The Glory & Grace of the Incarnation

0:49We love the entire show. We love from the beginning where Charlie Brown, of all people, is essentially recruited to be the director for what I guess is the school Christmas pageant. And he takes that very seriously. And just as what happens with Charlie Brown, if you're familiar with the peanuts, he fails. He has a difficult time. People don't trust him. They think the worst of him. And he ends up in utter and total frustration, as you can see in the picture behind me.

1:25This scene right here, where he is just so frustrated, what he's frustrating. Frustrated with understanding Christmas. He actually says that. He says, I don't understand. What is Christmas all about? And then, of course, Linus comes and saves the day by quoting from Luke chapter 2, the nativity, the proclamation of the angel who says what Jesus is all about and what he has come for. When we look at Christmas, what is it all about? What's it about? What are we looking at here?

2:07We see the narrative in the book of Matthew and the book of Luke, where you have sort of this detailed narrative, this story about Jesus and about Joseph and Mary. But what about here in John 1? John 1 doesn't begin with a manger. We don't see the Magi. We don't see the proclamation of the angels. No, John 1 begins far, far before that. It begins at the beginning. As Chris just read from John chapter 1, which parallels Genesis chapter 1, John begins with the incarnation. He begins with the incarne, the incarne being flesh, how God the Son took on flesh. And became one of us.

3:04That's what Christmas is all about. It's the incarnation. And in John 1, what we see so clearly is we see that the incarnation of God the Son was both glorious and it was also gracious. How was the incarnation of God the Son glorious? Well, read with me here in verses 14 and 15. Let's begin actually here at verse 14. It says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. What is the nature of this word that became flesh? Well, back up in John 1, verses 1 through 3, John the Apostle gives us sort of three attributes to John's, excuse me, to the Word's deity. He says three things there in John 1, 1 through 3. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Three things that we See right there very clearly. One is that the Word is eternally pre-existent with God. In other words, that God the Son does not have a beginning, just as God the Father does not have a beginning. He always was, and He always is, and He always will be. He's eternally pre-existent. We see that He is God. It says very clearly, the Word was God. All of the attributes of God, and we'll talk about this a little bit later. All the attributes of God, they rest there in the Son. He is God. And then lastly, we see that He, the Word, was the creative agent of all things from the beginning. All things were made through the agency, through the work, through the power of God the Son. He was there in the beginning, making all things, and there was nothing that was made that was not made through the agency of the living word.

5:38He makes this amazing thesis statement, does John the Baptist? Excuse me, John the Apostle. And the statement in the opening prologue is something that John doesn't want you to miss. That Jesus is God in human flesh, that he is the creator of the universe. Who has become a part of his creation? He is a pure, eternal being who has become a man. This is John's message of the first 18 verses: that Jesus is not a created man, he is God in human flesh. By the way, this is why there have been and there continue to be so many heresies concerning Jesus Christ, concerning the essence or the nature of the person of Jesus Christ. Most of our early creeds and confessions deal specifically with the nature of Christ. It's because this is one of the most important doctrines in the Christian faith. It must be known, it must be believed for someone to escape hell and to enter heaven that they know and believe that Jesus is God. All of this, his thesis of verses 1 through 18, is really summed up in the first part of verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

7:23How did this eternal, this pre-existent word, become flesh? Well, we see this. In the Nativity narrative of Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 35. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.

7:58But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. And he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be?

8:38Since I am a virgin. Great question. Amen, right? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. Now, Dr. Luke, as a physician, knows good and well where babies come from. But that's not where he spends his time. Where he focuses his time is upon the agency of the Holy Spirit in bringing about the birth of the Son of God. That's what's important. How did the Word become flesh? By the power of the Holy Spirit. How did the Word become flesh? How did God the Son come to us as a person?

9:37By the agency, by the work of the Holy Spirit. For Jesus does not have a sin nature like you and me, because he was not conceived in sin, as David would put it in the Psalms, and brought forth in iniquity. No, Jesus' Father is God the Father. He does not share our sin nature. This is important because he came forth and knew no sin, but became sin on our behalf, that we might be called the righteousness of God.

