The Saviour
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
John 1:14
Of all the claims made by any religion in the history of the world, this is the strangest. Not that God exists — many have said that. Not that God is powerful, or holy, or worthy of worship — that too is widely believed. The Christian claim is that the God who made the galaxies was once an infant who had to be fed, who learned to walk by falling over, who grew tired at the end of a working day and had splinters in His hands from a carpenter's bench.
Nobody would invent this. Every religion men have constructed moves in the opposite direction — man reaching upward, climbing, purifying himself, ascending toward the divine. Only here does the traffic run the other way. Only here does God come down.
Let us be precise, because a great deal of confusion comes from imprecision here.
Strip away the carols and the familiarity and hear the claim as an unbeliever hears it, because it is the most extraordinary sentence ever put into human language.
The God who made everything became one of the things He made.
Not that God appeared to be a man. Not that a good man was promoted to divinity. Not that God possessed a man as a spirit possesses a medium. The claim is that the eternal Son, without ceasing for one instant to be God, took to Himself a true human nature — body, soul, and spirit — and was born.
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." (1 Timothy 3:16)
The apostle Paul calls it a mystery, but notice he does not call it a doubtful one. Without controversy — beyond dispute among those who believe. A mystery in Scripture is not something uncertain; it is something that could never have been worked out and had to be revealed.
The incarnation does not mean that a good man became divine. It does not mean that God possessed a human being, or appeared in a body the way an actor puts on a costume, or that a spirit temporarily inhabited a shell. Nor does it mean that God stopped being God for a while.
It means that the eternal Son of God, without ceasing to be what He always was, took to Himself a complete human nature — a real body, a real human mind and will — and became a man, permanently. One Person, two natures, neither mixed nor confused.
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." (1 Timothy 3:16)
This was not improvised. Seven hundred years before it occurred, a prophet gave a sign so specific that it could not be quietly fulfilled:
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)
Read Isaiah 9:6 slowly, because it holds both natures in one line. A child is born — that is the humanity, which had a beginning. A son is given — that is the deity, which did not. You do not give what you do not already have.
And then the titles heaped upon that infant: The mighty God. The everlasting Father. The Prince of Peace. No prophet, no angel, and no mere man has ever been called those things.
"But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." (Micah 5:2)
Micah names the town — and in the same breath says that the One who would come out of it had goings forth from everlasting. A birthplace, and no beginning. The prophets held the two together seven centuries before anyone had to explain how.
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)
And the New Testament records the fulfilment, translating the name in case anyone should miss its weight:
"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." (Matthew 1:23)
God with us. Not God above us, which we already knew. Not God against us, which we had reason to fear. God with us.
And Isaiah went further, naming the child in terms no created being could bear:
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)
Notice again the two verbs, which contain the whole doctrine. A child is born — His humanity had a beginning at Bethlehem. A son is given — His deity did not. You cannot give what does not already exist.
The apostle John opens his Gospel by establishing who the Word is before saying what happened to Him:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:1-3)
"And the Word was made 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 1:14)
John does not say the Word entered a man, or spoke through a man, or inspired a man. The Word was made flesh. The One by whom all things were made took a body from the substance of the world He had made.
And the verb translated dwelt carries the sense of pitching a tent. The glory that had filled the tabernacle in the wilderness, behind a veil, in a cloud, now walked about in Galilee wearing a carpenter’s clothes.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
And then, thirteen verses later, comes the sentence that divides all history:
"And the Word was made 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 1:14)
The word rendered dwelt carries the sense of pitching a tent. God came and camped among us — not visiting from a distance, but moving into the neighbourhood and living there. And John, who wrote this as an old man decades later, says we beheld his glory. He is not passing on a rumour. He is reporting what he watched with his own eyes over three years.
Here is where careful thinking is required, and Scripture gives us the most precise passage on the subject:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2:5-7)
This passage is often read as though the Son laid aside His deity. He did not, and could not; God cannot cease to be God. What He laid aside was the independent exercise of what was His by right, and the visible glory that belonged to Him.
He did not empty Himself of anything. He emptied Himself by taking — the text says so: took upon him the form of a servant. The subtraction was an addition. He gained a nature; He surrendered no attribute.
"And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (John 17:5)
He asks for the restoration of a glory He had before the world existed. That prayer would be blasphemy on any other lips.
"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9)
Not part of it. Not an emanation of it. All the fulness — and bodily. That verse was written of Him after the incarnation, not before.
