John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ”
16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
Introduction —
Learning to Appreciate What We Take for Granted
I grew up blessed—middle-class, stable home—and when we moved to a blue-collar pocket of an otherwise wealthy part of San Diego, something interesting happened. We became friends with kids at school who came from very well-off families, and over time, a couple of these families loved taking my brother and me out to very nice restaurants.
For them, it was Tuesday.
For us, it was the greatest meal we’d ever had.
If our friends had come to our house, it would have been Kraft Mac and cheese and some hot dogs.
Meanwhile, while with them it was aged steaks and Lobster.
What you take for granted determines what you see.
What you’re accustomed to determines what amazes you.
John 1:14-18 is familiar to many of us. “The Word became flesh.” We hear it every Christmas season. But John intends for this verse to shock us—to strike us the way a four-course meal strikes a kid who’s only known drive-thru.
We’ve grown accustomed to a God who comes close.
We forget how radical it is that He ever came at all.
To feel the weight of the incarnation, John takes us on a narrative journey—from the echoes of Genesis in verses 1–13, to the deep, subtle Exodus Untertones in verses 14–18. And unless we see that shift, we miss the depth, the beauty, the staggering wonder of what God has done in Christ.
The Shift- From Genesis Undercurrents to Exodus Fulfillment
When you read the opening of John’s Gospel carefully, you notice something striking. John is not merely telling a story—he’s reaching back into the Old Testament and pulling its deepest themes forward.
And he does it in a very intentional structure:
- John 1:1–2 — A four-line poem announcing the eternal Word
• John 1:3–13 — Creation imagery echoing Genesis
• John 1:14-18 — Exodus imagery revealing how God comes to dwell with His people
- John 1:1–13 — The Genesis Under tone
In Greek, John’s language is unmistakably “Genesis language.”
“In the beginning…”
“Light shining in darkness…”
“Life being given…”
Any Jewish reader familiar with the Septuagint—the Greek Old Testament—would immediately pick up the resonance. John is retelling the creation story, but with a twist:
this time, the Word is not creating a world—He’s making a people.
The first 13 verses are a “new creation prologue,” a deliberate echo of the original beginning.
We can hear this even today. We instinctively recognize the Genesis undertones because John wants us to. He wants us standing at the edge of creation, hearing the voice of God speak light into the darkness.
- John 1:14–18 — A Sudden and Subtle Shift
Then suddenly, in verse 14, something changes.
The tone changes.
The imagery changes.
The story changes.
But the shift is quieter—less obvious to the modern reader.
Where the Genesis imagery is loud and familiar, the Exodus imagery is woven in more subtly. But for John’s original audience, it would have been unmistakable.
In these verses, John starts using words that “hyperlink” back to the Exodus:
- “dwelt” (literally, tabernacled)
- “glory” (the language of the wilderness presence)
- “grace and truth” (the covenant formula from Moses)
- “No one has seen God” (Moses on the mountain)
- “the only Son… has made Him known” (Jesus as the true and better Moses)
John is moving us from Genesis beginnings to Exodus fulfillment—
from creation to covenant,
from God speaking the world into being
to God entering the world to be with His people.
Why This Matters
John is not simply telling us that Jesus came.
He is telling us how Jesus came—and why.
If we miss the shift, we miss the depth:
- Genesis tells us God is powerful enough to create the world.
- Exodus tells us God is personal enough to dwell with His people.
John wants us to see both.
The God who spoke light into existence is the same God who now pitches His tent among us.
And that is what makes John 1:14–18 so rich—
it is the story of a God who not only creates a world
but enters it.
1) INCARNATION- The God Who Reveals
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Modern people assume that if there is a God, He is obligated to reveal Himself.
But ancient people didn’t think that way at all.
In the ancient world, the gods were capricious, unknowable, unpredictable.
Humanity groped in the dark—trying to guess what the gods wanted, trying to avoid their anger.
But the God of Scripture is not like the gods of mythology.
He chooses to reveal Himself.
- He reveals Himself to Abraham with a promise.
- He reveals Himself to Moses in a burning bush.
- He reveals Himself through a law—a gift of clarity in a world of moral fog.
Imagine worshiping a god who never tells you what matters.
Imagine trying to please a deity who never tells you what pleases Him.
Most of human history has lived in that uncertainty.
But the God of Israel does something unheard of:
He speaks. He reveals. He makes Himself knowable.
And then—John says—He goes infinitely further:
He becomes flesh.
The invisible becomes visible.
The untouchable becomes touchable.
The Creator steps inside His creation.
We take it for granted. But for John’s original readers, this was unthinkable. A holy God entering the human condition—not as a vision, not as a symbol, but as a human being.
And why?
Because grace is not an idea.
Truth is not an abstraction.
Love cannot remain distant.
God came close because love always moves toward.
2) DWELT– The True and Better Tabernacle
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John chooses a very specific word:
“…and dwelt among us.”
Literally: “He tabernacled.”
But the people weren’t living in tents anymore.
So why use that word?
Because John is intentionally “hyperlinking” us back to the Exodus story—the moment God instructed Israel to build the tabernacle.
Exodus 25:8 — “Make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”
Exodus 25:8 And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. 9 According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.
God put His tent in the center of the camp—surrounded on all sides by His people.
Numbers 2:1 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 2 “Everyone of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard, beside the emblems of his father’s house; they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting.
His presence in the Holy of Holies was both glorious and dangerous—intimate yet guarded.
The tabernacle was God’s way of saying:
“I am a God who draws near, but My holiness must be mediated.”
Now John says:
“That Presence… that Glory… that center-of-the-camp holiness…
It’s here. In a person. Walking around.”
