The Six Most Outrageous Words Ever Written
“The Word became flesh.”
Six words. Twenty-six Greek words in the full verse. And with them, John makes the most extraordinary claim in the history of human thought.1
Every major civilization has a concept of God. The Greeks had their pantheon—gods who meddled with humans but would never become one. The Romans deified their emperors after death, moving upward, never downward. Islam insists on a God so transcendent that any suggestion of incarnation borders on blasphemy. Hinduism speaks of avatars—appearances, projections, costumes a deity wears and then removes. Buddhism has no creator God at all.
Christianity stands alone. Not because it claims God appeared as human—that’s Docetism, and the Church condemned it. Not because it claims God inhabited a human body like a driver in a vehicle—that’s Nestorianism, and the Church condemned that too. Not because divine and human natures blended into some third thing, neither fully God nor fully man—that’s Eutychianism, and the Church condemned that as well.
Christianity claims that the eternal, infinite, self-existent God became a human being. Not appeared as one. Not pretended. Not temporarily borrowed a body. Became flesh. Permanently. Irreversibly. Without ceasing to be God.
If this is true, it changes everything. It means God is not distant. Suffering is not meaningless. Death is not final. And the invisible, unapproachable Creator of the universe has a human face.
If it’s false, Christianity collapses. There is no middle ground.
John knew the weight of what he was writing. He chose every word with surgical precision—Greek words loaded with Old Testament imagery, theological implications, and philosophical depth. Most English readers glide right past them. We’re going to slow down, crack open each phrase, and see what John actually said.
Because John 1:14 is not just a verse. It’s the hinge of all reality.
“And the Word became 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, NKJV)
“The Word Became Flesh” — Egeneto Sarx
Start with the verb: “egeneto”Greek“ἐγένετο”“egeneto”“verb,“became,—“became.”
This is an aorist tense verb in Greek. It marks a specific, historical event—a point in time when something happened that had not happened before. And John sets it up with devastating precision. Go back to verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word.” The verb there is “ēn”Greek“ἦν”“ēn”“verb,“was—the imperfect tense of “to be.” It means the Word already existed. There was never a time when the Word was not. Ēn stretches backward without limit, beyond time, beyond creation, into eternity.
Now verse 14: egeneto. The eternal ēn meets the temporal egeneto. The One who always was now became something He had not been before. Eternity intersected history. The uncreated entered the created. The timeless stepped into time.
And what did He become? Not sōma—body. Not anthrōpos—man. John chose “sarx”Greek“σάρξ”“sarx”“noun,“flesh—flesh. It is the most vulnerable, fragile, mortal word available in the Greek language for human existence. Sarx is human nature in its weakness, its frailty, its limitation. It’s the word for the stuff that gets tired, that bleeds, that hungers, that dies.
John did not soften the scandal. He intensified it.
Sarx does not imply sinfulness here—the Word took on genuine human nature without taking on a sinful nature (Hebrews 4:15). But it does mean the incarnation is not cosmetic. God didn’t dress up in a human suit. He assumed a complete human nature—body, soul, mind, will. He experienced hunger in the wilderness. Thirst on the cross. Fatigue at Jacob’s well. Grief at Lazarus’s tomb. The full catastrophe of finite, mortal, embodied life.
The early Church spent four centuries working out the implications, and the result was the Chalcedonian Definition of 451 AD2—one of the most carefully constructed sentences in the history of theology. The Council declared that Christ exists in two natures, divine and human, united in one person:
“Without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Four guardrails around one unfathomable mystery3. Without confusion—the natures don’t blend into something new (against Eutyches). Without change—neither nature is altered by the union (against Apollinaris). Without division—you can’t split Christ into two persons (against Nestorius). Without separation—the natures are permanently united; the incarnation is forever.
The Chalcedonian fathers weren’t trying to explain the mystery. They were building a fence around it—telling you where the cliff edges are, so you don’t fall off into heresy while trying to peer into the abyss. The mystery itself remains. And it begins with two Greek words: egeneto sarx. He became flesh.
