Incarnation & the Trinity (1:14-18)

What does John mean, when he says Jesus is ‘Son of the Father’?

Scripture often uses the phrase ‘son of’ not to indicate heredity, but likeness: or as we would say, “Like Father, like Son”.  This is certainly true of Jesus! He is the exact image of the invisible God (Heb 1:3) and anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father (Jn 14:9).  'The Word', the expression of who God is (Jn 1:1,14,18), is one and the same as the Son (1:14).  We tend to think of the father-son relationship having an element of authority and submission.  But the Jews took Jesus’ calling God His Father, as a claim He was God Himself (Jn 10:31-33)

The Son of God is :
● co-eternal (Jn 1:1),
● co-Creator (Jn 1:3),
● with the same authority to judge (Jn 5:22),
● with the same (eternal) life (Jn 5:26),
● equally all-knowing and all-wise (Col 2:1-3),
● indwelt with all the fullness of the Godhead (Col 1:17) and
● one in Being with the Father (Jn 10:30).

Therefore whilst the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, their unity is
● not primarily social, although God is love
● nor based on mutual respect & honouring
● nor due to subservience of Son to the Father

Rather, even though Father and Son are distinct persons (the Word was with God), they are of the same essence, ‘of one substance’ (the Word was God).

In what sense then, is Jesus ‘begotten’?

The word ‘begat’ appears frequently in biblical genealogies, and clearly there it means physical generation. However though Abraham begat Isaac (Mt 1:2) after Ishmael, scripture nevertheless refers to Isaac as only-begotten (Heb 11:17).  The word therefore carries the idea of generation, but can be used in a non-physical sense: John’s usage is clearly the latter. For the begotten Son is ‘in the bosom of the Father’ (Jn 1:18), where He has been since eternity past.  

The Son of God has no birthday! So the ‘being begotten’ doesn’t refer to the ‘becoming flesh’.   How then are we to understand His begotten-ness?  As with human begetting, there is causation and relationship; but unlike human begetting, it is not an event in time, but in eternity.  There has never been, and never will be, a time when God was not Father; and there never was and never will be a time when the Son was not Son.  God's Father-heart is eternal, as is Christ’s Sonship: their relationship has never had a beginning.
Throughout all eternity, God continually begets His Son.
Or to put it in different words, the Father continually sends the Son, and the Son continually proceeds from the Father (Jn 6:57;7:29; 8:42). (Theologians have a special term for this: they call it ‘eternal filiation’.)

Since Jesus is of one substance with the Father, He is distinguishable from the Father
● Not by role, for Father Son and Holy Spirit collaborate in everything
● Nor by temporal ‘dispensation’, for all are active throughout history
● But by relationship.
Jesus’s being begotten expresses God's missional father-heart.  ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4).  He is the Living Bread that came down from heaven.  The same Father-heart that eternally begets His Son, seeks to eternally father you, too.

Why does John call Him only-begotten?

‘Only-begotten’ (monogenes) is a term used only by John: but he uses it four times (1:18; 3:16,18;1Jn 4:9).  It cannot refer to an ‘only child', for John says anyone can become a child of God (1:12).  Nor does it refer to Jesus’s rank as ‘firstborn over all creation )Col 1:15), which relates to the firstborn’s special right to inherit leadership of a family.  Some modern versions of the Bible translate it as ‘unique’, ‘one-of-a-kind’. This conveys Jesus’s
● unique relationship : Isaac was called Abraham's only-begotten, despite Ishmael - Heb 11:17
● unique likeness: though all who receive Him are born again; not all are ‘full of grace and truth!
● unique closeness & intimacy: only He is ‘in the bosom of the Father’
But such translations ftend to lose the element of filiation/generation - the begottenness.

So what does it mean, that He 'became flesh’? & was this something active, or passive?

John doesn’t mention Mary, or the virgin birth. That's not what he’s interested in here.  ‘Flesh’ has various meanings in scripture: it can mean:-
● physical muscle & connective tissues (vs bone)
● creaturely weakness and frailty - Isa 40:6
● the fallen nature, our bodies and souls
● a collective term for humanity; or
● flesh and blood’ as distinct from spirit - Lk 24:39
Here, it is this latter sense that John is using.

John knew that for Jesus to be the Lamb of God, the atoning sacrifice for our sins, He had to take flesh.  ‘The wages of sin is death’, and for Jesus to die, He had to be made man.  The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for sin’ (Lev 17:11).  Jesus too, knew that this was why He had to take flesh.  “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.  Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.’ ” (Heb 10:5).  This was an extremely costly choice for Him, as we’ll see in a moment.

In English, we have two ‘voices’ for verbs: active and passive. I did something (active) or Something was done to me (passive).  But Greek has a third ‘voice’ and the Greek word for ‘became’ is in this middle voice, as it is called. So the incarnation was something God did, but Jesus actively chose too.  God the Father brought His Son into the world; The Holy Spirit came upon Mary; but Jesus voluntarily accepted the role of ‘Lamb of God - for you, and for me.

