John 1:14-18

"And the Word became 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.

John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, 'This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."

John, the Apostle, is the writer of the Gospel that we are studying. As a disciple of Christ, he was known as a man with a turbulent and ambitious character. Jesus gave to him and to his brother the name BOANERGER, which the gospel writers take to mean SONS OF THUNDER. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, John appears as a leader of the apostolic band, one of the inner circle, and yet a turbulent ambitious and intolerant follower of Jesus Christ.

Eusebius tells us that he was banished to Patmos in the reign of Domitian. In the same passage Eusebius tells a characteristic story about John, a story which he received from Clement of Alexandria.

John became a kind of bishop of Asia Minor and was visiting one of his churches near Ephesus. In the congregation he saw a tall and exceptionally fine-looking young man. He turned to the elder in charge of the congregation and said to him: "I commit this young man into your charge and into your care, and I call this congregation to witness that I do so."

The elder took the young man into his own house and cared for him and instructed him, and the day came when he was baptized and received into the church. But very soon afterwards he fell in with evil friends and embarked on such a career of crime that he ended up by becoming the leader of a band of murdering and pillaging brigands.

Some time afterwards John returned to the congregation and He said to the elder: "Restore to me the trust which I and the Lord committed to you and to the church of which you are in charge.

"Alas!" said the elder, "he is dead." "Dead?" said John. "He is dead to God," said the elder. "He fell from grace; he was forced to flee from the city for his crimes and now he is a brigand in the mountains." Straightway John went to the mountains. Deliberately he allowed himself to be captured by the robber band. They brought him before the young man who was now the chief of the band and, in his shame, the young man tried to run away from him. John, though an old man, pursued him.

"My son," he cried, "are you running away from your father? I am feeble and far advanced in age; have pity on me, my son; fear not; there is yet hope of salvation for you. I will stand for you before the Lord Christ. If need be I will gladly die for you as he died for me. Stop, stay, believe! It is Christ who has sent me to you."

The appeal broke the heart of the young man. He stopped, threw away his weapons, and wept. Together he and John came down the mountainside, and he was brought back into the church and into the Christian way. There we see the love and the courage of John in operation!

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In our last study, we considered John's statement...THE WORD BECAME FLESH. It was suggested that this is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible--far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing than the creation of the universe. The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join Himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.

Just an observation from church history!

In order to attempt to solve the problems raised by the controversies over the person of Christ in the early centuries of the Church, a large church council was convened in the city of Chalcedon near Constantinople (modem Istanbul, Turkey), from October 8 to November 1, 451 A.D. At the conclusion of this most important meeting, a statement was issued which has been taken as the standard, orthodox definition of the biblical teaching on the person of Christ since that day by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox branches of Christianity alike. Please let quote the entire statement:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one, and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; CONSUBSTANTIAL [coessential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and CONSUBSTANTIAL with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in TWO NATURES, INCONFUSEDLY, UNCHANGEABLY, INDIVISIBLY, INSEPARABLY; the distinction of natures being preserved, and concurring in ONE PERSON and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has been handed down to us.

In our last study, we also considered many reasons why it was necessary for Jesus to be fully man in order to earn our redemption. Here it is appropriate to recognize that it is crucially important to insist on the full deity of Christ as well, not only because it is clearly taught in Scripture, but also because (1) only someone who is infinite God could bear the full penalty for all the sins of all those who would believe on him--any finite creature would have been incapable of bearing that penalty; (2) salvation is from the Lord (Jonah 2:9), and the whole message of Scripture is designed to show that no human being, no creature, could ever save man--only God himself could; and (3) only someone who was truly and fully God could be the one mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), both to bring us back to God and also to reveal God most fully to us.

THUS, IF JESUS IS NOT FULLY GOD, WE HAVE NO SALVATION ULTIMATELY NO CHRISTIANITY! It is no accident that throughout history those groups that have given up belief in the full deity of Christ have not remained long within the Christian faith but have soon drifted toward the kind of religion represented by Unitarianism. "No one who denies the Son has the Father" (1 John 2:23).

THE WORD BECAME FLESH...AND DWELT AMONG US, AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY. "And the Word (Christ} became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace [favor, loving-kindness) and truth."

