The Word Became Flesh

Everything Jacob saw was real, and all of it was for a time. The messenger spoke in a dream and the dream ended. The man wrestled through a night and asked to be let go as the dawn came up. Jacob was still limping when the sun rose, and Genesis records no second meeting of that kind.

The New Testament speaks of something of a different kind, and its name is the incarnation.

The Word Itself

The word incarnation comes from Latin. Incarnatio is built from in, “into,” and caro, carnis, “flesh.” It means to be made flesh.

It can be defined this way. The incarnation is the eternal Son of God going beyond a temporary appearing, to take a complete human spirit, soul, and body permanently, as true God and true man.

Each part of that definition matters. The eternal Son: the One who became flesh did not begin to exist when He was born. Going beyond a temporary appearing: this is not one more appearing like those of Genesis, but something beyond them. A complete human spirit, soul, and body: not the outward look of a man, worn for a while, but the whole of what a human being is. Permanently: not for a night or for a meeting, but for ever. True God and true man: He did not stop being God in order to become man, and He did not merely seem to be man while remaining only God.

John’s Sentence

The verse on which the term rests is John 1:14, and John lays its ground in his first lines.

John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the logos λόγος log'-os(Word), and the logos(Word) was toward-together-with God, and the logos(Word) was God. He was in the beginning toward-together-with God.

Thirteen verses later, John says what that Word did.

John 1:14 And the logos(Word) became sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory — glory as of the only-begotten from the Father — full of charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace) and aletheia ἀλήθεια al-ay'-thi-a(truth).

John does not say the Word appeared in flesh for a time, or took on the look of flesh. He says the Word became flesh. The word sarx is the plain word for the flesh of a living body, the soft substance that covers the bones. It is the ordinary stuff of human life, the same flesh every person carries.

And then John says “and dwelt among us.” The Greek verb is eskenosen, from skene σκηνή skay-nay', a tent. The Word pitched His tent among us.

Then John adds, “and we saw His glory.” He is not reporting a dream. He is writing as one of those who saw, heard, and lived alongside the Word made flesh.

Paul’s Confession

The second verse on which the term rests is from Paul’s first letter to Timothy.

1 Timothy 3:16 By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: God was revealed in sarx(flesh), was vindicated in the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit), seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

The YLV reads “God was revealed in sarx(flesh),” as does the Byzantine Majority Text (Robinson–Pierpont 2018), the reference text of the YLV, which has theos, “God.” Paul calls it a great mystery and sets it out as a confession in six short lines: revealed in flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. The first of them is the one on which the term rests. The One who had made Himself seen in many ways in the Old Testament was now made known in a human body.

Read together, the two verses hold both halves of the definition, true God and true man. The logos who “was God” (John 1:1) is the one who “became sarx(flesh)” (John 1:14). And in that flesh John and those with him saw “glory as of the only-begotten from the Father.” Paul says the same in his own words. The flesh was real, and the One revealed in it was God.

A Form for a Time, a Nature for Ever

The appearings at Bethel and the Jabbok were a form taken for a time. The incarnation is a union with human nature that does not go back and does not end. The man at the Jabbok had a real form; Jacob’s strained hip proves that. But when the dawn came, He asked to go, and He went. The Word who became flesh did not lay the flesh aside. He was born, He grew, He lived among people, He died, and He rose, and the One who rose bore in His hands the imprint of the nails (John 20:25-27). The flesh He took He did not leave behind.

This difference does not make the earlier meetings unimportant. It shows how they were moving toward something. In the Old Testament the invisible God made Himself seen by degrees, through theophany, in flame and cloud and in the form of a messenger and a man. In the New Testament the Son Himself became man.

The Messenger and the Logos

Here the line from Genesis to John can be drawn. Scripture does not write the sentence “the messenger of Genesis 48:16 is the Logos of John 1:14,” but the pieces it gives lead strongly toward it.

The One who spoke to Jacob in Haran said, “I am the God of Bethel.” The One who wrestled with him at the Jabbok came in the form of a man, and Jacob said he had seen God. Jacob named Him on his deathbed “the messenger who has redeemed me from all evil.” John says that the Word was in the beginning toward-together-with God, that the Word was God, and that the Word became flesh. The messenger is called God; the Word was God; no one has seen God, but the Son has explained Him. That is why reading the messenger Jacob called goel as the Logos who later became flesh is a very persuasive interpretation.

And the pieces matter for the word goel. A goel, as the law would later lay it down, must be a near kinsman: flesh of the same flesh. A form taken for a night does not meet that condition. Flesh does. That is why redemption, as the New Testament tells it, runs through the Word who became flesh and pitched His tent among us, and why Hebrews says that “He Himself likewise partook of the same” flesh and blood as the children (Hebrews 2:14).

Not the End of the Matter

The incarnation is not the last of these terms. Becoming flesh was one thing; what the Word did in the flesh is another. Philippians says that He emptied Himself and humbled Himself, all the way to death on a cross. And John’s Gospel shows Him speaking, again and again, of the One who sent Him.