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Text: John 1:1-4, 14
1 John 4:9
In his influential book, "The Essence of Christianity" the German Philosopher, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-72) argued that God was simply a human projection.
Schopenhauer 1788-1860 - There was no absolute, no reason, no God, no spirit at work in the world: Nothing but brute instinctive will to live.
George Wilhelm Hezel (1770-1831) - God was a tyrant, a divine despot and it was time to cast this barbaric deity aside. ("History of God by Karen Armstrong", p.352).
In 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead. He argued that "not only had our science made such notions as the literal understanding of Creation impossibility, but our greater control and power made the idea of a divine overseer unacceptable."
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) regarded belief in God as an illusion that mature men and women should lay aside.
Jacques Monod, a Nobel Prize Winning biologist, in his book "Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (New York - Vintage Book 1972, p. 180) says:
"Men know at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty."
"Human beings have always been their own most vexing problem" writes Reinhold Niebuhr in his famous study of human nature--"The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation."
Richard Rice--in "The reign of God", declares that "no matter what we learn about the vastness of the universe or the intricacy of the atom, we ourselves are the greatest mystery of all, and the more we learn about ourselves, the more mysterious we become.
THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION
I suggest, however, that the greatest mystery, with which the human mind could ever be confronted, is the mystery of the Incarnation.
1Tim. 3:16
The mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh, is the basis of every hope, the foundation of our Salvation, the source of our transformation and the reason for our rejoicing.
The Creator becoming a creature God, becoming flesh, the Divine becoming human, in the person of Jesus Christ, who was all God and all man at the same time, is fundamental and foundational in the transformation of sinners into saints.
For the Hindu, the incarnation of the Divine, Brahma, is all pervasive, so that no significance is attached to personality and individuality.
For the Christian, the incarnation is distinctive and unique.
The Incarnation, the apex of Divine revelation, the "Crème de la crème" of divine communication, is distinctive and unique, because it is personal. It is in a particular life, in a particular person that "the word became flesh."
This is not an idea or philosophy. It is not an ideology or mere theology. It is not an all pervasive force. It is in Christ and Christ alone, that God became man. He is the "monogeis" There is none other like Him.
This Creator, became a creature - He who by the word of His mouth established this vast Universe in all its immeasurable and inconceivable complexities.
........who carved out valleys and peaked majestic mountains;
....... who sent meandering streams coursing their way in curvaceous contours out into the belly of the deep.
.......whose boundless resources deposited undiscovered gold and diamonds, minerals and oil in the bosom of the earth--
Yes, this mighty God whose creative power bedecked night skies with twinkling stars, hanging Orion and Plaidese on the hinges of nothing, causing the heavens to "declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handy work."
It is this God, whose spoken word established unfallen worlds causing morning stars to sing together and the sons of God shouting for joy.
This God who established millions of galaxies and mighty stars not visible to naked mortal eyes. This God who made the world in six days, creating man from the dust of the ground. This God became flesh.
Let me borrow the expressions of Ellen White - Desire of Ages, p. 20
"He spread the heavens and laid the foundation of the Earth. It was His hands that hung the worlds in space and fashioned the flowers of the fields. His strength setteth fast the mountains. The sea is His and He made it. Ps. 65:6, Ps. 95:5. It was He that filled the Earth with beauty, and the air with song."
He enabled us to listen to the whispering winds of eternity, catch the melody, write the tune and spread the message, that the Almighty God is Sovereign Creator. His signature appears on the hard-drive of Creation, and He, out of His great love for mankind, chose to become like one of them.
William Barclay, in his commentary on 1 Cor. 1:18-25, states that, "The very idea of God becoming man, was revolting to the mind of ancient Greeks".
To the Greeks:
- The first characteristic of God was "apatheia" - more than apathy, it means total inability to feel.
- They argued that if God can feel joy or sorrow, anger or grief, it means that He can be influenced. So they argued that God must be incapable of all feelings that nothing may affect him.
A God who suffers was to the Greek a contradiction in terms.
Plutarch declared that it was an insult to God to involve him in human affairs. God of necessity was utterly detached.
The idea of Incarnation, of God becoming man was revolting to the Greek mind.
Augustine, a great scholar, long before becoming a Christian, said that in the Greek philosophers he found a parallel to almost all the teaching of Christianity except no parallel for "the Word became flesh."
Celsus, who attacked the Christians with such vigour towards the end of the 2nd Century A.D., wrote:
"God is good and beautiful and happy and is in that which is most beautiful and best. If then he descends to men, it involves change for Him, a change from good to bad, from beautiful to ugly and from what is best to what is worst - who would accept such a change?"
This is precisely the message that John brings.
John, the last of the surviving Disciples, whose gospel differ significantly in content from his other three gospel writing companions, writing from Ephesus, somewhere around A.D. 100 seemed eager to make his point.
