If you attended a church service on Christmas Eve, you likely heard John 1:14, which begins, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”
And if you heard a sermon on this verse, you likely learned that John is referring to Jesus as “The Word.” In doing so, John is saying that Jesus is the word, the speech, the statement, the communication, or more broadly, the revelation of God. Jesus reveals God.
We need God to speak… If we are to know him. If we are to know how to relate to him. If we are to know how to find favor with him. If he is to work among us.
And John points at Jesus and says, “This is the Word of God.” Jesus is the greatest revelation of God. God speaks to us through both Jesus’ words and his life, death, and resurrection. All of this is a message, a kind of speech from God, to us.
Consider a few implications of this. First, God is a speaking God. He speaks in ways we can comprehend, uses human language to reveal himself to us.
Second, God can be known. It sometimes can seem humble to take the agnostic position, claim that we can’t really know what God is like, and that we shouldn’t try to figure it out.
But that’s not humble or wise if God has provided a way for us to know him. We can know him. Not completely, not perfectly. But what he has revealed, we can know confidently.
Third, God wants to be known. It’s not just that the opportunity to know him is there if we so wish; God calls us to seek him, over and over again. Jesus says, “Seek and you will find.” James writes, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” The author of Hebrews says that God “rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
God wants to be known by us.
And then lastly, we can trust God’s revelation of himself. Think about it: If God is a speaking God and not only can be known, but wants to be known, surely he will provide a trustworthy, truthful revelation of himself.
And this is what we have in Jesus, the Word of God. And that is also what we have in our Bibles, the Word of God.