We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
God Made Visible
During Advent, we celebrate and bring to the forefront of our imagination the God who was made visible. The Gospel of John sums up the advent of God with one sentence: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).
“The Word” refers to God’s thinking and his self-expression. When God thinks, it is Jesus. When God expresses himself, it is Jesus. Notice the singularity of the claim. Jesus is not one Word among others, as though God had more than one mind and more than one mouth. Rather, wherever and whenever God thinks and expresses himself, it is Jesus Christ.
Moreover, it has been this way throughout eternity. The Word is not created. He was “in the beginning with God” and is himself God (Jn 1:2). He has been fellowshipping with the Father from all eternity (Jn 17:5, 24). This means that in knowing Jesus, we are not knowing someone “one step removed” from God. In knowing Jesus we are knowing God himself, God in his eternal essence. In seeing Jesus, we are seeing the very heart of God.
In fact, far from being created, the Word is actually the Creator. John tells us that everything was made by the Word, through the Word, and for the Word (Jn 1:1-3). Creation exists, in other words, as an expression of God and for the purpose of people knowing God. Creation’s purpose is found in Jesus Christ.
The Word is the life and the light of all people (Jn 1:4). God wants people to know him and share in his life (Jn 17:3). Whenever and wherever people experience true life and true light, it is Jesus Christ, whether they know it or not (Jn 1:4, 9). Whereas the enemy covered up the true God in a veil of deceptive darkness that brought death, Jesus turns the light on so we can see who God really is. In doing this, Jesus gives life.
In Christ, we see the glory, the beauty, the fullness, the truth of God. Even though no one previously had ever seen God’s eternal, transcendent nature, now in the Word of Jesus Christ God is made known (Jn 1:18). The invisible God is made visible. In Christ, the previously concealed God has been unambiguously revealed.
—Adapted from Is God to Blame? pages 26-28
Image by Clarisse Meyer via Unsplash
Category: General
Tags: Advent, Glory, Incarnation, Jesus
Related Reading
Caught Between Two Conflicting Truths
In my previous blog I tried to show that adopting a “Christocentric” approach to Scripture isn’t adequate, as evidenced by the fact that people adopting this approach often come to radically different conclusions. In fact, it seems to me that the “Christocentric” label is often close to meaningless inasmuch as it doesn’t meaningfully contrast with anything. If a “Christocentric”…
Sermon Clip: Marshmallow Advent
In last weekend’s sermon, Greg tells us about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings on advent, and how getting in touch with our emptiness through silence and solitude can lead to peace. This short clip explains advent and the advantages of delayed gratification. You can download the entire sermon as well as other sermon resources by visiting the…
Is Open Theism Incompatible With a Chalcedonian Christology?
Question: The Chalcedonian Creed says Jesus was “fully God and fully human” and that these “two natures” remained distinct in the Incarnation, even though Jesus was one united person. I’m told that part of the reasoning behind the concern to keep Jesus’ humanity distinct from his divinity was to protect the “impassibility” of the divine…
Reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer
Jesus begins the instruction on prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) by telling his disciples to pray for the Father’s name to be “hallowed,” for his kingdom to come, and for his will to be established on earth as it is in heaven. He is, in effect, telling them to pray for the fulfillment of everything his ministry,…
Finding an Alternative Jesus
The “Newly Discovered” Jesus One of the most common, and most disturbing, refrains heard in the media’s coverage of contemporary radical views of Christ is that New Testament scholars have recently “discovered” new sources of information about Jesus that contradict the Bible’s own view of Jesus. It is claimed that works such as the Gospel…
Podcast: What is God’s Glory?
Greg considers competing concepts of what God’s glory is. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0126.mp3