“The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” (v. 14a). For the Word as God to become flesh, that is, to be incarnated, is for God to have the human life and the human nature. To be incarnated is to be consolidated. As the Word before His incarnation, Christ was mysterious. However, when He was incarnated, He was consolidated and became real to us. Before His incarnation He was intangible, invisible, and untouchable. By becoming flesh He became solid, visible, and touchable.
The Word that became flesh “tabernacled among us.” The Word, by being incarnated, not only brought God into humanity but also became a tabernacle to God as God’s habitation on earth among men.
Verse 14b tells us that when the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, it was full of grace and reality. Grace is God in the Son as our enjoyment; reality is God realized by us in the Son. Grace is the enjoyment, and reality is the realization.
Verse 17 says, “The law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” The law makes demands on man according to what God is; grace supplies man with what God is to meet what God demands. The law, at most, was only a testimony of what God is (Exo. 25:21), but reality is the realization of what God is. No man can partake of God through the law, but grace enables man to enjoy God. Reality is God realized by man, and grace is God enjoyed by man.
John 1:16 says, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” This indicates that in Christ as the incarnated Word there is abundant fullness, for the fullness of God dwells in Him (Col. 2:9). Now we may receive the riches of grace and reality out of His divine fullness. Grace and reality have no limit. Instead, there is always fullness. Anything we enjoy other than God in Christ has a limit. But when we enjoy God in Christ as grace and reality, there is no limit, only fullness. This fullness is unlimited.
“No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). The Greek word translated declared may also be rendered explained. Christ’s being the Word is mainly to express God the Father by declaring, defining, and revealing Him. This verse tells us that the One who expresses the Father is the only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father from eternity past and who is still in the bosom of the Father after incarnation. The only begotten Son was, is, and always will be in the bosom of the Father. The dear, only begotten Son of the Father is continually in the bosom of the Father to declare the Father. The more the Son speaks, the more the Father is declared, expressed.
The Father’s only begotten Son has declared God by the Word, life, light, grace, and reality. The Word is God expressed, life is God imparted, light is God shining, grace is God enjoyed, and reality is God realized, apprehended. God is fully declared in the Son by these five things.
Christ is the Lamb of God, who took away the sin of the world for the accomplishment of God’s redemption. According to 1:29, John the Baptist declared concerning Christ, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” According to verse 36, John looked at Jesus walking and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” These verses indicate that Christ as the Lamb of God has taken away sin from the human race. The phrase of the world in verse 29 actually means from mankind. Through Satan sin entered into man, for Satan injected sin into the human race. But Christ as the Lamb of God came to take away sin from mankind. Christ died on the cross to deal with sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:26) and also with sins (1 Cor. 15:3; 1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:28).
In the Gospel of John the Lamb of God signifies the Word in the flesh as the fulfillment of all the Old Testament offerings to accomplish God’s full redemption. This means that Christ is the totality of all the offerings. He is not only the sin offering but also the trespass offering, the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the wave offering, the heave offering, the free-will offering, and the drink offering. With Christ as all the offerings we have God’s full redemption, and we may experience and enjoy this redemption.
Through Christ as the Lamb of God fulfilling all the offerings, we may now enter into God and participate in the divine life and nature (John 3:14-15; 2 Pet. 1:4). Because of Christ as the Lamb of God, we are well able to enter into God. We may boldly come into God, knowing that He does not have the right to reject us, because we come through His Lamb. We have full redemption in Christ as the Lamb of God, and therefore we are enabled to enter into God to enjoy all that He is.