February 4: The word from God

In the early centuries following the geographical growth of the Christian faith, its doctrines soon came under criticism from the secular, religious, and philosophical worlds. Beginning about 325 A.D., able defenders turned attention to the Person of Christ. After decades of debate covering several councils they formulated their description of Jesus in this way. He is truly God and truly Man, consisting of two natures (divine and human) with two wills (divine and human), but existing in one Person, Jesus Christ. In our study from John's Gospel, we will highlight seven outstanding features of the God-Man.

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

•First, in His role as the Word, He is the Eternal God (vv. 1-2). As the Word, He is not what God says for that is recorded in the Bible. The Word, co-existing with God the Father, explains God to us. John 1:18 says He declares, that is, explains or utters God. In His own words, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" John 14:6 (HCSB).

•Second, the Word is the Everything Creator (v. 3). Arius, a fourth-century theologian, argued that "the time was when Christ was not," a heresy taught today by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Bible specifically states that every existing thing came into being through the Word. This verse will not allow one to say that God created the Word first and then everything else through Him.

•Third, the Word is the Life-Giver (v. 4a). The origin of life resides in God alone. The co-equality of the Father and Son (the Word) comes out in John 5:26 in the words of Jesus: "For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted to the Son to have life in Himself." In trinitarian thought the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in essence, nature, and being and three in office, person, and function.

•Fourth, the Word is the Light-Provider (vv. 4b-9). In speaking of the life as the light of men, at least two great truths stand out. (1) Light speaks of God as His all-encompassing righteous, His holiness, and as such has imprinted every human being with an awareness of moral standards. All tribes, no matter how primitive, have standards of right and wrong (v. 7). (2) All humans have a conscience, an inner compulsion to do the right and avoid the wrong (v. 9).

•Fifth, the Word is the Flesh-Becomer (vv. 14-15). When the Bible says the Word became flesh, it means He took a human body, prepared miraculously in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The body was His own, not a borrowed vessel to be used temporarily and then cast aside at his death. The Word became incarnate and dwelt ("tabernacled" in the Greek) among us.

•Sixth, the Word is the Grace-Bestower (vv. 15-16). Grace expresses God's inexpressible love in withholding judgment from the ungodly. Had He not done so, all of us would have perished, and justly so, at the first sin we committed.

•Seventh, the Word is the Truth-Revealer (v. 17). Philosophers define truth as a function of language, such as, a statement is true if it corresponds to the event it attempts to describe. The Bible says Jesus is the standard by which right and wrong are judged. He transcends language about God and reveals God to us.