And then something even more astonishing happens.
Not only does God dwell with us in Jesus…
He now dwells in us by His Spirit.
The story of Scripture is the story of a God who refuses to live at a distance:
- He dwells with His people in the wilderness.
- He dwells among His people in the incarnation.
- He dwells within His people in the Holy Spirit.
This has always been His intention—from Genesis to Revelation.
Which means the great reward of Christianity is not simply forgiveness, or purpose, or a second chance.
The great reward is God Himself.
Union with Christ.
Life with Him.
Ephesians 2:11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
But that raises a problem.
We are a culture of doers.
We love accomplishment. Productivity. Motion.
I’m a doer—I understand this.
My love language is acts of service.
But my wife’s is presence.
She wants me to sit with her.
To dwell. To be.
Not to accomplish, but to abide.
And I think many of us treat God the way doers treat relationships—we serve Him, work for Him, sacrifice for Him… but we don’t dwell with Him.
Yet He has gone to unfathomable lengths to dwell with us.
How could we not dwell with Him?
3) FLESH- The God Who Knows What It Is to Be Human
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John does not say the Word became “a body.”
He uses a word that emphasizes frailty, limitation, vulnerability:
“The Word became flesh.”
This is not poetic imagery.
It is gritty, earthy, embodied reality.
Jesus experienced:
- hunger and thirst,
- exhaustion,
- loneliness,
- misunderstanding,
- temptation,
- grief,
- joy,
- disappointment,
- betrayal,
- pain,
He did not exempt Himself from a single dimension of human life.
Why?
Because He came not only to save us but to understand us.
Not only to redeem us but to represent us.
He fully lived so that He could fully die.
He fully entered humanity so that He could fully sympathize with humanity.
There is no part of your experience—your sorrow, your anxiety, your fear, your struggle—with which Jesus is unfamiliar.
The incarnation is not simply God’s way of coming near.
It is God’s way of saying:
“I know. I understand. I am with you.”
4) FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH- The Glory We Behold, The Life We Reflect
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John concludes:
“…we beheld His glory… full of grace and truth.”
Grace without truth is sentimentality.
Truth without grace is brutality.
Jesus is the perfect union of both.
He does not lower truth to love us.
He does not lower love to tell us the truth.
He is the imago Dei—the perfect image of God.
And now, because He has come near, we can behold what God is like.
More than that,
we are empowered to reflect what God is like.
Jesus forms a community of disciples who carry His presence into the world—people who embody grace and truth in the office, at home, in conflict, in joy, in suffering.
We behold Him so that we might become like Him.
Beholding and Becoming — The Movement of God’s Image
One of John’s great themes is seeing the glory of God. But the story of Scripture shows that humanity has always been beholding God in stages—each one fuller than the last, each one preparing us for Jesus.
- We Beheld the Image of God in a People — Israel
Before God revealed Himself in a person, He revealed Himself in a people.
Israel was meant to be a living picture of who God is—set apart, blessed to be a blessing, reflecting God’s justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
Through Abraham’s family, the nations were meant to look and say,
“This is what the true God is like.”
Imperfect? Absolutely.
But still chosen, still carrying the first brushstrokes of God’s character on the canvas of human history.
- We Beheld the Image of God in the Law — His Heart Made Visible
Then God goes further.
He gives His people the Law—not as a burden but as a revelation of His heart.
Every instruction, every command, every statute was God saying:
“This is what I care about. This is what righteousness looks like.
This is what leads to life.”
The Law displayed the moral beauty of God.
It showed His justice, His compassion, His holiness.
But even the Law was incomplete.
It could reveal God’s heart, but it could not reveal God’s face.
- We Beheld the Image of God in the Incarnation — Full of Grace and Truth
And then John says the unthinkable:
“The Word became flesh… full of grace and truth.”
What Israel hinted at,
what the Law described,
Jesus embodies.
In Him, the invisible becomes visible.
Grace and truth no longer live in commandments on tablets—
they live in a Person:
- a voice you can hear,
- a face you can see,
- a life you can follow.
Jesus is the perfect image of God—
God’s glory with skin on.
Everything Israel longed to be, everything the Law pointed toward, everything the prophets anticipated—finds its fulfillment in Him.
He is Israel without failure.
He is the Law without condemnation.
He is God without distance.
- We Now Display the Image of God — The New Tabernacle
And here is the staggering conclusion:
The God who once dwelt in a tent now dwells in His people.
1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Not beside us.
Not around us.
But within us.
We are now the temple, the dwelling place, the tabernacle of His Spirit.
Which means:
- The world sees God through the people in whom He dwells.
- The presence that once filled the Holy of Holies now fills ordinary hearts.
- The glory that was once veiled is now carried into workplaces, neighborhoods, and relationships.
Keller would put it this way:
We behold His image so that we may become His image.
We encounter His presence so that we may embody His presence.
The God who revealed Himself in Israel, who revealed Himself in the Law, and who revealed Himself fully in Christ, now reveals Himself through you.
Not because we are sufficient,
But because He dwells.
CONCLUSION — The God Who Came Near Still Comes Near
The story of Scripture is the story of a God who refuses distance:
- In Creation, He walks with us.
- In Exodus, He dwells among us.
- In Christ, He dwells beside us.
- In the Spirit, He dwells within us.
The question for us is simple:
If God has come this far to dwell with you,
Will you dwell with Him?
Not just serve Him.
Not just learn about Him.
But be with Him.
Because the ultimate gift of the incarnation isn’t information.
It isn’t inspiration.
It’s Him.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us—
so that we might dwell with Him forever
