Advent Sermons 2014

God Up Front & Personal!

John 1:1-14

John begins his gospel with an eighteen verse introduction, which bears the literary title, Prologue. "Its purpose is to set the tone for the work, introduce major characters and significant themes" (Comfort & Hawley. p.1).

The theme of the Prologue revolves around the question: "Who is Jesus?" Where did he come from? What does His remarkable manifestation and life teach us about God, about ourselves and about the way of salvation?

John introduces Jesus in a remarkable way: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning"(1v1,2). “The Word" here is the Greek word, logos, and its meaning is the same as in English (i). A word is an audible or spoken, expression of a thought. Nobody really knows what you are thinking unless you express it in words. (ii), Thoughts are incommunicable until they are put into words. Several times the Scripture asks. "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" The answer is, no one. Nobody knows what God think until he tells us. I am trying to convey to you today the thoughts that are in my mind, and the only medium I have is words. You are listening to what I am trying to say, so in a sense you are thinking my thoughts because my words shape and form the meaning of them. This is what John means here, when he tells us that Jesus was "the Word".

He came among us to express what was going on in the mind of God. He told us the thoughts of God. He was God' s utterance on earth, unveiling to us what Paul calls "the manifold wisdom of God." (Eph 3v10) What God thinks is important! It is reality! It is what ultimately comes into being.

God thought about an earth and it came into being. God thought about a universe and it sprang into being. God thought about everything we see around us - even we ourselves - and we came into being. So what exists are the thoughts of God. That is ultimate reason behind everything.

If we really want to understand life - the Universe all around us; mankind; the reason why evil exists in the World; the question of Purpose and meaning, - we have to think the thoughts of God. We have to read the Word of God. But more, we need a relationship with the Word who came from God!

Jesus came to unfold that to us and convey it in words that we cannot mistake “The entire Gospel focuses on "the Word" - God's expression to men, God's explicator..Jesus, as the Word came to explain God to men" (ibid. p. XV)

Jesus is the Great Revealer of God. The final Word from God. There is to be no other explanation about salvation, other than that revealed in Jesus: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe"(Heb 1v1).

"Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."(Acts 4v12)

As the Great Revealer of God, Jesus, the Word is said in this passage, to reveal:

I. God to us.

II. Ourselves to us

III. Salvation to us.

I. Jesus, the Word, reveals God to us:

1. The Word is Eternal: "In the beginning was the Word".

The language makes it clear that John is talking about the absolute beginning, the beginning of time(c/f Gen 1v1), the time before anything "has been made"(v3).

God never had a beginning. He always was and is and will be! Jesus, the eternal Word is the same: “God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: `I AM has sent me to you.'"(Ex 3v14). “ I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"(Joh 8:58).

There never was a time when Jesus did not exist. He is not the first created being(as in Arianism), He is from eternity!

2. The Word was with God and is God: “the Word was with God, and the Word was God".

The language is clear though it is difficult to understand. How can someone be with someone and yet be that someone at the same time?

John tells us that the Word is eternal and that the Word is God! But he also makes it clear that the Word is distinct from the God He was with!

How do we explain this?

a. Some say that Jesus is a lesser god! - So Jehovah's Witnesses translate the closing phrase of John 1v1 "the word was a god".

This forces us into Polytheism - a belief that there are many gods! But this is directly contrary to the Bible's teaching:"This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God"(Isa 44:6). “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God"(Isa 45:5).

God tells us through Isaiah that He alone exists and no other god functions beside Him. That is why Paul can say: “We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one"(1 Cor 8v4).

b. Jesus is fully God and therefore there is plurality in God:

In eternity, the Word was both "with God" and yet "was God" at one and the same time!

So in God there are distinct Persons, whom John describes under the title "Son"(v14) and "Father"(v18). (He does not yet introduce to us the third Person in God, namely the Spirit(see on chs 14-16).

The distinction is made to show us that though the Word is God, the Son is not the Father. When Jesus was on earth, He prayed to His Father in Heaven. He was not speaking to Himself!

3. The Word became flesh and lived among men: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth"(v14).

This has reference to the Incarnation. God became man for us men and for our salvation! “The Son left the glories of that eternal relationship with the Father to bring life and light to earth by becoming a man among men" (ibid. p.3)

John may be counteracting the Docetic heresy (Grk: dokeo - to seem) which taught that Jesus only appeared to be a man. He was like a Phantom or Ghost, in the form of man but in reality a spirit!

