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What does it mean that the Word became flesh?



      

John 1:14

ESV - 14 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.

Clarify Share Report Asked July 01 2013 Mini Anonymous (via GotQuestions)

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Shea S. Michael Houdmann Supporter Got Questions Ministries
The term word is used in different ways in the Bible. In the New Testament, there are two Greek words translated 'word': rhema and logos. They have slightly different meanings. Rhema usually means ...

July 01 2013 2 responses Vote Up Share Report


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My picture Jack Gutknecht Supporter ABC/DTS graduate, guitar music ministry Baptist church
The Word became flesh. This verse constitutes the most concise statement of the incarnation in the New Testament. John 1:1 makes it clear that the Logos was fully God, but John 1:14 makes it clear that he was also fully human. A Docetic interpretation (In Christianity, docetism (from the Koine Greek: δοκεῖν/δόκησις dokeĩn "to seem", dókēsis "apparition, phantom", is the doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, and above all the human form of Jesus, was mere semblance without any true reality. Broadly it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion) is completely ruled out. Here for the first time the Logos of John 1:1 is identified as Jesus of Nazareth – the two are one and the same. Thus this is the last time the word logos is used in the Fourth Gospel to refer to the second person of the Trinity. From here on it is Jesus of Nazareth who is the focus of John’s Gospel.

December 01 2018 1 response Vote Up Share Report


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Mini Dave Larsen Supporter Husband, father and grand father. Student of the Messiah.
John’s opening statement is His eyewitness account of who Yoshua is (John 1-14). 

John 6:53-58: Yoshua said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 

Yoshua was sent by the Father to the world to show all who would accept His message the Way back to the Father. The message was the WORD of the Father; it is the Way the Truth and the Life, and no one can come to the Father unless they accept His WORD (Deuteronomy 18:15-19, John18:37, 8:31-36,14:4-11).

John 6:63: It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The WORDS that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life.

John, Peter, and James all understood that believing in Yoshua’s Name was synonymous with accepting the Fathers WORD (John 17:6-8). They accepted Yoshua's message; they knew He was the WORD of the Father and that all who go to the Father must pass through Him (John 3:3-6,16-18). They accepted that the WORD is Spirit: “The WORDS I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and Life.” They understood that all who are born again are born of the Spirit and the WORD. 

1 Peter 1:22-23: Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding WORD of GOD.

1John 3:9: No one who is born of GOD will continue to sin, because GOD’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of GOD.

James 1:18: He chose to give us birth through the WORD of Truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.

Yoshua, the WORD of the Spirit of the Father, was born in the flesh by a woman. He came in the likeness of man to reveal the way back to the Father. He did so by sanctifying Himself through obedience to the WORD of the Spirit. 

John 17:17-19: Sanctify them by the truth; your WORD is Truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. 

In order for Yoshua to become our covenant sacrifice, He, the WORD of the Father, had to walk out the WORD of GOD as a man in perfect obedience. His perfect obedience is what He refers to as sanctification. Once sanctified, the WORD in the flesh became our covenant sacrifice. The covenant He was sacrificed for is the New Covenant, a covenant that not only forgives sin, but has the power to give those who believe His message the ability to walk as He walked (2 Peter 1:3-4, Jeremiah 31:31-34).

May 07 2024 0 responses Vote Up Share Report


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