Foundations of Truth

The Word Made Flesh

• Dr Timothy Mann

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What if the most decisive truth about God is not hidden in the clouds but walking our roads with dust on His feet? We open John 1:14-18 to explore the incarnation, the moment the eternal Word became flesh, and why John skips manger details to confront the meaning behind them: God’s glory, now visible, full of grace and truth.

We walk through the biblical meaning of flesh from 1 Corinthians 15, corruption, dishonor, and weakness, and show why Jesus had to enter that condition without sin. Along the way, we dismantle the spirit-only myth that haunted the early church, pointing to eyewitness language “we beheld” and to the Shekinah thread running from the tabernacle to the Mount of Transfiguration. This isn’t an abstraction. The law could diagnose sin but couldn’t heal it; the flesh was too weak. So God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh, to break the fear of death, and to begin a new creation by His Spirit.

From the last Adam to the promise of a spiritual body, we connect the cross and resurrection to your present hope. Colossians 2:9 says the fullness of Deity dwelt bodily in Christ; James calls Him the Lord of glory. If all flesh is as grass, then every human triumph fades—but the Word who took on our frailty will raise our mortal bodies. That means your future isn’t escape, but transformation, and your present is held by grace and truth you can trust.

If this conversation stirred your curiosity or strengthened your faith, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope today, and leave a review to help others find it. What does “the Word became flesh” mean for you this week?

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Today's message is from the Epic series of God with God. Here's Pastor Timothy Mann teaching the word.