John's Gospel makes it clear that God became a man but did not cease to be God. Jesus is the God-man! He came down from heaven to save us and returned to Heaven, via the Cross, the grave, the resurrection and ascension. To enter back into that Glory which He had with the Father "before the world began"(Jn 17:5).

4. The Word reveals God to men: “No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known."(v18).

It is a circular argument! God became man in order to reveal God to man! The Son perfectly exegetes or explains the Father. So Jesus is able to say to His disciples: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father"(Jn 14:9).

And it is perfectly acceptable therefore for doubting Thomas to say to Jesus, whose wounds he had touched: "My Lord and my God!"(Jn 20:28).

God dwelt among men in Jesus. He pitched His tent on earth for a while so that we might meet with Him and come to know Him!

II. Jesus, the Word, reveals Ourselves to us .

1. He is self-sufficient but we are dependent: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men"(1v3,4).

We are creatures made by God. We exist at God's command and live as long as God wills.

Life is given to us by the instrumentality of Jesus. the mediator of creation, and that life which is conscious and rational is so because we are made to be different from all other creatures in the animal Kingdom! This is a needful reminder for Modern Man who thinks of himself as a biological accident or a advanced animal rathe than a direct and unique creation of Almighty God: “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.' Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent"(Acts 17v22-30)

2. He has been revealed but we have not understood, not recognised and not received Him: “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him"(vs 6-11).

What a pitiful commentary on the world this is! The One who was the instrument of Creation was rejected by his own creatures (v10,11). Mankind was so engrossed in darkness that the Light was misunderstood, unrecognised and rejected.

The only people who need to be told that the sun is shining are blind people. But even blind people can feel the heat. For a blind person to deny the sun is shining, even when they feel the heat is to be wilfully blind. For John the blindness of those who saw Jesus was a wilful blindness: "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves" (Joh 14:11). “If I had not done among them what no-one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father"(Joh 15:24).

John has a verdict for such people: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed"(Jn 3v19,20).

III. Jesus, the Word reveals Salvation to us.

1. Salvation is given by God: "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

We have said that people did not recognise or understand or were prepared to accept, the Word. But here we read of some recognised, understood and accepted Him. John speaks of seeing "His glory" and recognising that Jesus is "the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth".

How did this come about? What is the explanation for this? They have been born of God. It has been revealed to them by God: “No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known"(Jn 1v18).

They have received salvation not as a result of "natural descent" - they were not entitled to it as an inheritance. It was not in their bloodline! Not by a "human decision" - they did not come to a point of decision after close and careful investigation. And not as a result of a "husband's will - they were not made Christians by virtue of natural birth! John will make it clear through the teaching of Jesus that salvation is not a work of man but a work of God: "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him. In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."(3v2-8).

2. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ: “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"(v17).

The law revealed something about God. It revealed His character. It revealed also His requirements of us, but unfortunately it did not give us the power to fulfil those requirements.

The Gospel on the other hand provides us with the power to live acceptably before God: not by self-effort but by the "grace and truth" which Christ brings. Verse 14 said that the Word Incarnate was "full of grace and truth" so it not surprising that He should be the bringer of "grace and truth" to men!

Grace is undeserved favour. Truth is genuineness and reality. Jesus gives to all His people, something they did not deserve - the right of divine Sonship. So that we can now call God, “Father": “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"(Jn 20v17).

Jesus gives to His people, something they can rely on - "truth"! Pilate said to Jesus, "what is truth?"(Jn 18v38), the Christian can answer truth in Jesus: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me"(Jn 14v6).

"My faith has found a resting place, not in device or creed,

I trust the ever-living One, His wounds for me shall plead.

I need no other argument, I need no other plea.

It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me"

"My heart is leaning on the Word, the written word of God,

Salvation by my Saviour's name, salvation through His blood

I need no other argument, I need no other plea.

It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for.me"

(L. H. Edmonds).

Conclusion & Application:

Is this your conviction. Are you trusting your life for all eternity upon the Lord Jesus Christ? This prologue contains a summary of John's most profound convictions about our Lord Jesus Christ.

He is God who became man in order to reveal to us God's way of salvation. A way of escape from the life of darkness; ignorance and alienation caused by sin

This prologue focuses on the central fact of Christian faith.

Christianity is not a philosophy; it is about a Person, and that Person is central to all Christian faith. To take Jesus out of Christianity would be like taking numbers out of mathematics, or like taking doctors out of medicine, or Lawyers out of law courts. You cannot have Christianity without Jesus! He is the Word! The revealer of God and God's way of life to us!

