“I Am the Only Way” - John 14:1-6

By Dr. David Jeremiah

A motivating factor behind this message was an article I read about George Barna. Barna, a pollster who’s become the George Gallup of evangelical Christianity, conducted a survey of American Christians in 1992 and another one in 2002. What he found was that biblically-based, born again, evangelical Christianity, which comprised 12 percent of the population in 1992, had declined to five percent in 2002. One significant indicator of that decline was an increasing number of believers who deny the most basic of fundamental Christian beliefs. Those basics, which are exclusive to Christianity and potentially offensive to those who are not Christians, are being vacated for easy, soft, unoffensive truth claims. John 14:6 is probably the most exclusive and potentially offensive of all Christ’s sayings. In this verse Jesus says categorically, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Then He adds to ensure that no one misunderstands Him, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” A narrow statement? Yes. An exclusive one? Yes. But, if these words are true then they are the greatest message, the best news the world can possibly hear for they declare that there is a way to heaven. It is possible to come to God! I have two points I want to make about this best possible news.

First, the spiritual context of Jesus’ claim, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Before sin entered the world Adam and Eve, the first people, enjoyed a threefold privilege in their relation to God. First, they were in communion with God. They enjoyed a relationship with Him characterized by friendship, care, and love. Second, they knew God, and because of that, they knew the truth. Third, they possessed life, physical life, and spiritual life. But when they disobeyed God and fell into sin, they lost these privileges. One, instead of communion with God, they became alienated, cut off from Him. Two, instead of knowing the truth, they fell into ignorance, falsehood, and error. Three, instead of possessing spiritual life, they began to know death, spiritual death and then physical death. This is the human condition. In sin we are alienated from God, we are ignorant of Him and the truth, and we are condemned to spiritual and physical death.
The glory of Christ’s claim is the second point. Jesus Christ is God’s answer to our problem at each of these three levels of difficulty. First, in the place of alienation, Jesus has provided the way back to communion with God. Notice that Jesus doesn’t

claim to be merely a guide who came to show us the path we should walk. He declares that He is the path, the way to God the Father. The way back to communion, to friendship with God is through Jesus’ death on the cross. At the cross the source of alienation, our sin is forgiven (Colossians 2:13) and removed from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). In overcoming our alienation, Jesus has reconciled us to our heavenly Father. As Colossians 2:19-20 says, “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things.” How did Jesus do that? “By making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” Second, in the place of human ignorance, falsehood, and error, Jesus provides truth. The point here being that truth is not impersonal, it’s not an ideal, it’s not a concept. No, it’s personal; it’s found in God. Note that Jesus did not say, “I have come to tell you the truth about God” or “I have come to point you to the truth about God.” Jesus said, “I am the truth” and “God and I are one.”    If you’re in search of the truth, what is right and real and significant and forever, you have found what you are looking for in Jesus Christ.

Everyone searching for truth affirms and believes the One who said these words. In the last hours of His life Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, “For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” And then He added this, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me” (John 18:37). Third, for all who receive Him and who place their trust in Him, Jesus is life, the liberator from death. A. W. Pink wrote: “The whole Bible bears solemn witness to the fact that in sin man is spiritually lifeless. He walks according to the course of this world; he has no love for the things of God. Self is the center and the circumference of his existence. He is alive to the things of this world, but is dead to heavenly things. The one who is out of Christ exists, but he has no spiritual life. When the prodigal son returned from the far country, notice what his father said, ‘This, my son, was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found’ (Luke 15:24). Jesus Christ can make people like this alive!”

As He said in John 5:24: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

I have a number of application points. First, to the charge that we are narrow and exclusive in affirming the words of John 14:6, we have to confess that this is precisely what we are. Others may not like it, but we are as narrow and as exclusive as our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, and this is the emphasis of the verse, that He is the only way to God. There is no other way. As Christians, we affirm with our Lord that there is no salvation apart from Him. Please understand that this is not the only place that this truth is explicitly stated. The Apostle Peter told the Jewish leaders who opposed him, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). In I Timothy 2:5 the Apostle Paul wrote, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Next, in our pluralistic world, we are told that ‘many paths lead to God.’ Based on my research this week, the statement that “many paths lead to God” is made by two groups of people. One, those people with no religion, and two, those who are opposed to Christianity as it’s expressed in God’s Word. People of other religions do not say, “many paths lead to God.” It is not the case that all other religions are inclusive and Christianity is the only exclusive religion. Ravi Zacharias is a Christian apologist who has an exhaustive understanding of the world’s religions. He writes that every religion of the world is exclusive and offensive. He writes, “At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or who He is not. At the core of every religion is teaching about how to get to God which excludes all other religions.” Given that every religion is exclusive and offensive, the question according to Zacharias, is, which religion is true? This is that claim of Jesus Christ: “I am the truth. As the truth, I am the only way to salvation, the only way to God. There is no other way, apart from Me.”

One way to look Jesus’ claim is to ask who would look for another cure for cancer if the perfect cure had been found? If you had cancer, I think you’d agree it would be foolish for you to turn down the perfect cure for your disease in the hopes of finding another. In the same way, attempting to find another way to God after God has provided the only way is folly, it’s foolish, and it’s bound to produce only discouragement and despair.

But there’s more to it than that. To reject Jesus when He says, “I am the way and the truth and the life” is ultimately an insult to Him. It’s insulting because it’s the second person of the Trinity who said these words. How did Jesus provide the way, truth, and life? Did He just say the words and walk away to do something else? No. He backed up what He said, He made good on His words by acting on them. He gave His own life on the cross, He died on Calvary’s tree to provide us the way, the truth, and the life. To not accept Jesus on this very point is to declare (I’m afraid), “Jesus, you can’t be trusted,” or even worse, “Jesus, you’re not telling the truth.” By God’s grace and goodness, we know better than that.

And finally, there’s Jesus’ motivation in speaking these words. Jesus was leaving His disciples. They had questions, doubts, fears about His departure. What would happen to Him? What would happen to them? He said these words as words of comfort, to drive away doubt and fear; to instill assurance, certainty, faith. He does the same for you, for me, for all who call Him Savior and Lord! Thomas A. Kempis, author of the Imitation of Christ wrote, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which you must follow; the truth which you must believe; the life for which you must live. If you remain in my way you will know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, and you will take hold of eternal life.” This, my friends, is a valuable truth, a precious truth. It’s a truth worth keeping and embracing; it’s a truth worth sharing and proclaiming. Because it is good news, the best possible news our lost and dying world can hear! In these days of uncertainty, you can stake your life, your eternal destiny on these words of your Savior and Lord!

Dr. David Jeremiah is the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, and Chancellor of Christian Heritage College. His radio broadcast, Turning Point, is heard on more than 900 radio outlets. For more information regarding Dr. Jeremiah please visit his web site at www.turningpointradio.org.