I am the Way, the Truth and the Life Ps 146:1-10; Isa 40:1-5; Heb 10:19-25; John 14:1-7

Introduction  https://youtu.be/UJ8dSz_RbNY

Whilst there are more theologically intense “I am’s”, John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”, is perhaps the most popular. As a young believer in my “Jesus Movement” days we had One Way signs, symbols, badges, marches, T shirts, Jesus houses, and the like. Despite our [looking like Jesus i.e., fashionable long hair and beards, and] zeal for the name of “Jesus” this youth movement never reached spiritual maturity. Why do I say that? Perhaps it was because of the “generation gap”[1] of the time, or for deeper spiritual reasons[2], but this movement never really understood Jesus’ relationship with his heavenly Father. As usual,] the context of this “I am” is important. Jesus has been speaking of going away to a place where the disciples cannot yet follow (John 13:36-38). This generates puzzlement and anxiety.

Exposition John 14:1-7

“Let not your hearts[3] be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” (v.1) Jesus commands them to believe in God and in himself[4]. This is something extraordinary[5], for it places Jesus on a par with the Lord as God.

2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Is the Father’s house heaven, a permanent place in God’s household/family[6], or Jesus’ own body (John 2:19-22), or, are all these realities concentrated in Christ personally? [7] Since Jesus is the full and true house of his Father and he promises, “I will come again and will take you to myself” (v.3), the “house” where God lives is not a piece of heavenly real estate but Christ himself[8].

In what sense then does Jesus go and “prepare a place” (vv.2-3) for his disciples?[9] In the writings of John, the interplay between heaven and earth, present and future is dynamic and fluid[10].  So the “place” Jesus prepares is equivalent to the “place” in the book of Revelation which shields the saints from the devil during times of tribulation on earth (Rev 12:6)[11]. The preparation that protects the children of God is the journey of Jesus to the cross (John 13:33, 3; 14:12, 28; 16:5, 7, 10, 17, 28). A preparation completed in Christ for us by his finished work (John 19:30).

The stress on “where I am you may be also” (v.3) excludes the thought that there are different sorts of reward being offered to Christians depending upon their works[12]. When Jesus goes to the Father, he will freely give his Spirit to all his followers (John 20:23). The dynamic present in this Gospel of “I in them and you in me” (17:23) “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (14:23) excludes a hierarchy in heaven[13] where some are closer to Jesus than others[14].

4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

In earlier announcing his impending death (John 12:23-25, 32-33), Jesus had already declared to the disciples the way to where he was going. Thomas testifies to the group’s ignorance of both Jesus’ destination and the means by which he will reach it[15]. Their ignorance of these things will remain until they later embrace Christ’s suffering identity (John 14:8-11) and share in his rejection by the world (John 15:18-16:4). Jesus now expounds what he is referring to.

6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

The “way” is the way leading to the Father’s presence, with Jesus’ identity, character and course of life as this way. It is by sharing in Jesus[16] that the disciples will come to know the Father. The notion of a true and a false way abounds in human thinking, there are 70 odd references to the way of righteousness and wickedness in the Wisdom writings (Ps 1:1; 5:8; 25:8; Prov 1:15, 31; 2:8 etc.) and more in the prophets (e.g. Isa 55:7-9; 56:11; 59:8; 66:3). The ways of God are rapturous and wonderful drawing forth unceasing praise from his people (Rev 15:3). Not to know the way can be daunting. I remember going for my regular morning prayer walk somewhere in the Great Victoria Desert on a January morning a number of years ago. It was beginning to heat up, but when seeking to return to our car I found the road easy enough, but I didn’t know which direction to travel.