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(Continuation of the exposition of verse 14)

"And dwelt (tabernacled) among us." He pitched His tent on earth for thirty-three years. There is here a latent reference to the tabernacle of Israel in the wilderness. That tabernacle has a typical significance: it foreshadowed God the Son incarnate.

Almost everything about the tabernacle adumbrated the Word made flesh. Many and varied are the correspondences between the type and Anti-type. Let me suggest just a few:

1) THE TABERNACLE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS A TEMPORARY APPOINTMENT.

In this it differed from the temple of Solomon, which was a permanent structure. The tabernacle was merely a tent, a temporary convenience, something that was suited to be moved about from place to place during the journeyings of the children of Israel. So it was when our blessed Lord tabernacled here among men, His stay was but a brief one--less than forty years; and, like the type, He abode not long in any one place, but was constantly on the move--unwearied in the activity of His love.

(2) THE TABERNACLE WAS FOR USE IN THE WILDERNESS.
After Israel settled in Canaan, the tabernacle was superseded by the temple. But during the time of their pilgrimage from Egypt to the Promised Land, the tabernacle was God's appointed provision for them. Surely it would be understandable to suggest that the Word which left the glories of heaven and came to this world of sin...it could easily be considered a journey in the wilderness. And a careful study of the chronology of the Pentateuch seems to indicate that Israel used the tabernacle in the wilderness rather less than thirty-five years!

(3) OUTWARDLY THE TABERNACLE WAS MEAN, HUMBLE, AND UNATTRACTIVE IN APPEARANCE.

Altogether unlike the costly and magnificent temple of Solomon, there was nothing in the externals of the tabernacle to please the carnal eye! Nothing but the plain boards and skins.

So it was at the Incarnation. The Divine majesty of our Lord was hidden beneath a veil of flesh. The old prophet Isaiah prophesied:

"Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him."

(4) THE TABERNACLE WAS GOD'S DWELLING PLACE.

It was there, in the midst of Israel's camp, He took up His abode. There, between the cherubim upon the mercy-seat He made His throne. In the holy of holies He manifested His presence by means of the Shekinah glory. And during the thirty-three years that the Word tabernacled among men, God had His dwelling place in Palestine.

The holy of holies received its anti-typical fulfillment in the Person of the Holy One of God. Just as the Shekinah dwelt between the two cherubim, so on the mount of transfiguration the glory of the God-man flashed forth from between two men---Moses and Elijah.

"We beheld his glory" is the language of the tabernacle type.

(5) THE TABERNACLE WAS, THEREFORE, THE PLACE WHERE GOD MET WITH MEN.

It was termed "the tent of meeting." If an Israelite desired to draw near unto Jehovah he had to come to the door of the tabernacle. When giving instructions to Moses concerning the making of the tabernacle and its furniture, God said, "And thou shalt put the mercy-seat above the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with

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thee, and I will commune with thee" (Exodus 25:21-22). How perfect is this lovely type!

Thus we see how fully and how perfectly the tabernacle of old foreshadowed the Person of our blessed Lord, and why the Holy Spirit, when announcing the Incarnation, said, "And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us."

Verse 14 continues: (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

The verb BEHELD indicates careful and deliberate vision which seeks to interpret its object. It refers, indeed, to physical sight; yet, it always includes a plus, the plus of calm scrutiny, contemplation, or even wonderment. Thus, while Jesus was walking among then, the eye and mind of the evangelist and of other witnesses had rested on the Incarnate Word, until to some extent they had penetrated the mystery; i.e., they had seen his glory: the radiance of his grace and the majesty of his truth manifested in all his works and words, the attributes of deity shining through the veil of human nature.

John is speaking of that glory that was seen in the literal, physical Jesus of Nazareth. As He came in lowliness we have an example of the paradox that John uses so forcefully later in the Gospel, that the true glory is to be seen, not in outward splendor, but in the lowliness with which the Son of God lived for men and suffered for them.

John thinks, it is true, that the miracles showed the glory of Christ (2:11; 11:4, 40). But in a deeper sense it is the cross of shame that manifests the true glory (12:23; 13:13). The repetition of the word "glory" emphasizes its reality. John will not have us misled by appearances. The true glory was there, in the earthly life of the Word. And it was seen.

Matthew 17:1-8

"And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with him.

Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.

And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.

And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only."

Luke writes about this event with these words:

"But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him."

