Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
INTRODUCTION
Most Christians are very familiar with the Last Supper, the Upper Room, and the circumstances surrounding them as described in the synoptic gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke). These three gospels inform us about the location of the Passover meal celebrated by Jesus with His disciples. Moreover, the Synoptics also speak of Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper on that Passover night. The Lord’s Supper (or communion) is one of two sacraments observed by the Protestant Christian church, the other being baptism.
All three of the synoptic gospels describe the institution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper by Jesus. However, a particular discussion of the institution of the Lord’s supper is not found in John’s gospel. The apostle John uses five chapters (i.e., 13-17) to elucidate the discourse between Jesus and His disciples, which occurred during and immediately after the Last Supper.
The apostle included two of Jesus’ “I Am” statements in this discourse: one in John 14:6, the object of our discussion in this article, and the other in John 15:1, which will be the object of our next article.
CONTEXT
In John chapter 13, the discourse included 1) Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, 2) Jesus informing the twelve that one of them, Judas Iscariot, would betray Him, 3) Jesus giving them a new commandment, and 4) Jesus foretelling of Peter’s coming denial of Jesus.
This discourse continued after supper and after Jesus had dismissed the traitor Judas Iscariot. The eleven had just been told some heart-wrenching details of things to come, especially of Jesus leaving them, so Jesus chose to focus His comments on comforting His disciples.
Jesus begins in chapter 14 with the statement I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life and follows that with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Both were meant to comfort the eleven remaining disciples for everything facing them going forward in what they must have thought was an uncertain future in the absence of Jesus on earth.
I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE
In the midst of Judas Iscariot’s treacherous betrayal, Peter’s coming denial of Jesus, and the agony of Gethsemane and the cross that awaited Jesus, he offered words of sublime comfort to His disciples. He tells them not to worry (v. 1) but to believe in the Father and Him and that He would go to heaven and prepare a place for them (v. 2) and that He would return for them (v. 3). Just as the Holy Spirit prepared their souls in this world, Jesus would go to heaven and prepare a place for their souls in heaven.
Jesus said that they knew what His destination was and the way to that destination (v. 4). But Thomas responded that they knew not where He was going nor the way to that place (v. 5). This response from Thomas exposed how he and the other the disciples still held thoughts of a temporal kingdom in which Jesus would rule as king with power over all the earth. This misunderstanding of the kingdom of which Christ taught was despite all Jesus said to the contrary of what they understood. So when Jesus spoke of going away and the disciples going there also, they naturally thought of a terrestrial city from which Christ would reign in a restored Kingdom of Israel.
Thomas’ confusion prompted Jesus to make another of His “I am” statements when He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (v. 6). In verses 6 and 7, Jesus explains His destination and the way to it. Believe in God as the end and believe in Jesus as the way. He told them that He was going to the Father in heaven (vv. 2, 12) and that His disciples (as well as all believers in Him} would join Him there. Jesus told them that the only path to the Father in heaven was through Him (v. 6). The knowledge of God was through Jesus by believing in Him as their Lord and Savior. Christ alone is the only way to salvation and eternal life in heaven with God.
The three nouns Jesus used in this “I Am” statement are not dependent or subservient to one another. Each is a redemptive attribute found in Jesus. Though each stands independently, they nevertheless exist and work in unity with one another as the means to the end, that is, eternal life with God in heaven.
The Way.
The Old Testament provides a messianic prophecy that describes the coming Messiah as “the Way of Holiness” (Isa. 35:8). Some consider Isaiah chapter 35 to refer to the restoration in the Jews’ return from Babylonia captivity. But Isaiah is giving a messianic prophecy that refers to a kingdom with much broader essential features than the future restoration of national Israel.
This prophecy is telling of a future kingdom of heaven that will see God come in majesty and glory (v. 2), and He will come with a vengeance (v. 4) to save the weak and anxious of the heart (vv. 3, 4). And the saved will rejoice with joy and singing (v. 2).
