 |  |
The title of Christ here as "The Word" is somewhat similar to that of Col. 1: 15, "The
Image"; both titles have reference to "the invisible God" Whom "no man hath seen at
any time". Yet, in spite of the glories that necessarily attached to the Lord both as the
Word and as the Image, His becoming flesh evidently involved something more. "The
Word was made flesh . . . . . and we beheld His glory."
Is the Lord concerned as to whether we shall behold His glory or not? It seems that
He is. So in John 17::--
"And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine Own self, with the glory which I
had with Thee before the world was" (verse 5).
"And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them" (verse 10).
"And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one, even
as we are one" (verse 22).
"Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am;
that they may behold My glory . . . . . for Thou lovedst Me before the overthrow of the
world" (verse 24).
These verses contain a double reference to that period spoken of as "before the world
was" and "before the overthrow of the world". Before the world was, and before it was
overthrown (Gen. 1: 2) He Whose titles were the Word and the Image possessed glory.
He became flesh, He dwelt among us, and out of His fullness we have received; and, as a
result, the glory which He had before the world was, He has given to His people. The
Lord does not part with His glory; it is shared--"that they may be one". And then, in
view of the uniting under one Head of all the redeemed of all dispensations: "I will that
they . . . . . be with Me . . . . . that they may behold My glory."
Returning to John 1:, we observe that one of the chief reasons given there for this
coming in the flesh is that God the Father may be "declared' ("explained" or "given an
exegesis"). So the Lord could say:--
"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father: and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?"
(John 14: 9).
The invisible things of God may be learned from His works of creation (Rom. 1: 19,
20), but the invisible things of the Father are learned only in His Son. The transient glory
of the law was reflected in the face of Moses (II Cor. 3: 7), but "God Who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness" (a reference to the overthrow of the world in Gen. 1: 2
and so a link with the references already cited) "hath shined in our hearts, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Cor. 4: 6).
The word "dwelt" in John 1: 14 is, literally, "tabernacled". This should be compared
with John 2: 18-22, where the body of the Lord in resurrection is likened, not to a
tabernacle, but to a temple. The earthly manifestation of the Godhead in the flesh with its
accompaniments of sorrow and death was but for a time; He "tabernacled" among us.
The indwelling of all the fullness of the Godhead in Him as the risen Head of all things is
likened to a temple fitly framed together (Eph. 2: 19), and to a body fitly joined together