What it means that Jesus is the embodiment of the way, the truth and the life – John 14:1-14, Part 3

Jesus has just told his disciples, in so many words, “If you don’t feel like you are at home with God, or that God is at home with you, and you don’t feel that closeness with God, you know the way to get there.” 

Immediately Thomas responds in verse 5. 

“Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’”

I love the honesty of Thomas’ question.  Jesus has said, “You know the way to my home,” and Thomas says, “No we don’t!” 

Maybe they should have known.  Jesus certainly had tried many times before that evening to help them understand.  Maybe the others knew what Jesus’ meant, and Thomas was just a bit thick in the skull.  I doubt it though.  It seems more likely to me that what Jesus talked about going to his father’s home, they thought, “Is he saying he wants to go back to Nazareth, to his father’s house?” 

I suspect that everything Jesus said in verses 1-4, while it might have sounded very inviting, was mostly confusing to the disciples.  Thomas’ honesty is refreshing.  He is just speaking what he’s thinking, which is something like, “Hold on, Jesus, you’ve only just now told us that you were leaving us, and that alone is a shocker.  We don’t know where you’re going.  So it’s obvious we don’t know the way.” 

So Jesus tells them more in verses 6-7,

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’”

Jesus himself is the way.  There isn’t a road map.  There isn’t an incantation like a sinner’s prayer to get you home with the Father.  There isn’t an altar call that you can answer to get home.  Jesus is the way.  Jesus himself is the truth and the life. 

Here we have another powerful principle.  Jesus embodies the way, the truth and the life.  Jesus himself.  Not beliefs about Jesus.  Not books or songs written about Jesus.  But Jesus himself is the way. 

Perhaps that sounds confusing.  I’d rather have a road map to follow.  “Ok Siri give me directions to get to the restaurant.”  And just like that my Maps app opens up and plots my path to restaurant. 

But Jesus says he is the way.  There is no map.  We’ve sure tried to create maps over the years, we evangelicals.  The ABC map.  A for Admit your sin, Believe in Jesus and Commit your life to him.  Or the Sinner’s Prayer map.  Just raise your hand and repeat this prayer after me.  Or the altar call map. Just walk forward and pray to Jesus if you want to be saved. 

Does Jesus teach us to use any of those methods?  No.  He talks about believing in him.  For sure.  And those methods are connected to believing in Jesus.  But Jesus talks about a life of belief.  Belief will show itself to be true belief when will choose the sacrificial abundant life, love others as we flow with God’s love for us.

Jesus says that he, himself, the living, breathing, walking, talking human who is also God, is the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the father through any other way.  Only through Jesus.

I’ve heard people say over the years that the best way to help people find their home with God is to scare them with the alternative.  Tell them about flaming hot hellfire for eternity.  As if it’s simple: just preach about hell more frequently, and that will entice people to embrace Jesus.  Interestingly, that’s not what Jesus does here in John 14, is it?  So let’s focus on Jesus’ description of eternal life.

Jesus speaks of the idea of God making his home with us.  Jesus lifts them up with hope not hell.  Jesus encourages them with flourishing not fear.  Jesus says he himself is one with the Father, and he himself is the true way to life. 

As we have learned many times in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ offer of life is not just eternal life after we die.  We can experience home with God now.  Jesus called it abundant life in John 10:10.  He does not say you have to first die, then you will experience life at home with God.  He says that you can experience abundant life now, and in that sense we begin our experience of eternal life before we die.  Not fully, of course.  Not like it will be after death.  But the abundant, flourishing life of the Holy Spirit at work in us, producing the Fruit of the Spirit in us, transforming us, renewing our minds, so that his love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control flow ever more from our lives. 

The Fruit of the Spirit is life. We will see Jesus make that point very clearly in upcoming posts on John chapters 14, 15, and 16.  For now, he just introduces the idea.  And it seems the disciples are not fully getting it. In the next post we’ll take a look at their confusion.

Photo by Kanish Gupta on Unsplash