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)
The first time this phrase caught my attention was in 1976 when a new wave singer by the name of Blondie burst onto Countdown, singing this song of unrequited love (or lust). The sentiment in the song is that it’s better to see someone in the flesh—though, no doubt, this song had some dubious double entendre at work. Even today, the word “flesh,” has a degree of shock—and it certainly would have been shocking back in the first century when John wrote of the Word becoming flesh.
Defining Flesh
Maybe we’re used to hearing the word “flesh” in its Pauline sense: sinful nature ranged against God—Paul’s connotation is so negative that he is careful to say that Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3). But this is not quite the meaning in John 1. In John’s terms “flesh” means being from below and not from above. It has connotations of weakness, frailty and impermanence. It is site where sin can establish a beachhead (as per Paul) but John never goes there.
The Shock of the Flesh
Yet, to say that the word became flesh would have been a shock, nonetheless. In these first verses of his Gospel, John uses his verbs carefully:
he uses the Greek word eimi (“to be”) to speak of the Word as an eternal being—“in the beginning was the word” (v1)—and he uses another Greek word ginomai to speak of things that came to exist—“through him all things came into being/were and apart from him nothing was which has come into being.” (v3)
So it’s a grammatical shock—a theological shock for a Jewish readers; and a metaphysical shock for Greeks—when John uses the second verb ginomai, to speak of the word becoming flesh. Neither Jews nor Gentiles could conceive of a divine figure, taking on the flesh of lower existence.
A Closer Contact
The verb doesn’t suggest that Jesus became something and ceased to be what he was. It doesn’t suggest he only appeared to become human. It doesn’t even suggest that flesh was put on like an overcoat. The sense is rather that God has chosen to be with his people in a more intimate, more personal, way than previously. It means that he has come “in the flesh,” with all the shock and promise that expression conveys.
In this modern world of virtual relationships we understand that it’s good to meet in the flesh. There’s something about getting a sense of a person; reading their body language; coming to know them in a different way.
But now the eternal Word has now been born as a human being—has come in such a way that we can have a new sense of who he is. There will be more to say about this when we get to the next clause, but, for now, let’s pause with two thoughts for reflection:
Humble Deity, Honoured Humanity
First, this becoming is an expression of the humble character of God—as Paul suggests when he reflects in Philippians 2 that Christ Jesus, though in the form of God, did not count equality with God as something to be taken advantage of, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. The incarnation points us to humility, servant-nature and the other-person-centred character of our God. Notice the subtle reminder that power is for gaining advantage—a good reminder in a world of privilege, entitlement and looking after number one.
Second, Jesus incarnation reminds us that, though the flesh is weak, it may also be the vessel of revelation. The flesh is, in a real sense, valued and honoured by the Son of God assuming it. We might despair of our weakness but we must not despise our fleshliness. If the Word reveals God, that revelation comes through the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth. We can hear the word of God and read his body language in the human life of Jesus.
Thanks be to God that the Word became flesh!
Photos: (Header) Staci Flick, flickr; (Body) Lou Bueno, flickr
