The Incarnate Word of God
“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 came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being”.
Again, we get a profound and beautiful way that God has made himself known to us throughout history. We can look back at the beginning of creation and mark that moment when God spoke and His words created their new reality. God’s Word moves out, it works, and it achieves something. God’s Word has the power to create, shape, reshape, and draw lines - it orders wisely. God’s Word created life and is the very foundations for life.
God speaks and breathes that same Word with Adam and Eve to give them blessing, to give them purpose and to warn them away from danger. God even implants that word and authority in these new tenders of the garden as he gets Adam to name the animals. He has Adam join in his creative purposes of naming, dividing, and particularizing each animal - the word had already started to work in and through Adam. Already we have gotten the beginning of an amazing testimony to how God enters into creation, but also enters into and moves through us by his word.
In order to pursue God’s revelation of himself more fully we need to understand what is God’s Word or words in general. As we do, we can better understand how God is working in the world and through us.
We probably best understand words as an essential tool of communication. We might be able to communicate a lot with our bodies and tones, but words carry the particulars and definitives. Words allow us to communicate what is in our heart, mind, soul, and body to another person who does not live in our being - this communication is ultimately about connecting us, even if someone says no or tells you to leave with words they are communicating something in their hearts, so you do know something otherwise hidden. Ultimately, words are about relationships - ideally about building healthy and loving relationships. We can even see this at creation, God’s word orders the relationships between light and darkness, water, earth and sky, humans, plants, and animals, and even between man and woman as essential helpers to one another. God's word, as it communicates his heart and mind, is also wisdom and love itself.
Now the fact that our words and relationships can be so broken, does not remove the purpose of words in our relationships, even a destructive word's power over a relationship should show us its inherent value and power over relationships. God’s Word is the ultimate Word though, so its purpose is always to draw close, to restore, to reconcile, to communicate what is in the heart of God. We should trust, even when the word appears to create walls, push away, or even destroy that ultimately God is accomplishing his loving purposes through his word.
A short side note on Scripture: the fact that God identifies with and empowers the word so much, should tell us a lot about how we hold onto Scripture. God is communicating himself powerfully to us in Scripture. It is the written word of God’s revelation through history. Because it carries God’s revelation of himself, they do not remain mere words. God enters in and they become living words. We stand at the reading of the Gospel, because we are acknowledging and honouring the presence of God. When we read Scripture we should hold it with the same regard as if we were meeting Jesus in the flesh and we should want to read it because of that great revelation of His presence. Sure we should wrestle with the Bible, sure we won’t always understand, we may even disagree, that's true for any word or relationship but none of these are reasons to ignore or throw even a line away, we must always trust that God is speaking powerfully and purposefully through Scripture. He is using every single word to shape, reshape, order, create, and communicate himself. Because it is a living word, we should trust God to speak through translations too, but always desiring to grow closer to the source.
Now the amazing thing about God’s Holy Word in Scripture and in prayer is that we can hear him, know him and his word can live in us. As we read and pray, we take in God’s word, we digest and incorporate it into our body like food. Memorizing Scripture, treasuring it in our hearts like Mary, chewing it, and being fed by it all help us to be formed by Scripture, but ultimately God’s word wants to live in us.
It also wants to live through us. When we read or quote Scripture or tell the story of God’s work, we are speaking God’s revelation into the world. Now God doesn’t just live in us through the word, but he is living out of us too. In us, people can come to see God (as his image bearers), but they should also hear him too - because in his word they meet him.
The interesting thing about words is that the words we use can shape a family, a community, and a whole nation. There have been some interesting studies that look at how language actually shapes society and of course how society shapes language. This shouldn’t surprise us because we know the power of words and we know the importance of communication. Yet, we may not realize that the very pattern and structure of our communication is shaping and repatterning us. This is why a lot of linguists, sociologists, and psychologists care very deeply for words, because they know the change they will have on society for better or worse. God’s word and revelation is even more important in this reality, because as the only wise and good judge he needs to be the one shaping us and our society. We should be living in his language - the language of the Scriptures, the language of faith, hope, and love. Our media, our games, our conversations, and our work and our sleep should all rest in this language of God. This will help to shape us and society for the better.
This brings us to 4 essential realities about God’s word that all relate to one another: order, wisdom, truth, and knowledge. We have already begun to explore how God’s word creates order through creation. We saw how God’s word named, separated, destinctivised, and purposed each aspect of creation. This order led to life and abundant life at that. Wisdom is ultimately God’s word directing us and equipping us to live in and live out God's order in our lives and world. God’s wisdom calls out to us at the street corners, like in proverbs to show us how to live in certain ways that uphold and create a fuller life.