God's desire is to be known by people! He desired that so much that He did not wait for men and women to move toward Him, He moves toward them in Jesus! Through Jesus we can know God, personally, experimentally, and to know God is to know "eternal life": “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent"(Jn 17v4).

Appendix:

THE WORD (LOGOS)

1. THE ORIGIN OF THE LOGOS CONCEPT - Various views have been expressed concerning the origin of the Johannine Logos concept. The idea of the Logos was widespread in philosophical/religious thought in antiquity, both before and contemporaneously with, the beginnings of Christianity and a background to John’s thought has been seen, therefore, in Hellenistic thought, in Judaism, in Philo’s thought at Alexandria, and in Gnosticism.

a. The Logos in Hellenism - According to Heraclitus in the sixth century BC, the Logos is the external principle of order in the universe - the general universal law. Anaxagoras says the Logos was performing a mediatorial function between the transcendent God and the world. In the next century the Sophists employed the term to denote the principle of orderly argument, i.e. reason. In the fourth century BC, the Stoics used it of the generative principle of the world, pervading all things and providing the rational order of the universe - the “world-reason” which sustains and permeates the cosmos like a fine spiritual substance, which may be equated with “God”. W F Howard designates this idea “theoretical pantheism”. In the Hermetic Literature, dating from the second or third century AD in Egypt, the Logos is the active, creative expression of the mind of God. A Richardson considers that John possibly chose the word Logos for apologetic reasons; it would be comprehensible to the intellectuals of the Hellenistic world. Moreover, Rabbinic Judaism had itself been influenced by, and had exercised influence upon, Stoic thought in several directions. However, Richardson cautions, “...nothing is said in St. John about the Logos ... which requires elaboration in Greek categories; there is no need to look beyond Old Testament and rabbinic materials in the interpretation of any of the Johannine writings which are Palestinian Hebraic through and through.”

b. The Logos in Judaism - G E Ladd notes that “the Word of God” was an important concept to the Jew. Creation came into being by the Word of God and its preservation is attributed also to the Word of God (Genesis 1:3ff., Psalm 33:6, etc.). The Word of God is also the bearer of salvation and new life (Jer. 1:4, Ezek 1:3, and Amos 3:1). The expression ‘the Word of God’ occurs some 241 times in the Old Testament, of which 221 denote a prophetic word of God, which permits the conclusion that this phrase virtually represents a technical term for the prophetic revelation of God. This “Word of God” appears to be “semi-hypostatised” (to use Ladd’s expression) in several passages of the Old Testament, so that it can go and accomplish the divine purposes (Isaiah 55:10f.), but in Ladd’s view, the attempt to derive the Johannine Logos concept from the Old Testament pure and simple founders on the fact that it does not speak of the word of Yahweh as a person. Compare J V Dahms’s article, “Isaiah 55:11 and the Gospel of John” (Evangelical Quarterly., April-June, 1981), in which he sees this Isaianic passage as furnishing not only the background to John’s Logos concept but also the Johannine motif of coming from God and going to God. H Mowevly (“John 1:14-18 in the Light of Exodus 33:7-34:35”, ET) has seen a possible background to John’s use of Logos in Exodus 33:7ff.. The Tent of Meeting was where God used to speak to Moses, and “...Just as Moses met God and heard his word in the Tent of Meeting, so men now meet his and hear him in the flesh of Jesus.” This, however, seems somewhat tenuous. P Borgen (“Logos was the True Light”, NovT 14, 1972, 115-130) concludes that the conception of logos-light’s coming in John 1:9 has a model the conception of Torah-light’s coming with Moses at Sinai and he sees a further background in Genesis 1:3. (So also T F Glasson, “Moses in the Fourth Gospel”, cap. 13). The literacy device of the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-31 is also pointed to as part of the Jewish background of John’s doctrine. G E Ladd again speaks of Wisdom as “semi-hypostatised” here. In the later Jewish Wisdom literature Wisdom becomes more and more personified and is depicted as standing beside God (Ecclus. 24:3, Aeth. Enoch 42, Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-9:18) and J Rendal Harris suggested that the Prologue to John’s Gospel goes back directly to a hymn to Wisdom. The statement concerning the creation of Wisdom (Prov.8:22), however, speaks against a direct derivation of the Johannine concept from Jewish Wisdom speculations. Further, there is a difference between ‘personification’ and ‘personalisation’ which needs to be observed in the discussion. Cf. Moore (“Judaism”, vol.1, p.415), “It is an error to see in such personifications an approach to personalisation. Nowhere, either in the Bible or in the extra-canonical literature of the Jews, is the word of God a personal agent or on the way to become such.” Rabbinic texts identify pre-existent Wisdom with the Torah, which in this way also becomes personified. C K Barrett notes that the Johannine Logos concept if parallel to the Wisdom-Torah figure of Judaism, but notes that “John is quick to point out that as the Torah was historically given through Moses, so grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (1:17). The Logos exists, but is unknown and incomprehensible apart from the historical figure of Jesus.” In the Targums (Aramaic paraphrases) of the Old Testament frequent use is made of the Aramaic Memra’, “Word”, which some scholars regard as a divine hypostasis. It is used as a means of speaking about God without using His name and a means of avoiding the numerous anthropomorphism’s of the Old Testament (what R E Brown calls “a buffer for divine transcendence”). On this account C K Barrett comments, “Memra’ is a blind alley in the study of the biblical background of John’s Logos doctrine”. R E Brown, however, observes, “If the Aramaic expression for “word” was used in the Targums as a paraphrase for God in His dealings with men, the author of the Prologue hymn may have seen fit to use this title for Jesus who pre-eminently incorporated God’s presence among men. The personification would, of course, be part of the Christian theological innovation.”.

