This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Christmas” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 25, 1988.

This morning we are reading from John’s Gospel, the very first chapter. We will be reading the first 18 verses of this chapter of John. Hear the word of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the life of men.

And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Nor was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighted every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not, but as many as received him.

Then gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness have all we received. And grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and proof came by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Go with me now. We turn unto you, our God, as we would approach your word, and we ask that we may have a confidence in the power of that word. Surely it would not be a man that would convince us, but our God. So may you convince us and convict us and transform us by your word that we might be servants who are willing and able, through your Spirit, to serve. Bless us now, our God. Unto this end we pray it through Christ. the perfect servant, the one who gave himself for us. Amen.

It seemed a birth like any other. A woman coming to full term for nine months accomplished, she giving birth to a child. And in this, she seemed like all other women who had given birth before, and the child she gave birth to, like any other that had been brought forth. A birth like other birds, but yet this bird so utterly unique. On the one hand, seemingly the same, on the other hand, completely, absolutely different. Nothing like it before. though there had been miracle children before.

We think of the case of Abraham and Sarah, past the years of conceiving and bearing, and yet because of the miraculous intervention of God, Sarah gives birth to a child, Isaac by name. well-established was the barrenness of Rachel. Yet, because of the mercies of God and His intervention, she gives birth also to Joseph, and then once more to Benjamin. What shall we say of Hannah? She too, barren, yet she in time then giving birth to the great prophet, that servant sent by God for Israel’s good, Samuel.

There had been miracle children before, they seemingly unique, but none like this child born of Mary. We hear of the coming of the child, we read the gospel accounts. In Matthew, Joseph is told, that which is conceived in the womb of Mary is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Of no other child could that be said. The angel goes on. You will call his name Jesus, that wonderful Old Testament name which means Savior. For he it is who shall save his people from their sins. Had there ever been any child so described formerly. And then, extrapolating from an Old Testament prophecy, Matthew adds his own commentary. This one who is coming is the fulfillment of that ancient prophecy.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, bring forth a child, and his name shall be called Immanuel. That is, God with us. Chapter 2 in Matthew. visitors from the East, seeking whom? One called the King of the Jews. That one, when they meet him, they fall down before and worship.

What child, having been born, given an account in Scripture, is now worshipped? of him is applied another ancient prophecy. For this child fleeing the wrath of Herod goes down into Egypt and then comes up again. Applied to him is that prophecy out of Hosea, out of Egypt did I call forth my son. The child with his parents settled in Nazareth.

And from that is derived the name the Nazarene. The end of the second chapter of Matthew. That name Nazarene taken from the Hebrew word for branch. For there hath been a promise given to Israel from the stump of that tree. The tree having been cut down, there shall come forth a shoot a branch, a stem, out of Jesse. This one, the Nazarene, is the branch, later described by Jeremiah as, that branch, the Lord, our righteousness.

The unique, utterly unique, absolutely unique child then, that has come into the world, and so described by Matthew, that we look at Luke too, for he gives us an account of the coming of this child. This time we are told, as the angel addresses Mary, not Joseph, Mary, he shall be called great, his name the son of the most high God.

Also, he will rule over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom shall have no end. The eternal kingdom. He shall be called the very son of God, says the angel. And then, in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel, the angels come and address themselves to shepherds. They say, this one shall be called Savior, Christ the Lord. In him, the salvation of God is revealed before the face of men. and all of those who have been looking for the redemption of Jerusalem, they shall find that redemption nowhere else but in this utterly unique child.

So we are familiar, are we not, with the stories of the birth of Christ, his coming into the from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, those Gospels that specifically give us an account of his birth. But there is no account in Scripture that puts before us the significance and the uniqueness of this child any more strikingly than the gospel.

Now, it may not be as we had expected or would have wished. For we are moved by the simplicity and the power and the attractiveness of those accounts given us by Matthew and by Luke. We love to hear of Mary. We delight in hearing about Joseph. We think about their trip to Bethlehem and the inn where there was no room, and then the stable where they found a place to stay. We delight in hearing about shepherds and about Magi. Those things are familiar to us, and we turn instantly to those passages at this time of year.

But here in John’s Gospel, as I have suggested to you, you have as striking a presentation of the uniqueness of this One who has come into the world, as in any of the Gospels. Verse fourteen of chapter one. The Word was made flesh. The word was made flesh. We might move through Matthew and Luke, contending ourselves that the one who has come into the world is certainly an exalted being, but he is one who is a little lower than God. But John tells us straight out, as is John’s habit, he tells us straight out, the word was made flesh. God became man. Now what John is doing here for us is he’s laying out for us truly the significance of the birth of this one. He is putting it for us, plainly, so that we understand what is taking place.

The great eternal God, that One who is above, exalted, that One who is holy and righteous, separate from sin, that One, because of His love, has condescended to the plane of the earth, to the circumstance of man, and He has taken to Himself the flesh of humanity. So great is his love. For this one, so great and exalted, so righteous and holy, this one, filled also with love, knows that unless he does this, unless he does this, there is no hope for that flesh. There is no hope for that.

There is something else here that John wishes us to understand. The great God has come down, yes, but he wants us to also realize the event character of what has taken place here. For you see, Christmas is not just a bright idea. It’s not just some sort of novel thought. Someone sitting around thinking about a marvelous story, a fable invented so as to entertain children or to give people a bit of optimism in depressing circumstances. It’s not as if This whole thing has been invented, hatched out of the mind of man. No, you see, what John is telling us is that we are dealing with something here that happened. An event.

