John 14.6
November 16th 2014
Milk
Welcome
Prayer
Music
Silence
Alright, we’re in John chapter 14 – a most phenomenal chapter. In 13 the apostles were troubled.
Jesus has told them that He was leaving, that Peter would betray Him, Judah was off making deals with the enemy and their future was in jeopardy.
So Jesus – among other things – tells them to not be troubled, that He was going to go a prepare a place for them and that He would come back and get them.
We talked all about these things last week. So let’s pick it up at verse 4 where Jesus says:
John 14:4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
Okay, back to verse 4. He has told them that he was going away. And here I believe He tells them – or at least intimates – where this was and the way to get there – by saying:
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
Of course in a very literal and immediate sense Jesus was going to go into the hands of the Romans and then to the cross and the grave and then He would ascend into heaven.
He has been warning and predicting all of this since they started in ministry together.
But when He says, “Where I go ye know,” I am convinced He was speaking of going to the Father.
Some think He was speaking of the way to the mansions on high, some to heaven as a general location in itself but what He says in subsequent verses tells me He is speaking of going to the Father.
For example, here in verse four He tells them “where He goes they know,” and listen to what is said in response to this:
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
Jesus says, “Where I am going you know,” Thomas says, “We don’t know nor do we know the way to where you are going,” and nine times thereafter He references the father – especially relationally to Himself.
We’ll get to those verses. So He says:
“Where I am going you know and that way you know.”
Every journey has a destination. And every destination has at least one route to reaching it, if not many more.
In this case, the destination was the Father, and I would suggest that this speaks to both an earthly relationship with Him AND a heavenly.
This utterly holy destination is totally unapproachable by fallen human beings. We can and have attempted all sorts of paths and routes to Him – personal holiness, observances, philosophies, self-abuses and mortifications of the flesh. We tried religion . . . everything is a fail and leads us to the edge of the abyss.
As unpopular as the notion is in this day and age – and quite frankly to all ages -the ONLY path that reaches the Father is the path of the Son, or better put, the Son Himself.
Without the Son man would forever be reaching, attempting, pushing, failing and then dying as failures.
Even in Old Testament times, when Abraham himself, a man of tremendous faith, died, he went to hell (sheol) – though it was the paradise part – but the point is even Abraham was separated from God forever . . . until God came and saved us.
I’m not convinced that God cannot stand our presence without Christ. I sometimes wonder if the reality is that we can’t stand His.
Being a consuming fire in whom no shadow exists, maybe He’s like flame boy who loves his dog and his parents and sister but when he approaches them to give a hug they turn to ashes at his very touch.
Whether God can’t stand our presence as sinners or we, as sinners, can’t bear His, humanity was forever alienated from our creator because of sin.
“But, (John 3:16) God so love the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
I think we sometimes lose track of the fact that God is love. We think of Him as really being angry and hateful and vengeful, forgetting that He saved us from Satan who is hateful and that it is love that caused Him to send His only Son.
Of course we can look to some of the more catastrophic Old Testament pictures of His interactions with man but to me all they do is emphasize the fact that Holy God and fallen man were in no way ever going to relate to each other thereby reiterating the need for something better to enter in the division to save us.
Knowing and seeing all things I see God’s actions upon a rebellious and proud and recalcitrant people as nothing more than Him being like the loving dog owner who, seeing his dog has contracted rabies, puts him out of his misery before he suffers and infects all the other pets – same principle.
But I think it is important to know the motivations of God’s heart – love. I’m not saying this to make us feel good – scripture says it.
In addition to John 3:16 we read in Romans 5:8
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Notice that Paul doesn’t say that God extended His love to us when we had proven ourselves worthy to receive it, but instead, “While we were yet sinners, Christ came and saved a reprobate world.”
Listen to John in his first epistle (1st John 4:8-10)
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (just listen to that passage. Anything we say and do that is not love IN THE NAME OF GOD) does NOT reflect God, proves we don’t know God because God is love! Wow. Anyway, John wrote)
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
So, again, out of love for us, God provided us the way – the absolute only possible way for us to be reconciled to Him – His son. So Thomas says (verse 5):
:Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
We have to try and remember that the apostles were still under the sway of religious tradition and believed that the Messiah was going to rein over a temporal kingdom.
