John 14:6 • I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

What would you say is the most offensive word in the Bible?
Well, we could debate that a bit, but making the short list is going to be the word "the."
I mean, just think of it.
In the passage we have just read, if Jesus had only said, "I am a way, a truth, a way of life," our lives would be so much easier.
There'd be so many fewer accusations coming our way of intolerance and arrogance and lack of compassion if we were just willing to say, "Jesus is a way and there are other possible ways."
But instead, Jesus says, "I am the way, and no one comes to the Father but by Me."
We recognize even by the people who love us and survey the culture around us, people like George Barnum, he says for those who are sixteen to thirty years old in America, the common perception of Christians is that they are, you won't like these terms, "judgmental, political, intolerant, out of touch and homophobic."
I mean, if we just took out the word "the," at least a couple of those descriptors would go away.
And, yet, there it is.
And my guess is you don't need a survey to tell you that these are difficult terms.
You have only to deal with your own family or conscience.
I think of a dear family member of mine who in the military was stationed for a while in southeast Asia and had a crisis of faith, because he said he just could not look at the millions of people who were there and reconcile in his own mind the thought that his God would not receive them because they did not name the name of Jesus.
I mean, could God really be that uncaring?
And when he talked to me, the preacher in the family, he said, "Isn't it arrogant and intolerant and unloving to say that Jesus is the only way?"
And in my moment of panic, all I could think to say was, "Yes, it is arrogant and intolerant and unloving.
Unless it's true."
If Jesus is the way and we don't say that, there could be nothing more unloving.
If we're in a room and it's filling with fire and there are lots of exits and we know that an exit is the path to life and it's true that it's the path to life and it's even a way and we know all that and we don't say to people, "That's the way out," then we are the ones who are being unloving because we are not affirming what we know to be the way and the truth and the path to life.
But all of those arguments, all of that analogy hinges on one very critical understanding:  that Jesus is in fact the way.
I mean, if that's not the case, then all this is unloving.
But if He is the way, then pointing it out is actually a compassionate thing.
But what would be the basis for such a conclusion that Jesus is the way?
Well, in part, it is His unique claims that are so obvious in this passage.
I mean, that verse that's so dear to us, verse 2, "'In my Father's house are many rooms.
If it were not so, I would have told you.'"
We go by it quickly often in the church but do not recognize that when Jesus says, "In my Father's house," immediately He has made a faith claim.
It's been repeated constantly in the book of John to this part.
When Jesus says that God is His Father, the Jews recognized He was giving Himself divine status.
"I am the Son of God."
He would declare it.
He would make it apparent by the works that He said show that God was in Him as He was in God.
It is this claim to divinity that's making Him the enemy of many who were there at the time but makes Him the unique one who provides a way for people who need help.
After all, one of the unique aspects of this Jesus whom Christianity honors is that He's different than the leaders of other religions.
I mean, think of it.
Virtually every other world religion you can think of does not have an original leader who claimed to be God.
They claimed to be prophets or those with special insight pointing to God.
But Jesus, in a unique way, says, "I am God.
I'm not a prophet pointing to divinity.
I am divinity fulfilling a purpose that is divine."
And the reason He says He can fulfill that purpose, open the door to heaven, save people who are undeserving, is because He is divine.
And His claim is not only that God is His Father.
I mean, you recognize He is claiming He has a key to the Father's house.
Right?
Verse 2, "I go and prepare a place for you."
Now, that whole notion of "My Father's house has many rooms and I'm going to prepare a place for you," again, if you're a long time in the church, you just kind of roll with it and say, "Well, that's kind of fun and nice."
And we don't recognize what's being said.
When Jesus talks about a house with many, and the Greek there means "living quarters," what would come to the mind of the people that era is a large Roman villa.
If you can think of some travel magazine you've seen with some kind of virtual fortress resort on a mountainside somewhere, that's what they're thinking of.
Here is this place that is large and has many living quarters in it.
Which means at one point it's a fortress; it's providing security.
And, yet, Jesus says, "I'm going there to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also.
And, remember, I'm in the Father, and the Father's in Me."
Which means this is not just a place of security:  It's a place of great intimacy.
And I'm preparing that place for you to be with the Father and be secure in Him, regardless of what happens in this world.
And while we can read past it fast, it is one of the most prechent as distinct claims of Christianity.
Whereas most other world religions are claiming a god who is aloof and distant or dilute in some way, Christianity is claiming a God who is near and dear and drawing us to Himself in greater and greater intimacy and security all the time.
