Verse 14
14. Word was made flesh So that which in the first verse was God, now is made flesh, God incarnate. He is made flesh not by ceasing to be Logos or God, but by investing himself with humanity. He does not become body, for that might imply that the Logos was the proper soul of the body and the substitute for a human soul. The incarnate is one Christ, perfect man and perfect God.
Dwelt among us There are in the Old Testament appearances of the angel-Jehovah, which have every proof of being transient manifestations of God himself to man. But their phenomenal bodies were not truly flesh, and so the Divine dwelt not among men permanently, but only appeared transiently.
His glory Moses on the contrary could not stand the effulgence of Jehovah. See Exodus 33:18-23. John beheld in vision the glory of Christ, (Revelation 1:12-17,) and fell as dead. The apostles beheld his glory at the transfiguration, and were struck with stupor. But this effulgence to the senses is but the symbol of that divinity which shone in the spirit, the words, and the works of the Incarnate.
Only begotten of the Father He who has thus far been styled the Word is now viewed as the Son. The terms we think beyond all question express essentially the same thing. Remove all physical elements from both, and conceive the pure spiritual import, and they express an ineffable derivation of the second person of the Trinity, in his divine nature, from the first person. We most easily conceive it as identical with the distinction between God as the eternal, unknowable background, and God as self-manifesting. Both are living God. But the latter is the living Word, the living Son, uttered, generated from the former. The difference between the Word and Son is, that, while the former most distinctly expresses revelation, the latter expresses personality. But as the former implies no physical lips or voice in the utterance, so the latter expresses no sex or real physical begetting.
Full This adjective agrees with the term
Word. Of grace and truth Grace to bring salvation to man; truth to guide him in the way to that salvation.
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