That is why John could write....WE BEHELD HIS GLORY.

Paul writes a very interesting verse in 2 Corinthians 3:18.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image

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from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Then he continues in chapter 4:3-6:

"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost;

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

The glory of God was only reflected on the face of Moses, the mediator of the law; the glory of God is embodied in Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the gospel. The former glory was that of the divine law and its judgment on sin and on sinners, and the face of Moses could only reflect it since he had been with God only for a few days. The other glory is that of the divine gospel and grace for sinners, and the face of Jesus Christ radiates this glory because he is its very embodiment, he who came from God, the very Son of God, and returned to God as our Savior-Lord forever.

Some think that when Paul wrote "the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ" he had in mind his vision on the road to Damascus. More should be said. That light struck Paul to the ground. It was the light of the law like the glory on Moses' face; for Jesus said of Paul: "Saul, Saul, why art thou persecuting me?" and confronted him with his sin and his crimes. Like the sons of Israel, Paul could not endure that light (3:7).

Yet that light of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ was also the gospel light. Jesus called Saul to repentance. He did not there on the Damascus road preach the gospel to Saul, but he did send him to the man who would do that. Jesus still comes thus to sinners in his Word.

Nothing should bring more joy to the heart of the child of God than a true glimpse of the worth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether we view Him in His character or in His work, we must say of Him: "He is altogether lovely." He is perfect both in Himself and in His ways with us. The Word from its beginning to its end speaks with single voice and proclaims that in Him is neither flaw nor possibility of it!

Among the truths which Scripture teaches concerning His Person is that of HIS ABSOLUTE SINLESSNESS. The noblest men who come before us on the sacred page are but saved sinners; the Lord Jesus stands alone in the
stainless beauty of perfect manhood.

None realized the sinlessness of Christ more than the men who were most in His company and who knew Him best. Such men as Peter and John were admitted to closest association with the Lord Jesus. They were the friends of His own choice, and companied with Him, not only amid the acclamation of the multitudes, but also when He tasted deeply of rejection and scorn. They saw Him under the fierce light of many a trying circumstance, and themselves by their own pride and ambition added to the burden upon His heart.

Nevertheless their testimony is explicit. Peter said concerning himself: "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8), but of Christ: "He did not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth....Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust" (1 Peter 2:22; 3:18).

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Nor is John less emphatic when he affirms that: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," but that Christ "was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin" (1 John 1:8; 3:5).

The ministry of the Lord Jesus was marked by stupendous claims. He offered rest to every burdened heart that would come to Him; He stated that if He were lifted up, He would draw all men unto Him, and that His voice would be heard and obeyed in every tomb.

Beyond this, He asserted both His Deity and His eternity in terms which His foes could not mistake (John 5:18; 8:58,59).

He did not claim to be good, but to be God; He did not speak as One excelling amongst men, but as being Himself the absolute standard of all purity and truth.

His statements were true in their completeness, or were the grossest imposture; in these matters there could be no middle path. One proven flaw would have sufficed to end His claims, yet openly He challenged His enemies: "Which of you convicteth Me of sin?" (John 8:46). Far from the challenge being taken up, it was vindicated from unexpected quarters, The chief priests met great difficulty in seeking a coherent tale wherewith to accuse Him (Matt. 26:59,60). The Roman governor attempted to wash his hands of his responsibility, saying: "I am innocent of the blood of this just person" (Matt. 27:24). At His trial no voice was raised on His behalf, but in His death God gave Him two witnesses to attest His character, a dying thief and a Roman centurion (Luke 23:41,47).

Holiness is far more than the absence of sin, for God was holy before ever a sin was in the universe. It is positive virtue; it is completeness of character where every faculty is in perfect expression and in perfect accord; it is an infinite and glowing purity which has neither room for nor interest in sin.

Our Lord was perfect in holiness in every domain of His being. Where this was, sin could not be, for holiness and sin are mutually exclusive.

John says: WE BEHELD HIS GLORY....to behold the sinless life of Christ being lived out in a world of hate and malice and rejection....lived in peace and grace and love....that is glorious!

AND THEN....

THERE IS THE GLORY OF HIS CROSS!

John writes in chapter 12:23-32 these words:

"And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be; if any man serve me, him will my Father honor.

Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.
Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

Throughout the centuries the wonder of the Cross has not ceased to cast its spell on the souls and men and women!

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To those who lived nearest to it, the Christians of the first century, the Cross spoke of the deepest shame and of the worst that earth could mete out to a bruised and weary form. They braved the scorn and contempt of a cynical age. To the Jews, Christ crucified was a scandal, and to the Greeks utter folly, yet the Christians lived, and loved, and triumphed. In our own day the Cross has still its shame and its offence. Nevertheless, our thoughts are drawn irresistibly to that which is so despised!

It is in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ that we learn supremely the character of God, and His grace
to a rebel creation. There the glory of the Incarnate Word is seen by opened eyes, shining in all its fullness, and displaying its immensities of holiness and of love. Prostrate in the anguish of Gethsemane, standing amid the rejection of Gabbatha and nailed to the tree of utmost suffering at Golgotha, the despised and weary Savior remained all that He had ever been, and passed from depth to deeper depth of sorrow in the moral majesty which had marked His every step.

"For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our adorable Lord Jesus Christ was made sin! This is not a statement of character, for He remained infinitely holy. He knew no sin. But it does tell of the position into which He went for us. He was made sin, in that when He bore our sins, He was treated with the treatment accorded to sin, i.e., there was poured upon Him the judgment of God.

Many a hymn writer have caught the meaning of the glory of the cross!

"In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time...All the light of sacred story, gathers round its head sublime.

"I take, O cross, thy shadow, for my abiding place;

I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face: Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss, my sinful self, my only shame, MY GLORY ALL THE CROSS!"
"In the cross of Christ I glory, there for all was grace made free. None deserving, yet receiving, life through death at Calvary. In the cross of Christ I glory, Not in power, wealth or fame. In the cross sin's curse is broken, for the sake of Jesus' name."

John tells in his Gospel, chapter 13, that after Judas had received the sop at the Last Supper, he immediately went out from the group. Then these words follow:
"Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him."

This passage tells of the fourfold glory:

(1) The glory of Jesus has come; and that glory is the Cross! The tension is gone; any doubts that remained have been finally removed. Judas has gone out, and the Cross is a certainty. Here we are face to face with something which is of the very warp and woof of life. The greatest glory in life is the glory which comes from sacrifice. In any warfare the supreme glory belongs, not to those who survive but to those who lay down their lives! It is the simple lesson of history that those who have made the great sacrifices have entered into the great glory!

(2) In Jesus God has been glorified. It was the obedience of Jesus which brought glory to God. Jesus gave the supreme honor and the supreme glory to God, because He gave to God the supreme obedience, even to a Cross.

(3) In Jesus God Glorifies Himself. It is a strange thought that the supreme glory of God lies in the Incarnation and the Cross. There is no glory like that of being loved. Had God remained aloof and majestic, serene and unmoved, untouched by any sorrow and unhurt by any pain, men might have feared him and men might have admired him; but they would never have loved him.

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The law of sacrifice is not only a law of earth; it is a law of heaven and earth. It is in the Incarnation and the Cross that God's supreme glory is displayed!

Here is the other side of the matter. At that moment the Cross was the glory of Jesus; but there was more to follow--the Resurrection; the Ascension; the full and final triumph of Christ, which is what the New Testament means when it talks of His Second Coming! In the Cross Jesus found his own glory; but the day came, and the day will come, when that glory will be demonstrated to all the world and all the universe. The vindication of Christ must follow his humiliation; the enthronement of Christ must follow his crucifixion; the crown of thorns must change into the crown of glory!

Ah! Listen to the prayer of Jesus just before His crucifixion (John 17:24)

"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

AND THAT DAY IS COMING WHEN ALL THE SAINTS OF THE AGES WILL BEHOLD THE GLORY OF CHRIST, THE KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS!

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 4, that the day is coming when.... (1 Cor. 4:16-17)

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with

a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

AND WHAT WILL IT BE LIKE TO SEE HIS GLORY IN HEAVEN?

Listen to John as he tells of this scene in heaven:

"And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks:

And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

And when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and death."

"And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him: and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty

which was, and is, and is to come.

And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,

The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

AH! WHAT GLORIOUS JOY AWAITS THE REDEEMED....TO BE WELCOMED INTO HEAVEN AND BEHOLD THAT GLORY OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!