Anchor My Faith

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Author: Stephen Weller
771 words, 4 minutes read time

I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Scripture: John 14:6

In the previous lesson we watched anxiety build among the disciples over how they would know where Jesus was going and how they would find their way there. In this lesson Jesus will try to assure them that they will understand and arrive safely.

^{Jn 14:6} Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

In John 13:33, Jesus informed the disciples that he was going to leave them and where he was going they could not come. In John 13:36, Peter specifically asks where Jesus was going and again Jesus says that he could not follow him now, but he could at a later time. Then in John 14:5, Thomas speaks up and says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus then responds by saying, “I am the way.” I think if I were one of the disciples, I would have wondered how a person could be the way.

For a person to be the way would imply that he did something to provide the way and to also explain how to go that way. By saying “I am the way,” Jesus is claiming to be the only way. We see this exclusiveness in Exodus 26:33 ESV: And you shall hang the veil from the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil. And the veil shall separate for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy.” This veil barred access to God’s presence to all except the Levitical high priest. People could not access God through any plans or inventions of their own. Anyone trying to approach God on their own would not be successful as we see in Leviticus 10:2 ESV: “And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.”

Another example of exclusiveness is found in Numbers 17:1 – 8 where the leader of each tribe was to present their staff to Moses. Moses placed those staffs before the Lord in the tent of the testimony. The following day the staff from Aaron had budded and produced blossoms and bore ripe almonds indicating that Aaron alone could represent Israel before God in his sanctuary.

Just as Aaron alone could represent Israel, Jesus is the only one in which one can find salvation, as “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 ESV). Jesus alone can provide access to God.

Jesus as the truth fulfills the teaching of the Old Testament in which “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17 ESV) who reveals the true God. In John 1:14 ESV, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” We also see this in John 18:37 ESV: Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose, I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Jesus alone is the life who fulfills the Old Testament promise of life given by God. We see this in John 11:25-26 ESV: Jesus said to her, ²⁵ “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Since Jesus has life in himself (John 1:4; John 5:26), he is able to confer eternal life to all those who believe in him (John 3:16).

This statement of Jesus claiming to be “the way, and the truth, and the life” is one of the seven “I AM” statements he makes in the gospel of John. Making this claim Jesus is saying that he is the only way to the Father.

Conclusion

Jesus alone can provide access to God as “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 ESV). Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”