10:15Not only did he come to us, not only did the word become flesh, not only did Jesus come as a human, but he also dwelt among us, it says there in verse 14. He dwelt, skeno'o, to take up residence, literally to tabernacle. Well, we've seen that word before. That's not a word that we use a lot nowadays. But that word tabernacle would immediately, to a Jewish reader, bring an illustration to mind. They would see in their mind's eye the tabernacle of the Jews in the wilderness where God met his people. In Exodus chapter 25, verses 8 and 9, we see this use of the word tabernacle, this word in the Septuagint, the Greek copy of the first seven books of the Old Testament. We see this word skino'o in its noun version. Because God says to Moses, and let them make a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. God wants to meet with his people. Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and all of its furniture, so you shall make it. The words sanctuary and tabernacle come from that same word where we get the word dwell, skenu'o. God from the beginning wants to meet with his people, he wants to be with his people. In the Genesis account of God's fellowship with Adam, we see that God walked through. The garden in the coolness of the afternoon. God met with Aaron and with Moses to deal with his people. God's desire has been to be with us. And he has done that through the word incarnate, through the word become flesh to be with us. How did the word dwell among us in glory and as the only son from the father full of grace and truth? How did he do this? What manner did God dwell with us through the Son, Jesus?

12:40What does it mean for him not only to dwell with us, but to dwell with us in glory? How is he glorified? What does that even mean? Well, to glorify, to have glory, means to see something at its pinnacle. The glory of Bo Beavers was around the age 19. That's about it. I got a picture in my office that Alan has to look at all the time of me with R.C. Slocum. And I am in my football uniform at Kyle Field. And, man, I don't even know that guy. That was the pinnacle. That was it.

13:25What about for God? Well, God doesn't have a pinnacle. What? God, in his essence, is always at his best. He is the pinnacle. He is the best all the time. He never stops being at his best. He is the pinnacle. That's what it means to glorify God. When is God glorified? When you see him as he really is. That's how you glorify God. That's how God reveals his glory to us. We see him as he really is. And how does the Apostle John describe this? Well, in his epistles, he is still obsessed with this idea of knowing God, knowing him through the Son, Jesus. In 1 John chapter 1, he introduces that epistle like this. That which was from the beginning, talking about the word, the word incarnate, Jesus, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon, and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. Look at this. The life was made manifest.

14:48He showed himself. He demonstrated. He displayed the glory of God, the best of God. And we have seen it and testified. To it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you. So, what's the purpose of God glorifying himself through the Son so that you too may have fellowship with us? And indeed, our fellowship is with who? With the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. In John's mind, to be with Jesus, the Son is to be with God the Father.

15:51Jesus says this Himself in John chapter 14. He's meeting with His disciples and He's telling them about how He is going to have to go. He's going to finish his mission at the cross and he's going to leave them, and that's going to be okay. Because when He leaves them, then He's going to send the advocate, His Spirit, to be with them all the time. See, when Jesus is present with His disciples, which we always think of as being such an amazing privilege, Jesus says, It's better that I go. Because while I'm with you, in order to be with you, as I am here as a man, I have to be in your presence. You have to be in my presence. But it's better for me to go, because if I go, then I send my Spirit to live with you, within you, and I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

16:46They obviously don't understand this. They don't get it. And Thomas said to him in verse 5 of chapter 14 of the book of John, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way. I am the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it's enough for us. Philip, right over, right?

17:28And Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen the Father has seen me. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? The incarnation of God in the Son is glorious. And then we come to verse 15. And in most of your translations, you see a parentheses, don't you? Don't be alarmed by that. That wasn't put there that long ago. Remember that when the Greek was transmitted to us, it was given to us, it was written in the Greek, there's actually no punctuation like we would see in the English language. But that parentheses is there for a good reason. Verses 14 and 16 are to be connected together, which we'll see in just a second. John 15 is inserted in there, excuse me, verse 15 is inserted there by John for a reason, and it's to give more credence. It's to give more of an emphasis to his point in verse 14 about the Son coming in glory as the word incarnate. He says, John, John the Baptist, bore witness about him and cried out, This was he of whom I said, he comes after me. He who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. John the Evangelist, John the Apostle, uses the witness of John the Baptizer to emphasize his point in verse 15.

