START WITH SCRIPTURE:
John 14:1-14
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OBSERVE:
This passage is packed with Christian doctrine. There are words of comfort about heaven, declarations about Jesus as the exclusive means of salvation, and his unique relationship with God the Father.
Jesus begins with a word of comfort for his disciples. The context of this speech is the Passover meal. Jesus knows he is about to be arrested, tried, and executed. He is “preveniently” encouraging his friends in anticipation of these difficult events.
He tells them not to be afraid, but to trust in God and in himself. He then offers a beautiful metaphor:
In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. Where I go, you know, and you know the way.
In this paragraph, we have a wonderful synopsis of the work of Jesus and his relationship with the Father, as well as the hope of his followers. The metaphor is relational, based on a description of family. Jesus is the Son of the Father. The Father has a house with many rooms — monai is the Greek word used here, and it means abiding places.
This is helpful if we imagine the house of a well-to-do family in Jesus’ time. The house wasn’t a single dwelling under one roof, but more like a compound built around an outdoor courtyard. There might be dining and public rooms, but there were also additional rooms that were built around the courtyard as private rooms for individuals or families.
One way of thinking of this is to consider John the Revelator’s descriptions of heaven in Revelation. The City of God has walls that encircle a vast garden through which the river of life flows (Revelation 21:16 – 22:2). Archaeologists tells us that this resembles the house of an ancient patriarch — one wall of the rooms was actually part of the exterior wall of the city!
So, the family of God will be gathered together in this vast house. Jesus is promising that he will go and prepare rooms for his disciples. This was also a feature of the Middle Eastern weddings of that time — the bridegroom went away for a time before the wedding in order to prepare the place where the couple would live.
Jesus is straightforward. He is telling them he is going away — this is a euphemistic way of saying he will die, but also be resurrected and return to the Father. But it is also a promise of his Second Coming:
I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.
The disciples, however, are still a little slow to understand — and they have mustered up the courage to ask questions. Thomas, the concrete thinker and pragmatist, wants more practical details:
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus’ answer is that he is the way:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
This appears to be one of the I Am statements of Jesus, for which the Gospel of John is famous. Jesus identifies himself with the I Am statement of God (in Exodus 3). Here, it is three-fold, grammatically, and he is being all-inclusive. I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.
These are all key words in the Gospel of John.
- Way is the translation chosen for the Greek word hodos, or road. Jesus is using this word metaphorically to illustrate that by walking in his way, one is led to the Father, and to truth. This may remind us of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount:
How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it (Matthew 7:14).
- Truth is a word used often in the Gospel of John. Jesus is the incarnation of truth (John 1:14); his truth sets free those who are in bondage (John 8:32). For those seeking true wisdom, Jesus promises to be the answer.
- Life is also frequently used in the Gospel of John to describe what Jesus offers — a guiding light (John 1:4); eternal life (John 3:16; 11:25, et al.); abundant life (John 10:10).
And Jesus makes it quite clear that his relationship with the Father and his power to be the way, the truth and the life are unique and exclusive:
No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him.
Another disciple, Philip, weighs in this time, asking Jesus to provide a special revelation for himself and the other disciples:
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
This sets the stage for Jesus to explain that he is indeed one with the Father in a unique way. He has already stated that by seeing him the disciples have seen the Father, and know him. This is anchored in John’s Prologue, in which Jesus is the Word who was with God and is God (John 1:1); and this same Word became flesh in Jesus (John 1:14). The Second Person of the Trinity, God himself, has been with the disciples all along!
Jesus seems to be disappointed that they have been so slow to grasp this reality:
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?”
His disciples seem to have forgotten, or didn’t fully understand, his claim when he was in Solomon’s Porch in the Temple:
I and the Father are one (John 10:30).
The Pharisees and priests certainly seemed to understand that Jesus was claiming to be identified as one with God. They picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy (John 10:31)! They stated their charge quite clearly:
because you, being a man, make yourself God (John 10:33).
So Jesus must yet again provide his evidence to the disciples, who seem to be slower to grasp his claim to divinity than even his enemies are!
The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
He is telling them that no ordinary man could teach what he teaches unless he was one with God; and the miracles that he performs illustrate the same reality.
Jesus then makes a bold claim and prediction on behalf of those who believe in him:
Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.