The Word “became” flesh — not appeared as flesh, not inhabited flesh, but became it. The aorist verb egeneto marks a specific moment when the eternal God entered time and took on genuine, vulnerable, mortal humanity — permanently and irreversibly, without ceasing to be God.
“And Dwelt Among Us” — Eskēnōsen
Here is where most readers miss the earthquake.
English Bibles translate “eskēnōsen”Greek“ἐσκήνωσεν”“eskēnōsen”“verb,“tabernacled, as “dwelt.” Perfectly accurate. Perfectly inadequate. Because the Greek word is skēnoō, and it means “to pitch a tent”—to tabernacle. If you’ve read Exodus, that word should stop you cold.
Go back to the wilderness. Israel has just been delivered from Egypt. They’re camped at the foot of Sinai. And God gives Moses one of the most astonishing commands in all of Scripture:
“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8, NKJV)
The God who made galaxies wants to live next door. Not in heaven, looking down. Not on a mountain, unapproachable. In a tent. In the middle of the camp. Among His people.
So Moses builds the tabernacle—the “mishkan”Hebrew“מִשְׁכָּן”“mishkan”“noun,“tabernacle,—according to exact specifications. And when it’s finished, something happens that must have been absolutely terrifying:
“Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” (Exodus 40:34–35, NKJV)
The glory was so intense, so heavy, so real, that Moses—the man who had spoken with God face to face—could not walk through the door. The presence of the living God filled that tent like a furnace fills a room with heat.
Now listen to the linguistic connection. The Hebrew word mishkan (tabernacle) comes from the root “shakan”Hebrew“שָׁכַן”“shakan”“verb”“to—“to dwell.” From that same root comes the word “Shekinah”Hebrew“שְׁכִינָה”“Shekinah”“noun,“the, the rabbinic term for God’s manifest, visible, dwelling presence among His people. The Shekinah glory was the cloud by day and the fire by night. It was the blinding radiance that filled the Holy of Holies. It was God here—not just God there.
And John, writing in Greek, reaches for skēnoō—a word that sounds almost identical to the Hebrew shakan. This is not a coincidence. John is a Jewish theologian writing for readers steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures. He is saying: that glory—the Shekinah, the presence that filled the tabernacle so powerfully that Moses couldn’t enter—has now taken up residence in human flesh.
Jesus is the tabernacle.
God didn’t just visit. He moved in. He pitched His tent in our campground.
But the parallel runs even deeper than that. Biblical scholars have long noted the structural connections between Genesis 1 and Exodus 39–404—between the creation of the world and the construction of the tabernacle. The parallels are too precise to be accidental:
Genesis 1:31 —“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”
Exodus 39:43 —“Then Moses looked over all the work, and indeed they had done it.”
Genesis 2:1 —“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.”
Exodus 39:32 —“Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished.”
Genesis 2:2 —“And on the seventh day God ended His work.”
Exodus 40:33 —“So Moses finished the work.”
Genesis 2:3 —“Then God blessed the seventh day.”
Exodus 39:43 —“And Moses blessed them.”
The tabernacle is a new creation. A micro-cosmos. The place where heaven and earth overlap, where the Creator dwells with His creatures, where everything is ordered and whole and very good. It’s Eden rebuilt as a tent in the desert.
And now John opens his Gospel the same way Genesis opens the Bible: “In the beginning.” He tells us the Word was with God, the Word was God, and through Him all things were made—echoing Genesis 1. Then in verse 14, he tells us the Word tabernacled among us—echoing Exodus 40.
Creation. Tabernacle. Incarnation. One continuous thread. God making His dwelling with humanity. Each time closer. Each time more intimate. First, He walks in the garden in the cool of the day. Then He fills a tent in the wilderness. Now He takes on flesh and blood and walks the roads of Galilee, eating fish, washing feet, weeping at graves.
The tabernacle in the wilderness was temporary—a tent, not a temple, designed to be dismantled and carried forward. In one sense, the incarnation entered time the same way—the eternal Son took on temporal existence. But here is the staggering difference: unlike the tent, the incarnation is permanent. Jesus didn’t shed His humanity after the resurrection. He ascended bodily5. He remains incarnate now, at the right hand of the Father, in a glorified but genuinely human body. The tent has been pitched forever. God will never un-become what He became.