The places of this earth are not secure.
Winds can blow, and grandparents can die.
And the things that we identify as security and intimacy here are not really solid.
And it becomes kind of the expression to us of how C. S. Lewis tried to express it in that writing called "The Great Divorce," where he gives his strange analogy of some British tourists who get on a tour bus and they get taken to heaven.
And when they get off the tour bus, they somehow discover that they are hollow and virtually transparent.
But everybody else in heaven is solid and whole.
And what C. S. Lewis is saying is that's the true reality; that's what doesn't change.
That's what real security it.
And what God is promising to His people and can do because His Son is divine who claims us is a place that is secure, that is the real home where we can know each other and be intimate with God and be secure forever.
And He's doing that and securing that because He is God.
And Jesus is saying, "That I can do because I have a key to My Father's house."
But He's not only claiming that He has the key.
He's claiming that He can get us there.
I mean, really, that's verse 3, right?
"'I go to prepare a place for you; I will come again and I will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.'"
He doesn't just have the key:  He's got the ride.
You know, He's saying, "I've got the means to get you there.
And where I am, I'm going to welcome you in the name of My Father."
You know, as long as I have been married and living apart from my parents and raising kids of my own, always I can tell you what it means to drive up to my parents' home.
It's always the same thing.
The dogs will bark, announcing we're there.
And then my father will not just come to the door:  He'll come to the door and walk down the sideway and come all the way out to greet us, to take us in.
And it actually hurts me to think now, in these recent months with the cancer surgery and the hip replacement and all that, I talk to him on the phone and I hear his voice quaver and I hear that he's walking with a cane.
And I know the next time we go I'm going to see him coming down the driveway weaker, limping, hurting.
But the one who will welcome me to the place that is eternal is the Lord.
And He will secure and greet and welcome me and you because He is the God who can do that.
He has the claim of a large and expansive home and a large and expansive heart.
And sometimes because we get so focused on the exclusive terms in this passage, "I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by Me," we forget that with the tenderness of what's being expressed is an expansiveness of the heart of God that's being expressed right at the same moment.
It's actually in verse 2.
We just read by it so fast.
"'In my Father's house are many rooms.'"
There's lots of space for lots of people.
We recognize Jesus is talking about He is the way, but He's saying the way leads to a place for lots of people.
So even though He's got the key and He's got the ride, He's also got lots of invitations.
And that's an expression of the expansiveness of God, which is against the claim of Christianity being exclusive, in some ways anyway.
I mean, here's what Jesus is saying.
When He says, "My Father's house has many dwelling places for lots of people," he's actually picking up a theme that came thousands of years earlier in the Bible.
I want you to remember.
It's important that you do.
When God spoke to Abraham, He said what?
I will make you a father of what?
Many nations.
Not just a few people.
Not just people here.
"I'm going to make you a father of many nations.
Abraham, look at the stars.
As many as the stars are in the heavens so shall your offspring be."
God's plan is to save many people.
And the difficulty is some of us, we get stuck in Matthew 7 in the Sermon on the Mount.
Remember?
"Narrow is the gate," right?
"And few there are that find that way."
And we're forgetting something.
I mean, I know it's going to challenge some of our perceptions, but we're forgetting that that's in a portion of Jesus' discussion where He's talking about those who want to find their way to God by the law, by what they do.
And He's just honest.
And He says, "Listen, if that's what you're doing, then wide is the way that leads to destruction, and narrow is the way for those who are going to find their way to God by that."
But if you take the understanding of what Jesus is saying, "My Father's mansion has many rooms," and Abraham promised from the beginning that there would be many from all nations, and then you go to the end of the story, which is not Matthew 7 but Revelation 7, you remember how John, same one who wrote this book of the Bible, how John says that before the throne of the Lamb he looked and there was a multitude, so large that no one could number it, from every tribe and language and people and nation.
Listen, if Christianity is exclusive in some ways, it's at least not prejudiced.
From every tribe and language and people and nation.
And a multitude that no one could count.
We, if any generation of Christians could say, I, we may begin to get a glimpse of that, it ought to be this generation.
I've related to you what we sometimes do not see in kind of a Christian decline culture that we live in and that is despite our immediate circumstances, remember Christianity right now in this world is experiencing its most rapid expansion in the history of the world.
That's happening right now.
The, those who are demographers, who count the noses, the missiologists who actually say what's happening in ways that astound us say this:  There are more Christians alive today than there have been Christians in the history of the world.