It was not that He was ‘made’ man (as if He was created), but He ‘was manifested in the flesh' (1Tim 3:16) (revealed, shown plainly), and He ‘came in the flesh’ (1Jn 4:2) - made his appearance.

Was the Word diminished in any way by becoming flesh?

The answer is, Yes and No:-

Yes: He let go of equality with God, and veiled His glory in flesh (Heb 10:19-22a); made Himself of no reputation; took the role of a δουλος or bond-servant; and came in the likeness of men.  And then, as a Man, He humbled Himself, gave up His right to life, and allowed Himself even to die the shameful, accursed death of crucifixion. (Phil 2:5-8)
No: He still contained all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form (Col 2:9).  And of His fullness have we all received (Jn 1:16,17).  He acknowledged Himself to be Messiah (4:26), equal with God (5:17,18), pre-existent Son of Man (6:62), worshipped by Abraham (8:56-58), Son of God (9:35-38), and One with the Father (10:30).   Though fully human, He remained fully God.

During His earthly life, was Jesus subordinated to the Father?

One version of the Creed puts it like this: His will as the Son of Man, must be distinguished from His will as the Son of God. As to the latter, His will and His Father’s will are one and the same: they are of one substance but as to the former, He learned obedience through what He suffered.

Hebrews 5:7-9 explains it like this: In the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation, to all who obey Him.

Why does John say, “He dwelt amongst us”?

The AV translates this word accurately (if archaically) as ‘He tabernacled’ (έσκηνωσεν). In other words, He camped, He pitched His tent in the centre of our campsite. (Later He would return to His permanent dwelling, in His Father’s house.). To a Jew, this word would immediately convey echoes of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. It has the same root vowels in Greek, as the Hebrew for a tent (mishkan) and the resident glory of God (Shekinah). Jesus is the Living Tabernacle, the physical Presence of the glory of God.

Of course, the Tabernacle was later replaced by the Temple, which was also filled with the Shekinah glory of God.  Hence Jesus’s remark, “Destroy this Temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.” (2:19) He knew that His body was a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that in the future true worshippers would not worship on Mt Gerizim or Mt Moriah, but would worship in Him. They would come 'through the veil which is His flesh’, right into the Holy of Holies (Heb 10:19,20).

Like Jesus, our transient earthly lives are to become tabernacles of the Holy Spirit: not places for others to worship of course, but places where the living Presence of God is tangible to those around us.

Why is belief in the Incarnation so central in John's eyes?

As John grew older, he saw that the wonderful truth he had come to know about Jesus, was being attacked.  The eternal Word of Life who he had seen, heard, and touched - the Word who had been with the Father and had been made manifest to him, and with whom he experienced continual joyful fellowship, was being denied by heresies arising from within the body of believers (1John 1:1-3).  Many others’ faith in Jesus was being rocked or overthrown.

In his later letter to them, John takes the puzzled and confused believers back to Christ's nature, and the touchstone of the Incarnation.
Morally, anyone who walks in darkness whilst claiming to be in the Light, is deceiving themselves and others about God’s nature: He is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
Relationally, God is love: and anyone who says they love God but is not willing to love his brother as Christ has loved him, is still in darkness.
Theologically, anyone who denies that who denies that Jesus is fully God and fully man, is led by antiChrist rather than the Spirit of Christ (1Jn 4:1-3)

We have already said that Jesus’s dual nature was essential if He was to be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world.  But there are other reasons too, why both natures are essential.  He had to be fully God, for His disclosure of the Father’s mind and heart to be perfect & final; for His death to be the supreme evidence of God’s love towards sinners; to guarantee the permanence, perfection & efficacy of His sacrifice; and to enable Him to conquer Satan -  to 'dispossess the strong man' and free his captives.  At the same time, it was essential that He be fully Man, because only so could He mediate between God and men; only so could He die for our sins; and only so could He supply ‘the life of the flesh which is in the blood’, needed on the altar to make atonement for sin; and only so could He be the Second Adam, through whom God deals with the human race as a whole.

In our own time, the battle for the truth of the incarnation still rages. To quote just a few examples:-
Jehovah’s Witnesses say that Jesus was ‘a god’, inferior to the One True God.
Unitarians deny that Jesus was the Son of God
Orthodox Jews still deny that Jesus, their Messiah, came in the flesh
Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, but ... ‘Allah has no sons’

But unless we believe in Jesus as the Son of God, truly God and truly man, we have no salvation.  We have not got eternal life, and cannot have fellowship with the Father and with His Son.  John now goes on to hammer this message home, first by recounting seven key ‘signs’ Jesus gave, along with his debates with the Judaean authorities and His ‘I AM’ statements.   And then he gives us Jesus’s teaching about what coming into the fellowship of the Trinity, through the Son, will mean after His death and resurrection.