Sermon Tone Analysis

“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.”

[1]

One can focus on minutiae and fail to see the beauty presented in the story of God’s love.

Nevertheless, for a moment think of separating the Christmas story into component parts.

If you could place the Christmas event in a test tube, testing its reaction as in a laboratory, what would you discover?

If you could dissect this holy season, exposing each component part for careful and minute scrutiny, what do you suppose you would learn?

We are given a perfect revelation of the Living God in the Christian celebration of Christmas; and few writers have done more to reveal the essence of Christmas than has the disciple whom Jesus loved.

Though we are not prone to think of John as one of the Scripture writers who provided a detailed account of the advent of our Lord, he nevertheless made a significant contribution to our understanding of that holy event.

John details the heart of Christmas in the opening verses of his Gospel.

In particular, the verse serving as our text is decidedly a Christmas text which has too long been neglected by both pulpit and pew.

I said I wanted to segregate the Christmas story into component parts in order to examine them; I suggest this with some trepidation.

Separating the account in order to understand is fraught with danger if we lose balance.

The Word of God presents Jesus as unique—He is fully God, and He is fully man.

This presentation of the unique God-Man is almost universally rejected.

While we would anticipate that those enmeshed in recognised cults would reject this truth, we are always somewhat startled when we learn that professing Christians reject this truth.

Two significant heresies plaguing the early churches were Docetism and Nestorianism.

Tragically, these heresies are still resident among the churches in this day, as problematic as ever despite being answered and rejected soon after they arose.

Docetism, among other similar teachings, taught that Jesus is fully God.

However, they reject the biblical teaching that He was truly and fully man.

Docetism, the term is derived from the Greek term dokéo, meaning “to seem” or “to believe,” denied the Incarnation of Jesus.

Generally, Docetism taught that Jesus only appeared to have a body.

The teaching arose out of the supposition that follows dualism, that the body is inherently evil.

Thus, according to this view, God could not take on human flesh as the body is evil and God cannot be associated with evil.

Our text puts the lie to this ancient heresy when John writes, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” [JOHN 1:14].

The case for Christ’s presence in human flesh is made stronger still when John writes in his first letter, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God” [1 JOHN 4:2, 3].

For the sake of completeness, consider one other statement which John provides believers.

Writing in his second letter, John testifies, “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” [2 JOHN 7].

Any teaching that denies Jesus was fully man, or even that depreciates the importance of His humanity, must be considered docetic.

God Himself identified with fallen mankind, sacrificing Himself for us.

Nestorianism is similar to Docetism in that it holds that Jesus is two distinct persons.

Nestorianism was named after Nestorius, who served as Patriarch of Constantinople in the Fifth Century A.D. Because of his error, Nestorius was deposed as Patriarch and sent first to Antioch, then to Arabia and finally to Egypt.

Though Nestorianism originated in response to the designation of Mary as “Mother of God,” the heart of the argument Nestorius advance denied that Jesus was very God.

Nestorius held that the Christ had two distinct, though loosely associated natures—human and divine.

Ultimately, the danger of this teaching was that it denied that God sacrificed Himself for mankind.

The Nestorians taught that the man Jesus died on the cross, but that the Christ did not die.

In fairness, Nestorius was struggling to understand how God could become man.

He fell into grave error when he attempted to follow his premises to what seemed a logical conclusion.

Among questions raised are these.

If Jesus was not truly and fully God, if there were two distinct natures that were not combined in Him, then do we have an infinite sacrifice?

Who died on the cross?

Did a man die, in which case any sacrifice is finite and we have no covering for our sin—at best any covering is finite?

Or did God provide Himself as an infinite sacrifice for sinful man?

The author of the Letter to Hebrew Christians has addressed this subject quite clearly.

“It was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” [HEBREWS 9:23-28].

Again, the same writer observes, “Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” [HEBREWS 10:11-14].

This is the reason the prologue to John’s Gospel is vital to the Faith.

Though the unique Person of Jesus is presented throughout the Word, John addresses His unique Person in a more direct fashion than do any of the other writers of Scripture.

John boldly presents Jesus as very God and as very man.

The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved presents in a forthright manner the truth that is too often ignored in modern church life—Jesus is very God is human flesh; Jesus is both perfect man and fully God.

There has never been, nor shall there ever be, another God-man.

