The words we choose to speak are important. When someone sends us a text message and we have to decipher whether they are being serious or sarcastic, we see the importance of our words. Any person who has said and meant one thing but been interpreted to mean another sees the importance of words. An author has the power to string together words that create an entirely new world in the minds of readers but also equally has the power to put people to sleep with their choice of words. 

 Words are also important because of what they communicate. Words communicate identity. Through the words people use, we learn about their likes and dislikes, their wants and needs, and their history and experiences. 

Words communicate desires. How do you know what your spouse desires? How do you know what your boss expects or doesn’t expect from you? Hopefully, you know some of these things because your spouse and your boss use words to communicate their desires. 

Words cause things to happen. If you want something to happen, someone to do something, or stop doing something, you use words to cause it to happen. Has your spouse ever gotten mad at you for not doing something they never told you to do? They expected things to happen without ever using words to communicate that desire. 

Words are not only crucial for human communication, but they are also important regarding God’s communication. We only know things about God because of God’s self-revelation. We could not know anything about God unless God first revealed it to us. God is not some fossil or rare animal species we could ever accidentally stumble across. 

One of the ways God reveals things about himself is through speech. Throughout Scripture, God is presented as a God who speaks. In Genesis 1, God speaks, and the universe is created. In Exodus 3, God speaks to Moses through the burning bush, naming himself Yahweh and calling Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. God speaks at Mt. Saini, setting Israel apart as his chosen people to be a light to the nations. God speaks through the prophets, calling Israel to treat the poor, widow, and orphan correctly and to leave behind their worship of idols. 

God reveals himself through speech. The most significant speech-act of God is when God spoke through the incarnation of Jesus. 

In John 1:1–18, Jesus is called the “Word.” The incarnation of Jesus is a speech-act of God. The significance of Jesus being God’s Word is not so much that God speaks to us through Jesus’s words, though he does, but that in Jesus, God’s Word has “become flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). The Word of God is not merely a spoken word but a living Word—a Word that “moved into the neighborhood” (The Message).

Jesus, as the Word of God, reveals things to us about God as only words can. 

God’s speaking in Jesus causes things to happen. When John speaks about Jesus as the Word, he twice uses the phrase “in the beginning” (John 1:1, 2), taking the reader back to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” John says that in Jesus, God is bringing about a new beginning, the start of the new creation. He says that Jesus is “life” (John 1:4). In the same way that in the original creation God breathed life into humanity (Gen 2:7), through the incarnation of Jesus, God is bringing about new and eternal life (cf. John 20:30–31; 2 Cor 5:17). Perhaps the most substantial statement by John is, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (NIV). The phrase “made his dwelling” is literally that Jesus “pitched his tent” or “tabernacled among us.” The construction of the creation account in Genesis 1 presents the universe as God’s cosmic temple. God intended to dwell within his creation as a god dwells in a temple. The problem is that sin fractured this relationship. John tells us that in Jesus, God has come to dwell with his creation once again, making the universe his temple. When God speaks, things happen. 

God’s speaking in Jesus reveals his desires. John says that Jesus is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). We can think of truth as God’s desire for our lives. The life God created and designed for us to live in relationship with God, others, and the creation. However, since God chose not to reveal this truth through stated words (i.e., rules and laws) but through the incarnated Word, we see this truth in action. Jesus, as a human being who lived in perfect harmony with God, others, and the creation, gives us an image to imitate. We can then think of grace as God’s desire to save. God desired to offer us grace and salvation so much that he became a human being and went to a cross. 

God’s speaking in Jesus reveals his identity. Behind the concept of Jesus as the Word (gk. logos) is likely the Old Testament wisdom tradition. In Proverbs, God’s wisdom is personified as a woman (cf. Proverbs 1–9). In Proverbs, lady wisdom was with God in the beginning and created and interacts with the world. We can define wisdom as the ability to apply truth to real-life situations. It is one thing to discover truth in Jesus, but it is something entirely different to apply that truth to the real world. This is perhaps the greatest significance of the fact that God chose to reveal truth not through spoken word but through incarnated Word. In the incarnation, we see God’s truth in action in the real world as the very Wisdom of God. We get to ask the question, “What would Jesus do?”

So, as we celebrate the Christmas season and consider the birth and incarnation of Jesus, let’s remember that Jesus’s birth was the birth of God’s Word. Jesus is the ultimate speech-act of God that reveals God’s identity, desires, and ultimately, through which God causes amazing things to happen. “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (The Message). 

By: Spencer Shaw

---