In the last chapter of Luke we read of two men walking on a road to Emmaus and from their conversation we find support for this mindset.
Two of the Lord’s disciples Cleopus and some think Luke (others say Peter) were walking three days after the death of Jesus. This is what Luke wrote of their walk and conversation:
Luke 24:13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
14 And they talked together of (about) all these things which had happened.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
17 And he said unto them, “What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?”
18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?”
19 And he said unto them, “What things?” And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:
20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. (now listen to this line)
21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.
In other words, they acknowledged that Jesus was a great prophet mighty in word and deed before God and all the people, and “THEY TRUSTED that it was Him who would redeem Israel” but it has been three days and He is still in the tomb.”
Thomas, at this point, was no different in his assessment of Jesus. He saw Him as the one who should redeem Israel and was perplexed at this talk of His going away.
We don’t know where you are going and we do NOT know the way to get there.
The statement, in my opinion, proves Thomas’s mindset – Jesus was speaking of going to the Father and that He is the only way to get there but Thomas was not thinking of heavenly places and paths.
In His words Thomas revealed His blindness and so the Lord explains his meaning.
The confusion of the apostles here – the rejection of Jesus by the most learned of the Land – to the point where they had Him killed, the difficulty people face when trying to overcome the religious training of their youth – shows time and time again how utterly difficult it is to overcome prejudice and preconceived ideas that have been firmly planted in our brains.
What I am about to describe is wholly irrational to most of the accepted ways of Man and its institutions.
I suggest it not to be radical but to try and explain the way I see how true Christianity works.
For some reason – maybe it’s a tool God establishes in the human minds or its instinct – but whatever the reason it is very natural for all of us to seek certainty in all things.
This is a wonderful instinct or tool because I certainly would not want to get on a plane where the engineers were just hoping the wings could withstand windsheer.
Get it? Certainty and our desire for it is completely natural and the most wonderful thing because without it every bridge, surgery, automobile, etc would be completely untrustworthy – and society would fall into chaos.
This certainty and OUR DESIRE for it exists in all areas of human civilization and life – our judicial system, our public services like water, sanitation, electric, and our academic world.
And so for the reasons mentioned and a thousand reasons unknown to us, God has placed in us this innate, often relentless desire to have and experience certainty.
With it we have peace of mind, trust, hope, and are able to live freely and with a great deal of tranquility.
Without it, we would worry about the government, our marriages, travel, education and the like.
This is one reason raising children – especially teens – can be so unsettling because they introduce uncertainty in lives we have otherwise been able to order, number and predict to some extent or another.
Knowing and experiencing the value of certainty in life, most people embark on establishing lives of certainty all around them.
And this obviously overflows right into our views of God – His person, His ways, and what He expects of us.
The more certainty we can reasonably establish in the areas of God the more peace, tranquility and stability we have.
Right?
As a result, men and women have popped up – many using this very book we study week in and out – and created bastions of eternal security through doctrine and dogma and sometimes, indoctrination . . . and called them good.
The end result is paradoxical because in the wake of making warm safe good homes in the “hovels of religious security” we forfeit the very thing God wants from those who seek to worship Him in spirit and truth – a total reliance upon Him – which is, from a fleshly perspective, anything but certain.
It is upon this premise we discover the rich man failing “because He had much riches,” and others failing because they, being dead, sought “first to bury their dead,” and Jews, having expected the certainty of a temporal messiah missing the spiritual true messiah all together because of their blindness and deafness and inability to see the way, the truth and the life living right among them.
In the end, I would strongly suggest that the natural man, who loves and actually uses certainly to his earthly advantage (even to our earthly necessity) must lose this inclination in the walk with God – and choose to accept the utter uncertain nature of that thrives in a living dynamic relationship with Him void of certainty but full of trust.
When Jesus says straight is the gate and narrow the way He is, in my opinion, speaking of how few are willing to truly build a life upon Him the rock – the only certainty in the universe – but instead choose houses on sand, where, in providing them comfort (sand is far more comfortable than solid rock) paradoxically find comfort here but no certainty in the hereafter.
Looking to all religious institutions we will see certainty heralded and uncertainty rebuffed.
