There are people who believe Christianity is a crutch to help weak people. While there are others who think Christianity is a developed belief system similar to the “telephone game” – you whisper something into the ear of the person next to you and by the time it makes it around the circle the message has mutated into something completely different.

One way of gaining confidence in how we think of Jesus is to consider how the early disciples saw Jesus. Did they believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah sent from God? In other words, if Jesus is the Christ that has been sent from God, and is God in the flesh, then this should absolutely be what the Apostles of Jesus believed about Him as well.

John 1:14-18 gives us three reasons why John the Apostle believed Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

A Declaration

And the Word became flesh…

John simply makes the declaration that the Word (logos) that was in the beginning (of which equates the Word with God since only God was in the beginning) has now become human, “became flesh.” Also, John confirms this teaching through defending it later in I John 4:1-3: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Neither the Greek philosophers nor the Jewish teachers had ever conceived of the “Word” becoming flesh. Since the time of Plato, Greek philosophers had emphasized that the ideal was what was invisible and eternal.  To enter into the material world would be like drinking from a polluted river.  Jews emphatically emphasized the one, transcendent God (see the “Shema” of Deut. 6:14). The notion that God might become human was never taught or conceived of by the Jewish people to my knowledge.  Therefore, this is a profoundly original idea and for that reason should draw the attention of the reader regarding the true identity of Jesus.  John is making a case that the transcendent God of the universe can to earth fully and completely in the person of Jesus Christ.  You can say you don’t believe it, but you cannot say that this is not what John is communicating.

One example of this would be the way that the Apostle John deal with people who deviated from this message.  Early after the death of Jesus, there were many who sought to reconcile how God could become a human?   There arose a certain group who sought to explain the incarnation of God in Jesus by teaching that Jesus had only seemed to be the Son of God. This view is called ‘Docetism’ from the Greek word dokeo, meaning ‘to seem’.  there is a story told by Irenaeus about how the apostle John once went to a public bathhouse in Ephesus, but when he got there and recognized Cerinthus—a prominent Docetist— and he refused to share the same water (Against Heresies III.3.4). The story goes on to recount how John ran out of the bathhouse in fear that God would judge Cerinthus at that very moment for his heresy.  It has been wondered whether or not  John’s first letter (previously cited – 1 John 4:1-3) was a direct reply to Cerinthus himself. Cerinthus argued that the ‘divine essence’, or ‘cosmic Christ’, entered the human Jesus of Nazareth at his baptism, and left him prior to the crucifixion. It is clear that John is opposing any deviation from Jesus being the God/Man and this serves as one line of evidence that John believes the historical identity of Jesus to be correct.

A Metaphor

… and dwelt among us (v.14b)

The Greek verb σκηνόω (skēnoō) commonly translated “dwelt,” more literally means, “to pitch one’s tent.” This rare term, used elsewhere in the NT only in the Book of Revelation (7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 21:3), suggests that in Jesus, God has come to take up residence among his people once again, in a way even more intimate than when he dwelt in the midst of wilderness Israel in the tabernacle (Exod. 40:34–35). Moses met God and heard his word in the “tent of meeting” (Exod. 33:9); now, people may meet God and hear him in the flesh of Jesus.  Jesus’ “pitching his tent among us” is here related to the incarnation, that is, his being made human flesh; according to   John, Jesus took the place of the temple In addition, it could be said that Jesus fulfills all imagery in the Old Testament that represents God in form.

Personal Experience

…and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (v.14c)

When John mixes the idea of seeing his glory and that glory being as of the only Son from the Father, he creates a powerful argument for the identity of Jesus rooted in his experience with Jesus. The dóxa of Jesus. The NT takes a decisive step by relating dóxa to Christ in the same way as to God. dóxa then reflects all the dynamism of the relation of God and Christ. In doing this, John raises his understanding of Christ to the same glory held by the Father (Rom. 6:4). Also, Jesus is taken up into glory (1 Tim. 3:16), He is at the right hand of glory (Acts 7:55), glory is ascribed to Jesus as God (cf. Lk. 2:14 and Heb. 13:21), He is the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8; Jms. 2:1). Our end-time hope (cf. Is. 40:5) is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Tit. 2:13).

Most of these references are to the risen Christ, but the revelation of glory at his birth points already to his coming from above (Lk. 2:9). In John, faith also sees the glory of the incarnate Christ (1:14; 2:11; 11:40). This dóxa of Christ is not visible in itself. He has to be glorified (Jn. 7:39; cf. 12:23; 13:31; 16:14; the prayer in 17:1, 5). The entry into glory is at the cross (13:31), where God’s dóxa is acknowledged, but there is also participation in it. It is in the light of the passion that believers, by the Spirit, see Christ’s glory. of the only son – (Gk. – monogenous) this expression is very important concept to John the Apostle. Each time John uses it (1:14,1:18, 3:16,18 and I John 4:9), he relates it to God as in a special relationship.  If left on its own, the argument could be made that this simply means that Jesus has a relationship with God like no other person (e.g. Mormons, Jehovah witnesses, Muslims, etc.).

However, notice how this same word is used of Jesus within the context of the covenant relationship made between God and Abraham ( see Genesis 17).  The writer of Hebrews in citing the covenant includes the expression, monogenous:“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his (“monogenous”) only son” (Hebrews 11:17).  There is only one problem, the writer of Hebrews must have been aware that Isaac was not the “only son” of Abraham.

As a matter of fact, Isaac’s older brother, Ishmael, was 13 years old when the covenant between God and Abraham was made (see Gen. 17:25).  Why did the writer of Hebrews call Isaac the only son (the monogenous) of Abraham then?  Isaac is the son of promise from which all the blessings of God would flow through.  Therefore, the imagery of the “only son” is more than a designation of a single son, it speaks to the essence of the offspring as being THE conduit of blessing from which God will fulfill His covenant commitment to Israel. It is as if Isaac is the monogenous of Abraham because Isaac is the one and only one through whom the covenant of God will be continued in.  In keeping with the theme of the covenant, God wants His chosen people to know that this covenant rests on His faithfulness to them and not thier ability to be faithful to God. One indication of this dynamic is that the promise of blessing occurs before Isaac is born (Gen. 21:3) and therefore, determined by God before Isaac could do anything.  This is a picture of the will of God choosing on whom He will bring blessing, an echo of John 1:13.

It was the claim of unique blessing from God and being God in the flesh that aroused the Jews to persecute Christ (10:30–36). Note the seven persons in John’s Gospel who called Christ the Son of God: John the Baptist (1:34); Nathanael (1:49); Peter (6:69); the healed blind man (9:35–38); Martha (11:27); Thomas (20:28); and the Apostle John (20:30–31). John’s underlying point is that the person (sinner) who will not believe that Jesus is God’s Son (in essence and in this sense) cannot hope to be saved, to have covenant relationship with the Father (8:24).