43. The Word Became Flesh

Covering John Chapters 1 to 3:8:

Last time we went through John, we found ourselves in a Gospel of Life. The light of that Life can only increase now. We have already well-established that John’s gospel is the confirmation and second witness of Paul’s gospel, and thus everything included will assume that fact. That means that we can search for John’s meaning without building a foundation from Paul. John and Paul teach the same things, just from their differing personalities.

John’s topic is Life, what it is, and how it becomes ours, across all that he writes from John 1 to Revelation 22. John’s ruling verses also apply to everything he writes as well. That is, his ruling verses are not limited to their sections or books, but are found underneath of all and arising into all.

Life Flowing Through. John’s specific Ruling Verses are 3. Rivers of Spirit flowing out, 4. Casting down all that opposes, 8. Loving one another, and 10. Knowing the Father through knowing Jesus, that we live inside of Him and He inside of us.

Again, as I search for distinctions of meaning, I realize that John asserts and emphasizes all the same things that Paul does. The only distinction between the two is that of flavor, coming from their quite different personalities. John uses the word “life” around 65 times and Paul around 40 times, so, yes, LIFE is what we look for in studying John. Life is knowing the Father. Yet we also say that life is movement within and without. The more I know the Father, the more I know Life FLOWING through.

Sharing the Same Form. Here we have it. John uses the word grace only about seven times, whereas Paul uses it around 110 times, though that includes blessings and salutations. The thing is, John’s FLOW of Life and Paul’s Grace as God giving Himself are the same thing. Because John’s Life and Paul’s Grace are the same thing, again, we are looking only at a difference of personality.

This might seem a strange way to introduce our study of John, but the truth is that I now feel as if I have a handle on the overall meaning. We simply convert Grace to Life and we have the same flow. Our conclusion, then, is that God fits the same Flow of Gospel Word into the personality (symmorphy – sharing the same form), of the person through whom it presently flows.

Starting Afresh. As we start with John, I also want to direct our seeing of the Flow of Gospel Word. First, the Flow of Gospel Word coming through Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is limited to that which an external Christ Jesus could speak into a natural Israel. Two generations of Christians lived and died with ZERO knowledge of John’s Gospel and the Jesus presented there. Then there came the Flow of Gospel Word through Paul, something that few Christians understood, even when Paul was alive. That Flow became very great, such that we could interpret Timothy and Titus ONLY by Ephesians and Philippians. Yet by the time John wrote, it was hardly known.

What I mean to say is that I want to start John fresh, as if the Flow of Gospel Word begins, now, with John Chapter 1.

God and Life. (Chapter 1) • 1 Inside of the beginning and source is the Word, and the Word is actively towards God, and God is the Word. 2 That Word is inside of the beginning and source towards God. • 3 All through Him become, and without Him not even one thing becomes that has become. • 4 Inside of Him is life actively, and this life is the light of humans. 5 This light is made visible inside of the darkness, and the darkness does not seize hold of it. – • 9 That Light is true, who gives light to every man entering into the world-cosmos.

John gives us the four big definitions of God. God is Word; God is Spirit; God is Love; and God is Light. – But not “is” Life; rather, Life is something possessed and something given. God has Life; God gives Life; and the Spirit gives Life. I have no idea what all this means, but we shall see.

John’s Main Point. We must begin with John’s main point in his gospel, the single Truth towards which everything is moving. That main point must be the definition of Life, Ruling Verse 10. And so here is the meaning of everything else John will write inside his gospel.

Life – Know the Father through knowing Jesus Sent into you – Know that Jesus is inside of the Father and you inside of Him and He inside of you. – Stay inside of Jesus.

John wrote his gospel to draw the reader into such a Life, including “drink of Me” and “love one another.” However – we have already entered into such a Life in knowing the Father sharing all movement with us. For that reason, we read everything as we are already inside of that Life. And thus we discover that John’s gospel explodes right from the start.

God Is Word. Definition: In His opening lines, John shows the relationship between the Father, the Son, and all created things. God is Word – and Spirit (see John 4:24) – in His essence and being, a vast Story of Words, an infinite number of sets of Words each containing an infinite number of Words, existing in a Spirit Self-awareness. All God-Words are Spirit and Life inside Himself; they are the Pro-Knowing of God. God as Word, then, exists completely distinct from anything created.