There are more Christians alive today than there have been Christians in the history of the world:  20,000 new Chinese Christians a week; 16,000 new African Christians a day.
This is in our lifetime.
This is what's happening now.
I know we cannot answer all apologetic questions today.
And one of the ones that we're always going to miss:  What about those who have never heard?
Listen, that is a legitimate question.
Paul in Romans chapter 1, of course, saying, "People have seen the power of God in nature itself.
They have natural revelation."
But even if you didn't take that, recognize this:  If God is truly sovereign, He can make people be born who are going to hear in the time that they can hear.
So that here we are in this great era with the internet and technology and communication and transportation such it has never happened in the history of the world, and people literally by the millions are turning to Christ because they're being born at the time in God's providential, sovereign plan that they can hear.
God is preparing this great wave.
Now, why do I say that?
Because if you believe that God is doing a great work, if you believe that the normal progress of the Spirit is that when people understand who Jesus is and the grace that is in Him they will actually want this message.
I'm not dependent on me.
I'm not dependent on tradition.
I am dependent upon a living God who by His Holy Spirit not only saved me but is here to help me.
And if you believe that, then you're much more willing to talk to people.
If your perception is, "Well, most people will never listen; I can say stuff and they won't listen," you know the most effective evangelist I know?
They are the people who said, "Listen, I talked to him and he hasn't come yet, but he's going to come."
And my Presbyterian says, "You shouldn't say that; you don't know his heart," you know.
But I recognize there's a, there's kind of a heart of faith there that says God is working and He's active and His desire is that people would come to Him, and I'm going to tell people with the expectation that the Spirit of God who has many rooms prepared and a plan for many to be from all nations around the throne of the Lamb:  that God is at work and He's working in my time and my space and this world right now.
And I've got to say that.
This exclusivity of Jesus, whatever it is, is not just bare prejudice without hope.
It's a heart that's tender and it's expansive.
And He says as a consequence, the God who offers that plan, "I am the way."
Now, if He's the way to that expansive and tender heart of God, we have to acknowledge there, there's some necessary implications.
Here's one:  If Jesus is the way, you're not.
And I'm not.
He's got to do something we cannot do.
And the reason for that is painted all over this passage.
There has to be divine ability because of human liability.
What are the human liabilities?
Alright.
Here's some of the best people going.
Here are the apostles who have been with Jesus for three years, who have seen Him perform miracles.
And how are they responding to the Son of God in their midst?
Well, you may remember about Peter.
Verse 36 of chapter 13, "'Lord, where you're going?'
Jesus answered, 'Where you can't follow.'
'Oh, Lord, no, no.
I can follow.
I'll give my life for you.'
'No, Peter.
Before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times.'"
And he did.
Here on display is the faithlessness of the best.
And Peter's not the only one on display.
Do you remember chapter 14 and verse 5?
Thomas said to Jesus, "'Lord, we do not know where you're going.
How can we know the way?'
Jesus said to him, 'I'm the way.
If you had known me, you would have known my Father.
From now on, you do know Him and you have seen Him.'"
Here is the deafness, as it were, of Thomas.
He has been with Jesus for these three years.
Jesus has said, "I'm going to Jerusalem.
The chief priests and the scribes will spit on me, flog me, put me to death.
On the third day, I will rise."
And here Thomas saying, "Lord, where are you going?"
I told you.
And it's not just the deafness of Thomas.
We've got the blindness of Philip.
Verse 8, "Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it's enough for us.'
Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, 'Show me the Father'?'"
I know it sounds a little bit like a, you know, a parent at the end of the day:  I told you.
[Laughter]
I've shown you.
But the whole point is these are the very ones to whom Jesus is saying, "Don't let your heart be troubled.
You believe in God; believe also in Me.
I will make a way."
And you need to see the sequence just exactly as it is.
The very last verse, the very last verse of chapter 13 is, "'Peter, I tell you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.'"
And the very next words are , "'But let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God; believe also in.'"
Listen, if I'm the way, you're not the way.
You will be faithless.
You will fail.
You will sin.
You will turn from Me.
And, yet, I will make a way for you.
It is the great message of grace that is one of those distinctive Christian messages again.
That God is saying, "Listen, I'm not expecting you to make your way to Me.
I'm going to make My way to you."
And that in itself is one of the distinctive marks of the Christian religion.
We can do lots of explanation, but, listen, one of the simplest and best always to remember is virtually every other world religion is saying that the way that humanity makes its way to God is we crawl up the ladder to Him.