The identity implied in his being “I am the way” must have gripped Jesus whole life from its beginning, especially from when John the Baptist was heard as ““The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”” (Matt 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23)[17]. The Lord is God, and it is as God the Son and Saviour of the world that Jesus makes the exclusive claim, “I am the way”. If Jesus is the way, then Moses is not the way, even if he pointed to the one would come as the way (Deut 18:15), neither is Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed or any other figure the way. This exclusive claim is what Jesus was saying earlier in the passage with, “I am the good shepherd…” (John 10:11,14) when he said “I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers” (John 10:7, 9)[18]. We shouldn’t imagine that the coming of Jesus closed off other already existing ways to heaven, not at all, the revelation of Jesus showed he was always God’s sole avenue to heaven[19].

“The truth and the life” clarify how Jesus is the way. In studying Jesus’ proclamation last week, “I am the resurrection and the life” we saw that Christ possesses the same sort of life as the Father[20]. Even more significantly in an age of information overload and fake news the New Testament emphasises that truth is more than things as they actually are[21]. In scripture, truth is the character of God as revealed only in Jesus. In John chapter 1 we read, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17), and he says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32). Knowing the truth isn’t being especially brainy, it is to share in the sort of relationship of eternal unconditional love that Jesus has with the Father. As he plainly states, “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)[22]. In Paul’s language, “the truth is in Jesus” (Eph 4:21).] Even more pointedly at the end of his first letter John concludes, “we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know shim who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20).

v.7 “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus is the exposition of the Father’s innermost being and so the revealer of his glory. Sadly many don’t believe this. Someone seeking the Lord told me he recently dropped in on a mid-week service in an Anglican church. After the Bible reading the priest said, “this is a beautiful story, but we can’t believe these things today.” Which leads me to quote from an article in The West Australian (12/12/02) on two fencers down the South-West who were squaring up the posts in properties. Their humorous explanation was, “we don’t want the cattle to walk crooked.” (Dom Rossi). Tragically, Christians all over the place are thinking crooked ()\\and living crooked lives[23] because Jesus is rarely taught as the centre and circumference of everything.

If I was to conclude my sermon at this point I wonder how many of you would protest and challenge me later on? But I cannot finish at this point, because Jesus did not say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” but effectively, I am the Way to the Father, the truth of the Father and the Life of the Father.” This is the meaning of, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” One of the saddest dimensions of my ministry[24] is to encounter sincere brothers and sisters, plus public situations, where there’s plenty of mention of “God”, “Lord”, “Lord God”, “Holy Spirit” and so on but little and sometimes no speaking or praying to the Father! I struggle to understand how this is even possible.[25] Jesus came and suffered so greatly that we might personally “know”, not “know about”, his Father.  Yet our lack of spiritual authority in prayer, praise and proclamation testifies to an absence of Father-consciousness that is bewildering.  Pastoral, and prophetic ministry and experience, teaches me that by attraction and/or repulsion everyone makes an idol of their human father[26], but something else is at work here. The best I can prayerfully say is that I am now quoting Hebrews 12, whilst our human fathers were “fathers of our flesh” and “disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them”, the Father of Jesus is “the Father of spirits”[27]. Just as God the Father perfected his likeness in his Son through using suffering to refine the [sonly/filial] submission of Jesus he is always working to do the same with each of us[28]. As Jesus is the Way to the Father through his own passion and death, so we come to see and know God as our Father through trusting him in every painfilled situation.

Conclusion

““I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). As soon as I think these words an old tune passionately breaks forth in my head and heart. But as a young “Jesus freak” virtually 50 years ago I had very little idea of the depths of these words of God in Christ. Until was as Christ’s Bride and Body are so close to him as the Way[29] that we become the way in which others come through the Son to the Father, we will remain largely powerless spiritually in the spiritually. There are many diversions away from such a powerful testimony. If we are not gripped by Jesus himself as the Way we will inevitably try to make something else the way e.g. prayer, the Bible, the sacraments, “church”, being a good person etc.  The Christian life isn’t a matter of trying to be a more spiritual or better person. As someone has profoundly said, “There is…no way to Christ, for Christ Himself is the Way.” (Hession). What we can do is to cry out for help from heaven, the place where Jesus has gone for us and where he abides in the heart of the Father (John 20:17) and from which he will send his Holy Spirit (1 Pet 1:12; 3:22).