And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth, John 1:14.
There are few passages in the word of God that can demonstrate two things better. First, the word "made" is universally hated. Even the New King James Bible, which ostensibly was written to take out those annoying "thees and thous" changed that word to "became". The second thing that it illustrates is just how many people in the King James only movement have not profited from their stand. They hold a King James Bible but cling to old Protestant ideas.
It is difficult for me to imagine that the nature of the Godhead could ever be more clearly manifest than it is in the Pure Cambridge Text of the King James Bible. I have spent time on this blog showing that the Father is obscured in the new bibles. The Holy Ghost is blended back into the far more generic word "spirit" to obscure him as a distinct person, and the nature of Jesus Christ is under attack. The Jesus Christ of scripture is more clearly manifest in the Pure Cambridge Text than the Oxford. Just compare Mark 1:12 and I John 5:8.
Capitals really do matter. If I were to write of the Father as the father, people would rightly complain. That the Pure Cambridge Text distinguishes the personal spirit of Jesus Christ as Jehovah God in contrast to the third member of the trinity in Genesis 6:3 (After all, Jesus is the Lord) escapes most readers. It does so using upper case and lower case "S"s. Since the Pulpit Commentary didn't mention that, and you can't find it in David Cloud's (a very good man) writings, you are afraid to consider it.
Nevertheless, it is time for bible believers to press on forward. The unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ will not be exhausted during our lifetimes, nor at any time in eternity. A thousand trillion years from now, we will still be learning. You might as well get started now.
The new bibles which lock arms in rejecting the King James Bible reading of John 1:14, do so for a specific reason. To take "made flesh" literally would be to believe that the "Word" was made flesh. In other words, when you held onto the flesh of Jesus Christ, you were holding that which was from the beginning. Typical Protestant theology is far more comfortable with thinking that the Word was clothed with flesh.
Keep in mind, the thought that someone actually touching the flesh of Jesus Christ might be actually touching something eternal, was not offensive to the Apostle John. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, I John 1:1. Just what part of Jesus was John touching? Was he touching his spirit? Was he touching his soul? No, he was touching a ruddy old Jew who had no form nor comeliness that would make people desire him.
When he touched that flesh, he said that he was touching something that had been from the beginning. That is exactly what he was saying when he said, and the Word was made flesh. The flesh is the Word, the Word is the flesh. This was the message taught by Servitus and the Anabaptists. John Calvin hated it and said so. "And in the present day, Servetus and the Anabaptists invent a Christ who is confusedly compounded of two natures, as if he were a Divine man. In words, indeed, he acknowledges that Christ is God; but if you admit his raving imaginations, the Divinity is at one time changed into human nature, and at another time, the nature of man is swallowed up by the Divinity" (from Calvin's Commentary on John 1:14.)
What did Servetus teach? He taught what the true church (Baptist) had always taught. He taught that the flesh of Jesus Christ was God. This should put to rest that oft mentioned claim that Servetus was a Unitarian. He was not. His belief on the deity of Jesus Christ lined up perfectly with the word of God. Servetus did have stated trouble in seeing that the term "Spirit" always referred to the third person of the trinity. That's why the charge against him against him was Denying the Trinity.
That is why the King James Translators along with all translators of Germanic languages use the term Holy Ghost when directly referring to the third person of the trinity, and use the term "Spirit" or "spirit" when referring to the spirit or Spirit of a person of the trinity. Readers of Protestant commentaries will never get that straight, but a person carefully logging every occasion that the terms are used will see it quickly. Nevertheless, Servetus burned for what the King James translators would later make clear.
Calvin's apologists make the claim that Calvin didn't burn Servetus, or any of the unnamed anabaptists who likewise perished. Likewise, the Catholic Church never killed anyone. They always let the secular authorities do it. Their hands were clean. Geneva was a theological Republic and Calvin was the chief theologian there. Calvin had previously stated that Servetus would burn if he ever came to Geneva, and burn he did.
What did Calvin believe? "It follows that Christ, when he became man, did not cease to be what he formerly was, and that no change took place in that eternal essence of God which was clothed with flesh", (Calvin's Commentary John 1:14.) "Clothed with flesh", that is far different than made flesh. In Calvin's theology, it was impossible and even worthy of death to think that if you touched the flesh of Jesus Christ, you were touching the eternal God. He thought you were touching the container in which the eternal God was kept.
The Apostle Paul weighed in on that, and fortunately for him, out of the reach of John Calvin. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Colossians 2: 8,9. What is meant by "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily"? Paul already explained that in Colossians 1: 18,19; And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.
The Father made a choice about the flesh of Jesus Christ. The spirit of Jesus Christ is the spirit of Jehovah (Genesis 6:3, Job 26:13). The soul of Jesus Christ is eternal. The flesh is composed of each member of the Godhead (and yes, you Jesus only people, there really are three persons). That was the Father's decision. Jesus acknowledged that twice in John 14. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? John 14:9. What did Phillip see, the spirit, the soul, or the body?
The verses that get far less recognition are later in the same chapter when Jesus Christ also claims to be the Comforter. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you, John 14: 16-18. He plainly says that he is currently dwelling with them, but later he will dwell in them as the Comforter. How can that be? His flesh is the fullness of the Godhead. The Father chose that everything that God is, should be made flesh.
John was so convinced of this that when Jesus died, he called it the death of God. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, I John 3:16. That idea troubles many, but that is because they don't understand what death is. Death in the bible is separation. To have your flesh separated from your spirit, is physical death; For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also, James 2:26. To be separated from God is spiritual death; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, Genesis 2:17. The flesh of Jesus Christ was separated from his body and hence he died physically, and the soul of Jesus Christ was made an offering for sin and separated from God, hence a spiritual death. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? Psalms 22:1.
Peter was so convinced of the deity of the flesh of Jesus Christ, that when he spoke in Acts 2: 31, He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. If you look back to when he quoted Psalms 16 just prior in Acts 2:27, he interpreted the phrase Holy One as the flesh of Jesus Christ lying in the tomb without the soul or spirit. The Psalm had said, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption, vs. 27. Peter told you that his flesh was the Holy One. Are there many names in the Book of Isaiah more holy and indicative of God than the Holy One?
No wonder the psalmist said, When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell, Psalms 27:2. Can you imagine when the armies of amoeba, ants, maggots and the like came to defile that body, and discovered that it was the Holy One and that they could not corrupt it? I know that it was impossible that he should be holden of death, but if he had tarried a thousand years, the Holy One would have slumbered in holiness awaiting his flesh to be quickened by the return of his soul and spirit.
The Word was made flesh. When everyone universally changes a verse, you can be sure the devil hates it. Why? Because the very nature of the death of Jesus Christ is changed in the new versions. Jesus Christ who is God becomes separated from his body and from the Father. In the King James Bible, God dies when Jesus dies. This is pictured in the Book of Leviticus when the priest takes the poor man's offering, a turtledove and wrings its head off. The Godhead is torn apart. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar, Leviticus 1:15. The Godhead is torn asunder at the cross. In the new versions, the shell in which God cloaked himself dies.