But that Word has yet to become flesh. There are countless words of God in the knowledge and conviction of us all which are as yet no more than words. These are waiting for their incarna- tion in our character and influence, in our daily work and service of man and God. The works of our hands are God's word fulfilled in us. We who can work are born that certain great words we have heard in our secret souls may become flesh in deeds. Eise then and do the work that thy hands find to do. In this living fashion speak out what is in thee. So shalt thou also be a Word of God incarnate, an expression of His mind in living flesh.^
^ The Incarnation of God in the terms of the Christ is not finished yet. Still as "the Christ within" He has to be born again in the hearts of men, and not only yesterday, but to-day and for ever, has Jesus to be received by His own. If the redemption of the world is to be wrought out and completed, that spirit which dwelt in Jesus, that grace and truth, that complete merging of the individual will in the Divine, that passionate love of men, that reverence for all things as belonging to the Father, that consciousness of unity with Him — all these have to become our common inheritance and possession. The Christian is not called upon to go out of his ordinary world to find his God, but by his very loyalty to Christ he must look first of all for his God in terms of the human life he knows so well. Having once God in Christ he must go on to look for and to find " the Christ as every man." The Incarnation must not be for him historical, a past phenomenon merely, but a continually recurring process and experience. The Christ who was born once in Jewry has to be born again in the hearts of all who would attain their true manhood. Not in nothingness and non-entity, then, but in living, breathing, feeling power does the God who is Spirit still reveal Himself and carry forward His purpose. To every generation He manifests Himself afresh, Love making for itself new channels to meet the new needs. Still the God of Love clothes Himself in the garment of form, and still He becomes flesh and dwells among men.^
^ J. Kelman. 2 jyj;^ q^ Albright, The Common Heritage, 144.
ST. JOHN — 3
34 THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD
Lo ! this one preached with fervent tongue ;
The world went forth to hear; Upon his burning words they hung,
Intent, with ravished ear.
Like other lives the life he led,
Men spake no word of blame ; And yet, unblest, unprofited,
The world went on the same.
Another came, and lived, and wrought,
His heart all drawn above ; By deeds, and not by words, he taught
Self-sacrificing love.
No eager crowds his preaching drew;
Yet one by one they came ; The secret of his power they knew,
And caught the sacred flame.
And all arouad, as morning light
Steals on with silent wing. The world became more pure and bright
And life a holier thing.
Ah ! Pastor, is thy heart full sore
At all this sin and strife ? Feed with the Word, but ah ! far more
Feed with a holy life.^
5. There is a difficulty in the construction of this passage, which our English Versions endeavour to clear up by putting the middle portion of the verse in a parenthesis. Some of the best commentators give their sanction to the course which our translators have adopted ; and we may therefore, perhaps, safely regard the Evangelist as in the text announcing the doctrine that " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth," and throwing in at the same time the paren- thetical remark, "We beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father."
Thus we have — I. The Divine Life entering upon a Human Lifa
"And the Word became flesh."
1 W. Walsham How.
ST. JOHN I. 14 35
II. The Character of the Human Life.
"And dwelt among us — full of grace and truth."
III. The Divine discovered in the Human.
"And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father."
I.
The Divine entering the Human.
" And the Word became flesh."
This is called the Incarnation. What does the word " Incarna- tion " mean ? We know that carnal means fleshly, and carnivor- ous means flesh-eating, and carnation means a flesh-coloured flower. Incarnate, then, means to clothe in flesh; and the In- carnation is the " becoming clothed in flesh," or the " assumption of flesh." So that when we speak of the Incarnation we are using an abbreviated phrase; it must mean the Incarnation of some-V thing; and when it stands in this way, alone with the definite article, it refers to the Incarnation of the Son of God. The subject before us, then, is the clothing of the Son of God in flesh, or the Son of God assuming human nature.
Two things therefore have to be understood : First, that before assuming human nature He previously existed as Son of God; Second, that when He assumed human nature He really and truly became a man. When these two things are understood we must consider why the Son of God became Son of man.