Day 22: Jesus Is the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Day 22:  The Way, the Truth, and the Life

Prayer: 

Heavenly Father, teach us what it means that Jesus doesn't doesn't just show us the Way, He doesn't just teach us the Truth, and He doesn't just give us Life, but that He is the Way, He is the Truth, and He is the Life. Open our hearts to grasp this spiritual revelation. Help us understand that all You want to give us and all You have to give us is wrapped up in a Person. May Jesus be glorified in us. Amen.

Scripture: 

John 14:6:  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Jesus' final words to His disciples during His last Passover supper, recorded in John 13-16, are interrupted throughout with the disciples' questions. In order to understand what He shared with them that night, we have to consider the disciples’ questions. For Jesus’ words are not an essay or a monologue or a sermon. It is a conversation with the men who were His closest friends, those who had walked with Him for three years. And He knew this was His last evening with them.

Before this night, Jesus had already spoken to them several times about His death, even giving them specific details about what would happen and how He was going to die. They had certainly felt the fomenting hatred of the religious leaders. When they received word that Lazarus was dying, they had been afraid to go back to Judea, knowing it could mean Jesus' death. Now at this final Passover meal, just after the unsettling act of washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus gives them several pieces of very troubling news:

1.     One of them would betray him. Surely not! The disciples are clueless. So Peter motions to John, sitting closest to Jesus, to ask privately who it could possibly be. Jesus gives John the clue, and John watches as Jesus dips the bread and hands it to Judas. John's apprehension must have risen as he watched Judas leave the room. What did Jesus and Judas know that they didn't?

2.     The time has come for the Father to be glorified in Him. All week long He had referenced His death, linking it to being glorified. Right after entering Jerusalem amid triumphant accolades, He told them the time had come for the Son of Man to be glorified, using the metaphor of a grain of wheat being buried in the ground and dying.

3.     He is going away from them and they can't come with Him. They can sense that He's leaving with them His final words. He speaks with a compelling, urgent seriousness. None of them can figure out where He is going or why they wouldn’t be able to follow. They had followed Him for three years; wherever He went, they went. Peter voiced the question they all were thinking: "Lord, where are You going?" (John 12:36). Jesus doesn't answer the question directly but firmly assures Peter that this mission is for Himself alone. Peter protests, adamantly declaring he is willing to die for Jesus.

4.     Then Jesus gives to Peter the most troubling news of the evening: Before twelve hours have passed, Peter will three times deny he even knows his Lord (John 12:37-38). Peter's pride is shattered. Uncharacteristically, he remains the rest of the evening in dumbfounded silence.

After giving all this troubling news, Jesus speaks His peace into the center of His disciples' fear and uncertainty and confusion, "Do not let your hearts be troubled!" Really?! When You've just told me I'm going to deny You? Peter must have thought. When You've just told us You're leaving us and we can't come? When You've told us one of us is going to betray You? We're getting a little scared and nervous about all this. And we're not supposed to be troubled?

Here's why they don't need to be troubled: "Believe in God and believe also in Me." Essentially Jesus is saying, “God's got this. God knows what He's doing—and so do I. Nothing is outside His control—or Mine.” That is the remedy for sorrow, fear, and shame. Jesus is calling His disciples—and us—to trust Him as fully as we trust God. His answer here is another way of saying what He's been trying to show them all along: He is God. We must trust His oneness with the Father.

He went on to tell them about His Father's dwelling. It's large and spacious, with room enough for all. There is no scarcity of space there. At this point Jesus answers Peter's question about where He is going: "I am going to prepare a place for you." That's where He's going in the next 24 hours: He's going to prepare the way to the Father's house. They can't get there—nor can we—apart from the work He is about to do on the cross.

When they see Him again after His resurrection, He will take them to Himself. They will be His forever without fear of separation, for He will have made the Way for His Life to be in them. Where He is, they will be; and where they are, He will be; for His very own Spirit will reside within them. They will be one with Him just as He is one with the Father (John 17:21, 14:19-23). The dwelling place of God will be with men and our dwelling place will be in Him: He will take us to Himself.

Thomas and Philip now take the lead. They are still trying to figure all this out. Thomas asks, "Lord, we don't know where You're going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus responds with the sixth of His great I AM declarations: "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." After all the time they had spent with Jesus, hearing how He was always shifting their focus to the spiritual, they were still thinking of some physical location. It was as if Thomas were asking for a map.

 But Jesus is talking about the spiritual realm. Jesus isn't showing us a way to God, pointing out the road; rather, He has to die to prepare the way. He has to become the Way—through His death and resurrection and ascension. The one thing that separated us from the Father and from Life itself—sin—has to be dealt with. Jesus will take it upon Himself and become the Mediator between God and man. This is why the Way to the Father is exclusive: "No one comes to the Father except through Me." He is the Way, the only route to the Father, the only path of salvation out of sin into eternal, abundant Life.