And Christianity turns that upside down and says God comes down the ladder to us.
He makes the way down to us, because we're like these apostles:  faithless and deaf and blind.
And He's got to do the work.
We're not the way.
There is, of course, a second necessary implication.
If Jesus is the way, then we're not the way, and others are not the way either.
And, of course, that's the difficulty in our culture to say that:  that there, there's some exclusivity among the religions, that others are not the way.
And we might look at this passage and say, well, maybe we've misunderstood this.
I mean, Jesus saying, "I'm the way, the truth and the life," I mean, maybe that's just some generic reference.
But you can't do that.
I read at the beginning of this service from Isaiah where Isaiah in that messianic passage is speaking with the voice of Jesus, the Messiah to come, and says, "I am God and there is no other.
I am your salvation; I am your righteousness, and there is none other."
And Peter, this same Peter, on the day of Pentecost after Jesus has been crucified and will be risen:  when he has to explain to his fellow Jews, they are in Jerusalem, when they're gathering all together from all the nations for Pentecost, he actually says the words, remember, "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which you must be saved than the man Christ Jesus."
He's the way.
And that excludes other paths; it excludes other promises.
And why is that?
Well, again, because human liability requires divine ability.
And Jesus has to be doing something that other religions claim that we are to be doing.
So when I say, listen, Jesus is ultimately saying there are not other ways because He must make the way, He must provide something divine that human ability doesn't.
You say, well, don't all other religions basically teach that?
And the answer is no.
I mean, all other religions are not just the same, teaching that the way to God is by grace, by what He does for us rather than our somehow working our way up to Him.
I'm going to read here just a little bit to make clear my own thoughts and words.
Is it really true that all other religions are basically the same?
Eastern religions at their essence claim that you will escape the flesh and the world by human effort or some sort of mental focus.
Christianity says, instead of escaping the flesh, that God came to redeem the flesh and to renew the world.
And the mystic religions, those largely of tribal cultures, say that we are to pacify the gods by the sacrifice of something dear to us.
Whereas Christianity says God would satisfy His own wrath against unrighteousness by the sacrifice of someone dear to Him, even His own Son.
Old Abrahamic religions, by which I mean both Islam and Judaism, say that humani--, humans will earn divine approval by human righteousness of a sufficient degree.
Whereas Jesus said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of God."
And so He became righteousness for us, that by His perfect life and sacrificial death we would become the righteousness of God in Him, not in our sufficiency.
When other people say, and I think it's usually well meaning, it's usually meant in kind of a tolerant, let's all get along sort of phrase, but when well meaning people say, "Aren't all religions basically the same," number one, they indicate they neither understand Christianity or the other religions, not really.
They are not all the same.
They cannot all be right, because they are saying contradictory things.
The other thing people mean, being well meaning when they say all religions are basically the same, is they think they are being tolerant when in fact they are being more intolerant than they ever imagined.
Let me explain.
When other says, "Well, all religions are just different paths to the same God," what they're doing is they're kind of recreating in their minds that old parable that we've all heard.
They're saying, you know, every faith, every religion kind of has a part of the truth and their right to themselves.
So they're kind of like the blind men describing the elephant.
And one blind man, you know, grabs the tail and says, "Well, the elephant's kind of like a snake."
And another, or, he says a rope, I think.
The other blind man grabs the trunk, and he says, "It's kind of like a large snake."
And the other blind man grabs the leg and said, "Well, an elephant is kind of like a tree trunk."
And we say, well, you know, they're all right.
But what you don't recognize in order to say they're all partially right is that you have advanced back away from the scene and say, "I know, because I'm right.
I have privileged judgment.
They're actually all limited.
They actually all don't see it straight.
I see it correctly."
And so the people who are actually faithful in the practice of their religion, millions of Muslims, who believe that they do hold to a unique truth that others ought to hold, people from Western cultures, back up and say, well, they're just wrong.
They're just misled.
And those millions of faithful Hindus:  Well, they're just wrong.
They're just limited in their view.
And the millions of Christians and those who have given themselves, their lives for the faith:  Well, they're just foolish.
And you do not recognize that by saying, "I stand in judgment against millions and millions of other people, they're the foolish ones; I have privileged and perfect and right now," that is actually the most intolerant of positions.
And saying you know more than everybody else.
But typically the people who say that have actually not explored the other religions.
They don't actually know what they teach.
And inadvertently create an intolerance they don't know in this way as well:  When they claim that all other religions are basically the same, that they are just a different dimension of the truth, you have to say, "Do you recognize what you just endorsed?"
