Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
How can this be true? How can veins and skin, hair and teeth, or legs and arms contain all of this? John says it — We have seen His glory; we saw it just looking at him. Sometimes the Psalmist says something like this when he says the whole earth is full of the glory of the Lord. In Isaiah 6, the angels say that when Isaiah sees them. However, that is not what John is saying. It is not a general idea, the way the sky and sea or bird and dog declare His glory. This is the glory of His Person, in particular in His Son. I would have supposed this was not possible. We were forbidden to make any graven image of Him, forbidden to create something we could look at and say, “this is our God.” It seems contrary then that we could say that about a man as He was walking by. But then so much comes together as I think about that problem.
To begin with, man was made in His image, so man could image forth God in a way that creation around us cannot. And then the picture becomes clearer. Those old idols of stone and wood, they are not fashioned like we are. There is something here, here in my skin and bone, that can bear the image of the invisible God.
An idol of wood would obscure that truth, make it less beautiful, and hide that the Eternal Son would come and become a man. He is the God-Man, and something is now possible in created things that we might not have seen or suspected before. Now the possibility is open. Look at your hands, your feet. If you have the Son, then you also share in His glory. How much more urgent we must be about holiness, about how we use our bodies! Pray for that glory to be revealed in you, and to you. Amen.