I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life

Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 5th October service and hymns are below.

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Our principal verses are:

Jhn 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Jhn 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Jhn 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Jhn 14:4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Jhn 14:5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Jhn 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

The Way, The Truth And The Life

We have been thinking about the ‘I am’ sayings of the Lord Jesus as recorded in John’s Gospel and today we come to this trifecta of qualities found exclusively and uniquely in the person of our Lord Jesus. Although conceivably these attributes might be taken separately to highlight independent aspects of the Lord’s character, they are usually brought together, as the Saviour seems to have intended, in a single statement of Christ’s distinctive role as Mediator of the covenant of grace.

Access and entry

The principal message conveyed by the phrase ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ is that the Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the sole means of access into His Father’s presence and the sole supplier of all the essential requirements for acceptance with God. Thomas, with the other disciples, had heard the Lord speak of His imminent departure from them and His planned return to His Father’s house. Thomas’ first reaction was to assume Christ was preparing to travel to some distant, though accessible location and a few appropriate directions would bring them all together again.

A heavenly view

However, the Lord was not speaking about an earthly location but a heavenly home in His Father’s house; comprising mansions and such places as are suitable for His people’s eternal glory and happiness. By His departure He was referring to His death on the cross and thereafter His ascension and entrance into heaven. With His own blood as an offering for sin the Lord was about to enter His Father’s presence as our Great High Priest and open a door of access for all His redeemed people.

Our matchless Saviour

Christ’s words to Thomas are a summary-statement of His work of salvation. They encompass everything the Lord has done to secure the deliverance of His people from sin, bondage to Satan and the curse of the law. They reveal the essential role the Saviour performs to accomplish reconciliation between God and man. The Lord Jesus does not merely point the way to heaven He is Himself the Way by the things He suffered and the death He died. He is not a way but the Way. He is the entire, God-appointed means of salvation for sinners.

Resting in Christ

The Lord’s prophets of past ages spoke truthfully to their generation as they revealed God’s will and declared His gospel. However, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, does not merely tell the truth; our Saviour is Himself the truth. He is God who is holy, righteous, wise and good. He is a man without sin and impeccable. Everything in Christ’s person, character, walk, words and dealings with God, and man, is honest, upright and truthful. His doctrine is reliable, dependable and worthy to be accepted and believed. We may rest in peace upon the Lord Jesus, He is ever-faithful and completely trustworthy.

Author, Giver, Sustainer of life

The Lord Jesus Christ is the source of all life; natural, spiritual and eternal. As the eternal Word it was Christ who breathed life into Adam and it is Christ who gives physical life to all men. He has appointed the day of our physical birth and the day of our physical death. He is the author and giver of life. He upholds the natural order, preserves and sustains all that live and breathe in our world.

Spiritual and eternal

Yet, more than this the Lord Jesus is the sole source of spiritual life and eternal life which is His own life in His people. By His death the Lord Jesus gave Himself for our life and secured everlasting spiritual life for all for whom He died. We already know Christ in the new birth as the Resurrection and the Life. He brings spiritual resurrection and gives spiritual life to His church. This, he tells Thomas, is the eternal life that His people will possess in the mansions of His Father’s house.

The only Way

By bringing these three attributes together in this single ‘I am’ statement the Lord Jesus is telling His church and people that He is the true and exclusive way to heavenly glory and eternal life. He, Himself is the way of salvation. This strikes a blow against the self-righteous who try to use the law, and good works as a way to obtain peace with God. Only in Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life can any come to peace with God, ‘for’, says He, ‘no man cometh unto the Father but by me’.

Amen

Hymn 543

“I am the way.” John 14. 6

W. Gadsby   7s

1
Jesus is the way to God;
Jesus is the way to bliss;
In this way the church has trod,
Down from Adam’s day to this.

2
Jesus is the living way;
All beside to ruin lead;
They are safe, and only they,
Who are one in Christ their Head.

3
Jesus is a holy way;
Leads to endless joys above;
Holy men, and only they,
Walk in this blest way of love.

4
Jesus is the narrow way;
Hagarenes have here no room;
Sons, and only sons are they,
Who can travel this way home.

5
Jesus is a humble way;
Pride and self must be brought down;
Nothing like a beast of prey
Ever can in this way run.

6
Jesus is the way of strength;
Yet the strong this way can’t come;
And the Lord will prove at length,
Weaklings have the victory won.

7
Jesus is the way of peace,
Paved from end to end with love;
Yes, this way abounds with grace,
And the needy it approve.

8
All a helpless soul can need,
All a faithful God can give,
In this way is to be had;
Here the hungry eat and live.

Hymn 1059

“Lead me in thy truth.” Ps. 25. 5; 5. 8; John 14. 6

C. Wesley   S.M.

1
Jesus, the Truth, the Way,
The sure, unerring Light,
On thee my feeble soul I’d stay,
Which thou canst lead aright.

2
O may thy Spirit, Lord,
Soon as the foe comes in,
His mighty needful help afford,
And stem the tide of sin.

3
May I from every sin,
As from a serpent, fly;
Abhor to touch the thing unclean,
And rather choose to die.

4
Myself I cannot save;
Myself I cannot keep;
But strength in thee I fain would have,
Whose eyelids never sleep.

5
My soul to thee alone
I therefore now commend;
Since Jesus, having loved his own,
Will love them to the end.

The Lord Jesus Christ tells us He is the Great 'I Am', the eternal God. He is God who is the way to peace with God and everlasting life. He is God who is truth and speaks truth. He is God who is life and gives life to all who believe.