"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Philippians 2:6-8)
Follow the movement, step by step. He was in the form of God — that is what He was before anything happened. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God — equality with God was not something He seized; it was His by right.
Then: He made himself of no reputation. The older word is emptied. But emptied of what? Not of His deity — a God who could stop being God was never God at all. He emptied Himself of the outward glory, of the independent exercise of His divine prerogatives, of the reputation and honour that were rightfully His. He did not lay down what He was; He laid down what He was entitled to.
Think of a king who genuinely becomes a servant in his own household — not disguised, but actually taking the role, actually obeying, actually scrubbing floors. He has not stopped being the king. He has surrendered the exercise of everything the title would have secured him.
And note where the descent ends: obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Not merely death, which would have been humiliation enough for the Author of life. The particular death reserved for slaves and criminals.
Was there no other way? Scripture answers that question directly, and the reasoning is worth following closely:
Ask why it had to happen at all, and Scripture gives reasons rather than sentiment.
Because the debt was a man’s debt. Sin entered by a man, and it had to be answered by a Man — but no ordinary man could answer for others, having his own account to settle.
"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)
Because God cannot die. The eternal Son had to take a nature in which He could suffer, bleed and die, since redemption required a death.
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." (Hebrews 2:14)
Because we needed a High Priest who understood. Not one informed about our weakness from a distance, but one who had felt it.
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
And because the Mediator had to touch both parties. A go-between who is only God cannot represent men; a go-between who is only man cannot reach God.
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5)
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2:14-15)
There is the reason, stated with brutal simplicity: that through death. God, as God, cannot die. If the penalty of sin was to be paid, and the penalty was death, then the One paying it had to be able to die — and so He had to become what we are.
He did not take on the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham. And the passage draws the conclusion:
"Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." (Hebrews 2:17)
In all things. Not partly human, not human in appearance. He knew hunger and thirst and exhaustion, was homeless, was misunderstood by His family, was betrayed by a friend, and wept at the grave of another. He was tempted in all points as we are, and did not sin — which means, incidentally, that He knows the full force of temptation better than we do. We give in early; He never gave in at all, and therefore felt the whole weight of it.
Both natures must be held together, and the moment either is let go the gospel collapses.
The Gospels give both natures side by side, often within a few verses, and never apologise for it.
He was weary at a well — and offered the woman there living water. He slept in the boat — and rose to command the wind. He wept at a tomb — and called the dead man out of it. He hungered in the wilderness — and was ministered to by angels. He asked where they had laid Lazarus — and knew the thoughts of every man in the room.
"Jesus wept." (John 11:35)
"And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth." (John 11:43-44)
Those two verses stand eight verses apart. The same Person, in the same hour, at the same graveside.
"Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58)
He did not say I was. He took upon His lips the name God gave to Moses at the bush, and the men listening understood Him perfectly — which is why the next verse says they took up stones.
"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9)
Weigh that sentence. Not part of the Godhead — all the fulness. Not in seeming — bodily. And He never once spoke as a creature about His own origin. Standing among men who traced their descent from Abraham, He said: Before Abraham was, I am.
"Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58)
Now see why both are necessary. If He were only man, His death would be the death of one good person, sufficient perhaps for one other person, and worth nothing to us. If He were only God, He could not have died at all, and there would have been no sacrifice. Because He is both, His death has the infinite worth of deity and the genuine humanity that makes it ours. Remove either nature and there is no salvation left.
This is not an abstraction for theologians. It changes how a suffering person may think about God.
"And they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." (Matthew 1:23)
Take that name apart, because it answers three things men have always feared about God.
God — not a messenger, not an angel, not a prophet with a message about Him. With — not above, not distant, not observing. Us — not with the good, not with the religious, not with the worthy. With us.
Whatever else the incarnation means, it means the end of the idea that God is remote and uninvolved. He has been here. He has been hungry, tired, grieved, betrayed, and laughed at. There is no human sorrow He is looking at from the outside.
It means God is not distant from human pain as a spectator is distant from a play. He has been inside it. When you speak to Him about grief, you speak to One who stood at a grave and wept. About betrayal, to One who was sold by a friend for silver. About injustice, to One who was condemned in a rigged trial. About physical agony, to One who was flogged and nailed to a beam. About the silence of heaven, to One who cried out and received no answer.
There is a great difference between a God who sympathises from above and a God who has been through it. Only the second can be trusted by someone in real trouble, and only the second is actually on offer.