Isaiah writes that the prophesied Messiah will do more in the coming kingdom. “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped” (v. 5). And “the lame man [will] leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy” (v. 6). This speaks of the miracles that we see in the New Testament.
The coming kingdom of heaven that Isaiah describes has an earthly aspect but will be finally consummated in heaven as the final destination for those who are to be saved, with the chief end being a life with God in heaven for eternity. So, eternal life with God in heaven is the destination and the chief end.
Isaiah states that “a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness” (v. 8). The Messiah will pave the way for all those who would believe; this highway is made possible by the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers. It is clear that this Way of Holiness is the way provided only for believers. Isaiah wrote, “The unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way” (v. 8).
Jesus’ death on the cross pays the redemptive ransom for those who truly believe in Christ and make Him their Lord and Savior. Isaiah’s prophecy makes it abundantly clear that only “the redeemed shall walk there” (v. 9). This redemption by Christ of the ransomed souls will see them experiencing everlasting joy and gladness. Still, sorrow will be eliminated forever (v. 10).
The destination for all believers is eternal life in heaven with God. And the only way to get to that heavenly end is through Christ, The Way.
The Truth.
The truth is the real substance instead of symbols, figures, and types. We see that all those types[1] in the Old Testament are referred to in the New Testament as “copies of the true things” (Heb. 9:24) and are just representations of the anti-type[2] Jesus. He refers to Himself as the true bread (manna KJV) from heaven (John 6:32), and Jesus is said to minister in the true tent (tabernacle KJV) that the Lord set up (Heb. 8:2).
Christ is the living word of God and is unmitigated, pure righteousness. As such, it is a perfect truth that is opposed to all falsehood and deception. Christ is righteousness in His divine nature and earned merited righteousness in His human nature. He was in his human nature what Adam and Eve and their descendants could not be by their own devices. Adam and Eve and their progeny required God’s help. Only by the sacrificial death and merited righteousness of the true living Word were those chosen ones justified and adopted by God.
Jesus is the truth that guides believers along the Way of Holiness. As the believing elect go forth on the highway to salvation, Christ Himself, they are guided by the living truth, Christ, so they may avoid wrong turns in their journey to their destination.
The Life.
Jesus is life. He is the giver (John 1:3; Heb. 1:2) and sustainer (Heb. 1:3) of life. Jesus tells us in His High Priestly Prayer (John 17:1-26) that the Father has given the Son “authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all” (John 17:2), the elect, the chosen ones of God.
Believers in Christ are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11). Only the true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ, gives and sustains life (John 6:33). The only way believers can come to God as their Father is through the mediation of Jesus (John 14:6). Before Jesus, human beings could only come to the Father in His capacity as judge in order to be condemned as the sinners they were. Christ makes believers alive to God through His mediatorial work as the way to the truth and life.
Regarding the way and the truth and the life, Carson quotes Thomas á Kempis in The Imitation of Christ as follows:
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 uncreated.[3]
SUMMARY
The end sought by the elect of God is eternal life with God in heaven. Jesus is the highway that paves the way to that end. As believers in Christ pass along the Way of Holiness, they are guided by the truth of the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. He keeps the elect in the right of way by the truth in the Word so they may avoid wrong turns off the narrow highway to heaven. And finally, as Jesus has already taught us, He is the true bread of life that nourishes the believers along the Way of Holiness to their destination: eternal life with God.
The way, the truth, and life exist and work in unity with one another as the means to the end, that is, eternal life with God in heaven. Consequently, Jesus Christ can state with authority that He is the way, the truth, and the life for those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
[1] A type is a prophetic symbol that represents a truth in the future. In the Bible, a type is a person or thing in the Old Testament that foreshadows a person or thing in the New Testament. For example, Adam is referred to as the first Adam that An foreshadows the second Adam in the future who is Christ, the anti-type.
[2] An anti-type is the fulfillment or consummation of an Old Testament prophecy, the type. The anti-type in the New Testament is the future true revelation of its prophetic counterpart in the Old Testament.
[3] D.A Carson, The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel According to John. (Eerdman’s 1991), 492.