A historical event. that word then which God is, God himself being the word. that aspect of his reality in which he is continually communicating within himself. That is what the word is all about. God communicating within himself, his thought, his thought expressed in speech, the word, that word, that which comes from within God, takes to itself flesh, comes into the world. And because of that, Nothing will ever be the same again. So the Word was made flesh.

That Word through whom, by whom, for whom God created all things, that Word through whom he had communicated himself to his people through the generations, that word has now been enfleshed for the salvation of the world. But there’s more here that John wants us to understand. For he goes on to tell us that this word dwelt among us. the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Actually, the words that John uses here, the words that he uses, are those that would suggest to us the fact that this God, if we were to translate this portion literally, this Word tabernacled among us. If in fact then from the beginning of the chapter we had placed before us God’s creative work, we have here placed before us that work that God accomplished for his people when he delivered them out of Egypt. You remember what transpired then.

God congregated his people in the wilderness at Sinai. He gave them the commandments that he also established for himself and abode in their a tabernacle for himself. It was a tent. And why did God choose to dwell in a tent in the midst of his people in the wilderness? Because they dwelled in tents. God, even then, making himself like unto his people, the pattern of the incarnation being spelled out there, prefigured, if you will. for the children of Israel in the wilderness. He constituting for himself a people and dwelling in their midst, in a way in which they would understand.

He becoming like them. They intense, he intense. But it won’t be just tense. That concern our God. For in the end, it will be the flesh that concerns him. And as his people are in the flesh, so he will make himself as one of them in the flesh. But the strangest of things is said next.

For is this one who now is in the flesh, through whom we behold the very glory, the very glory that belongs uniquely and specifically to God. Do you remember the account of the tabernacle pitching in the wilderness, that when it was completed, the presence of the Lord came and there was the glory of the Lord that filled the tabernacle so that the priest Aaron could not enter. That glory is now radiating through this one who is in the flesh The veil of the flesh becomes the medium through which his glory is made visible. It’s made visible in the signs that he performs, in the things that he does, and also triumphantly through the resurrection and the glorification that shall come as a result of the finished and accomplished work that he has set about to perform. this glory, John goes on to say, is of the only begotten of the Father.

That is, it is that which belongs specifically to him and to him alone. As an only son within the family is heir to all of the inheritance, coming to him all those things that belong to the Father So, with regard to this one, the Son of God, the one in whom that glory of God is manifest, all things will ultimately be His.

They belong to Him, for He has made them. They were created for Him and through Him. over against this one to whom all glory belongs. There stands then that older administration, that administration of the old covenant. This one who is the only begotten contrasts Moses, that one in whom the Jews had put all of their confidence and hope. He was the unique one as far as they were concerned. He was the leader for the people of God. Through him had come the law, and the people were to live by the law, and the law, the Torah, was their hope. If there was glory to be found, it had to be found through the law and through the administration of that old covenant.

But now John says, as he presents to us the coming of the Word in the flesh, he tells us, not so. for all that transpired before was unto this end. There is a new tabernacle, there is a greater glory, and there is one that exceeds in might and significance even Moses, one whom we are told, as he concludes his thoughts here in the fourteenth verse, full of grace and truth. had been that manifestation of God’s grace and truth to his people of old. You might recall how they had sinned, and Moses had come down from the mountain, and when he saw them playing about the golden calf, in his anger he threw down the tablets of stone. They were then the means by which God brought judgment upon the children of Israel. Moses ascends the mountain once more, And there, before the Lord, he is told that God, after all, is a God full of compassion, mercy.

His truth endures forever. And there would yet be a second making of the tablets of stone, a giving again of the covenant. Well, that renewal of the covenant is not an end in itself. It’s unto the second covenant par excellence, that which will be administered through Jesus Christ, in whom the perfection of grace and truth is seen, is observed, is realized, is appropriate.

You know the grace that is found fully, completely, in this one who is utterly, completely, absolutely unique. The compassion of God. who extends now into the world that marvelous message of the forgiveness of sins. How is it that John the Baptist describes him when he sees him coming to the waters of the Jordan? Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, the fullness of grace, but also the fullness of truth. Over against the truth are shattered promises, broken vows and oaths made to God. But God in truth keeps his word and points us to the eternality of that kingdom which he has come to bestow upon those who believe.

The fullness of all of that is now being conferred through this unique, utterly absolutely unique child. In the beginning was the word. creation started. But when the Word was made flesh, creation began again. New creation commenced. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word had its work amongst the children of Israel at the times in which they were brought out of Egypt guided through the wilderness, but there is now the ultimate, the quintessential exodus that has been commenced for the people of God, which ends in a sanctuary not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, in which the grace and truth of our God in all of its fullness is mediated unto us through this one who has come for ourselves that we might be a people for him living for him in the world Matthew the unique child Luke, the unique child John, that unique child God made man for you so that you might dwell with him as he has dwelt with you O Lord, we thank you for the gospel, the good news, the coming of yourself into the world where you take to yourself our flesh, our circumstances, yes, even our sin. Through you, then, Lord, we are liberated, set free, and introduced into a service for our God, unto which we were intended from the beginning. Lord, may we set our hope in you. We pray our God these things.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.