D. Scott Meadows

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

How can I return to God? No question is more important for me personally, or more central to the Christian message. Jesus succinctly answers it in our text. He speaks with simple profundity and profound simplicity. His straightforward words convey mountains of golden truth, when we appreciate them in their closer and larger context of the whole biblical theology.

Two parallel and complementary lines: 1) positive (declaration), 2) negative (denial). Each is clarified by its connection with the other.

The subject is salvation. He presupposes man has fallen from God, is lost, ruined, and doomed. Returning to God is our only hope, and the question is, how. Many ways are proposed and pursued that seem right but only lead to eternal death (Prov 16.25). Christ authoritatively declares the one true way, the way to salvation. And that way is Christ Himself. Simply stated,

Jesus is the only way back to God.

JESUS IS THE WAY TO GOD (v. 6a). “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

1) God is the Destination. Thomas admits confusion about this (vv. 4-5).

* Preceding context (vv. 1-3). Jesus is leaving the disciples to go to God (cf. 13.3), specifically, “my Father’s house” (v. 2), connotation of ultimate blessedness. Everyone will face God (Eccl 12.7; Heb 9.27), but only some will know Him as loving Father. Further, with Jesus in God’s immediate and favorable presence.

* Succeeding context (v. 6b). “Comes to the Father.” Context suggests this esp. looks forward to a climactic entrance into His presence at the end.

The whole biblical outlook is God-centered (Rom 11.36). The purpose of all creatures, including every human, is God’s glory. God will show His wrath and make His power known by vessels of wrath fitted for destruction (all those not chosen for salvation) and make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared for glory (Rom 9.22-23). You will finally be either an example of His justice or His mercy to His praise.

2) “The way” is indispensable. A metaphor: the “road, path,” or route to a destination. No arrival apart from the route—a route that actually leads there. Used often in Matt-Luke, literally (Matt 2.12) and figuratively (Matt 7.13-14).

Implies none of us in this life are already there at the destination. Consider our starting point (sinful, Eccl 7.20; guilty, Rom 3.19; doomed, John 3.18) and present situation (probation, Psa 11.4; preceding judgment, Eccl 12.14).

3) Jesus is the way into God’s favorable and immediate presence. Seven “I am” sayings in John: “the bread of life” (6.10); “the light of the world” (8.12); “the door” (10.9); “the good shepherd” (10.11); “the resurrection and the life” (11.25); “the way” (14.6); “the true vine” (15.1). Overtones of His deity, “I am,” which we must believe to be saved (John 8.24).

N.B. Jesus does not merely show us the way, or lead us in the way, as if being or living like Jesus without Jesus is salvation. This appeals to the sinner’s pride because it is still “self-salvation.” No! “I am the way.” He is the Savior; He does all the saving. To take Jesus by faith is to take the Way.

4) Jesus is the way because He is the truth and the life. Strict translation: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Grammatically equal except “the way” is first in order. But the context stresses “the way” as the main idea, with the other two terms as explanatory. D. A. Carson explains:

Jesus is the way to God, precisely because He is the truth of God and the life of God. Jesus is the truth, because He embodies the supreme revelation of God—He Himself ‘narrates’ God (1.18), says and does exclusively what the Father gives Him to say and do (5.19ff; 8.29), indeed He is properly called ‘God’ (1.1, 18; 20.28). He is God’s gracious self-disclosure, His ‘Word’, made flesh (1.14). Jesus is the life (1.4), the one who has ‘life in Himself’ (5.26), ‘the resurrection and the life’ (11.25), ‘the true God and eternal life’ (1 Jn 5.20). Only because He is the truth and the life can Jesus be the way for others to come to God, the way for His disciples to attain the many dwelling-places in the Father’s house (vv. 2-3), and therefore the answer to Thomas’ question (v. 5) (Pillar NTC).

NO OTHER WAY TO GOD IS POSSIBLE (v. 6b). “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (NKJV, ESV).

Having grasped the significance of the phrase, “the way and the truth and the life” in the first line, the second line’s sentiment more obviously follows.

1) Jesus is the only way to the Father’s immediate, favorable presence; i.e., final and ultimate salvation. That this is Jesus’ meaning there can be no reasonable doubt. The words exhibit a logical precision and admit of no possible exceptions. The early Christians so understood it (Acts 4.12; cf. John 3.36). “The present tense is timeless and universal. . . . ‘Except through me’ is absolute and final” (Lenski).