After all, Hitler claimed that the basis for Aryanism was a supernatural gift that he and the Germans had been given:  that there are Jihadists, suicide bombers, who destroy the innocent, believing they are justified by their religion.
There are young women by the hundreds of thousands who are subjected to temple prostitution in the name of religion that millions more think is perfectly justified.
Do you really mean to say that all religions are basically the same, they're all just true in some way?
Do you really, do you not recognize the horror that you would endorse if you actually said that?
To say that all religions are basically the same is going to ultimately put people, and forgive me if this just becomes a logical argument but I want us to feel the weight of it:  If what you're saying is all religions are basically the same, then the reality is for those who would bother to discern what the world's religions actually teach is that they cannot all be right.
It just makes no logical sense.
You would have to deny intellectual integrity to say that all religions are basically the same.
Here's the other problem:  If you say that all religions are basically the same, that means Christ Himself would be a true path.
I mean, if you're willing to concede that all religions are basically true and okay, that means Christ Himself at least is a true path.
And if Christ is a true path, then there should be absolutely nothing wrong, no harm done, in declaring the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
I mean, if that's one of the legitimate paths, then there should be no harm in saying by Jesus' Christ your sins may be forgiven.
He lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, so the penalty for sin is paid and you can be right with God if you believe in.
If that's just one of the right ways, well, then, that's legitimate to say.
And we ought to be able to proclaim that if He is a right way.
But then there's something else to consider.
He didn't just claim to be a right way:  He claimed to be the right way.
And if that is true, then there could be nothing more unloving than to deny that truth to a world that is in threat of spiritual eternity without Him.
Let's just draw our analogy again.
If the room is on fire and there are multiple exits and I know that a way by my own heart's experience that I know a way is a true way and it leads to life of satisfaction in God and life with Him and joy and forgiveness:  If I know that it is a way and I really don't know about all the other ways, then there is nothing more important for me to do than to say, "That's the way you have to go.
I know that.
I don't the other, but I know that way."
And if I am truly one who is kind of magnanimous in spirit, the return ought to be the same.
If I know that, you would expect me, you would hope from me that I would say, if there is life and hope and safety through that door that I will direct you there.
Cause I don't know about the other, I have to say what I know is true.
Listen, even our critics know this.
Some of you will know the name Jillette Penn; he's the big guy of the comic duo Penn and Teller.
Right?
Remember the two?
Jillette Penn was raised in a Christian home.
He's not a Christian now.
But he at least recognizes the obligations of those who claim to be Christians.
Listen to what he says, understanding the position of those who say, "If Christ is even a true way, there are certain obligations upon him."
He says this:  "I don't respect people who don't proselytize."
Hear that?
"I don't respect people who don't proselytize.
I don't respect them at all.
If you believe that there's a heaven and a hell and people are going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever and you think that's not worth telling them because it would be socially awkward for you, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible but you will not tell them because it would be awkward for you?"
Even the critics recognize that if we say, "Behind that door, that way is life and joy and eternity with God," if we know even that much, there is nothing less gracious, less unloving, less hospitable than to deny them that knowledge.
We have been given the privilege of the knowledge of the one who says, "I am the Son of God, and I have made a place for you, and I have made a way for you, and it's the truth."
And if we don't say that, that is the unloving thing.
You know it.
September 11, 2001:  Remember?
Without warning, American Airlines flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.
John Yates, civilian worker in a conference room, is at the point that the plane hits.
The shock knocks is unconscious, knocks him yards from where he was standing.
But he awakes in an inferno.
He writes what happened at that point.
"I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know which way to go.
The air was unbreathable.
Everything I touched burned me.
Suddenly I heard a voice that said, 'Go through this door.
It's clear.'
To this day," he said, "I don't know who hollered that.
I assume it was a guardian angel.
I just started crawling toward the voice," and others began to follow him.
They actually crawled over the fuselage of the plane that had crashed into the building.
They crawled until they reached an opening through the fire.
The people who had followed him called him a hero.
He responded, "I am not.
I am just an ordinary guy thrust into an extraordinary situation.
If I helped others get out, that's my reward other than the Lord letting me tell you what I heard."
What is our privilege?
I will tell you what I heard, and there is nothing more loving that I could do.
If I know that's the way, I got to tell you that.
And there is nothing more loving or gracious to do than tell you.
Jesus made that way.
And that's a good way.
Let's go there.

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