John 1:14
Jesus in the Flesh
The Evangelist shows what was that coming of Christ which he had mentioned; namely, that having been clothed with our flesh, he showed himself openly to the world. Although the Evangelist touches briefly the unutterable mystery that the Son of God was clothed with human nature, yet this brevity is wonderfully perspicuous. The word “flesh” expresses the meaning of the Evangelist more forcibly than if he had said that he was made man. He intended to show to what a mean and despicable condition the Son of God, on our account, descended from the height of his heavenly glory. When Scripture speaks of man contemptuously, it calls him flesh.
Now, though there be so wide a distance between the spiritual glory of the Speech of God and the abominable filth of our flesh, yet the Son of God stooped so low as to take upon himself that flesh, subject to so many miseries. The word “flesh” is not taken here for corrupt nature (as it is often used by Paul) but for mortal man, though it marks disdainfully his frail and perishing nature, as in these and similar passages; for he remembered that they were flesh (Ps 78:39) and that all flesh is grass (Isaiah 40:6).
Readings taken from Day by Day With John Calvin
Jesus in the Flesh
The Evangelist shows what was that coming of Christ which he had mentioned; namely, that having been clothed with our flesh, he showed himself openly to the world. Although the Evangelist touches briefly the unutterable mystery that the Son of God was clothed with human nature, yet this brevity is wonderfully perspicuous. The word “flesh” expresses the meaning of the Evangelist more forcibly than if he had said that he was made man. He intended to show to what a mean and despicable condition the Son of God, on our account, descended from the height of his heavenly glory. When Scripture speaks of man contemptuously, it calls him flesh.
Now, though there be so wide a distance between the spiritual glory of the Speech of God and the abominable filth of our flesh, yet the Son of God stooped so low as to take upon himself that flesh, subject to so many miseries. The word “flesh” is not taken here for corrupt nature (as it is often used by Paul) but for mortal man, though it marks disdainfully his frail and perishing nature, as in these and similar passages; for he remembered that they were flesh (Ps 78:39) and that all flesh is grass (Isaiah 40:6).
Readings taken from Day by Day With John Calvin
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