That is what eskēnōsen means. Not just “dwelt.” Tabernacled. And if you have ears to hear Exodus in the background, the word reverberates like thunder.
When John says the Word “dwelt” among us, he uses a Greek verb meaning “to pitch a tent” — a direct echo of God’s presence filling the tabernacle in Exodus. Jesus is the new tabernacle: God’s dwelling with humanity made permanent and personal in human flesh.
“We Beheld His Glory” — Etheasametha tēn Doxan Autou
“We beheld His glory.”
The verb “theaomai”Greek“θεάομαι”“theaomai”“verb”“to is not a glance. It’s not a passing look. It’s sustained, deliberate, wonder-filled observation—the kind of seeing that changes the one who sees. The apostles are saying: we looked long and hard, and what we saw was the glory of God in a human face.
The word “glory”—“doxa”Greek“δόξα”“doxa”“noun,“glory,—translates the Hebrew “kabod”Hebrew“כָּבוֹד”“kabod”“noun,“glory,, which carries the root meaning of “weight” or “heaviness.” God’s glory is His manifest splendor, the radiant display of His character and presence. It’s the thing Moses begged to see:
“Please, show me Your glory.” (Exodus 33:18, NKJV)
And God answered: “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). So God hid Moses in the cleft of a rock and passed by, showing him only His back. Even that partial glimpse left Moses’s face shining so intensely that the Israelites were afraid to look at him.
Isaiah saw the glory fill the temple (Isaiah 6:1–4). His response was not worship—not initially. It was terror: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). The glory of God does not leave you feeling inspired. It leaves you feeling exposed.
And now John says: we saw it. In a carpenter from Nazareth. In a man who got tired, got hungry, got angry in the temple, and wept outside a tomb.
Where did they see this glory? At the Transfiguration—when the veil was momentarily pulled back on a mountain, and Peter, James, and John saw Christ’s face shine like the sun and His clothes become white as light (Matthew 17:1–8). In the miracles—John tells us explicitly that at the wedding in Cana, Jesus “manifested His glory” (John 2:11). In His teaching, His authority, His compassion, His character—the everyday revelation of a life lived in perfect union with the Father.
And finally, supremely, at the resurrection—when Thomas fell to his knees before the risen Christ and uttered the highest Christological confession in the New Testament: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
“The glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” The word “monogenēs”Greek“μονογενής”“monogenēs”“adjective”“one-of-a-kind, does not mean “begotten” in the sense of “created” or “produced.” It means unique, one-of-a-kind. The Son is not a created being. He is the unique, eternal Son—the only one who stands in this relationship to the Father. There are no others like Him. He alone is the Son in this way.
“Full of Grace and Truth” — Plērēs Charitos kai Alētheias
“Full.”
The word “plērēs”Greek“πλήρης”“plērēs”“adjective”“full, means complete, lacking nothing. Not partially gracious. Not somewhat truthful. Full—brimming, overflowing, with no room left for anything else. Grace and truth saturate Him the way light saturates the sun.
“charis”Greek“χάρις”“charis”“noun,“grace,—grace—is one of the great words of the New Testament. Unmerited favor. Unearned kindness. The disposition of God toward people who deserve the opposite. And John amplifies it in verse 16: “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace”—charin anti charitos. The preposition anti here means “in place of” or “upon.” One grace replacing another. Wave after wave after wave. Not a single act of grace, but an inexhaustible ocean—every grace you’ve received being replaced by a new one before the first has finished arriving.
“alētheia”Greek“ἀλήθεια”“alētheia”“noun,“truth,—truth—is not mere factual accuracy, though it includes that. In the Greek philosophical tradition, alētheia means “unconcealedness”—reality as it actually is, stripped of illusion and pretense. In the Hebrew background, the corresponding word is “’emet”Hebrew“אֱמֶת”“’emet”“noun,“truth,—faithfulness, reliability, the quality of being utterly dependable. Jesus is both: He reveals reality as it is, and He is completely trustworthy in doing so.
