John, the longest living of the twelve apostles, spent years thinking about the person and work of his dearest friend, Jesus. At the request of Jesus from the cross, John took Jesus’ mother, Mary, into “his own household.” (John 19:27)

John’s poetic image, the Word, is brilliant. The Greek word behind it is logos. It’s where we get our English word logic. God is the author of logic. God knows everything because He created everything there is to know. His logic, therefore, is reality. Jesus, the Word, is the living expression of God’s reality. Every word He speaks is truth.

By becoming flesh and dwelling among us, God, in the person of Jesus, became the solution to the brokenness of our physical world. Only in Jesus is faith “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

As the Word, Jesus is the glory of the Father realized in bodily form. He overrules our imitation reality with the light of heavenly truth. At the same time, John later describes Jesus’ humanity. He wept at the death of a friend. He fell asleep on a boat in a storm. He grew weary and thirsty enough to ask for water from the woman at the well. In all these instances, Jesus is as human as you and I. Yet through the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ earthly life is also the intersection of flesh and spirit.

In His triumph over physical death, Jesus allowed us to enter God’s spiritual realm while we are still in the flesh. This is the glory of “the only Son from the Father.” With “grace and truth,” Jesus stands as the living hope before our very eyes, wherein “we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!