2) Jesus is the only way because only He is “the Truth” and “the Life.” Only He is God incarnate (1 Tim 3.16), the perfectly righteous man, the sacrificial Lamb of God, the firstfruits in His resurrection, the ascended, exalted King, and the only Mediator. Thomas à Kempis extolled Him:

Follow Me. I am the Way, 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 you must follow, the Truth which you must believe, the Life for which you must hope. I am the inviolable Way, the infallible Truth, the unending Life. I am the Way that is straight, the supreme Truth, the Life that is true, the blessed, the uncreated Life (The Imitation of Christ, III.56).

D. A. Carson penned three sonnets arising from John 14.6:

I am the way to God: I did not come
To light a path, to blaze a trail, that you
May simply follow in my tracks, pursue
My shadow like a prize that’s cheaply won.
My life reveals the life of God, the sum
Of all he is and does. So how can you,
The sons of night, look on me and construe
My way as just the road for you to run?
My path takes in Gethsemane, the Cross,
And stark rejection draped in agony.
My way to God embraces utmost loss:
Your way to God is not my way, but me.
Each other path is dismal swamp, or fraud.
I stand alone: I am the way to God.

I am the truth of God: I do not claim
I merely speak the truth, as though I were
A prophet (but no more), a channel, stirred
By Spirit power, of purely human frame.
Nor do I say that when I take his name
Upon my lips, my teaching cannot err
(Though that is true). A mere interpreter
I’m not, some prophet-voice of special fame.
In timeless reaches of eternity
The Triune God decided that the Word,
The self-expression of the Deity,
Would put on flesh and blood—and thus be heard.
The claim to speak the truth good men applaud.
I claim much more: I am the truth of God.

I am the resurrection life. It’s not
As though I merely bear life-giving drink,
A magic elixir which (men might think)
Is cheap because though lavish it’s not bought.
The price of life was fully paid: I fought
With death and black despair; for I’m the drink
Of life. The resurrection morn’s the link
Between my death and endless life long sought.
I am the firstborn from the dead; and by
My triumph, I deal death to lusts and hates.
My life I now extend to men, and ply
Them with the draught that ever satiates.
Religion’s page with empty boasts is rife:
But I’m the resurrection and the life.

WHAT MUST WE DO IN RESPONSE?

We are highly privileged to hear Jesus speak these things to us, and with spiritual privilege comes weighty responsibility.

1) Take Christ at His word. His proclamation is a summons to faith, and faith receives not only what He says, but Him.

2) Rejoice in His promise. Believers can be assured of entering the Father’s immediate and favorable presence because Jesus really is the way. The negative second line implies a
positive truth: Anyone and everyone with Jesus shall come to the Father!

3) Repudiate the popular universalism. Jesus Christ insists here that “many ways to God” is a lie. R. C. Sproul explains:

The notion that all religions are valid is logically impossible. If all are valid ways to God, then Christianity is necessarily valid and Jesus is simply one of many ways to God. But we find that Jesus said He was the only way, and that no one can come to God except through Him. In so teaching, Jesus Himself eliminated all other ways. Thus, if Christ is one of the ways to God, He has to be the only way. If not, then this Jesus, who is one of the ways, is dead wrong when He claims to be the only way, in which case it would be foolish to think that He is even one of the ways. Christians did not come up with the idea that Jesus is the only way to God. That idea originated with Jesus. If He was wrong, then Christianity has no validity at all. If He was right, then there is no other way to be saved (Before the Face of God: Book 1, II.39).

4) Let us together and individually spread the good news of Jesus Christ the only Savior. This is a great part of why we join a church, and cooperate with other faithful churches—to offer every kind of support we can to the ministry of evangelism and missions. This is also why we must openly confess Christ while we live in real love and practical holiness, consistent with our profession, to the glory of God, the salvation of sinners, and the encouragement of fellow believers.

Some Christians are timid. “I don’t know what to say.” How about turning ordinary conversations toward spiritual things? Memorize and broadcast this, “Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” That would be a great start for gospel conversation! Bear witness in word and deed to Jesus, the way. Amen.