Let us start working on this in John the first chapter, verses 1 through 5 and then we will jump down to verse 14. All of these holy days, all these feasts point to Christ and something greater than the idea expressed in the physical thing that is the basis for the symbol or the type. So when we get here to Tabernacles, we are going far beyond the idea of a tent or a temporary dwelling of some sort into a more permanent abode.
This is a well-known passage. We can probably quote parts of it because we have heard it so often. But it actually has a very deep connection to our subject but we cannot see it in our English translation.
Now the connection appears in verse 14, and it is in the verb dwell or dwelt, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the Greek (here I go trying to pronounce Greek again) the word is esk&275;noo. It is Strong's number 4637 if you care to look it up. It is the verb form of a more well-known word, sk&275;n&275;. And that word means tent or tabernacle. So, if we were to translate this verse literally, it would say the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
The verb esk&275;noo implies pitching a tent (not pitching a fit). Or it can imply settling into a space or a place or to take up residence. So what we are being told here by John is that when Jesus came as a man, He took up residence with us, among us. He dwelt, He really came. God came! He came in flesh, and He decided He wanted to live with us - and He did.
Now John's purpose in using this word is to emphasize that the Word really became human. He really was human. He was not some phantom, not some double-natured thing where there was Jesus on one hand and the Christ on another, like the Docetists said where Jesus was the one that died up on the cross, but Christ escaped before He could die. And all these weird ideas that people have had.
He was telling us that Jesus was a human being. He had God's nature, so He truly was God, but He was like us. He tabernacled with us. He lived our lives with us; He did a lot better than we did. But He was there living life under the same conditions that we live life.
And so He dwelt among us. He was really human, not just flesh and blood, but also living as we do.
It is an allusion, this word esk&275;noo, to the Tabernacle in the wilderness where God, the same One, the Word, dwelt among the Israelites for 40 years. He dwelt in a tabernacle. That was His home. That was His throne, a temporary tabernacle, a dwelling made of cloth and badger skins and over frames and all that, able to be assembled or dismantled in short order as needed for them to journey.
But He decided that was not good enough. That was not close enough. That was not real enough to people, so He decided with God's input, obviously, They decided that His dwelling with humanity in a physical body would be more personal and relatable than it was in the wilderness in a tabernacle.
So instead of a tent, He clothed Himself with flesh. And that was His tabernacle, if you will.
Now the apostle then testifies in the rest of verse 14 that we beheld His glory. The glory is described in two ways. First, the glory of being the only begotten of the Father. He was unique. He was the Son, the beloved Son of the Father. And second, the glory of grace and truth that they could see and hear. It came from Him all the time, His every action was a college course, a master's course in living a human life perfectly.
And they beheld that glory day after day for three and a half years. I am talking about the disciples, but anybody who would see Him saw the expression of His glory in terms of the way He acted and spoke. In other words, He displayed His glory as divine, He was the divine Son of God, and it manifested as full of grace. That is, full of lovingkindness and covenantal love that He showed to everybody. And also full of truth.
And that phrase, using those two words, grace and truth, or lovingkindness and truth, … . . .
Let that set the stage for the subject of this sermon. Jesus Christ was seen - He was seen in the flesh. This was no ordinary human being! It was God that people beheld. Now go back to verse 10, talking about the Word:
The people in His day and age saw Him. Did they believe? Did they see God in the flesh walking with them? Teaching them? Giving them the eternal truths of life? Showing them how to live, the way to live - both by word and by example? Were they just so overwhelmed by the awe of knowing that this was God? He even proclaimed Himself as being such! Were they so overwhelmed that they said, Yes, I see. I believe. I'm going to follow. No. The Bible's own witness is that they did not know Him, even though they saw Him.
Just because one sees does not mean that one is going to believe. That is because, in the biblical sense, there is a spiritual aspect to seeing and believing. The scripture here indicates that there was not even a flash of recognition as to His true identity.
Now look at Jesus Christ for just a minute in your mind's eye. The most unique Personality that ever lived in the history of mankind! A one of a kind. The only human being who ever lived life sinlessly. And, yet, He could not be identified even by those who saw Him. He was not recognized when God was in the flesh and sharing life with the people of His generation.
All of this seems to indicate that one has to be predisposed to receive this belief - this ability to see. It is interesting, in the context of verses 12 and 13 especially, that those who exercised this faith…
That is, to enter into a relationship with God that results in nothing less than the creation of a new being.
Here is where we stand. We cannot read Hebrew. And we are not so conversant with God (as Moses was) that we can even see His hinder parts and have Him speak to us face to face. But we do stand in the position of having God revealed to us by His Son, Jesus Christ. Now, how has He done that?
What did Exodus 33 and 34 say the glory of God is? It is the revelation of His nature. Certainly there is glory in a revelation of His power and majesty - if He should choose to do it in person. But, to you and me, that is not what He is interested in. He is interested in our understanding His nature - that we are conversant with it, that we perceive it, that we understand it, that we can act wisely upon it, and that we can call upon God because we understand His nature.
The glory of God has been declared in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, did Jesus Christ come radiating beauty all over the place? Was there a heavenly aura about Him, a halo over His head? Did He glow like burnished bronze everywhere that He went, so that everybody could point out and say, Hey, there goes God!? No, He did not do that. He revealed the glory of God by what He did and by what He said. And much of what He said is recorded in this Book for you and me.
Both Paul and Peter refer to their bodies as tents. They use this symbolism to describe the temporariness of human life (II Peter 1:13-14; II Corinthians 5:1, 4). Like dwellings of branches, our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made. They are full of life at the start, but eventually they wear out because the physical creation has been subjected to futility.
Even the Word of God, who was and is God, took on this tent of flesh to tabernacle with mankind (John 1:14). He not only tabernacled with His creation, which He had already done with Israel, but this time He tabernacled as His creation tabernacles. He took on the very same temporary form. It is a truly remarkable thing.
