“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 1:14
God is the Word John 1:1. The Word (Logos) is the very expression and mind of God Himself. This Word became flesh, entering the limits of humanity. This is not poetic language or spiritual metaphor. It is the literal enfleshment of God. Jesus was fully human. He grew tired, felt pain, wept, and suffered, yet He remained fully divine, radiating the exact nature and character of God. As the author of Hebrews declares, ““who (Son) being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person…” (Hebrews 1:3).
The word “dwelt” (Greek: skēnoō) literally means “to pitch a tent” or “to tabernacle.” This calls us back to the Old Testament Tabernacle, where God’s presence rested among His people in the wilderness. Just as Yahweh’s glory once filled the tent of meeting, now that same divine glory takes up residence in the person of Jesus Christ. He is God’s glory made visible, “Immanuel”, God is with us.
When John writes, “we beheld His glory,” was giving eyewitness testimony to the incarnation, that God Himself had come to earth embodied in the Son. This connects directly to the Shekinah glory that once hovered over the earthly tent of meeting, where Yahweh’s presence visibly manifested among His people. Now, in Christ, that glory walks among us, not hidden by a cloud nor fire but revealed in human form.
Not only John, but all the disciples saw Jesus and beheld His glory with their own eyes. They testify firsthand that the Father had sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Both then and now, false teachers have spread distorted views of Jesus, claiming He was only a man, or merely a spirit, or an illusion. John and the other apostles directly confronted these errors from their own firsthand experience. They had heard Him, seen Him, and touched Him. Their message was not secondhand speculation, but the living truth of the God who became man and dwelt among us.
If someone teaches that Jesus is only a man, or that He is not truly God, then that teaching follows the same falsehoods John and the disciples opposed. The apostles proclaimed with absolute certainty that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man—the eternal Word made flesh, the visible glory of the invisible God.
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