Jesus went on to say, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father; from now on you do know Him and have seen Him" (John 14:7). Philip didn't get it. We can't really blame him. Who of us understands the Trinity? So he makes this request, "Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us." In other words, "If we could just see God the Father, we’d be content. That would be sufficient; that is all that we need."

In answer, Jesus continues to say it more plainly several times over. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father. . .I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me. . .the Father dwells in Me. . .I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. . ." (John 14:9-11). He and the Father are one. There is no difference. He came to declare and reveal the Father. He is the visible representation of the invisible God. God has presented His Truth in a physical, tangible form where we can grasp it and see it lived out. Jesus was telling Philip, and us, "If seeing the Father is all you need, if that is truly all you need, look at Me. I AM enough! I AM all you need." For to know Him is to know the Father. To see Him is to see the Father. He is the Truth about God.

Jesus is fully aware that His own path is leading to death in less than 24 hours, yet He says, "I AM the Life!" He would walk out the Truth of full obedience to the Father to reveal the Truth about the Father's heart. And by that means, He would reverse death and open the pathway for God's Life to be poured into us. He would strip death of its fear. It would no longer be able to hold us either; for once we have been clothed in the perfect righteousness of God, death has no claim on us any more than it had on Jesus. He is our Life. By putting our faith in Jesus, we dwell in the One who cannot be touched by death, the One who can stand before the fire of the holy God yet not be consumed, and the One who has made the holy God our Abba (Daddy).

These words, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life," are not a salvation verse for unbelievers (though they certainly are that as well), but these are words Jesus spoke to His disciples. These names of Jesus are for us who believe:

• Jesus is our Way to the Father, our privileged access to come boldly before the throne of God, untainted with sin or shame. By taking our sin upon Himself on the cross, He removed all the barriers between us and God, becoming our pathway back to the Father.

• Jesus is bodily, physical Truth, the complete revelation of God. In Christ there is nothing false or misleading. In Christ we will never find any lie, or deception, or manipulation. In Christ is nothing fake, uncertain, or shifting. His righteousness contains no compromise and no hypocrisy. He is the Source, the Fountainhead, of all knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. He is the One who fully explained the Law of God and perfectly modeled it.

• Jesus Christ alone opens the Way to the Father, whom to know is Life eternal (John 17:3). He alone can give righteousness that leads to Life. He alone promises abundant Life, for only He can free us from our bondage to death-producing sin. By His Spirit in us, He becomes the Life (Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:3) that flows within us as an ever-replenishing fountain, springing up into eternal life (John 4:14). He alone has authority over death, holding the keys to Death and the Grave (Revelation 1:18).

As the Gospel of John so poignantly points out, the life of Jesus is inseparably woven into the beginnings of the world and must be framed by the Genesis account of creation and the Fall. Jesus Christ, who breathed His Life into Adam so that he became a living soul, is the Source of both physical and spiritual life. When Adam and Eve took of the fruit that God had told them not to eat, they forfeited access—the Way—to the Tree of Life. They chose to believe the lie rather than the Truth God had spoken to them. Do you see Christ there in that Genesis 3 account? With that act of distrust and disobedience, Adam and Eve received the consequences of sin: death. The entrance of sin into the world caused the human race to lose the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus came to restore it—as God had promised.

He doesn't need to give us a roadmap, for He will be ever-present Guide and Counselor. By His Spirit, Christ will be with us and dwell in us forever to teach and correct and instruct us, to provide for us and give us the power to overcome all the curses of sin. He will teach us to listen only to the Father and to only do those things the Father tells us to do, for what the Father says is true and altogether trustworthy. Following Jesus will set us free from the bondages of sin, for we will know the Truth. He will help us understand God's will and standard for our lives. He will not abandon us or leave us as orphans (John 14:16-18). Come to Jesus. Learn of Him. Put your feet in His footsteps and follow Him. His Way and His Truth will lead to the cross and beyond to triumphant eternal Life.

Family Worship:

Discuss the following questions:

• When Jesus said He was going away and the disciples couldn't follow Him, where was He going?

• How was Jesus going to prepare a place for them in the Father's house?

• How did He become the Way for us?

• When Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, who did Jesus tell them to look at?

• What kind of life is Jesus talking about when He says that He is the Life?

• Can you explain 3 reasons why God sent Jesus into the world by using these 3 names He gives us in John 14:6?

• Why can no one come to the Father except through Jesus?

As a family, memorize John 14:6 together.

Pray around, thanking God for something about Jesus from this devotional.

Jesus Christ:  The Way, the Truth, and the Life, the One who leads us to the Father, who sets us free, and who gives us eternal, abundant life.

Additional Scriptures:

Acts 4:12: Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

I Timothy 2:5-6:  For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Matthew 5:17-48: Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

You have heard that it was…But I say to you…

You have heard that it was said…But I say to you…

Furthermore it has been said…But I say to you…

Again you have heard that it was said…But I say to you…

You have heard that it was said…But I tell you...

You have heard that it was said…But I say to you…Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Colossians 2:3: . . . in whom (Christ) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 3:3-4: For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by [the] faith in [of] the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

John 4:14: But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

Revelation 1:18: I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.