Why is there a need for Word to become flesh as mentioned in John 1:14? What is the reason for Christ's incarnation and death?

John 1:14 [And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.]

John 1: 16-17 [For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. ]

John 1:14 tells us that the Word became flesh. The Word is God Himself. The Word became flesh to dispense God into us. Incarnation is for dispensing. If God had never become incarnated, He would have remained in His divinity, and there would have been no way for Him to dispense Himself into us. Incarnation was the initiation of the divine dispensing; it was the first step of God's dispensing of Himself into us. When God was incarnated, He came full of grace and reality. He did not come empty-handed.

Grace is God enjoyed by us. Reality is God gained by us. In the entire universe, nothing is real. Solomon told us that everything is vanity. Houses and cars are vanity; they are not reality. Only God gained by us is reality. In His incarnation God came to us full of grace and reality for us to receive.




John 1:29 [The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!]

John 19:34 [But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.]

After His incarnation, Christ lived on this earth for more than thirty years. Then He went to the cross and was crucified there. This was the second step of God's dispensing.

Fist, in His crucifixion, Christ as the Lamb of God first took away our sin.

Second, as the brass serpent, Christ destroyed Satan, the source of death and the ruler of this world.

Third, as the grain of wheat, Christ released the divine life within Him for the producing of the many believers by imparting, that is, dispensing, the divine life into them. By this He made all the believers His members and the many grains of wheat.

Many Christian do not realize that Christ's death, like His incarnation, was for His dispensing. He died on the cross to release His divine life for His dispensing.

At the cross, when the soldier pierced the side of Christ, blood and water came out. The blood symbolizes the redeeming aspect of Christ's all-inclusive death, and the water that came out of Christ symbolizes the life-imparting aspect of Christ's all-inclusive death. This one death did two works: it redeemed us from our sins, and it released the divine life of God into believers.

The death on the cross was the release of God and the termination of man and all negative things. In Christ's death God passed through death in man to be released, and man died in God to be terminated.

The cross is not only the center but also the circumference of God's holy building. The cross is implied in the gate, in the eating of the sacrifices, in the boiling houses, and in the tables on which the sacrifices are slain. Thus, the cross spreads in every direction and to every corner of God's building. If we wish to contact God and enjoy his riches in His house, we must pass through the cross.

Chapter twenty of the Gospel of John, tells us after His death, this Christ entered into resurrection, and in resurrection He changed His form and became a life-giving Spirit. In incarnation He changed His form from the form of God to the form of man. In resurrection, He as the last Adam changed His form again, from the form of the human flesh to the life-giving Spirit.

The word life-giving implies dispensing, because to give is to dispense. Christ as the life-giving Spirit is dispensing life as food to His believers. Within our physical food there is medicine; the nourishment in the food kills germs. Within Christ as the food there is the real "medicine" that kills all the spiritual germs.

On the night of His resurrection, the Lord came back to visit His believers. He did not give them a message of any teaching or instruction. He did only one thing: He breathed into them (John 20:22). By breathing into them, He breathed Himself into them. At that time Christ was the life-giving Spirit. Thus, by Christ's breathing, all the disciples received Him as the life-giving Spirit.



Reference: The Economy and Dispensing of God.

Why do Christians call on the name of the Lord?

There is the basis, definition, history, purpose and practice of calling on the Lord in the website below:

http://www.callingonthelord.org/index.html

I think it's a really good site to share with our friends who might be wondering why we call on the Lord so much. There is even a chart http://www.callingonthelord.org/basis/ot.html which lists all the instances in the Bible where people called on the Lord's name.


http://www.callingonthelord.org/basis/ot.html -- old testament
http://www.callingonthelord.org/basis/nt.html -- new testament

Praise the Lord for such a simple way, we can turn to Him just by calling on His precious name. O Lord Jesus! :)