I am the way and the truth and the life

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” John 14:6-7

It can’t be said any plainer than this. In this too familiar statement, the Lord Jesus silences all the naysayers, all the critics, and forever answers our questions about the nature of God. I say that it is too familiar because it is often quoted but seldom really understood.

When the Lord said, “I am the way”, He was forever answering man’s questions of “How?” In saying, “I am the truth”, He silenced the myriad of voices both past and future who would ask, “Why?” and in saying “I am the life”, He spoke to the deep gnawing issues that spring from the question, “What?” Since the fall, how, what, and why have dominated the heart and thinking of man. Attempted answers fill rows and rows of shelves in libraries and bookstores on subjects dealing with psychology to the para-normal, from evolution to re-incarnation, from every major world religion to atheism. Philosophers have debated these questions, and poets have written and sung about them. Great leaders have fought wars defending their personal understanding of each, and sadly, countless multitudes of others have died with little or no understanding having ever been clearly gained regarding any of them…how, what, why?

Yet in this one short interaction with His disciples, the eternal King of Glory now in human likeness says, “I am the answer to each”. He doesn’t say, “I have the answer to each”, or “I know how to find the answer to each”, but rather, “If you know me, you now know God”, and “If you’ve seen me, you have seen God.” He says, “I am the answer to every question regarding man and God, to every question about man’s purposes, and to every question about the meaning of this existence we call life.”

How is that possible? It is because the Lord Jesus embodied each. Being Himself, God in human form, He became the very way to God. As the logos, the very Word of God, He Himself is the truth…not so much individual truths about something, but simply He is truth. And because He is eternal, and the creator and sustainer of all that exists, both seen and unseen, He is the life.
It is a continual challenge of our faith to gain and hold to the understanding that all we need is in Jesus. He is God’s provision to mankind, in every area and in every way. God the Father may not give us many “things”, He has given us His Son. When we have a need, it must awaken our heart to again confess as did Paul the apostle, “That I may know him.”

R. Martinez