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John's word emphasize that birth into the family of God is quite different from
physical birth and his statements dispose of the idea that every human being is
automatically in the family of God. This is never realized by blood-relationship. One
"becomes" a child of God by receiving His Son by faith. One does not "become"
something that he is already. Spiritual birth, which is elaborated in chapter 3:, is the
only way of entry and depends upon the receiving by faith of Him Who God has sent.
"The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen His glory,
the glory of the one and only (Son), Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth"
(1: 14).
The Apostle John now considers the great mystery (secret) of Godliness, "God was
manifest in the flesh" (I Tim. 3: 16). The Logos added to His deity by taking perfect
humanity. This, declares Paul, is a great secret and beyond our human comprehension.
The Lord's incarnation is the Christian answer both to pantheism, which conceives God
as totally immanent in creation, and to deism, which sees Him as totally transcendant
from it. Without the incarnation redemption would be impossible, for death was the
penalty for sin and this price had to be paid. God is immortal and cannot die, but the
incarnate Son could become the Lamb of God and give His life a ransom for many.
Yet, at the same time, we must remember that no created being, however exalted,
could be the sacrifice for sin and God has never entrusted this supreme work to
archangels, angels, or any created being. "I, even I, am the Lord (Jehovah); and beside
Me there is no Saviour" (Isa. 43: 11). Thus only Jehovah can save and thus it was
essential to blend deity with perfect humanity. In the early church it was not so much the
deity of Christ that was the subject of attack, but rather His humanity. Today the
pendulum has swung over to the other extreme, and the humanists have insisted on the
essential humanity of Christ but they obscure or deny His deity. Neither the deity or
humanity of Jesus Christ can be understood separately, and those who do so have a
mutilated Christ Who could never be a Saviour of sinners in the Scriptural sense.
It is clear that John combats the false teaching of those who held docetism. They
denied that Christ assumed bodily form. It only appeared to be real, they maintained.
Hence the Evangelist in this Gospel and in his epistles warns those who denied that
Christ had "come in the flesh" and disunited the earthly Jesus from the heavenly Christ
(cf. I John 4: 1-3). It was a blow against Gnosticism which only accepted an impersonal
Logos and looked on everything material as evil. In no sense could they accept that
Christ took upon Himself a human body for his reason. The Lord Jesus said:
"The bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world"
(John 6: 51),
and that body was specially prepared by God. "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not,
but a body hast Thou prepared Me" (Heb. 10: 5). "And you, that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of
His flesh through death, to present you holy, unblameable and unreproveable in His
sight" (Col. 1: 21-22).