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
Following Jesus from the Margins
D. Sharon Pruitt via Compfight Kurt Willems posted a reflection today entitled From the Margins: Following Jesus in a post-Christian culture. I hope everyone will read this. It’s a perspective from the anabaptist tradition that finds inspiration from the same data that evangelicalism finds alarming. May we all follow Jesus from the margins and offer…
Why Didn’t Jesus Denounce Military Service?
A common objection to the claim that Jesus and the authors of the New Testament were opposed to all forms of violence is that neither Jesus nor anyone else speaks out against it. When soldiers asked John the Baptist what they should do in response to his message, for example, he told them not to…
Violence: What Did Jesus Do?
Thomas Quine via Compfight Here’s a spot-on reflection on what Jesus taught us about responding to violence. Whatever you think about the justification of violence in particular situations, as Christians we simply cannot escape the fact that Jesus demonstrated another way. From the reflection: And though he had access to unlimited power to have himself released…
Did Jesus Have Two Minds?
As I laid out in the previous post, I believe Jesus is fully God and fully human. The question is: How is this possible? How do we talk about the way that Jesus was fully God and fully man? The Creed of Chalcedon (451) tries to answer the question this way: We, then, following the…
Why Believe the Virgin Birth Accounts?
Some skeptics claim that the story of the virgin birth of Jesus is derived from similar stories from pagan literature. While I won’t address here the details of the various parallels that some use to argue this point—as it has been demonstrated by many scholars that they simply don’t hold up to scrutiny—I will offer…
Was Jesus Unloving Towards the Pharisees?
Some claim that Jesus spoke to religious leaders in ways that did not reflect the love of the cross. In his climatic encounter with the Pharisees in Matthew 23, Jesus’ words were undeniably harsh. He calls the Pharisees “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” “blind fools,” “snakes” and “a brood of vipers” (Mt 23:13, 15, 16,17, 19, 23,…