c Philo’s Logos doctrine - Philo attempted to wed Jewish and Hellenistic philosophy and employed ‘Logos’ to provide a concept of a mediator between the transcendent God and the universe. Ladd comments, “Philo’s Logos concept is employed in the interests of a dualistic cosmology that removes God from immediate contact (1:1f.) in his divine glory.” Cf R Schnackenburg, “He is not called the Logos absolutely because he utters the word or words of God; on the contrary, his words rather have the force of God’s words because He is the Logos, that is the divine revealer and redeemer.” (Commentary of John, vol.1.,p.483). The term Logos describes God in the process of self-communication - not the communication of knowledge only, but in a self-communication.

2. THE JOHANNINE LOGOS DOCTRINE :

In the Gospel of John the term is used only in the Prologue, its function being taken over in the rest of the Gospel by the titles “Son (of God)” and “Son of Man”. It reappears in the prologue of the First Epistle of John.

a The unqualified use of the title - Cullmann draws attention to Bultmann’s observation that the Johannine Prologue does not speak of “the Word of God” but simply of the Logos, the Word, without the genitival qualification, as if the evangelist were dealing with a generally-known figure. This raises the question whether the evangelist was consciously making use of ideas, already familiar to Hellenistic Judaism or even to the pagan Hellenistic world, of a Logos conceived as a hypostasis. he confesses that it is difficult to answer with any certainty, but “it is quite probable that the evangelist did in fact think of the personified Logos common in syncretistic Hellenism and in Hellenistic Judaism ... but when two people say the same thing they do not always mean the same - and in this case they certainly do not.‘Logos’ in the Gospel of John means the incarnate Jesus of Nazareth, the Word who became flesh, who is God’s definitive revelation to the world in this human life.” And Cullmann speaks of the non-Christian parallels as “foreign elements secondarily utilised” by John.

We should not overlook the possibility that John’s use of ‘the Logos’ without further qualification may indicate that, notwithstanding its extant occurrence only in the Johannine literature, the title was, in fact, current in Christian circles before John used it in his Gospel A Richardson notes that while Logos is invariably used in the prophetical books of the Old Testament to translate the phrase “the word of the Lord came”, perhaps significantly, in Luke 3:2 (rhema) is used, avoiding any confusion with Logos as a Christian terminus technicus. If, at the time of writing his Gospel, the Logos was already a recognised title of Jesus, this would certainly explain John’s unqualified use of the term.

b. The function of the term in John - G E Ladd helpfully distinguishes five elements in the function of the Title in John.

(i). Pre-existence - Ladd notes, “The idea of pre-existence was no invention of the evangelist, Paul expresses it clearly in his great incarnation hymn (Phil. 2:6, cf. Col 1:15ff.) and alludes to it in his earlier correspondence (1 Cor. 8:6, 2 Cor 8:9).” Kittel (TDNT) sees the term as emphasising pre-existence in the Prologue - the “became” (egeneto) of v14 is the point of transition. He sees the non-use of the term after this for anti-docetic reasons - There is now a man with creation, whereas John uses the Logos concept to bring God in Christ directly into his creation.”