This must have startled the disciples, who had seen Jesus change water into wine; heal a nobleman’s son without even coming into his presence; heal a man who had been lame for 38 years; multiply five loaves of bread and two fish into enough provision to feed 5,000; walk on the stormy waves of the Sea of Galilee; give sight to a man born blind; and raise a dead man to life — and these are just the miracles mentioned up to John 14, not counting any miracles from the other Gospels!
This is quite a claim! But Jesus says this will be possible because he is going to the Father, where he will intercede on their behalf:
Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it.
There is an important qualification in this description of the power of prayer — what is asked in his name. Words, in the Hebraic worldview, have power. Asking for something in Jesus’ name offers the power of that name, which he has already demonstrated is identified with God.
However, there is also another possibility here. When Jesus returns to the Father, he returns in a sense to the heavenly court of the Divine Sovereign. Jesus is described in Biblical theology as seated at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, Jesus has omnipotent authority and power to grant what is requested.
APPLY:
There are an abundance of applications of this passage to our lives and hopes as Christians:
- When faced with adversity and even death, Jesus offers comfort to us. We are part of God’s family, and he has gone to prepare a room for us in the Father’s house. We need not fear death if we place our trust in Jesus. That is why this passage is commonly used in funeral services.
- Jesus is uniquely and exclusively the way, the truth and the life, and he is our incarnational introduction to the Father. To have seen Jesus is to have seen the Father.
G. K. Chesterton’s term co-inherence is helpful in understanding the interrelation of the Father and the Son in the unity of the Trinity, when Jesus asks:
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
- And Jesus teaches us how we are to pray — because he has returned to the Father, he is our intercessor and high priest (cf. Hebrews 7:25). So when we pray in his name we are asking for his intercession. I would add that praying in Jesus’ name also presupposes that we are praying according to his will, not our own. In other words, our prayers are not selfish and petty, but consistent with his majesty, character, and purposes.
RESPOND:
In our pluralistic and diverse world, many people are troubled by the exclusive claims of Jesus. Some will argue that there are many roads that may lead to one destination. Jesus doesn’t leave that option open to us.
Although I’ve known seminarians who have argued with me that what Jesus really says is “I am a way, a truth, a life,” the grammar of John 14:6 in the Greek does not leave that option open. And Jesus makes it perfectly clear in his next clause:
No one comes to the Father, except through me.
Wiser heads than my own have wrestled with this question — what happens to the sincere Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Moslems and many others who either never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel, or who heard a horribly distorted version that they rejected?
Those of us who have come to trust in and love Jesus as our Lord and Savior find it difficult to understand how anyone could reject the Jesus we know. But we also find it difficult to understand how Jesus could possibly reject anyone who doesn’t know him.
The only answer that makes sense to me is to affirm what I know — that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. But at the same time, I acknowledge my limitations of human imagination and knowledge.
Is there the possibility that Jesus will seek out those who haven’t found him? He says:
I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd (John 10:16).
And then there is that haunting passage that Peter writes in his First Epistle that has been the source of much speculation:
Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ship was being built (1 Peter 3:18-20).
This passage is cited by the ancient church fathers as evidence for the doctrine that Jesus “descended into hell.” If so, was his purpose to simply announce to the dead that he had come, or was his purpose even then to redeem them? As the saying goes, this is ultimately “way above my pay grade.” I don’t know the answers to these questions.
I do know that Jesus loves even the lost more than I do. And I trust in his grace and mercy for their souls.
And I have this firm conviction based on John 3:16-18, that God loves the world, that Jesus hasn’t come to condemn anyone, but to save the world. So, if anyone is condemned to hell they aren’t condemned by Jesus — they condemn themselves.
Simply put, God loves us. Jesus is the way to know God and God’s love. That is what we are to believe and proclaim. As to those outside of the faith, we can rest assured that God loves them whether they know it or not, and whether they choose to love him or not. And even if they choose not to spend eternity with him, God still loves them.
Lord, when we pray in your name, according to your authority, you promise to hear us. Thank you that you discern what we need, and that is what you give. And thank you that you choose to work through us despite our frailties and failures. Amen.
PHOTOS:
"There is only one way - John 14:6" by dafongman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
START WITH SCRIPTURE:
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 