19:33John says, and he fully supports Jesus' deity and his humanity here. Where do you see that? Look with me. John the Baptist cried out, This was he of whom I said. Now look at this, he who comes after me. What is he talking about? He's talking about Jesus' birth, his literal birth. John the Baptist was born first. John the Baptist was born from his mother, Elizabeth, before Jesus was born of his mother, Mary. Mary and Elizabeth, they're cousins. They're family. They know this. John says, he who comes after me. So right there, John says, this is a man who was born of a woman.

20:26But then look what he says about this man who was born of a woman. He ranks before me. Oh, he's a man, but he ain't like me. He ranks before me. Why? Because he was before me. Now, in the English, he was loses its meaning like it would not in the Greek, in the original language, because he was is a derivative of I am. And if you know your Bible, you know that I am doesn't just get thrown around. Amen. What John is saying about Jesus is that he is the I am who was before him. He is the pre-existent God, the word eternal, who has no beginning and has no end.

21:24John is simply saying, yes, this incarnation, this word eternal, he is glorious. If you see Jesus as the eternal Son of God, full of grace and truth, then you are seeing him in his glory, just like John the Baptist did. The incarnation was glorious. But the incarnation was also gracious. It was gracious. Look at verse 16. For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. From what fullness have we received grace upon grace? Well, that word fullness is connected back to verse 14. The glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. What is this fullness? Fullness, ple roma. It means complete. Completeness. It means fulfillment. It means lacking nothing. Think about what Paul says in Colossians 1.19 when he says, For in him, in Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. In Jesus, the Son, you had all the attributes of God the Father. He did not lack any of them. He was full. He was complete.

23:01You need not search for God after you found Jesus. By the way, we don't find Jesus. Jesus finds us. He's not lost. Amen. When you have Jesus, you have God. All of him. Full, complete. Well, what is grace upon grace? Grace upon grace is a double pattern of expression, which you see a lot in the Old Testament when you see things like Holy of Holies or Song of Songs. It's a point of emphasis. You have grace upon grace. It's never ending. In the fullness of God, in the fullness of God the Son, we have received grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. It's never ending. Ending. John wants his readers to understand that the coming of the Son was the overwhelming work of divine favor, completely unmerited by humanity. And he highlights this fact by contrasting Moses representing the law and Jesus representing grace and truth in the next verse, in verse 17. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Now, John is not setting up the law or Moses as some sort of adversary, as some sort of enemy of grace or of Jesus. In fact, John is not negative in his portrayal of Moses or the law at all in his gospel.

24:55Consider John chapter 5, where Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees who are accusing him of breaking the law by healing the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. This is what Jesus says to these men who believe that they are following the law every jot and tittle. He says, You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come. Come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people, but I do know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you receive him. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

25:55Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? God gave the law to Moses, and Moses was the hero of the Pharisees. The Pharisees probably had a poster of Moses on their wall growing up, the way my boys have Jose Altuve. They loved him, they revered him, and they thought that within the writings of Moses, the law given by God, they were safe, and they were wrong.

26:53Joseph was saying to the Pharisees, who revered Moses and considered themselves bearers of Moses. Moses' ministry and message, that they didn't really understand Moses or the purpose of the law at all. If they did, they would have worshiped Jesus, the one who the law is pointing us to. The Apostle Paul describes the nature and the purpose of the law in Galatians 3 when he says this: Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. And now that faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

27:54The law was our guardian. That word for guardian can literally be translated as custodian or teacher or tutor, meaning that it was this burdensome corrector to our never-ending failings and sin. But the law was never the end itself, like the Pharisees believed. But it was the means to which Christ would be exalted. As Timothy George remarked in his commentary, On this passage in Galatians 3, the law is a stern disciplinarian, a harsh taskmaster. Yet in its very harshness, there is a note of grace. For the function of discipline, as opposed to mere torture, is always remedial. With its whippings, Luther said, the law draws us to Christ.