Definition: When God speaks that Word, however, the Word becomes Son and Spirit flowing into what is created. Everything created becomes through the Flow of Word and Spirit, that is, Christ Jesus, who brings forth, carries, and sustains all in every ongoing moment through His Power-filled Word, the good-speaking of Jesus (see Hebrews 1:1-3).

Defining Life. Life: John’s gospel is a gospel of Life. There is one definition of Life in the Bible, John 17:3. Life – Know the Father through knowing Jesus Sent into you. – Know that Jesus is inside of the Father and you inside of Him and He inside of you. – Stay inside of Jesus. Thus everything John now writes about Jesus shows us our own LIFE with God inside of Him.

Definition: The good Words Jesus speaks are True inside of God and inside of us. Light is consciousness – and honesty. Light causes us to know our story of self – and, that it is the Lord Jesus as living Spirit Word written upon our hearts.

Ruling Verse 4: The first words of the accuser drove a sideshow into the human heart against those God-Words. – I create my own story of self separate from God. I am my own person. I can even use Bible words under my control to define myself, if I wish. – And thus darkness refuses the Light.

We Do Not Know. • 10 He is inside of the world-cosmos, and the world-cosmos becomes through Him. Yet the world does not know Him. 11 He came to His own and His own did not seize hold of Him. • 12 Yet many do receive to seize hold of Him, and to them He gives the authority and right to be sons birthed out from God, even to those believing into His name, • 13 those who are conceived not from blood nor out of the desire of flesh, nor out of the desire of man, but out from God.

Verse 10 presents an unbelievable scenario. Every individual person becomes, is conscious, and is sustained through the good-speaking of Jesus. Jesus then shows up in front of each in a created form, inside the very creation coming out from Him every moment. And we DO NOT KNOW that this outward form speaking to us is the One who causes us.

To Seize Hold. Our problem is that human darkness is not just ignorance, it is the rabid and psychotic insertion of things NOT True.

The key word of this set of verses is lambano, the Greek word meaning “to receive.” The English word “receive” lays out the same definitions as does lambano. However, neither one is passive, both words present an active, even aggressive action. According to etymonline.com, the origin word is “cap,” to GRASP. In Latin it became “regain, take back, take to oneself,” in Old French, “seize, take hold of, welcome, accept,” then into Middle English, “take into one’s possession,” and passing into modern English it added, “welcome, catch as in a receptacle, obtain as one’s reward, and accept as true.” The Greek lambano specifically contains “to seize hold of,” and thus I included those words alongside of “receive.”

To Receive. Ruling Verse 7: When Jesus, the One who causes and sustains us every moment, shows up in our lives, present and real, the thing that PLEASES God is that we “receive” Him, except to receive actually means to AGRRESIVELY SEIZE hold of Him as our life, as our Story, as our existence, as our OWN.

Definition: Just because Jesus walked this earth entirely in human form does not mean that creation was not being sustained through His power-filled Word every moment. The One speaking us out from God stood in front of us and we would not know Him. As Jesus said, “They hated Me for no reason whatsoever” (John 15:25).

Definition: To receive requires deliberate action on the part of the receiver, but it is another Person whom we receive. Thus once received, Jesus is the One who causes us to know Him.

A Covenant of Life. In verse 12, John uses the word exousia, which is authority or right, depending on the context. This makes this a Covenant verse; it also connects it directly to the primary word God spoke into humans, “Subdue.” Yet that authority no longer comes from Adam, but from being conceived of God – Life.

Covenant: Central to the Covenant God entered into with us, we possess the right in full to be a son birthed out from God. This is a right that we assert inside of God to full measure.

Life: All created things are sustained every moment by the good-speaking of Jesus, yet entirely without their knowledge. John asserts that, in being a son conceived of God, something much more happens inside of us. This something is knowing Jesus Sent into us (see John 17:3), similar to being conceived in the natural, yet not the same, for we are conceived of God.

The Word Became Flesh. • 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we looked upon His glory, glory as the One Seed-Kind in the presence of the Father, full of grace and truth.

