The Word Became Flesh

Jesus is the Living Word in flesh, the true Tabernacle where the Glory of God is revealed. He is the man who reveals God’s Grace and Truth – John 1:14.

The Prologue of the Gospel of John presents key themes to be expanded in his gospel account. Jesus is the ‘Logos’ (λογος), the “Word that became flesh.” In Christ, Life and Light are revealed to penitent men and women. He is the true “Tabernacle” where God’s “Glory” resides. John employs imagery from the history of Israel to illustrate what God has provided in His “only born Son.”

Since his Death and Resurrection, Jesus has been the place where the presence of God is found, and our means of accessing His presence. He is the greater Tabernacle in whom the true worship of the Father takes place - “in spirit and truth.”

[Photo by Felipe Giacometti on Unsplash]

The Divine “glory” is not confined to the physical walls of the Tabernacle “made-with-hands.” No longer is access to His presence limited to the Levitical priests. Every member of God’s People beholds His glory in the “Word that became flesh and tabernacles among us” - (John 1:14, 1:47-51, 2:13-22, 4:20-24).

The Living Word of God was embodied in the flesh-and-blood man from Nazareth so all men could see God’s nature expressed through His Beloved Son. In Christ’s words, deeds, Death, and Resurrection, the true nature and redemptive plan of God are unveiled to humanity. In the truest sense of the word, the ‘Logos’, the Creative Word of God, has been “incarnated,” in-fleshed in the man from Nazareth.

John’s description of this “Word who tabernacles with us” echoes the incident at Mount Sinai when God inscribed His ten “words” on stone tablets and gave them to Moses. In Jesus, the Word of God is now written in “flesh.”

The Greek verb translated as “tabernacled” or ‘skénoō’ means “to tabernacle; to pitch a tent.” It is related to the noun ‘skéné’ for “tent,” the Greek term used in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Exodus for the “Tabernacle” carried by the Levites in the Wilderness. Thus, God is “tabernacling” or pitching His tent among His people in and through Jesus Christ.

The God of Israel commanded Moses to “construct a Sanctuary for Me that I may dwell among you,” a portable structure fashioned “according to all that I am going to show you, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings.” In obedience, the Great Lawgiver:

• “Proceeded to take a tent and pitched it by itself outside the camp <…> and he called it the Tent of Meeting <…> It came to pass, that when Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud came down and stood at the opening of the tent” - (Exodus 25:8-9, 33:7-11).

GRACE AND TRUTH

In the Septuagint version of Exodus, this “Tent of Meeting” is also called the ‘skéné martyriou’ or the “Tent of Witness.” It was the place where the presence of Yahweh was seen in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. However, He now makes His habitation among His People in His Son - (Exodus 40:34-35, Numbers 9:15-23).

John declared: “We beheld his glory <…> full of grace and truth.” This clause also borrows imagery from Exodus. Moses asked to see God’s “glory,” but no man could “see His face and live.” Therefore, God placed Moses in the “cleft of a rock” when He passed by, permitting him only to see His “backside.” Yahweh descended in the cloud and passed before Moses, proclaiming:

• “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God of compassion and grace, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and faithfulness” - (Exodus 33:17-23, 34:1-6).

The glory of God is now revealed in Jesus, a proposition that John expands in his gospel account. Unlike Moses, the followers of Jesus see the full glory of God in His Son, not just His “backside,” a glory that John compares to that of “an only born from a father.” The Apostle Paul made a similar point in his second letter to the Corinthians:

• “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. Seeing it is God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” – (2 Corinthians 4:5-6).

The man who has seen the Son “has seen the Father,” and Jesus is the only way that leads to God. Even the angels of Heaven now “ascend and descend on the Son of Man.” Anyone may approach God through His Son, and Jesus is the only way to see and understand his Father - (John 1:51, 14:6-7, 17:24).

This Divine glory is “full of grace and truth,” a statement that corresponds to the proclamation of Yahweh as He passed before Moses - “I am Yahweh, abundant in loving-kindness and faithfulness.” The glory only glimpsed by Moses is disclosed fully and manifested permanently in Jesus Christ for all who have eyes that can see to behold.

God’s presence is no longer restricted to the Tabernacle of Moses or the Temple of Solomon. The wilderness structure and the Temple that were both “made with hands” have been rendered obsolete by what God has achieved in His Son, including the arrival of the promised New Covenant:

• “Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit” - (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

• “In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. But that which is becoming old and aging is near unto vanishing away” – (Hebrews 8:13).

The old Tabernacle was glorious and revealed much about the nature of God, likewise, the Temple made out of stones in old Jerusalem. Nevertheless, God’s glory and access to it were always limited under the old system. In contrast, the glory revealed in Jesus of Nazareth is full, visible, and available to anyone to behold, believe, and embrace. If we do so we will be transformed into the image of the Son, day by day.

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SEE ALSO:

• His Name is Jesus! - (‘Jesus’ means ‘Yahweh saves.’ In the man from Nazareth, the salvation promised by the God of Israel arrived in all its glory)

• Mankind's Only Hope - (Jesus is the true Light of the World, the expression of God, and the only source of truth, life, and salvation)

• Seeing the Unseen God - (The fullness, grace, and truth of God are found in the Word made Flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, who alone has seen the unseen God)

• Glory Revealed - (Jesus is the Logos in whom the “Glory of God” resides. He is the Greater Tabernacle foreshadowed by the Tent carried by Israel in the wilderness)