28:59The Apostle John is not pitting Moses and the law against Jesus and grace, but he's gently demonstrating where Moses always longed to take God's people to the promised land, the Messiah, Emmanuel, the peace of Israel. And though we have not earned this passage, God was pleased to make him known to us, for we could never see God without Jesus. Look at verse 18. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. No one has ever seen God in physical form. Why? Well, number one, as Jesus says himself in John 4, verse 12, 24, God is spirit. So therefore, you can't see him by definition. But number two, to see God would have led to the immediate death of that person.

30:12In Exodus chapter 33, Moses has just intervened on behalf of Israel. God was about to smoke Israel. Some people like to say smoke. I say smoke. He was about to smoke them. They're about to be gone. Because Moses had gone up onto the mountain to receive the law to bring back to his people. And while he was up there receiving God's law, the people of God, Israel, began to rebel against him and created for themselves an idol, a golden calf, for which to worship. And this was all led by God's designated man, his priest, Aaron.

30:52God says, I will take them out, and I'll make a new people beginning with you, Moses. And Moses says, But Lord, but Lord, oh, think of your reputation amongst the nations, of Egypt, whom you've just delivered your people from bondage. And God holds back his judgment. God doesn't change his mind. This has a whole lot more to do with showing the character of Moses and how he loved God and loved God's people. But Moses, you can just sense this sort of feeling of accomplishment. And so he gets a little brave, a little daring.

31:43And in verse 18 of Exodus 33, Moses said, please show me your glory. Remember what glory means? It's to see God as who he really is. Verse 19. And God said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. This is the first time that God has given Moses his name. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.

32:27But, he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. God was not only being gracious to Israel, God was being gracious to Moses by not showing him his face. But instead, the Bible tells us that he hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, and he simply saw the train of his, the edge of his garment, the hem of his garment pass by, which is a way of saying that he got. Just a glimpse, a small glimpse of his glory, but he did not see the fullness of God's face. Moses didn't really fully understand what he was asking. The face and presence of God is almost always accompanied by terror and impending doom in the Old Testament. Why? Because God is holy and we are not. We cannot know God on our terms. He must make a way.

33:34One of the greatest pre-incartational books of the Bible on the coming of Jesus is the book of Isaiah. Normally, when we think of the messianic prophecies in Isaiah, we think of Immanuel from Isaiah 7, or we think of the suffering servant of Isaiah 52 and 53. But the need for the coming of the Messiah, I think, is really illustrated most fully in chapter 6 when Isaiah is first called to prophesy for the Lord. It says in verse 1 of Isaiah 6, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

34:31And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. Look at Isaiah's reaction. Is he fired up? Is he excited about witnessing the glory of God? And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah is confronted with the reality of John 1:18, that there is a reason no one has seen God. Just as the very presence of God in a vision has Isaiah contemplating his own demise and the inevitable destruction of God's people, God would have been just in bringing that.

35:51He would have been just in bringing judgment, not only onto Isaiah as he begins to fully understand. His sin, but upon the people from whom he comes from. But then we have verse 6. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.

36:38The work of Christ is foreshadowed here in verse 7, isn't it? His atoning death upon the cross is seen in this picture of making atonement for the sin of Isaiah. This is what Christ had begun in his incarnation. Easter is in verse 7, but Christmas is in verse 6. The seraphim flew to Isaiah. The prophet could no more ascend to the throne of God in his vision than we can in our own lives according to our own work and our own goodness and righteousness. God the Son flew to us.

37:28Or more aptly, He came to us as a baby in a manger in glory and in grace. Let me pray for us. Father, we glorify you. We lift you up this morning because you alone are worthy. Father, you sent your Son Jesus to us, not because we were deserving of his presence, not because we were deserving of his work in the atonement of our sins and the reconciliation of our lives back to you. But you sent your Son Jesus to demonstrate your glory for us to see you as you really are.

38:50And Lord, as an act and work of grace, of unmerited favor. Thank you. Thank you that the Word became flesh and he dwelt among us full of grace and full of truth. We celebrate that this morning, Father. Thank you. May we worship you from hearts, God, that are truly thankful. We love you and we bless you. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.