Grace and truth. Together. This is the genius of the incarnation—and the thing every human institution gets wrong.
Grace without truth is sentimentalism. It tolerates sin because confrontation feels unloving. It smiles and affirms and never says the hard word. It is a doctor who sees the tumor on the scan and says, “You look great.”
Truth without grace is brutality. It speaks accurately and wounds indiscriminately. It is right about everything and kind about nothing. It is a doctor who reads you the diagnosis while you’re still on the table and walks out.
Jesus held both without tension. He told the Samaritan woman the truth about her life—five husbands and the man she was living with now—while offering her living water that would satisfy her forever (John 4). He ate with tax collectors and sinners—grace—while calling them to repentance—truth. He forgave the woman caught in adultery—grace—and told her, “Go and sin no more”—truth. Neither impulse compromised the other. In Him, perfect mercy and perfect holiness met and were not in conflict.
Verse 17 draws the line from Moses to Christ:
“For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17, NKJV)
John is not disparaging Moses. The Law was good, holy, and from God (Romans 7:12). But it was preparatory. Shadow, not substance. Demand, not provision. The Law reveals sin—it holds up the mirror and shows you what you look like. Grace heals what the mirror exposes. The Law says, “You must.” Grace says, “It is finished.”
And then verse 18—the capstone:
“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” (John 1:18, NKJV)
That verb “declared”—“exēgēsato”Greek“ἐξηγήσατο”“exēgēsato”“verb,“declared,—is the root of our English word “exegesis.” Exegesis is the act of drawing meaning out of a text, explaining what it actually says. John’s claim is staggering: Jesus is God’s self-interpretation. He is the exegesis of the Father. He didn’t just bring a message from God. He is the message. If you want to know what God is like—His character, His heart, His disposition toward sinners—look at Jesus. You’re looking at the explanation.
In Jesus, grace and truth are not in tension but perfectly united. Grace without truth is sentimentalism; truth without grace is brutality. The incarnate Word holds both fully — offering unmerited favor while revealing reality as it actually is.
Why This Verse Changes Everything
The incarnation is not a doctrine you affirm once and file away. It is the hinge on which all reality turns.
If the Word really became flesh, then suffering is not a philosophical problem to be solved from a distance—it has been entered by God Himself. He knows what it is to be hungry, abandoned, mocked, beaten, and killed. The God who permits suffering is not watching from a safe distance. He walked into the fire.
If the Word really became flesh, then death has been conquered from the inside. Not by divine fiat from heaven, but by a God who died a human death and came out the other side. The tomb is empty. The tent is still pitched.
If the Word really became flesh, then human nature has been dignified beyond imagination. God didn’t redeem humanity by discarding the physical world—He redeemed it by entering it. Bodies matter. Dirt matters. Bread, wine, water, tears—they matter. The material world is not a prison to escape. It is the arena God chose to inhabit.
And if the Word really became flesh, then the invisible God has made Himself visible, touchable, knowable. You don’t have to ascend to heaven to find Him. You don’t have to achieve mystical enlightenment. You don’t have to earn your way past the cherubim with the flaming sword. The tabernacle has been pitched. The glory is here. The flap is open.
John records Jesus’s first words to His first disciples. They asked Him, “Where are You staying?” He answered:
“Come and see.” (John 1:39, NKJV)
The invitation still stands.
The incarnation is not a doctrine to file away — it is the hinge of all reality. Because the Word became flesh, suffering has been entered by God Himself, death has been conquered from the inside, human nature has been eternally dignified, and the invisible God has made Himself visible, touchable, and knowable.
This article is part of our John 1 Deep Dive series. For a verse-by-verse exegesis, see John 1: A Complete Deep Dive. For a study of the Greek vocabulary, see 27 Greek Words That Change How You Read John 1. For the historical world behind the text, see The World That Heard “In the Beginning”.
This article is part of our John 1 Deep Dive series. For the Greek vocabulary behind John 1:14, see 27 Greek Words That Change How You Read John 1. For the historical world this verse exploded into, see The World That Heard ‘In the Beginning’.