As a result pillars of the community who have served the church for thirty years with unmovable devotion are hailed as heroes while the few who pursued the living God through transitory pastures are never recognized – at least not by men.
But God knows, a sees, a regards all who seek Him in spirit and truth with eternal respect rather than temporal.
Thomas was still clinging to certainty here. He could not let go of what he truly thought was a certainty – the Messiah had come to save Israel physically, to reign temporally – so where you are “going” remains a mystery, as well as the way.”
So Jesus clears it all up, plainly and says (in verse 6)
6 I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
From these words we know a few things:
First, Jesus was speaking to them of going to the Father – He is the destination. He is where Jesus is going and He is where they will go in the future as a result.
Second, we clearly understand that the way to the Father is Him – Jesus, the Holy one. None other.
When Jesus says to Thomas, I am the way, He is doing far more than telling us Gentiles that He is the only way to the Father.
He is appealing to a most beautiful prophesy that spoke of Him centuries before. It’s found in Isaiah 35:4-10.
Listen closely to these prophetic beautiful words.
4 “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.
(Here he is speaking of the Nation of Israel and all who have humbly sought the Lord. Verse 5)
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
(in other words, those who have been blinded by the traditions and certainty will see and hear. Then speaking of the Miracles the Messiah would perform, Isaiah says)
6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. (of course relating to Him being the living water that gives true life amidst a parched and drearly land)
7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
(Then listen to how Isaiah speaks of the promised Messiah. It is from these words that Jesus replies to Thomas)
8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
(Can you believe this passage! I mean it is so utterly radical. First Isaiah describes Jesus as a highway, and a way (meaning the path to trod) and this highway and path to trod will be known as, “The Way of Holiness,” Why?
Because He, the way, is holy, and all who travel upon Him and in His path established will be holy. I might add that ONLY those who enter this highway and path proclaimed can be considered holy)
9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:
10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
I am the way,” Jesus says to Thomas, “I am the way and highway of Holiness,” and says before adding:
“The Truth,”
I am the highway, the path and because this path can be totally trusted without fail and there is no other path or way, I am also “the Truth.”
“I am the truth,” Jesus said.
“I am the way, and the truth.”
There is no other way and no truth that can assume His place or represent what He represents to the Universe.
He did NOT say, I have the way and I can teach you the truth, He said, “I AM the way, the Truth.”
To me this says we can place our trust only and directly on Him and what He is and represents unfailing truth.
To me this clearly says that He is God in the flesh for no one else besides God could possibly be the path to God and nobody besides God could be the Truth with a capital T.
These things distinguish Jesus from all others – all systems and philosophies and religions – even those that claim to represent Him as the path – are NOT him. He . . . is Him.
And when He says, “the Truth,” He is the only capital T truth to ever exist and have the unfailing ability to lead all people to the invisible God. No others.
Why?
Because all others – while good to some degree or another – will fail.
Why do they fail? They are not “the Truth.”
See, the Truth – His claims, His works, His words, His love – are . . . they never fail under ANY circumstance or time or test.
This is why we look to Him as the author and finisher of our faith and not to anything or anyone else – even those who claim to represent Him because THEY ARE NOT Him . . . and therefore they will fail.
So why bother putting anything between you and Him? In so doing we are only putting something in between our eternal life and God that will disappoint us, fail us, and never truly provide us what we need to reconciliation to God.
Just last week we read for the first time in LDS history the Mormon church admit that its founder was husband to up to forty wives, some teenagers and several married to other men.
The news has certainly caused many who have believed him to be trustworthy, who have sang odes to him and his presentations on Sundays, to realize he in no way was (or represented) “the way, the truth, and the life.”
See, the way – the highway to heaven – has to be unfailing. It cannot contain potholes or washed out portions. It must be completely trustworthy.
Therefore all if His claims, all of His words, all of His representations have to not only have been true, they have to continue to be true.
My favorite example of this is appealing to a bridge spanning a torrential river.
Nobody on earth can say that the bridge is safe to drive across. That is speculation. I don’t care if the army corps of engineers stamps it as safe – it never really is because any number of variables could or have rendered it unsafe.
The only way to say that a bridge is safe to travel across is if it can never, ever fail under any circumstance.
We will cling to certainty about it’s safety and appeal to engineering and studies and material age. But bottom line, a bridge that is deemed safe to drive across could be hit by an airliner and be rendered unsafe in those circumstances.
