[Power of the Word] The Word Became Flesh
Daniel Brady
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” --John 1:14
According to Mormon teaching, if you live the good Mormon life, following all of their rules and regulations, then when you leave this life, you can become the god or goddess of your own planet, spending eternity having celestial babies to populate your planet with.
My friend Earl in Salem, Oregon—the one who claimed to be God—claimed that he had not always been God. Rather, he once was a mere man. But after several reincarnations, he went through a spiritual evolution and became God.
In the Person of Jesus Christ, we do not see a man who became a god. Instead, we find Him to be the One true God who became a man.
After introducing us to the wondrous mystery of the Word being with God and the Word being God, John then tells us of something even more glorious. “The Word became flesh.” Theologians refer to this truth as the Incarnation.
Herein we also see a tremendous difference between Christ and the angels. For at various times throughout Scriptures (such as at the Ascension in Acts 1), angels are said to occasionally take on the form and appearance of men, but they do not actually become human. But Jesus Christ, the Second Person within the Trinity, actually became a man; the God-Man. And, as we are about to delve fully into the Gospels, we will see (as we already know) that one evidence for His humanity is the manner in which He entered this world. Unlike the angels, who just seem to show up from out of nowhere, appearing as full-grown men, Christ entered this world as all humans since the time of Adam and Eve have come into this world; by being born of a woman.
In addition, He dwelt among us. He did not just come down out of heaven for a short visit, nor to simply deliver a message from God, and then quickly return home. He was born into humanity, and He lived on the earth. For 33 years, the earth was His dwelling place, just as it is ours. This serves as even greater testimony to the fact that Jesus Christ was indeed fully human.
The significance and the majesty of the Word becoming flesh is noted by John in this very same verse. Other versions of the Bible, such as the New King James, word it this way: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father…”
“We beheld His glory!” What a fascinating statement, particularly in light of the fact that when Moses asked to see God’s glory, the LORD told him, “No man shall see Me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). So now, the question arises, what does John mean when he says, “We beheld His glory”? Was it a lesser glory, a diminished glory, that John and his companions saw? Is he here referring to the glory that he, James, and Peter saw at the Transfiguration? What glory was seen by those who walked with Christ while He was on the earth?
It is true that they did not see the fullness of the glory of God. I believe that such glory cannot be beheld by sinful men, not even those who are saved, lest they die. Not even at the Revelation, as described by John in the first chapter of that book, did John see the full glory of God. Nor did Isaiah witness it in all of its majesty when he saw the LORD seated on His throne, high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1). If they had, they most surely would have died. And even as it is, the glory they were permitted to see struck them with awe and terror, causing them to fall facedown before God, wishing they were dead.
But this does not mean that those who walked with Christ did not see any of His glory. And the glory they did see was not something to be sneezed at. They saw a marvelous, wondrous aspect of His glory previously unimaginable to men! They saw God in the flesh.