We now have the framework by which we can comprehend this incredible verse. This verse is an essential component of the definition of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son out from God, the meaning of Word spoken. Of truth, there is no more important definition anyone holds in their minds than their definition of the Lord Jesus Christ. EVERYTHING else, including God and Salvation, is defined only through this first definition. – Or, as Jesus asks of every human out from Adam – “Who do you say that I am.” That definition is an image of the mind, and for most, that image is an image of jealousy, the refusal of God.

The One Seed-Kind. Let’s lay out the parts before we attempt our definition. And in defining Christ Jesus, we hold two things always in mind. – “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever” – “The one who sees Me sees the Father.” –

Remember that the physical things of earth and the spiritual things of the heavens, always intertwined together, BECOME through this Word spoken out from God. Jesus’ spirit/physic body became in the same way that all other things in heaven-earth become. (As will the Church.) The word “monogenes” means the only Seed out from God, the only entrance of Word that is True; it does NOT mean “only begotten.” It is parallel to prototokos (Romans 8:29), the first of our kind. The two together mean, not the opposite of “Jesus is God, and you are not,” but LIFE, something entirely different.

A Symmorphic God. The One Seed-Kind means that Jesus is the pattern by which all things created are designed, but even more so, those who are conceived out from God. Yet Jesus as the Flowing Connection, the Covenant of Life, never ceases that Flow.

We have defined glory as “one’s greatest value” and “one’s greatest achievement.” This is a working definition, and thus not intended to be complete. “We” saw the Father’s glory. The word “grace” means a life shared with the Father, God inside of Jesus sharing every step with Him. And “truth” means honesty. The Truth is, Jesus is incapable of doing anything out from Himself. Jesus is NOT the original Source. Everything coming through Jesus comes out from God the Father. God is the One coming through Jesus as Spirit Word.

John assumes a Symmorphic God in all that he writes.

Defining Christ Jesus. Definition: We define everything, God, Salvation, and ourselves, through our definition of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is Word spoken, speaking us. Just as we become through His power-filled Word, so Jesus Himself came in Person in the same way, Word becoming flesh, that is, a visible outward form inside creation.

Definition: Glory is the end result of purpose. The Jesus we could now see outwardly remained in the presence of God, the monogenes and the prototokos (see Romans 8:29), the only Seed by which we are conceived of God and the first One of many brethren just like Himself. Jesus defines us.

Definition: Grace is a shared Life with God, and Truth is honesty. Jesus can do nothing of Himself; He is not the Source. Everything coming through Jesus comes out from God the Father. God is the One coming through Jesus as Spirit Word. John assumes a Symmorphic God in all that he writes.

Grace and Truth. • 16 For out from His fullness, we have all already received grace even out from grace. • 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth become our reality [only] through Jesus Christ. • 18 No one has seen or looked upon God, ever, at any time. The One Seed-Kind of God, existing inside of the bosom of the Father, He has made [an invisible] God known. – Wow! This now just all falls into place inside the FLOW!

Definition: We who have actively received Jesus Sent into us have received the same Life shared with God that Jesus enjoys, the same knowing of the Father, out from all that Jesus is.

Definition: Grace and Truth, that is, no sufficiency in self but all sufficiency in a shared Life with God, cannot enter into us through Law, through word on the outside under human control, but only as Jesus entering into our hearts.

Made God Known. Jesus is sustaining Word without anyone’s permission. But Jesus is Gospel Word, making God known, only into those who receive Him. Sustaining Word makes us part of God’s creation, but Gospel Word gives us Grace, a shared Life with God. The purpose of Gospel Word becoming flesh is to make an invisible, unknowable God to be seen and experienced by all.

Covenant: God is invisible and cannot be known as Himself by any created thing. Yet God’s Desire is to be known by all, for knowing God alone is Life. Jesus makes an invisible God visible and known in human form. “He who sees Me sees the Father” (John 14:9). Yet this same Jesus remains always inside the bosom of the Father AND inside our hearts as the Flow of Gospel Word, the Covenant, between God and us, causing God to become visible through our love for one another.  

Out from Union already All. Let me point something out. Thus far, we have mostly been considering definitions. That is because John 1:1-18 is an essential part of the Pro-Thesis of God, the set forth and written form of who God is and what He WANTS.