So it is with our claims to philosophy and religious traditions and rites and beliefs – they may prove to be beneficial but they can never be deemed the way because they can never be esteemed true with a capital T.
So we cannot say that belief in the efficacy of a bridge, or a twin tower, or a religious system, or a wonder drug, is warranted because we can never say they are constantly true.
When Jesus tells Thomas that He is going to the Father and adds, when Thomas says, “We don’t know the way,” that He is The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and that “no man comes to the Father unless it is by and through Him,” I would strongly, utterly, emphasize that no truer statement has ever been said.
(LONG BEAT)
And when take to its logical conclusion we might consider taking all of our focus and attention off what is uncertain, and what is certainly failing – and put it all on Him.
The final fact He shares with Thomas, in addition to Him being “the way and the truth” is that He is “the life.”
I would like to point out the literalness of this from scripture and this is true in three primary ways.
First, God created all things by and through The Word.
We read in Genesis, “and God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God SAID . . . and there was . . . and God said . . . and there was.”
He spoke it, and it was. We know from John that in the beginning was the Word (of God) . . . and the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us. (as Christ)
Supporting Him as the creator of all things Paul said in Ephesians 3:9:
“And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.”
Colossians 1:16 adds, speaking of Jesus:
“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.”
So all the way to the beginning, and in the sense of giving life, Jesus as creator of all things, gave form to all living things, which the god of Spirit giving all living things animation.
Then, relative to this world, we know that whatever is good in us is good and living – is living and life – because of Him too.
John 1:4 says, speaking of Jesus:
“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” I would suggest that in Him was God and since God is the father of all spirits, in Him was the living spiritus, which gives light to all things.
No life, death. And where death reigns darkness abides. As God in the flesh He is the light of the world, since He came into the world, His presence illuminates everything and anything that is truly living.
Certainly He illuminates us, inspires and guides our steps – whether temporally or eternally – and He does this for all human kind.
Then we get another insight into Jesus as the Life when, in John 11:25, He says to a woman at a well,
”I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
Now we see that Jesus and Jesus alone is the author of the resurrection and true living that goes on in the lives of those spiritually regenerated.
So far we see that He created all things, He illuminates all living beings with the life in Him that He possessed at birth, He is the life of all resurrected beings (which is all of us) and He is the author of abundant spiritual living here and then eternal life hereafter.
So when Jesus says to Thomas, I am the Way, the Truth, AND THE LIFE He wasn’t kidding around.
God established Him to be EVERYTHING to ALL OF US in order to save us from perishing.
Our Lord.
Our Savior.
Our Redeemer.
God with us.
The Way.
The Highway.
The Truth, and
The Life.
How important is He? So important that He himself continued and said:
“No man cometh to the Father but by me.”
A couple things about this line.
First, man is not in the best manuscripts. It reads better “no body.” Secondly, the word “ever,” based on some translations of the the Greek, ought to be included here.
So the line reads something like:
“No one EVER comes to the Father except through (or by) me.”
If I am zealous and a freak about any one element of scripture it is this one. The word for “through” as in through me is dia in the Greek.
Of course its where we get diagnose, diagonal, diacritical, diaspora, dialectic and others.
It means the channel of an act or in simple terms, it means “through.”
It is no accident that Jesus also calls Himself the sheep gate, the door, and of course here, the way.
Paul said in Ephesians 2:18 “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”
Peter said:
1st Peter 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”
The writer of Hebrews says something very interesting about Him and our passing through Him and into the presence of God, saying:
Hebrews 10:19 “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way (tied to Jesus phrase that He is the way and the life), which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.”
The idea of the passage is complex and we don’t have the time to analyze it to the fullest but the fundamentals of the passage suggest that in and through the sacrifice of Christ’s consecrated life and death (which came about through an offering of His flesh) all people MUST enter into God’s presence by and through Him – listen – and Him alone.
All of this allowed Jesus to say to Thomas,
I am the way . . . the Truth . . . and the Life (and to add) no body – ever, anywhere, at anytime – past, present, or future, will ever, in any way shape or form, come to the father unless they pass through me first.
On this – and almost this alone – do I stand radically zealous.