John described as that disciple whom Jesus loved.
John, the one given the responsibility of the custodial care of Mary (mother of Jesus) upon the death of Jesus at Calvary.
John's gospel has no long list of genealogy at its beginning -
No baptism
No record of temptation
Tells us nothing of Gethsemane
nothing of the last Supper
nothing of the Ascension
Lists no parables
No account of the birth in Bethlehem's manger
Like a pregnant mother in the delivery room, with contractions of increasing frequency and intensity, impatient with the slow ticking of seconds, with the life transforming truth pulsating and kicking in his bosom - aided by the Holy Spirit, as the Divine midwife, John delivers:
John 1:1-4, 14; 1 John 4:9
"When the world had its beginning, the word was already there; and the word was with God; and the word was God. This word was in the beginning with God. He made all things and there is not a single thing which exists in this world which came into being without Him. In Him was life and the life was the light of men . . . so the word became (flesh) a person and took up his abode in our being."
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us because God sent His only Begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him."
This Divine Revelation is a powerful weapon against the heresy known as Gnosticism. The Basic doctrine of Gnosticism was that:
1. Matter is essentially evil.
2. Because matter is evil, God himself cannot touch matter and therefore did not create the world.
3. Jesus was merely an emanation from God, not in any real sense divine but only a kind of demi-god.
4. Jesus has no real body, that He was a kind of phantom without real flesh and blood, that when he walked he left no footprints, because His body had neither weight nor substance.
5. Some Gnostics held a variation of Docetism which states that Jesus only seemed to be a man.
This Gnostic heresy was a two-part evil. One part states that Jesus was not truly divine and the other, was that he was not truly human.
But, my brothers and sisters, the Seventh-day Adventist Church declares Jesus the Christ, was all God and all man at the same time.
THE HUMANITY OF JESUS
John's gospel uncompromisingly stresses the real humanity of Jesus.
1. Jesus was angry with those who bought and sold in the temple courts. (2:15)
2. He was physically tired as he sat by the well of Sychar in Samaria. (4:6)
3. His disciples offered Him food as an ordinary hungry man. (4:31)
4. He had sympathy for those who were hungry and with those who were afraid. (6:5, 20)
5. He knew grief and he shed tears as any mourner might. (11:33,35,38)
6. In the agony of the Cross the cry of His parched lips was "I thirst". (19:38)
The fourth Gospel shows us a Jesus who was no shadowy docetic figure. It shows us one who knew the weariness of an exhausted body, and the wounds of a distressed heart. It is the truly human Jesus whom the Fourth Gospel sets before us.
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS
On the other hand, there is no other gospel writer which sets before us such a view of the Deity of Jesus.
1. John stresses the pre-existence of Jesus.
a) "In beginning was the word and the word was God" (1:1)
b) 'Before Abraham was I am." (8:58)
2. He speaks of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was made. (17:5)
3. He speaks again and again of His coming down from Heaven. (6:33-38)
4. The Fourth Gospel stresses more than any other, the Omniscience of Jesus. He knew the past record of the woman of Samaria. (4:16-17)
5. He knew of Lazarus' death before anyone told Him (11:14)
6. No man took His life from Him. He had power to lay it down and power to take it up. (10:18; 19:11).
John presents us with a Jesus who was undeniably human and who yet was undeniably Divine.
- He is Sovereign God and humble man
- He is Mighty Master and Obedient Servant
- He who gave birth to the unfathomable mysteries of the Universe presents to us, in His birth, the unfathomable mysteries of the Incarnation.
LOVE AND THE INCARNATION
The force that moved God to experience the Incarnation, the foundation of our transformation, was the very essence of His nature--Love, a love that is saving and revelational.
1 John 4:9
"In this was manifested the love of God towards us because God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him."
The mystery of redeeming love will occupy the minds of the redeemed throughout Eternity.
Sinners by choice and by nature, and often recalcitrant in the exercise of sinful proclivities, humanity alienates itself from the very character of God.
But God refused to be separated from a world so loved by Him. Through disobedience, the powers of humanity became perverted. Weakened through transgression, it became impossible for man in his own strength, to resist the power of evil.
So love found a way to purify the sinful springs of humanity. Love found a way to transform the sinner into a saint. Love found to reconnect humanity with Divinity.
So He came down to our level, because we could not get up to His and with loving arms He is lifting us up, to show what living is. In this, God's love is manifested. He is saving us, transforming us in the process as He reveals Himself to us.
In the book, "Steps to Christ", page 10, Ellen White states:
"It is impossible for us of ourselves to escape from the pit of sin in which we are sunken. Our hearts are evil and we cannot change them . . . Education, culture , the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. They may produce an outward correctness of behaviour, but they cannot change the heart."
