What does John 1:1,14 mean when it says that Jesus is the Word of God?

In the Gospel by John the Spirit of God opens out to us the glories of the Word. As the Word, He is the universal Representative of all the mind and thoughts and ways of God, both in His own Person and by means of what He says and does. If at any time any revelation required, or requires, to be given of God's thoughts and plans and will, the revealing thereof took place, or will take place, through Him. We are to think of Him as the One adequate, and He alone, to fully disclose all that is in the mind of God, and to bring into being all that the mind of God has planned.

As to the meaning of the term, "the WORD," it brings before us the fact that "He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind that subsists in God." All that God is, is therefore revealed in Him; and hence it was said, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (v. 18.) Only here, He who was the Word is spoken of as the only begotten Son. As the Word He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind of God; but as the Son, the eternal Son, He is, in incarnation, the revealer of the Father.

But in this Gospel we have One set before our souls who was the perfect expression of all that God was in His approach to men. He was the Word of God; and the word is that by which one person makes known to another all that is in his heart and mind.

The Lord Jesus is "the Word". A word is the expression of a thought and so "the Word" is the expression of the mind of God. The Lord Jesus did not just say "Thus saith the Lord", He did not just tell forth the mind of God, but He Himself was the full expression of God; He is God. "The Word became flesh" and John was still enjoying the wonder of it, 'To think, He came here and lived! He dwelt among us! and we have contemplated His glory!"

Now the Word is looked at as become flesh. In verse 14 a new part commences. Before, it was what He was; now, what He became (what He began to be). The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; it was a real thing, not like God visiting Abraham; but He dwelt among us, tabernacled there "and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." His own incarnate character and our connection with it. The part about John the Baptist comes in in the middle. But there is the statement, "the Word was made flesh": and then you get the aspect He had. We beheld His glory, not of the Son as such, but as of an only-begotten with a Father. He had all the title of that excellency and value in everything. All that that was to the Father was with Him. It is His personal glory made visible in flesh. When He was made flesh, we get a witness of John (v. 15), just as before, saying, "This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me."

It is clear then that Scripture, in saying that the Word became flesh, teaches us that this was a new beginning, a condition not existing before, but now become true of the One who was and is the Word. And all true Christians agree surely that the words "became flesh" refer to His becoming Man; to the Incarnation of the Word, in fact.

The second difference is in one sense a minor one. "We beheld," in that context, would probably convey to any spiritual mind that it was spiritual vision and not mere physical sight. So that it would not mean a mere incident in the lives of the beholders, but a continuous impression upon the mind, and hence is rendered in the New Translation as, "we have contemplated "His glory."

The Word made Flesh

We turn now from considering the deity of our blessed Lord to see how Scripture speaks of His incarnation. This, of all the Evangelists, the apostle John, the historian of His divine glory, most forcibly expresses: "The Word became flesh," he says, "and tabernacled among us." "Flesh" characterizes humanity by that which is its lowest part; and the depth of this condescension is the glory of the revelation which this expression — the "Word was made flesh" — so perfectly conveys. In His human personality Christ was Himself the gospel that He preached, as "Son of man" was the title He so loved to give Himself.

"The law was given by Moses." It came, and made claims upon us. It made claims for the right reason that the law is a revelation of what the creature ought to be. As I gaze on the ten commandments I see what I ought to be. My conscience tells me that I am not it. Consequently I am condemned by the law. It naturally condemns me whenever I learn its spirit and its power. But what does the gospel do? It brings the revelation of what God is, not what man ought to be. The chapter we are looking at tells beautifully how God has come into this scene in the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." And who is that Word? The opening verse tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." I want you to look at this, "In the beginning was the Word." Then the next thing is, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." By "the Word" what am I to understand? The Eternal Word of God! It is Jesus — the Son of God entering into this scene and becoming a man. Men have said, "God was made flesh." Scripture does not say so. It says the "Word was made flesh;" and the reason is very simple. If I think of God as given to me in the Bible, I have presented to me the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If I say "God was made flesh," then I should not express the truth, because the Father was never incarnate, and the Spirit of God was never incarnate; but the Son of God, the Word, "became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (ver. 14). The Eternal Son has come into this scene, humbling Himself, and becoming a man, in order that, in the form of a man, He might reveal to us the heart and nature of God; and moreover, that God, in the condition in which He was found as a man, might find all He looked for in man. That is the charm of these beautiful words, "full of grace and truth." The law Moses might bring, but "grace and truth" came only by the Son of God.

There were communications from God previously, there were words from God, assuredly there was a communication of His mind in the manner in which it was conveyed before from God. There were Moses and the prophets, there were the writings of Moses and the writings of the prophets; "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" but there never had been previously a revelation of God in One who, whilst He became a Man, was ever and always God, until Christ came. And hence, we have that blessed simple utterance of the Holy Ghost in the verse that we began to read from, here this evening, "The Word was made flesh:" mark! "the Word," that blessed Word of whom He speaks in the first verse of the chapter; "In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" that is to say, He was in His existence eternal, in His nature divine, in His Person distinct, and lest there should be any mistake about it, it is said, "the same was in the beginning with God," and also He "was God." Now that blessed Word, who ever existed — for we are carried into eternity here in the gospel, just as we are brought into time in the epistle — became a man; "the Word was made flesh." What a thought for adoring hearts to bow down and worship and adore, as they dwell upon it!

It is of great moment and interest too, that we should rightly understand the value of the words "in the beginning" and "from the beginning." "In the beginning" in the gospel connects us, as we have seen, with eternity; "from the beginning" in the epistle, brings us into time. But then, whilst it is so, the connection is most precious, beloved friends, for our souls; for He who was "from the beginning" in time, was also "in the beginning;" the One that was "from the beginning" was "in the beginning." And that brings us at once to that fourteenth verse, "The Word was made flesh." Now we have got into time. "In the beginning" in the first verse we are before time, we are in eternity. In verse 14 He has come down and become a man, He who was the Word and with God has become a Man; "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] amongst us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of an only-begotten with a Father, full of grace and truth" — the fulness of grace, and truth.

It is true that God dwells in an unapproachable light, and no man has seen Him nor could see Him, and so God revealed Himself in flesh, "the Word (meaning not only what a Person said but the expression of what One is) became flesh". Thus His thoughts are revealed. The Word of God in order to reveal God became flesh that we could understand this. The glory of God was on this earth, "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with the father), full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).