As we said, everything John writes comes now out from his full immersion into Paul’s Gospel, and Hebrews, for John likely fellowshipped with the writer of Hebrews in Ephesus. Thus John continually assumes our redemption already complete. He assumes Paul’s argument for our just innocence, and the layout in Hebrews of our being cleansed from all consciousness of sins. John confirms those things, yes, but does not re-build them, for he is writing to those already fully immersed into Paul’s gospel of union with Christ. John writes out from union already complete.

Lamb and Dove. 29 The next day, John saw Jesus coming towards him. • He said, “Behold the Lamb of God, removing the sin of the world-cosmos.” – • 32 And John testified, “I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of the sky and abiding upon Him. – 34 …this Man is the Son out from God.”

The Lamb means the elimination of all disconnection from God, and the Dove, the only visible form given to the Spirit, means the all-envelopment of God, gentle and kind.

Definition: The Lamb is the One who gives Himself for others as the propitiation, the elimination of all sin and disconnection from God. The Dove, the only visible form given to the Spirit, means the all-envelopment of God, gentle and kind, the one who hovers over for the entrance of Word. These two are ALWAYS together, Word and Spirit, Son and Devotion.

From Pro-Thesis to Narrative. 36 And having seen Jesus walking, he said, “Look and see the Lamb of God!” • 36 Those two disciples heard him speaking and followed Jesus. 37 Jesus turned to see them following. He said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi (which is to say in translation, ‘Teacher’), where do you dwell?” • 39 He said to them, “Come and see.”

In verse 36, as well as in verse 29, John bridges between his presentation of the Pro-Thesis of God and his choices of what to include in his narrative of the life and ministry of Jesus. – “Having seen Jesus walking” is that bridge. Yet it continues into verses 36, 37, and 39. This narrative makes the connection to be personal and intimate and it applies to all who would receive Jesus. – Look and see the Lamb of God, – thus, again, assuming the full cleansing away of Hebrews 1:3.

Come and See. I am convinced that John shared his experience as he and Andrew first spoke to Jesus, and then the several more named in Chapter 1, in order to show that all connection with God through Jesus is utterly personal, personal to Jesus and to us. Then they asked, “Where do you abide,” and Jesus said, “Come and see” – which will become “in My Church.” “Come and see” means that God becoming visible will be the Church.

Ruling Verse 6: Jesus walking as the Lamb, as the One who gives Himself for God and for us, is our WAY into the knowledge of God. We follow Him in that same giving.

The Form for God through Jesus: “Come and see” where Jesus dwells. Jesus dwells inside His Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Christ who fills all inside of all (Ephesians 1:23).

A Cataclysmic Contrast. (Chapter 2) • 16 Then He said to those selling doves, “Take these things from this place. Do not make the house of My Father a market-house. 17 His disciples remembered that it is written of Him, “The zeal of Your house will eat Me up [will consume Me].” – 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” – • 21 However, Jesus was speaking concerning the temple of His body.

There is no question that turning water into wine portrays Gospel truth that John is preparing to share, but it does so vaguely, and so we will wait until he becomes more direct. Yet John’s purpose in Chapter 2 is to continue inside the narrative of Jesus’ life with this great and cataclysmic contrast between God’s great Desire to be known through His Church and the horrific refusal of the world.

Merchandising God. Definition: “You’re not saved unless you have gained our approval” (buying and selling the atonement – buy it from us) is the primary crime against Jesus inside Christianity.

But John uses this setting to present God’s purpose, he goes from God Word in the beginning through Jesus to the Church. If Jesus can become flesh, why can’t He become the Church? – For we are His flesh, one flesh with Him.

The Form for God through Jesus: Just as God came through Jesus, making Himself visible inside our world through Jesus’ flesh, so Jesus now makes Himself visible through His Body, the Church, for we are His flesh, one flesh with Him (see Ephesians 5:30-31). Jesus raises us up “on the third day.”

Kingdom: The Jesus who dwells inside our hearts continues in stewardship over the House of God, that it be ready for God.

You Must Be Born Again. (Chapter 3) • 3 Jesus answered him, “Let it be so, it is so, as I say to you. If anyone is not conceived from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How is a man able to be conceived, being old? Is he able to enter the womb of his mother a second time to be born?” • 5 Jesus answered, “Let it be so, it is as I say to you. If anyone is not conceived out from water and out from Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God. • 6 Whatever is conceived from the flesh is flesh; in the same way, whatever is conceived out from the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not wonder that I said to you, ‘It is necessary for you to be conceived from above.’ • 8 As the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but do not know from where it comes and to where it goes, even so is everyone who has been conceived out from the Spirit.