Left to ourselves, we would self-destruct. Sin, like a cancer has permeated every tissue of the human soul, made painfully evident in acts of brutality, covertly and overtly expressed, in gross inhumanity by man to his fellowman, even in sacred circles.
The heart of God yearns over His earthly children with a love that is stronger than death. And God became man - "mild He lays His glory by, born that men no more may die, born that men may live on high, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth."
The saving love of God is revealed in the birth of Christ, for our transformation. For John, the purpose of His coming is that we might live through Him. It is only as He lives in us, transforming us, empowering us, that we can experience true life -- and only because He became one of us - all because of His saving love.
Only love could make the Holy touch the sinful. In Christ incarnate Holy God could touch sinful man and not consume him. Only love could make Him leave the heavenly palace for an earthly manger.
From a world of indescribable glory to one of indescribable shame.
From a world of pure and spotless holiness to a world marred by sin, blighted and darkened with the shadow of death. He came, in order that we may reflect God's character and the earth may reflect His glory.
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE INCARNATION
By becoming one of us, the transforming power of God, in Christ, is available and accessible to any and every believer.
This for John is the prime purpose of the Incarnation - "God sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him."
We are transformed and empowered to deal with life's challenges in Christ.
We can live above bigotry - through Him--we can
We can live above hypocrisy - through Him -we can
We can love above selfishness and greed--through Him--we can.
We can live above sinful egotism and racial prejudice--through Him--we can.
We can live above ethnic cleansing and tribal wars--through Him--we can
We can live above empty religious formalism and discover true spiritual power--through Him we can.
We can live above the things that divide us and through Him lift those things that unite us--we can.
We can live above the destructive distractions of deviant behaviour--through Him-we can.
We can live above the popular dismantling of traditional family values and through Him raise up a standard for the world--we can.
We can live above the abandonment of Biblical principles and through Him restore the foundation of many generations--we can.
We can live above the issues and challenges seeking to devalue the currency of Adventist Ministry and by the power of this transforming Christ preserve an Adventist Ministry of moral, spiritual, authentic professional integrity.
The Incarnation is the fundamental source and foundational platform for our transformation. The weakest, vilest, most wretched, recalcitrant sinner, sinking beneath the weight of his transgression asks, can God change and save a sinner like me? In the incarnation, God shouts His response in an open-ended, Yes I can, and I will.
The greatest tragedy that could ever befall a human being, the greatest tragedy that could ever befall any member of the body of Christ is to come to the end of life and discover that we have not really lived a transformed life.
Paul says, "If any man be in Christ he is new creature." Transformed from a power-seeking despot with a desire to rule, to a loving, caring under-shepherd--called to serve, chosen to model the life of the transforming Christ.
Transformed from what is to what ought to be. Transformed from sin to holiness. Transformed from a candidate for hell into a citizen of the kingdom.
AGENTS OF TRANSFORMATION
My brothers and sisters of God's world-wide Seventh-day Adventist Church, a people with a mission to fulfill the great commission--we have been transformed in Christ in order that we may be agents of transformation through Christ.
We are who we are, what we are and where we are by the transforming power of Christ. And if we are conscious that we are not what we ought to be, let us thank God that we are not what we use to be--and even in this, let us share the testimony of the transforming power of the God-man.
For whether we be doctors or patients, presidents or district pastors, teachers or students, administrators or lecturers, accountants or secretaries--lets be agents of transformation seeking to change lives by the spirit of God.
From Africa to America--let our lives be an Incarnation of Christ.
Go back to Afghanistan and Albania, Algeria and Argentina--
Go back to Austria and Australia--let your life be an Incarnation of Christ.
From Belgium to Burma, from Barbados to Bulgaria--
From Brazil to the Bahamas--
From Bolivia to Cambodia, from Canada to Colombia--
From Cameroon to the Cayman Islands--
From Cuba to Costa Rica--let your life be an Incarnation of Christ.
From Denmark to the Dominican Republic--
From Ecuador to El Salvador, From Estoria to Ethiopia--let your life be an Incarnation of Christ.
From France to Finland, from Gambia to Great Britain, from Guyana to Guatemala--let your life be an Incarnation of Christ.
From Haiti to Hungary, from India to Indonesia, from Iceland to Ireland--let your life be an Incarnation of Christ.
From Japan to Jamaica, From Korea to Kenya--let your life be an Incarnation of Christ.
From Luxembourg to Lebanon--From Mexico to Morocco--
From New Zealand to Nigeria--From over here to over there and everywhere--
Let us lift them with the hand of love and share with them the Word of Hope--that He is God with us, lifting humanity, saving humanity, transforming humanity, preparing humanity to live with Divinity. Eden will be restored and God and man will dwell together again--this time--together forever, all transformed because Christ became "flesh" and dwelt among us. Amen.
