Knowing Jesus
WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?
Jesus Christ is the Eternal Logos, the Living Word, the Son of the Living God; Jesus Christ is God!
He was and is Very God, was and is Very Man. This means that He wasn’t part God and part Man, but totally God and totally Man.
THE EXPRESSION OF HIS DEITY
When God became Man, He, not for a moment, lost the possession of His Deity, rather retaining it completely; however, He did lose the expression of that Deity, which evidence is, that such expression will be lost forever. But on another side of the Incarnation, God becoming man, He is greater today than ever before.
Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things (Jn. 1:1–3); however, He is also now the Saviour. So, coupled with Creator, He is now the Saviour, which is greater than ever. One cannot improve upon Perfection, but one can add to Perfection, which has been done in the case of Christ.
THE SELF-EMPTYING OF CHRIST
Paul wrote, and I quote from THE EXPOSITOR’S STUDY BIBLE: “Let this mind be in you (refers to the self-emptying of Christ), which was also in Christ Jesus (portrays Christ as the supreme example):
“Who, being in the form of God (refers to Deity, which Christ always was), thought it not robbery to be equal with God (equality with God refers here to our Lord’s co-participation with the other members of the Trinity in the expression of the Divine Essence):
“But made Himself of no reputation (instead of asserting His rights to the expression of the Essence of Deity, our Lord waived His rights to that expression), and took upon Him the form of a servant (a bondslave), and was made in the likeness of men (presents the Lord entering into a new state of Being when He became Man; but His becoming Man did not exclude His position of Deity; while in becoming Man, He laid aside the ‘expression’ of Deity, He never lost ‘possession of Deity’):
“And being found in fashion as a man (denotes Christ in men’s eyes), He humbled Himself (He was brought low, but willingly), and became obedient unto death (does not mean He became obedient to death; He was always the Master of Death; rather, He subjected Himself to death), even the death of the Cross. (This presents the character of His Death as one of disgrace and degradation, which was necessary for men to be redeemed. This type of death alone would pay the terrible sin debt, and do so in totality.) “Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him (to a place of supreme Majesty; Jesus has always been Creator, but now He is Saviour as well), and given Him a Name which is above every name (actually says, ‘The Name,’ referring to a specific Name and Title; that Name, as Verse 11 proclaims, is ‘Lord’):
“That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow (in the sphere of the Name, which refers to all it entails; all of this is a result of the Cross, the price paid there, and the Redemption consequently afforded), of things in Heaven, and things in Earth, and things under the Earth (all Creation will render homage, whether animate or inanimate);
“And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (proclaims ‘Lord’ as the ‘Name’ of Verse 9; it means ‘Master’ of all, which again has been made possible by the Cross), to the Glory of God the Father. (The acknowledgment of the Glory of Christ is the acknowledgment of the Glory of the Father.)” (Phil. 2:5–11).
~JSM
John 1:14
(14) “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.”
The phrase, “And the Word was made flesh,” refers to the Incarnation.
That God, the “Eternal Word,” in all of His wondrous Glory as the Creator of all things, which is beyond the comprehension of man, would become “flesh,” portrays a type of love which cannot be imagined by mere mortals. As well, He will retain this “flesh” forever, albeit in Glorified Form.
This made Jesus, God’s Son, for Sonship in connection with Jesus Christ always refers to humanity, never to Deity. He was always the “Word,” but not always “flesh!” However, He did not cease to be the “Word,” even when He became “flesh.”
When Jesus “Became flesh,” His moral glory brought back to the human family the very Image of God. Man departed from God and lost His Image. So, the True Image of God came to dwell with man, in order that the Holy Spirit could dwell in man, that man might dwell in God.
Man has never observed man as God originally made him, other than when men observed Jesus Christ. Man, who has fallen from his lofty state, has no idea as to what he was before the Fall. There was, and is, no way he could know except in Jesus. Jesus was, even in His consummate flesh, the Perfect Man, “The Man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). But sadly, man does not desire to accept God’s Standard of Perfection, and continues to try to produce his own, which always fails. The very idea of Redemption as portrayed in verse 12, is to make men “Sons of God,” in effect, in the Image of Christ, Who is the Image of God.
The phrase, “And dwelt among us,” refers to Jesus, although perfect, not holding Himself aloft from all others, as many or most of the self-appointed greats of the world do, but rather lived as all men, even a peasant. His Mother and foster Father, at least as far as the economic sense was concerned, were of the poor. Joseph was a carpenter, and it seems raised Jesus in this same occupation, for tradition says that Jesus mostly made plows and yokes. Consequently, as “flesh,” He knew exactly how most of the world lives, laboring to earn a bare existence. As a result, He is “Touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb. 4:15).
The phrase, “And we beheld His Glory,” speaks of His Deity, although hidden from eyes which were merely curious. Someone has said that in the Incarnation, Christ, while always retaining possession of His Deity, did lose its expression.
His “Glory” was represented not only in Who He was, but, as well, in what He did. His Miracle-working Power, which He used to heal literally thousands, was in a sense a transferring of a tiny part of His Glory from Himself to the needy soul. The same could be said for Miracles and Deliverances.
The Greek word for “beheld” is “theaomai,” and means “a careful and deliberate vision which interprets its object.” It is more than merely seeing, but has the idea in mind of an object, in this case, a Person displaying a certain aura or attribute which causes one to see something far above the ordinary. Such was Christ! Consequently, the Pharisees and Religious Leaders of Israel had no excuse for their actions, inasmuch as this “Glory” was obvious to all. There is none so blind as those who refuse to see, even though plainly obvious to them.
The phrase, “The Glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father,” presents Jesus Who is, and was, and always will be “The Only Begotten Son of God.”
Men never will be “begotten,” or “born” in the same sense as Jesus was (Mat. 1:18–25; Lk. 1:34–35), for their sonship is on a different basis—that of adoption, not an actual begetting and coming into existence (Rom. 8:15; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5).
The phrase, “Full of Grace and Truth,” proclaims with the word “Full” His Deity, for only God is “Full of Grace and Truth,” as “flesh” proclaimed His Humanity.
So, the Glory in which He was seen was that of an Only Son with the Father, the One Sole Object of the Father’s delight. Such are the two Glories displayed in these verses—His Glory as the Word Who was with God in Eternity, and His Glory on earth as the Only Son of the Father.
If one is to notice, there is no pedigree in this Gospel, for how could Deity have a pedigree? In Mark as well, there is also no pedigree, for a servant needs none; he only needs a character (Williams).
~J. Swaggart Ministry