The Most Important Metaphor. John begins his gospel with the most important metaphor in God, in nature, and in the Bible – the reproduction of LIFE! John included Nicodemus’s questions, not to make him out to be stupid, but to set in place the exact parallel between Life out from God and the reproduction of life in nature and in the human experience. More than that, Jesus’ statement, “Whatever is conceived of flesh is flesh,” does NOT mean “evil begets evil.” It means that He is connecting being conceived of God directly with the metaphor in creation of the reproduction of Life.

Specifically, the sperm of the father enters into the womb of the mother where it pierces into the egg of the mother, and thus sparks the rapid growth of a new living child, of the father, of the mother, and also brand new as a unique expression.

The Reproduction of Life. Life: The reproduction of life, whether it be of human seed or of plant seed, is the most important metaphor in the Bible. Jesus is comparing being conceived of God with how human life is conceived in this world. Specifically, the sperm of the father enters into the womb of the mother where it pierces into the mother’s egg, and thus sparks the rapid growth of a new living child, out from the father, out from the mother, and also brand new as a unique expression. Our Father is God.  

Now, even though Jesus mentions “kingdom” twice in these verses, the topic is not Kingdom itself, but rather, whether a person can see, first, or be capable of entering into, second. Technically, this is Covenant, but not Covenant as Word and oath, but Covenant as the living Bond with God inside of us.

Conceived. I think I will call it Covenant, but write it more as a definition of the real meaning of God’s Covenant with us, a Living interaction, that we are BORN sons of God. The word Jesus uses twice is gennao. Gennao is related to tikto (Luke 2:7 and Revelation 12:5), as conception to the child coming out of the womb. Sometimes the context for gennao means birthing, but typically, it means the entrance of sperm into the female egg.

Covenant: The word Jesus uses is gennao. Gennao is related to tikto (Luke 2:7 and Revelation 12:5), as conception to the child coming out of the womb. We know that Jesus is the imperishable Seed planted into us, the only Seed of God, the living Flow of Gospel Word (see 1 Peter 1:23). By this conception we see the Kingdom, before we take the next step.  

From God to the Church. We are going directly from “God is Word” to that same Word now planted in our own hearts as the sperm of God, now sharing the same Word, Jesus, with the Father. Yet this is now what enables us to SEE the Kingdom, that is, the Church.

Life: We are going directly from “God is Word” to that same Word now planted in our own hearts as the Sperm of God, now sharing the same Word, Jesus, with the Father. By that Word, we are conceived of God. Yet this is now what enables us to SEE the Kingdom, that is, the Church. As we are flooded with the Spirit as well, so we are able to enter that Kingdom.

Kingdom: The Kingdom is every next moment of Life shared with God, age-unfolding Life, and every next step we take with Him. In this way, the Kingdom becomes first the Church, the life we share together inside of Love.

Light Becoming Life. The end result of God’s thoughts spoken is the Church, God made known to all as Christians loving one another. The Church is the Word made flesh through Jesus; Jesus Himself is the Life of the Church, connecting us always with God. This is the meaning of the Tree of Life, something simple and obvious to us now, yes, but that the mind of good and evil CANNOT comprehend, that darkness cannot see.

Life is the Flow, out from God’s thoughts now spoken through Jesus into us, becoming our own personal knowing of the Father. Then Life returns to the Father, passing first through other believers. Think of the light created in an incandescent light bulb, the spark going across the gap. Light makes visible, that spark of God from me to you, loving one another, makes God visible and known – which is Life!

Let’s Pray Together. “God, You are our Father, for You have conceived us out from Yourself by a Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ written all through our hearts. Oh God, we are Your sons, just like Jesus, that we might know You, that we might love one another, and that You might be known through our gathering as Your Church.

“God, our Father, let Your glory be made visible now through Your Church all across the earth, through the gathering together of millions of believers in Jesus into Christ Community, into loving one another with pure hearts. We give ourselves to You as we are, oh Father, that You might come through our own souls into Your Church. Cause Your people to KNOW You, inside of Jesus’ name.”