I Am Way, Truth, and Life

John 14:6, “Jesus said to him (Thomas), ‘I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.’”

As Marc talked about this Sunday, the exclusivity of Christ as the only way to the Father is a controversial and polarizing statement in our current culture. In fairness to our current culture, this sentiment would have always been controversial until the rise of Christendom around 400AD. In the first century, the claim that Jesus is Lord or King would have also been controversial. So would the claim that he was one and equal to YHWH. Let’s face it, there are aspects of the culture we maybe enjoy, and wish had more influence that are offended by Jesus and the Gospel.

Why?

The reason Jesus is polarizing, offensive, and uncomfortable to all of us is because he, in his perfection, reveals the things that we ought to be, but cannot accomplish. In this blog post, we are going to revisit some Christology that I wrote about here (hyperlink) last Advent. Jesus is the nature of God made flesh in us, but more relevant for us, this means that he is the fulfillment of everything we were meant to be as humanity.

Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” That word “image” in Hebrew is the same word or concept that is used to describe the pagan gods whose idols were worshiped. I want to detail what the pagan idol meant because we often have popularized ideas of what they are. First, the idols or statues themselves are not necessarily thought of as “gods” in a literal sense. What was thought about them is that the idols were a conduit, pipeline, etc. for the deity to touch down on earth. You’ll notice that some of this language is how we describe who we are as God’s people with the Holy Spirit in us.

When God creates humanity “in his image” or as his idols, the idea is that humans are to be the presence of God over creation. Israel is not to create new idols because God has already done that and when he did so, he immediately looked over creation with pride, seeing that it was “very good.” All of creation is just “good” until God creates humans. Once God creates humans, creation has elevated, or in my fancy Bible course, we call this “graduated” language where “very” is added to emphasize this point. Humanity is the crowning achievement of creation, meant to animate the presence of God in creation, executing a surprisingly impossible task for humans without God’s strength, “fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Gen 1:28)”

When Jesus comes to earth in swaddling clothes, he does not exclude himself from the human experience. Hebrews 4:15 states, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” This means that Jesus fulfilled the call. Jesus endured the fullness of the human experience

and came out on top, fulfilling the original call to be God’s image in the world. Notice that Jesus talks about how if we have seen him, we have seen the Father? Without seeing Jesus, who is God in the flesh, we do not see the Father.

Likewise, without following Jesus, we cannot make our way to the Father. The exclusivity of Jesus is not just about religious power or correctness. We often come at the passage with sneaky self-motivated needs to prove God or Jesus. We attempt, in our own strength and man’s logic, to provide an apologetic for this claim, but it’s really far more simple than that. Jesus is the way to the Father because he is the only one to truly live as humans ought to live. Ironically, the respect Jesus garners from other faiths is a testament to this fact. Think about it, how many people do you know learn about Jesus and don’t admire him? Marc covered this, Jesus is widely accepted and respected in a number of ways.

What becomes the issue is the proposition that Jesus is Lord and that we are required to treat him as Lord, owing him our loyalty with not only words, but our actions, but not only our actions, but our whole lives and being. Humanity is not capable of fulfilling the calls of any of the world’s religions. Even a large number of Christians live as though they personally can live out the Christian life. The reality is that there is no human that walks out the call on humanity without a close-knit partnership with the God of the universe.

I guess my point here is that this claim of Jesus is probably bigger and even more offensive than we usually think. It’s one thing for Jesus to say he is the only way to heaven or God. It’s another

thing altogether for him to be the only way that humans are supposed to live, but that’s the claim here. Humanity, without Jesus, is simply a shell of what it’s meant to be. That ought to strike some fear in us. Do you catch the vision of Scripture here? God is not just asking us

to be good people. He’s asking us to fulfill a divine call to be his very presence in the world. We cannot execute this call.

In this one sentence, Jesus is saying that you can keep writing that cheque, but as long as the money comes from your account, it’s not going to cash. You don’t have what it takes to be a Christian. You don’t have what it takes to be what you were called to be. That’s what makes Christmas so special. Immanuel, God with us. You do not need to do this, Jesus already has, and he is more than willing to do it through you. But like Mary, the shepherds, the apostles, and all the heroes of the faith in history, it takes staring heaven in the face, trembling as we may be, and trusting the Lord, saying “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be according to your will. (Luke1:38)”

Jesus is the one who fulfilled the role that humanity was created to fill. Just as Mary was told that with God, nothing is impossible, so Jesus is going to come into your very being and work to bring the life of God into this world. I’ll end with one of my favourite passages from Philippians 2:12–13, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

May we come to Jesus, weary and heavy-burdened to always receive his power to be the presence of God, the body of Christ, his ambassadors and Bride “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. (Phil 2:15)”