Bible Reading Notes: Jesus = Way, Truth, and Life

  • Scott Redd
  • Dec 5, 2008
  • Series: Resources

 

The CTK Bible Reading selection from this week (December 1) is from John 14:1-14, a passage that includes one of the more well-known and compelling teachings of Jesus in all of the gospels.  The passage depicts Jesus preparing to offer himself up to the authorities and ultimately to death.  It is a testament to his own confidence in his calling that he is able to take this opportunity to comfort his disciples who sense that something terrible is about to happen, that somehow they are to be separated from their dear rabbi Jesus.

In John 14:5-7, the disciple Thomas and Jesus have this exchange.

5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6Jesus said to him, "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."

This passage is as powerful as it is concise.  Let's think a little bit more about what it means for Jesus to be the Way, the Truth, and the life. 

The Way.  Jesus' claim is as startling today as it must have been the moment he said it.  Jesus is the way.  He is the path to God.  Not his teachings, but he himself.  The disciples sitting around Jesus would have been familiar with Jesus' terminology.  Throughout the Old Testament, God's people are called to follow the "way of the Lord" but this generally referred to living out a life of faith as detailed in the Law of Moses.  Jesus says something much different here.  The way is not a what; it's a who. The way is a person; it is who the person is, what he signifies, and what he does for us. 

In other words, the question of whether our lives are on the right course has to do with our relationship with Jesus himself.  Do you love Jesus?  Then you love the Way.  Do you pursue Jesus?  Then you pursue the Way.  Are you well-acquainted with Jesus?  Then you are with the Way as well.

It is a beautiful expression of God's love that he makes himself the way to everlasting life.  He knows that we cannot make our own way, and so it falls to him to become the way for us. 

In this dark moment in his life, Christ remembers the reason he is about to give himself over to agony.  Having descended from the God the Father, he is now telling his disciples that the only way back to the Father is through his own acceptable self-sacrifice.  "Thomas, you want to know the way?  You're looking at him."

The Truth.  Ancient Judea under Roman occupation was a crossroads of many civilizations and culture.  The strategic real estate formed a land bridge between the burgeoning superpowers of Europe (Greece and Rome) and the ancient empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia.  Though Judaism was predominant, many religions and philosophies vied for the people's attention.  Some teachings claimed exclusivity while others allowed for the possibility of there being "many ways up the mountain." 

Jesus offers a different  perspective altogether.  His goal was not simply to offer another innovative outlook on life, though it was that.  Rather, Jesus offered himself as the ground for truth, all truth.  Truth is not an argument or a proposition, it is fundamentally a person, and that person is Jesus Christ.  He is the "word," the Greek logos, that formed and now binds and sustains the cosmic order.  If there is truth it is in Christ, and all truth flows out of him. 

On this dark night, Jesus comforts his disciples with the knowledge that they know the truth.  It will not change, even if they do.  Even if they deny its veracity, it will never cease to be exactly what it is, what he is.  The Truth.

The Life.  What does it serve a person if they know the way and they have the truth, but they are dead?   The Way promises a future, but who wants a future if it is sucked of life.  Likewise, Truth is cold and condemning to the person who has no hope for their life.  The Life that Christ presents is not simply a continuance of the life a person is already living, but rather it is a completely new sort of existence.  It is life in Christ, the Son of God, and the heir to the kingdom of God.  Christ presents life eternal, life that is not dogged by the constant presence of death.  Christ presents life abundant, life that is all life was meant to be overflowing, life upon life, without end.

This is the life that should make our hearts leap when we encounter the Way and the Truth, because we know that the universe is not cold and lifeless, it is not indifferent, or random.  It is the place where Christ presents us with Life. 

But it is not for everyone.  The force of Jesus' teaching is tied up with exclusivity.  His singularity as the Way, Truth, and Life.  Those who take the Way, love the Truth and rejoice in the Life.  Those who claim the Truth, walk the Way and yearn for the Life.  Those who have abundant Life, know the Way, and savor the Truth.  And it is all wrapped up in this extraordinary person named Jesus Christ.  To know him is to know God. 

In his work The Imitation of Christ, Thomas á Kempis wrote: 

Follow thou me.  I am the way and the truth and the life.  Without the way there is no going;  without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living.  I am the way which thou must follow; the truth which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope.  I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth, the never ending life.  I am the straightest way; the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life created.

During the beginning of the advent season, let's remember the wonderful, frightening, revolutionary uniqueness of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  The Way.  The Truth.  The Life.