Thus, as we enter into this Christmas season, each believer should sing, and sing often, of “Immanuel,” “God With Us.”

Each individual should have opportunity to hear that God came seeking mankind and that He took upon Himself our nature that He might present Himself as a perfect sacrifice because of our sin.

Each individual should be filled with joy in the knowledge that in Christ Jesus, God has provided the way that each individual may have peace with God and the forgiveness of sin.

*GOD BECAME MAN* is the first thing to be learned from even a casual perusal of the text.

In John's words, “The Word became flesh…” With apology neither to unbeliever nor to misguided wannabe scholars—The Word is God.

Moreover, this Christ from Whom Christians derive their name and to Whom they look is the Word of Whom John wrote and is therefore Himself God.

We do not say He ceased to be God at His birth; rather, in Him we witness a unique Being—the God man.

The Christ was neither man alone divested of all divine attributes nor was He God separated from and aloof from man.

We do not see Him revealed as a mere demigod stationed somewhere between man and God; but He is revealed at once both as God and as man.

This is the ancient and unceasing declaration which has defined the Christian Faith from earliest days.

Without belabouring the point, yet not daring to overlook the need to provide sound instruction in this vital aspect of the Faith, this is the consistent teaching of the written Word.

John is bold in attesting this truth that Jesus is very God in human flesh.

I recall one particular series of studies conducted during my time leading to my doctorate.

I was working in the laboratory of a brilliant physical biochemist.

This gentleman was informed that I had become a follower of the Christ; consequently, he sought to speak with me frequently.

Since I was doing work that necessitated long periods of waiting as an ultracentrifuge separated proteins from supernatants, we would engage in philosophical discussions.

Not surprisingly, he questioned why I would profess to follow the Christ.

However, he set some rather strict ground rules for our discussions—I could not refer to the Gospel of John.

His reason for refusing to discuss this Gospel was, in his words, that John believed that Jesus was God.

Therefore, he refused to discuss anything that was written by someone who believed Jesus was God.

No Christian should ever shrink from affirming the truth that Jesus was very God.

Assuredly, this truth is woven throughout the warp and woof of Scripture.

Thus, I did not hesitate to accept Glen’s challenge—I was new in the Faith and believed I was appointed by God to accept every challenge.

Since that time, the Master has mellowed me, making me somewhat less bombastic; however, at the same time He has increased my confidence in His Word.

Throughout the history of the Faith and until this day, men and women have sealed their confidence in Him as very God through giving their lives rather than deny Him.

They do this because they know Him and have received life through faith in His Name.

When John wrote, he employed a Greek philosophical concept, introducing readers forthwith to the Word.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [JOHN 1:1].

Whatever else may be said of that stunning statement, it is evident that the individual identified as the Word is eternal, for He was “in the beginning.”

Moreover, the Word was intimately associated with and identified with God, for “the Word was with God.”

That God was the Word (for that is the literal translation of John's Greek [theòs ān ho lógos]) is evident from this most specific statement which can be translated in no other way.

Despite suffering the assault of religious anarchists (Jehovah's Witnesses) at the doors of their own homes, believers need to know that John's choice of words—deliberately penned without the definite article—is the strongest possible construction for stating qualitatively that the Word is God.

It is as if He pointedly stated that the Word was by nature God.

He writes of this One who is identified as very God (the Word) that “the Word became flesh.”

The Word burst on the human scene, sharing man's condition of mortality.

Who can fathom such a thought?

Who, in their wildest imaginations, could conceive that God would become as one of His creatures?

Who could dream that the Living God would make Himself helpless, dependent upon a mother’s milk and reliant upon for her to care for His every need?

In the Christmas story God submitted Himself to the tutelage of a man, learning how to co-ordinate eyes and hands to make such mundane items as yokes and ploughs, and tables and benches.

Before salvation was complete God would know what it was to experience exhaustion, thirst, hunger—experiences common to the flesh.

God would know what it was to be grieved, to experience rejection, to see unfulfilled longing.

Was not the heart of the Saviour broken over His rejection by Israel, the chosen people?

Did He not sorrow at the self destructive choices of individuals such as the rich young ruler?

Did He not weep with Mary and Martha at the cruel invasion of death tearing at the soul of a family and insuring that the survivors felt helpless in the face of that final, relentless assault?