christian has now discovered, no one can ever receive eternal life by simply maintaining a strict code of rules or by adhering to the works of laws of man or by doing everything to his/her utmost best. It’s certainly not about a membership of do-gooders with civic mindedness and nothing else.

It is most definitely not a political movement.

Jesus did not enter Jerusalem riding a white horse. Neither was he armed to the teeth in shining armour. He did not promise to conquer Rome. He had no allegiances to any political revolutionaries of His own day. Till today, Jesus remains completely sovereign over all politics anywhere in the world.

It is also not a social world order.

Jesus’ teachings do not encapsulate any desire to take over the world, then force our ideas onto others in complete submission and then to remove all their individual rights. Christianity does not profess to deny individual or political freedom to others.

Even so the incarnation of Christ has often been incorrectly understood then as it is also today. The distortion has produced two equal opposites that deny Christ of His duality in nature and in either premise, it is dangerous.

During the Early Church period, the division of opinion had preoccupied many for there were those who down-played Christ’s divinity, saying that He was merely a “great teacher” or “prophet.” In some quarters, they rejected His miracles recorded in the Gospels, and referred to Him as “teacher of wise sayings,” Someone whose claims could not be any higher than a sage rabbi.

However when the early Christians began to reflect on Jesus’ life, they learned a valuable lesson, realising that the reality and power of what they had experienced could not be possible without the presence of God in their midst. This led to the Early Church declaring and confessing at their baptism, “Kyrios Iesus Christos,” which is Greek for “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

The opposite view is equally as unsettling and no less wrong. People have gone forth to uplift Jesus’ divinity but at the same time, diminished His humanness. The Gnostics did that in the second century, proposing a view that is now called Docetism. Deriving from the Greek word dokeo for “to seem or to appear,” Docetism encourages one to view Christ as Someone who only appears to have a physical human body but in actuality, does not. Therefore Jesus seems to be but is not human.

If and when we care to read the Bible more carefully, we can see that Jesus in His divinity and His human nature, experienced the very things that we ourselves go through, such as hunger as Matthew recorded (4:2). John mentions Jesus endured thirst (19:28), weariness (4:6) and grief (11:35,38) while Mark described not only His agonising moments (14:32-42) but also one time when Jesus said He didn’t know the timing of His second coming (13:32).

Perhaps we should give these a bit of a though for a second. Rather than shy away from how He suffered the ignominy of being an “ordinary” human, maybe we should understand that there is no depth to the suffering that Jesus was not willing to embrace in order to free us from our sins. It is this fact alone that He was born to do for us. This biblical truth alone is the inspiring story behind Christmas.

Hebrews 4:14 offers us two important views of who Jesus is, which we would do very well to keep in mind always.

Firstly He is our True Friend, truer than any friend we can find in our life’s experiences. He is our Advocate with Father God who, because of His time with us, genuinely understands our frailties, susceptibilities, dangers, and temptations…simply because He Himself endured them personally.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathise with our weaknesses but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (NASB).

Secondly it is because of Christ’s duality in nature that we now have that rarefied opportunity to seek the heart of God through prayer. Remember that in John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (NASB). Indeed Christ is the Only way to God.

And because of Him, we finally have the way to approach the throne of grace and mercy with confidence. Because of Christ, we also know we will not be turned away or spurned.

We are comforted and assured that in our hour of need, Christ will be there, He will answer our prayers and He will comfort us. Matthew 11:28 probably puts it best when Jesus says to us, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (NASB).

When John Wesley’s brother, Charles, penned the lyrics that became “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in 1739, he would have perfectly understood the significance of Christ’s dual nature. Check out the second verse:

“Christ by highest heav’n adored

Christ the everlasting Lord!

Late in time behold Him come

Offspring of a Virgin’s womb

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see

Hail the incarnate Deity

Pleased as man with man to dwell

Jesus, our Emmanuel

Hark! The herald angels sing

“Glory to the newborn King!””

Note: The eventual tune we sing to the Christmas Carol was provided by English musician William H Cummings who adapted Felix Mendelssohn’s majestic cantata written in 1840 to match Wesley’s lyrics.

The following illustrates the duality in nature of Christ “in action” also called the Hypostatic Union (communicatio idiomatum):

GOD

He is worshipped (Mt 2:2,11,14:33); He was called God (Jn 20:28; Heb 1:8); He was called Son of God (Mk 1:1); He is prayed to (Acts 7:59); He is sinless (1 Pet 2:22; Heb 4:15); He knows all things (Jn 21:17); He gives eternal life (Jn 10:28); All the fullness of deity dwells in Him (Col 2:9)

MAN

He worshipped the Father (Jn 17); He was called Man (Mk 15:39; Jn 19:5); He was called Son of Man (Jn 9:35-37); He prayed to the Father (Jn 17); He was tempted (Mt 4:1); He grew in wisdom (Lk 2:52); He died (Rom 5:8); He has a body of flesh and bones (Lk 24:39)