Knowledge and truth are related strongly to this. Knowledge is knowing something or someone. Knowledge of how something is ordered, or why something is so, or the facts of a situation all help us to understand and live in it. Knowledge gives us the ingredients to make wise decisions. Yet, again it must be God’s knowledge. There is knowledge that won’t be helpful or will distract. There is worldly knowledge that restricts the fuller Godly knowledge which is not really knowledge at all. Knowledge is only truly helpful when it is based on the godly good order of creation and God. This reminds us that knowing God personally is the best kind of knowledge as it underlayers and is the foundation for all other knowledge. .
All three of these, godly order, wisdom and knowledge are summed up in truth. Truth is not just facts, though that is part of it. Truth is not just how something functions or why it does. Truth is the reality of what things are, what they should have been, and how they can be led to their ultimate purpose in God. There is a truth far greater than any personal truth and this ultimate truth created ordered, sustains, and is directing this world. God’s word wants to reveal the truth to us. Just like the light that reveals what is actually there, God’s Word wants to reveal to us what is actually happening, why, and how he is overcoming all that is wrong.
As we have begun to explore order, wisdom, knowledge, and truth, something has begun to come to the surface. It’s a very simple idea. That idea is that order, wisdom, knowledge and truth is only as good as what it leads us through and too. Knowledge might appear good, but when it clouds our minds, when it becomes a burden, when it stands in the way of us knowing the goodness of God, then it isn’t knowledge at all - it is a distorted truth. If there is a personal truth that leads us to self-righteousness or belittling others, or demanding our way - you are trapped in the imagination of your hearts. If there is a wisdom that tempts you into evil, even for a moment, it is a worldly wisdom that leads to us losing ourselves. If there is an order that doesn’t lead to definition, healthy boundaries, purpose, life and fruitfulness then it is actually disorder. The problem we can see here is that the people of this world in all of their fickle, lusting blindness have redefined these words and tried to teach us untruths. It is only God’s Word we can depend on, as it communicates all truth is always trying to guide us towards what is truly good and right.
Finally, my last point, is that God’s Word has power. In our lives, we might have a sense of a word's power, as someone’s words have brought us comfort, or joy, or grief, even before we experienced the thing itself. If someone was to tell you, “I just heard your favorite person is coming to visit” - that would do something to you. Or if someone said “I am here with you no matter what” - again it would affect you. Or if someone was to tell you bad news, the same thing. Yet, these things would only affect us if we believed them. If we didn’t believe someone would come and visit, or that person would stay with us, then the words wouldn’t bring the same joy and comfort, even if they were true.
God’s word is even more effective, because along with telling us the truth, it also makes things true. At the beginning of creation, God’s word had the power to accomplish what it says. That is still the case. Every time we read a promise or a word from God we can trust that word to accomplish it, because God is faithful, just, and powerful. So, is His word. So through this powerful reality we realize that God’s word was true, it is true and it will create the truth.
Finally, this brings us to the incarnate word. Just like His word, God was, is, and is to be. He is all in all. I am the way, the truth and the life says the Lord. This is exactly what we have been seeing through this exploration of God’s potent word. All of these realities of the Word have come to us, to communicate God to us in the flesh. God’s words and wisdom have come to be known, understood, and true in Jesus. What an amazing embodied reality.
In this time in between, it can be easy to feel like Jesus is distant. He ascended right? He isn’t walking beside us, right? Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean what we think it means. Jesus is still with us, he still walks beside us. As the Word of God, he has never left us. We can turn to him at any moment. We can hear him, practically touch and feel him, just by listening to God’s word or through prayer. God is incarnate with us right now, through his word.
Do you believe this? It might feel hard to comprehend, but it is true. If we believe it, these words can and will actually affect us, just like any word of comfort or joy, just like any good news. If you have even begun to believe the reality of this incarnate word, now only imagine what that incarnate word of God can do when we speak it to others. Imagine what inviting Jesus into a room with a friend, or family member could mean. That is what we do, every time we speak, read or pray God’s word. We welcome Jesus, the fullness of God, into the room. Thanks be to God. AMEN
The beginning - ordering and creating word
Communication - relationship
Language - a way of shaping and structuring community
Order
Wisdom
Knowledge
Truth
Power
Guide - to and away
God’s word in Scripture
