| When the Lord announced to his disciples
that he was going to return to the Father, he said,
"And whither I go ye know, and the way ye
know." The apostle Thomas said, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" Our Lord's answer to that important question has given assurance to multitudes of enquires, and it will impart the same knowledge to everyone who will act upon it today. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6). To seriously consider all that people call "the way" causes confusion. In bewilderment, one asks, " How can I know the way? Who is right? What am I to believe?" There is genuine satisfaction in hearing the Lord Jesus say, as he does in this verse, "I am the way!" He said, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22). Twice we are warned that "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). How often one hears the expressions: "It seems to me that if I do the best I know, it will turn out all right," or "It seems to me that law-keeping is the way," or “It seems to me that the Church is the way," or " It seems to me that doing good is the way!" There is no Christ in those “solutions.” He is the only one who bore our sins in his own body on the cross and died for them. He rose again for our justification. He is the only one who can say with divine authority, "I am the way." While it is somewhat difficult to define "truth," it is helpful to say, "Truth is reality, the opposite of vanity and error." In Jesus Christ we have the very personification of truth. He is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He was "God manifest in flesh" (I Timothy 3:16). He has faithfully and finally revealed God. He "should not," "will not," and "cannot lie" (Numbers 23:19; I Samuel 15:29; Titus 1:2). It is "impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18). "Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19) One may have reasons for questioning, doubting and disbelieving others, but not the Lord Jesus. Because he is the truth, he has the right to say, "Believe me," as he does in such passages as John 4:21 and 14:11. All unsaved persons are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). They need divine, spiritual, eternal life! The Lord Jesus says, "I am the life." Not only does he give life: He also is the life! The apostle Paul said, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4). Again, Paul could say, "Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). "This is the true God, and eternal life" (I John 5:20). Without Jesus Christ as the way, there is no going; without him as the truth, there is no knowing; and without him as the life, there is no growing. Is he yours? He said, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me!" – Tom Olson |