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What the Bible, what Bible teachers call the incarnation. Open it up to the New Testament book of John. Turning your Bibles to John, John chapter 1. John chapter 1. And we're going to read verse 14 down through verse 18. John 1, 14 through 18. Now, of course, the Bible says, and the word became 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, meaning John the Baptist, not John the writer of this gospel, John the Baptist, John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, This is he of whom I said. And here's the quote: He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness we have all received. And grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. And we'll stop here. And this is God's word that we've read. And so through December 25th, we're going to focus on what Bible teachers call the incarnation. Now that word incarnation, it means literally, the word incarnation literally means the act of becoming flesh. The act of becoming flesh. It comes from the Latin version of the New Testament, John 1.14, which in English reads, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. But because of the, just a little bit of background for you, because of the near exclusive use of what's called the Latin Vulgate, which was a 400 AD Latin translation of the New Testament. Because of that, because of this near exclusive use of the Latin Vulgate in the church all the way through the Middle Ages, the Latin term then, incarnate, became standard. It was the word incarnate and dwelt among us. And so that kind of stuck, that word incarnate or incarnation. And so when we say the word incarnation, we're talking about a literal term in Latin that was translated from the Greek, which means became flesh, but we're also talking about a foundational doctrinal truth, a theological truth, that God became flesh. Jesus came and became flesh. And so what's interesting to me is the Apostle John, when he's writing his gospel here, and most Bible scholars believe it was the last gospel to be written. It was later. It was probably some 60 years or so after Jesus died and was buried and was raised again and ascended back to the Father. It was probably at least 60 years, and John is an old man at this point. He's near the end of his life. He's probably in his late 80s when he wrote this. And so the other gospels were already around at this time. Most Bible scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel that was written. Most Bible scholars believe that Mark was actually the nephew of Peter. And so Mark, while he was probably a young man when Jesus was born, was alive, he had firsthand account from Peter. And he wrote his account. Matthew, of course, we know was one of the disciples of Jesus. And so he wrote his account shortly thereafter. Luke is probably written in the 60s. That's not the 1960s, that's the 60s, literally. And then John, probably some 25 years later, writes his gospel when he's in Ephesus. He was the bishop in Asia Minor over all those churches in Ephesus. And so what's interesting to me is John the Apostle, John ignores the wonderful accounts of the Lord's birth recounted by Matthew and Luke, and he tells us instead of the mysterious significance of Jesus' birth. He doesn't give us any of the details. He doesn't tell us about the shepherds. He doesn't tell us about the what we call the wise men, the magi coming up to two years later. He doesn't tell us about angels and telling Mary and Joseph his name should be called Jesus because he'll save his people from their sins. No, he doesn't do any of that. He doesn't tell the account. He just simply says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He gets right to the theological significance of Jesus' birth. And we're going to dig in. What do we see here in this text that we've read? Well, first of all, we notice that Christ, Jesus, Christ as we know him, that's the Messiah. We say Christ often because that's sort of the Gentile version of that word. Both Messiah from Hebrew and Christ from Greek mean the word anointed. The anointed one, the deliverer. And so the Messiah, Christ, became flesh. That's what this says. Really very straightforward. So the incarnation did take place. The Son of God, and the word incarnation means what? The act of becoming flesh. That's right. Let's try it again. I want to teach you something. The word incarnation means what? The act of becoming flesh, right? And incarnation is an English word that's actually taken from what language? Latin, which was not the original language that the Bible was written in. It was actually translated around 400 A.D., which is about 400 years almost, after the original Gospels were written. And a dude named Jerome is the one who originally wrote it, this Latin translation, and it's called the Latin Vulgate, because at the time it was a form of Latin that was used among the common people. It had surpassed Greek as the common language of the day. And then eventually people became illiterate throughout the Middle Ages, and uh they couldn't read or write. Anyway, that's another story. And the priests basically said, we're the only ones who can understand it, and they chained the Bible to the pulpit and wouldn't let anybody else read it. Why? Because they didn't want you to know what it said. They could tell you what to do and what to say when you couldn't understand it, right? When you couldn't read it. And so that's what happened. That's where a lot of corruption came in. Anyway, so the word incarnation is actually what kind of word? A Latin word. Right? A Latin word, and it means what? The act of becoming flesh. So when we talk about the incarnation as a theological doctrine, we're talking about what specifically? God in the flesh. God in the flesh. Jesus, God's Son, becoming flesh. The Son of God actually was made flesh. Was made. It's not the best translation. That's actually one way the word can be translated, but became is the idea. He came to earth in the person of Jesus, the Christ. There's no doubt here about John's meaning at all. There's no doubt about it. Now the word flesh is actually the same word. I spent some time the last couple days digging into this a little bit. The word flesh is actually the very same Greek word that the Apostle Paul used to describe man's nature with all of its weakness and tendency to sin. That's an interesting thing. We'll talk about that in just a second. It's really a staggering thought, though. That Jesus Christ is God, fully God, and yet Jesus Christ is man, fully man. John says, we beheld the second phrase, we beheld his glory. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld. This word beheld means actually seeing with the human eye. I am beholding you right now. You're beholding me. We together are beheld. We've beheld each other. We're seeing each other with the human eye. That's what John is saying. This word is actually beheld, is actually used about 20 times in the New Testament. So is there any room here for John saying, well, God, God became a man was merely a vision of some man's mind or imagination. He was merely a phantom. He was merely a spirit. Could that even be remotely close to what John is saying? No. And that's important. I'll tell you why that's important. Because if you read the little letter of 1 John, you'll see John deals with this. Because by the time he writes those letters, by the time he's writing this gospel, there's already false teaching in the church that is embracing this Greek dualism, which taught that flesh is sinful and wicked. Everything material is sinful and wicked, and only that which is spirit is good. And so they adopt this Greek philosophy, this dualism, that they applied it then to Jesus. And so you had these guys going around teaching and saying, well, he really didn't come as a man. He didn't come in the flesh. It was merely a spirit. Because otherwise he would have been evil. And so he's teaching, they're teaching this false doctrine. You read 1 John, and John says, if anyone, if anyone does not believe or say that Christ is come in the flesh, then he cannot be born of God. John is essentially, as a matter of fact, he has the spirit of Antichrist, he says. And so anyone who says, no, Jesus didn't really, he wasn't really a man, John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, would say, that person is not born again. That person is not saved. Because it's only by the Spirit of God that you can say, John says this in his first letter, that Jesus was the Son of God, the real, fully God, fully man person. So there's no room here, whatever, for saying that God's becoming a man was merely a vision or something, sort of phantom or spirit only. John was saying that he and others, when he says, we beheld his glory, he and others actually saw the word made flesh. Jesus Christ was beyond question God Himself, who became man, and who partook of the very same flesh as all other men. Now the question here is what does the Bible mean by flesh? That's a good word to dig into a little bit. Why did Jesus have to become flesh? That's a good question, too. So I think as I was doing some cross-referencing in Bible studies and I was thinking about the physical body that we live in, maybe the best description of this body we live in, this flesh that we have, is probably found in 1 Corinthians 15. I want you to turn there in your Bibles. If you have an app on your phone, 1 Corinthians 15. This is a really good description of the flesh you and I live in. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 42 through 46. Of course, the discussion here is all about the resurrection from the dead. And the Apostle Paul is talking about how those who are saved are going to be resurrected from the dead. Okay? And verse 42 he says, so also is the resurrection from the dead. But now look, the body, or we could use the word the flesh, is sown, that is to say, planted, right, in corruption. So think about that word, corruption. But it's raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. So here we have corruption, we have dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, but it is raised in power. So here we have corruption, dishonor, weakness. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There's a natural body and there's a spiritual body. And he goes on to say, it's interesting here, and we'll touch on it. And so it was written, the first man became a living being. The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam, capital A there, that's referring to Jesus, became a life-giving spirit. And so this flesh, now, now, what I need to say is this. Now the Bible would attest that Jesus, even though he had man's physical being, he had no sin within him, like we do. So why? He had man's physical being, but he had no sin within him, so that he could restore everything that Adam failed in, and then when Adam failed, and Eve failed, everything that Adam failed in, he brought the curse of sin upon mankind. Jesus was in the flesh, though, to be able to ultimately reverse that curse. Well, what about the flesh? Our flesh. Well, this text right here in 1 Corinthians, there's a lot we could say, but 1 Corinthians 15 tells us this flesh is corruptible. It's sown in corruption. It's corruptible, it is tainted, it is debased, it is ruined, it is depraved by sin. There is a seed of corruption within the human flesh, and you can't do anything about it. And because of that, the flesh sins, lusts, and thereby ages and dies and deteriorates and decays. It does not live. This flesh does not live beyond a few years on this earth. 2 Peter 1.4 says, the corruption which is in the this is the corruption which is in the world through lust. Galatians 6.8 says, For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. Some other translations say destruction. 1 Corinthians 15 50, we're reminded, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. And so Christ, Jesus, the Word, became flesh to correct and counteract the corruption of the flesh. The Bible says, 2 Peter 1.4, by Christ are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, by these promises, you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. He goes on to say, 1 Peter 1, verse 18, all the way down through 25. He says, For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, your vain behavior, which was received by tradition from your fathers, but you're redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever. For all flesh, it says, is as grass, and the glory of man adds the flower of grass. Why? The grass withers, the flower therefore falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. So the flesh is corruptible. 1 Corinthians 15 also says the flesh is dishonorable. Hey, this flesh that you have and I have is not what God created it to be originally. It does not exist in the image of God that God intended. You do exist in the image of God, but it is very much a fractured, flawed image. This flesh doesn't hold the glory, it doesn't hold the honor or the prestige that it once did when God first created it with Adam. It is disgraced, it is shamed, it is reproached by sin and lust. It's held, this flesh is held in the grip of sin and fear, and it's subject to being held in bondage all the way through to the bondage of death, which the Bible says is our last enemy. Paul said in Romans 7.18, he said, In me, and he explains it, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. No good thing in my flesh. Romans 8, 5 and 6 says, They that are after the flesh do mind, they obey the things of the flesh. For to be fleshly minded or carnally minded is death. Christ Jesus became flesh to correct and counteract the dishonor of the flesh. He says in uh Hebrews 2, 14 through 15, he says, and this is amazing, I love this. He says, For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, that's us, we're the children, we're partakers of flesh and blood, right? And he said, just as much as you are partakers of flesh and blood, he also, meaning Jesus, he also himself likewise took part of the same. In other words, of flesh and blood. So that through death, he had to die, so that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who, the children, you and me, deliver them who through fear of death were all were all their lifetime subject to bondage. He's saying, You don't have to be afraid of death anymore. He goes on to say in Romans 5, 8 through 10. But God commended his love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. This flesh is corruptible, it is dishonored, it's weak. That's what this passage says. It's weak. The flesh is impotent, it is feeble, it is frail, it is fragile, it is infirm, it is decrepit because of sin. Because of sin. It has no strength. Your flesh has no strength to please God nor to save itself. You can't save yourself. Romans 8.8 says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 3.20, there shall be no flesh justified in his sight. John 6.63, Jesus is speaking there. He said, It's the Spirit that quickeneth or makes life, brings life. The flesh profits nothing. Jesus Christ became flesh to correct and counteract the weakness of the flesh. Romans 5 6 says, But when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 8 5. I like this. Listen. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through God. The flesh. God did, sending God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh. Jesus did. The flesh is also a natural body. It's natural. This flesh is of the earth. It's a part of the earth. You know, if you do a biological sampling of what you're made up of, you are made up of the chemicals and the substances of the earth. Did you know that? All the minerals that's in the earth, that's what you have. Why? What did God make Adam out of? Interesting, isn't it? It is physical, it is material. The Bible in the New Testament calls it the earthly house, the tabernacle, the tent, which houses the human soul and spirit. This is neither spirit nor spiritual, and therefore it cannot live beyond the strength of the chemicals and substances that form its flesh. It cannot live beyond its natural life. That's why 1 Corinthians 15, 50 says, Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither does corruption inherit incorruption. He goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 15, 44 and 49, there's a natural body and there's a spiritual body. And we have borne the image of the earthly. You right now are still bearing the image of the earthly. But the word of God says, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. The heavenly body. That's the promise. I don't know about you, but the way I'm feeling tonight, I'm ready for it. I'm ready for that heavenly body, that heavenly image. Y'all hanging in here with me? Is this interesting at all? Alright, alright. Just making sure. Jesus Christ became flesh to counteract the natural body of the flesh. And he became flesh in order to, and I quote 1 Corinthians 15, 45, in order to become a quickening spirit, a life-giving spirit. The spirit, the Savior, who could quicken and make alive all those who would trust in him. The Bible says in 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. That's him for me. The just for the unjust. That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, made alive by the Spirit. Romans 8 11. But if the Spirit of Him that raised Jesus up from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken, make alive your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwells in you. Ephesians 2, 4 and 5. But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us, made us alive together with Christ. Thank God tonight that Jesus was everything that you and I cannot be because of the flesh. He was everything in the flesh that I can't be. That's why I had to come in the flesh. To undo everything the first Adam messed up. The last Adam makes it right. Because he was perfect. He never sinned. The birth of the Lord Jesus was unique. When any other child is born in the world, it's an amazing thing. It's the creation of a new personality. A new life is created, one that never existed before. But when Jesus was born, it was not the new, it was not the creation of a new personality at all. Or even a new person. It was the coming into this world of a person who had existed from all eternity. This was something new in the history of the universe. I mean, no wonder the angels woke up everybody all over those Judean hills that night with their shouts of praise. So, back to John 1 14. What does it say? It says Christ became flesh. The incarnation happened. Well, what else? Let's dig a little bit more here. The proof of the incarnation is that Jesus dwelt visibly among us. God's glory was seen. It says, and he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father. So God's the proof of the incarnation here is that God's glory was seen, and that Jesus dwelt visibly among us. God's glory was seen. Now there's a couple of things meant by the word glory here. We beheld his glory. That's an interesting word. Actually, Michael Sunday gave a passing brief reference to it. Christ was, to use the Old Testament Hebrew word, Christ was the Shekinah of God. That's the Old Testament word, Shekinah. We would say, we would kind of put two words together and say Shekinah glory. They didn't do that. It was just Shekinah. The word Shekinah means that which dwells or dwelling. It refers to, specifically, in the Old Testament, you can read about in Exodus 40. It refers to that bright cloud that God used to guide Israel out of Egypt and that rested ultimately upon the tabernacle and above the mercy seat in the holy place in the tabernacle during the Old Testament. The cloud symbolized was a physical manifestation of God's presence, of God's glory. And that is just what John was saying. He was saying, We beheld, we actually saw the Shekinah glory, God's very presence dwelling among us. We saw that. I think he saw it in a couple of ways. He saw it in the moral excellence of Jesus in every way. But then also he caught an unveiled glimpse upon that mount of what we call Mount of Transfiguration. In James, Peter, and John. He saw that. Christ, this word glory also really, I think means Christ was the very embodiment of God. He's all that God is and does. John said, we beheld, we looked at him, and we could tell he was God. All that Jesus was in his person and in his being, in his character, and in his behavior was so enormously different from everybody else. From them. He was human and expressed all the human characteristics, the positive side of human characteristics. And all the emotions without sinning. But in person and behavior, his work and his ministry was so very different. It was the very embodiment of grace and truth. It was the perfect embodiment of love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and goodness and faith and meekness and self-control. It was the absolute embodiment of all that God could be. The glory of all that God was, stood right before them, right in their very presence. And they beheld him with their very own eyes. Jesus Christ, the man who dwelt among them, could be none other than the glory of God among men. It was clearly seen. So much so, Colossians 2.9 is a beautiful verse where Paul was writing, and he says, In him, meaning Jesus, dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2.9. In him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The glory of his being was the very glory God himself would possess. It was the very glory God would give to his only begotten Son. Just as any father would give the best of his glory in all that he is to a son. And you know what's a striking fact? I was thinking about his brother James, who wrote that little letter back in the New Testament. Jesus' half-brother, James. The striking fact is that James, his very brother, even called Jesus the Lord of glory. The Lord of glory. I mean, just think. James was reared with Jesus, beginning from the earliest years of childhood, stretching right on through the years of adulthood. I think if anyone ever had an opportunity to see and observe Jesus, it was James. I can't imagine how many times he was probably looking for Jesus to mess up. So he could tattle tail on him finally. He never could find anything. There was nothing negative. He had every chance to see some act of disobedience, some sin, something contrary to the very nature of God. However, James, Jesus' brother in the flesh, his testimony is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. The one in whom the very presence of God dwelt among us.

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Dr Timothy Mann

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