Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20130512.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
John: Believing On The Christ, The Son Of God, For Eternal Life
Part IV: Believing On Christ As The Creator God Incarnate
(John 1:14)
  1. Introduction
    1. The Apostle John wrote that his Gospel was penned that his readers might "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name," John 20:31 KJV.
    2. However, the idea that Jesus is God Incarnate, the-Creator-God-come-in-the-flesh-of-humanity is strongly opposed by many groups today much as it was opposed by the Gnostics in John's era, so we need to understand exactly what John meant when he wrote that "the Word was made flesh" in John 1:14 KJV:
  2. Believing On Christ As The Creator God Incarnate, John 1:14.
    1. As we learned in earlier lessons in this series, John established back in John 1:1-3 with 1:17 that by the term "Word" in John 1:14, he meant that Jesus Christ (John 1:17) was the Creator God (John 1:3) Who had been eternally and unchangingly God with and distinct in Person from God the Father (John 1:1-2).
    2. For John then to write "the Word was made flesh" countered the Gnostics who held "pure deity could not be united with flesh, which was regarded as entirely evil," Ryrie St. Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to John 1:14.
    3. Since John in John 1:14 thus contradicted the Gnostic belief of his era, his claim that "the Word was made flesh" also critiques cultic beliefs today that try to diminish either Christ's deity or His humanity.
    4. In addition, John also cited Christ's claim in Revelation 22:16b to be both God and man (as follows):
      1. In Revelation 22:16b NIV, John cited "I, Jesus" as saying, "I am the Root and the Offspring of David," a reference to Isaiah 11:1, 10 where the Messiah was predicted to be the "Branch" who would grow up out of the stump of the tree of the Davidic dynasty that had been temporarily cut down in judgment.
      2. In thus calling Himself the "Root" of David, Jesus claimed to be the One from whom David had come, God, and in calling Himself David's "Offspring," Jesus claimed to be the son of David, a human being. Thus, Jesus Christ claimed to be both God and man! (Zon. Pict. Ency. of the Bible, v. Five, p. 172)
    5. However, some groups assert that the description of Jesus Christ in John 1:14 KJV as being "the only begotten of the Father" implies that Jesus had a point of origin, a point when He was created by God the Father, that Christ is thus not the Eternal God. Nevertheless, the context strongly counters such a claim:
      1. The Greek New Testament term translated "begotten" in John 1:14 KJV is monogenes (Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 529), and by lexical definition it can mean either "only, unique [in kind]" or "only-begotten" in the sense of being one's only produced son, Ibid. [ Note: this lexical definition errs in supplying the "only-begotten" meaning as seen in our next lesson!]
      2. However, the previous context claims the "Word" was eternally coexistent with God the Father (John 1:1-2), so by using monogenes John could NOT mean Jesus was produced or created by the Father!
      3. Rather, as John clarifies in 1 John 4:9 and John 3:16, his focus in using monogenes is on the exclusivity of Jesus as being the ONLY Son of God and Savior sent from the Father in whom all men must believe if they would receive eternal life, cf. 1 John 5:11-12; The. Dic. of the N. T., v. IV, p. 740.
      4. Also, in the context at John 1:18 KJV where Jesus is called "the only begotten Son," the United Bible Society's Greek N. T. text, citing superior, early manuscripts, reads "the only Begotten God," a reading that with John's Hebrew background of monotheism forces monogenes in John 1:14 to mean "only, unique" as opposed to "produced"; U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 322; Bruce M. Metzger, A Text. Com. on the Grk. N. T., 1971, p. 198 (emphasis ours). Two of the earliest N. T. writings we have on papyrii in P<:f180,,>66 [Bodmer II, circa. A. D. 200] and P<:f180,,>75 [Bodmer XIV, XV, early third cent.] in John 1:18 read "the only Begotten God" as do the manuscripts Codex Sinaiticus [original scribe, fourth cent.] and Codex Vaticanus [fourth cent.] (Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T., ftn. to John 1:18), and Metzger's work cited above adds that the witnesses of P<:f180,,>66 and P<:f180,,>75 significantly strengthen "the only Begotten God" reading.
Lesson: Jesus Christ is fully the Creator-God and fully man, God Incarnate opposite not only the Gnostic heresy of the Apostle John's era, but opposite many of the false cults of today.

Application: May we hold to the full deity and full humanity of Jesus as God Incarnate. Thus, in Him, we have our only Savior who can fully atone as our only effective Mediator with God, 1 Timothy 2:5.