And it means something further. If you want to know what God is like — not what philosophers deduce, but what He is actually like — you do not have to speculate. Watch the Lord Jesus Christ. His patience with slow disciples, His refusal to break a bruised reed, His anger at religious hypocrisy, His tenderness toward the woman everyone else had written off. That is not an approximation of God. That is God, in the flesh, showing us Himself in terms we can take in.
The passage that describes the humbling does not stop there:
"And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name." (Philippians 2:8-9)
And He did not lay the humanity down afterwards. He rose in a body, ascended in a body, and is at the right hand of God in a body still.
"Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." (Luke 24:39)
The incarnation was not a temporary arrangement for thirty-three years. It is permanent. There is a Man on the throne of the universe, and He answers to the name of the carpenter’s son.
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)
The One who went lowest has been raised highest. And note that He did not lay aside His humanity when He returned. He rose in a body, ascended in a body, and there is at this moment a Man at the right hand of God — one of us, who knows exactly what it is to be us, representing us there.
If God has come this far — from the throne to a stable, from glory to a cross — then the question is no longer whether He cares. That has been settled beyond argument.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
Every generation has tried to make the incarnation easier by removing one half of it, and it is worth knowing the shapes those attempts take, because they are all still being offered.
That He was a man whom God adopted. A good man, a prophet, a teacher — raised to divine status because of His obedience. This is the view of the modern liberal and, in a different dress, of several groups that come to the door. But a man promoted to godhood is not God, and Micah says His goings forth were from everlasting, before there was any obedience to reward.
That He was God who only appeared to be a man. A phantom, a divine being wearing humanity like a coat, never truly hungry or tired or afraid. Scripture attacks this with unusual sharpness, because a Christ who did not really have a body did not really die.
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist." (1 John 4:2-3)
That is a strong word, and the apostle John chose it deliberately. To deny the reality of the flesh is not a minor error of emphasis.
That He was a created being — the first and highest of God's works. This is the position pressed hardest today, and it founders on one verse:
"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:3)
Read the last clause as an argument, because that is what it is. Without him was not any thing made that was made. If He were made, then something that was made was not made by Him — namely Himself — and the verse contradicts itself. The sentence is constructed to close that door.
And that He was two persons sharing one body. A divine person and a human person, taking turns. But Scripture never speaks of two whos. There is one Person, the eternal Son, possessing two natures. He never says we.
Men who wish to keep the Christian ethic while discarding the miracles usually begin here, on the ground that the virgin birth is a decorative detail. It is not. It is structural.
The problem it solves is the transmission of a fallen nature. Sin entered the race through one man and has been passed down through every generation since.
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)
A Saviour born in the ordinary way would have inherited what every other child inherits, and a sinner cannot bear the sin of sinners. He must be a true member of the race — and He must not be under its condemnation. The virgin birth is how Scripture says both were true at once.
"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)
Therefore — the word is a hinge. That holy thing is holy because of the manner of the conception.
Remove the virgin birth and you have a man like other men, who needed a Saviour rather than being one. The doctrine is not a flourish added to the story. Pull it out and the rest collapses.
We speak of the humility of the incarnation easily, having heard it every December. It is worth stopping to measure it.
The One who filled heaven with His glory was carried in a womb. The One who fed Israel with manna nursed at a woman's breast. The hands that flung the stars into their places learned to hold a hammer. He who is worshipped by seraphim was subject to a village carpenter and his wife for thirty years and no one remarked on it.
"For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)
And He was not received. That is the sentence in John's prologue that most people pass over:
"He came unto his own, and his own received him not." (John 1:11)
He made the world and the world did not know Him. He came to His own nation and His own nation turned Him away. The descent did not end at Bethlehem; Bethlehem was only where it became visible. It went on down through poverty, misunderstanding, betrayal and a Roman cross.
"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isaiah 53:3)
That is what it cost. And He knew the whole of it before He came.
Every other religion asks you to climb. This one records that the climbing was never going to work, and that God therefore came down the whole distance Himself — down past the angels, down into a woman's womb, down into a feeding trough, down through thirty ordinary years of labour, down to a criminal's execution, down into a borrowed tomb.
He did not come down partway and ask us to make up the difference. There is no gap left for us to bridge. That is what Emmanuel means, and it is why the message is called good news rather than good advice.
God was manifest in the flesh — and He did it for you.
"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."Matthew 1:23
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You that we handle so great a wonder with so little awe. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to let every reader marvel again at the stooping of God to a manger, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).