“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh,..” – 1 Timothy 3:16 

Scripture reading: John 1:14-18

The Word became flesh. What profound truth these words contain. God became Man. The second person of the Trinity took to Himself a human nature while remaining divine.

Becoming flesh means that Jesus had a true body. He was born as most babies are and developed as boys and girls do. He was hungry and thirsty. He sweated and grew tired. He bled. He slept. He could only be in one place at a time. And He died.

Becoming flesh also means that Jesus took a true soul. He had a human psychology. He had a human mind. He learned as we do, growing in wisdom just as He grew in physical stature. In His humanity our Lord did not know everything. He had human emotions. He experienced joy and sorrow, anger and pleasure. He also had a human will with ordinary desires, longings and preferences. He didn’t desire ridicule and mockery and being forsaken by God. He was truly human, though He was sinless.

It is important for us to grapple with these truths so that the incarnation might leave us astonished. He Who was eternal stepped into time. The all-knowing embraced ignorance. The everywhere present was confined first, to a human womb, and then, to specific places. The immortal became mortal. And He experienced these limitations while remaining eternal, all-knowing, everywhere present, and immortal. No wonder Charles Wesley has us sing: ‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail th’incarnate Deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.’

Suggestions for prayer

Praise God that, in His wisdom, He saved us by the man Christ Jesus. Pray that we would be encouraged that our Lord Jesus became like us, sin excepted.

Rev. John van Eyk began his ministry in Cambridge, Ontario as a Church Planter and Minister of the Riverside Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. After 13 years there, he served almost 10 years in the Tain/Fearn congregation of the Associated Presbyterian Churches in the Scottish Highlands. John has served as Senior Pastor of Trinity Reformed Church (United Reformed) in Lethbridge, Alberta since 2017. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. It is also available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.