(ii). Deity - John uses the Logos idea to assert the deity of Jesus (1:1f.). We do not get a teaching about God, but are confronted by God Himself. The evangelist means it literally when he calls the Logos, God. This is confirmed also by the conclusion of the Prologue (1:18 - “the only-begotten God”) and the conclusion of the Gospel when the believing Thomas says to the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (20:28). With this final, decisive witness the evangelist completes a circle and returns to his Prologue.

(iii). Creatorship - John declares that the Logos was the agent of creation (1:3, cf. 1:10). Cullmann notes that “we must not overlook the fact that the Gospel of John begins with the same words as the first book of the Old Testament.” In Greek Genesis begins with the identical words, in fact. “The evangelist gives a new Genesis account, now presented in the light of the Mediator of revelation: The Logos who appeared in the flesh as a human mediator is the same Logos who was already the Mediator of creation.” This connection is characteristic also of Paul’s thought (1Cor. 8:6, cf. also Col 1:16 and occurs also in Hebrews 1:2.

(iv). Incarnation - A Richardson comments that the startling originality of the Johannine Logos doctrine, differentiating it from the Sophia teaching of the Wisdom writers (to say nothing of the impersonal Logos of Philo and the Stoics) is contained in the simple, yet astounding assertion that “the Word became flesh” (1:14). The Logos was embodied. Philo and the Stoics could not have conceived this, but even if they had been able to conceive it Philo equates the Logos with the archetypal man in whose image the whole human race was made: John conceives the relation between the Logos and the human race soteriologically. Men are not in their own nature born of God, but those are so born who receive the Logos in his incarnate mission. These became a new humanity of which the Logos or Son of God is the source and pattern. As Cullmann observes, “The Logos is thus related to mankind, and to the new redeemed humanity in his own proper being: yet he is God not man, and his relationship with man is not a Platonic relationship of type and anti-type, but that of incarnation. Not only in the Prologue but constantly John insists on the fact that the Word became flesh.” Philo’s Logos has no distinct personality and there is in his thinking no suggestion that the Logos could become incarnate, an idea quite alien to Hellenistic thought in which matter is inherently evil Guthrie says of the Philonic Logos, “It can be regarded as a personification of an effective intermediary, although it was never personalised.” and Dunn concludes, “.. in the end of the day the Logos seems to be nothing more for Philo than God himself in his approach to man, God himself insofar as he may be known by man.”

(v). Revelation - The Logos has come in the flesh as revealer, to reveal to man life (1:4), light (1:4f.), grace (1:14), truth (1:14), glory (1:14), even God Himself (1:18). The Word - He has declared him (Exegesato = exegesis); With God - In the bosom of the Father; Was God - The only begotten God

c The Logos doctrine and Gnosticism - In Gnosticism the Logos is a mythological intermediary being between God and man, the Revealer and, as such, Redeemer. Gnosticism believed that the Logos became man temporarily, but only in a mythical and docetic sense. R Bultmann championed the view that the preparation for John’s Logos doctrine is to be found in a pre-Christian myth of the descent and ascent of the Redeemer, though Bultmann could only point to post-Christian texts for evidence of such a myth. For a detailed criticism, see E M Yamauchi, “Pre-Christian Gnosticism: A Survey of the Proposed Evidences”, Tyndale Press, London 1973. It may be noted, further, that the Logos concept by and large remained foreign to the Gnostic systems of thought.

d Jesus and the Logos doctrine - O Cullmann has suggested another line of thought in discussing the background to the term in John. He notes that the word of Jesus - the word he preached plays such an important part in John that it can hardly be assumed that the evangelist did not think also of this ‘word’ when in the Prologue he identified Jesus himself as the Logos. “In the Gospel of John a direct line leads from the theologically charged concept of the proclaimed word to the Logos who became flesh in Jesus. This is indeed the meaning of the Gospel: it intends to show that the total human life of Jesus is the centre of the revelation of divine truth". Cullmann acknowledges that this explanation is not enough by itself, but feels that it does indicate a line of though which ought not be ignored. B Klappert, however, cautions against this view, “Over against what is in point of fact a kenotic interpretation - i.e. one which eliminates the deity of Jesus - and a replacement of the Word becoming flesh by a notion of the flesh becoming word (R Bultmann, “Jesus in his pure humanity proclaims the eschatological word of God”), one must formulate in the sense of the Johannine Prologue - not a genuine man, commissioned with God’s eschatological call to decision, dwelt among us - but the Word, God Himself unconditional identify of the sarx or historical manifestation of Jesus with the external Word.”