MARTIN CAREY | Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Life Assurance Ministries Board Member
Two weeks ago, I was driving near Loma Linda and saw an old, battered sign taped to a utility pole. The sign was printed on faded yellow card stock, bending in the wind. It’s message was clear:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” —John 14:6
I thought, “Hmm, not very impressive evangelism, but maybe God can use it.”
Later that day, after seeing the third John 14:6 sign, I started feeling convicted. How much did I really understand those words? It’s easy to trivialize God’s words when we have heard them often. What exactly did Jesus mean when He said, “I am the way”?
It was the night of the last Passover supper with His disciples, and Jesus was doing and saying things they couldn’t understand. He washed their feet and told them to do likewise. He told them that one of them was going to betray Him, and that Peter would deny Him three times, that very night. More disturbing, He told them that He was about to leave them, and they could not follow Him, until later.
“Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’” —John 13:33
They could see that He was troubled and was saying troubling things. They wondered how their Lord and Messiah could abandon them now? Jesus answered their fears in chapter 14, where He gave strong assurance to His worried disciples—and to us. Here is the King James version that most of us learned:
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”—John 14:1–3
The immediate context of this passage is essential to understanding what Jesus is announcing. He is leaving His closest friends, and this world, and yet, He is going to prepare a place for them. His disciples are confused by his talk of “going away” to a place where they cannot follow. They are hurt by His statements of their betrayal and denial of Him, and they need strong assurance. Jesus has so much to teach them to prepare them for what is about to happen to Him. They worry, why can’t they go with Him?
We have all read the first three verses in John 14, and many of us can easily recite them. From my early years in Sabbath School, I understood the message to be, “Don’t worry, be happy! Jesus is going to build me a mansion in heaven, and someday soon, He’s coming back. So if I’m good, I’ll get to live there.”
As Adventists, we were taught to apply those verses to our progress on the path to salvation and our hope that someday, we’ll reach heaven. Generally, we believed that in John 14:1-6, that Jesus is telling us how to get to heaven, and that He shows us the way, and that by following Him on the path of obeying the 10 commandments (vs. 15), we will attain the heavenly goal. Walking on the narrow, difficult path was worth all the trouble because of the reward that awaited us, a shiny mansion. Commenting on Jesus’ words, “I am the way,” Ellen White wrote,
“The path He has marked out is so plain and distinct that the veriest sinner, loaded with guilt, need not miss his way. Not one trembling seeker need fail of finding the true path, and of walking in pure and holy light, for Jesus leads the way. (Our High Calling, 38, https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/81.2624).
According to White, when Jesus calls Himself “the Way,” He is making only an indirect reference to His own person and is actually pointing out the path of holy living where His followers must walk. Furthermore, White states, Jesus will stay with us, but only under certain conditions:
“If in our ignorance we make missteps, Christ does not leave us. His voice, clear and distinct, is heard saying, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’” (Christ’s Object Lessons, https://www.ellenwhite.info/books/ellen-g-white-book-christs-object-lessons-col-14.htm).
According to White, Christ remains with us, as long as we don’t knowingly sin. Jesus’s staying with us on that path depends on our avoidance of sin. But let’s look at this passage more closely. Is Jesus directing His disciples to focus on their personal way of holiness. Does our holiness keep Jesus present with us?
More Glory Than Moses
We can more fully appreciate what Jesus is saying in John 13 and 14 when we see Moses’ encounters with God in Exodus 32 and 33. Let’s take notice of the theme of God staying with His people, revealing to them His “ways,” and not abandoning them, even when they sin. After the golden calf rebellion, God threatened to abandon Israel. Moses interceded for his people, and pleaded with God on behalf of Israel, to forgive them and not abandon them.
“Moses said to the LORD, ‘See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.” —Exodus 33:12-13
Moses takes the role of intercessor and is ready to sacrifice himself to save his people:
“But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”—Exodus 32:32
God honors him and forgives Israel’s sins, not by virtue of Moses’ willingness to sacrifice his life, but because of God’s promises to Israel. In Genesis 12, 15, and 17, God had previously committed Himself to be their God and stay with Abraham’s offspring. He renews His promise to Moses.
“Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”—Exodus 33:13-14
God had an answer for their guilty, troubled, frightened hearts. Because of His faithfulness to His everlasting covenant, He would forgive them, go with them, and give them rest. In the tabernacle, we see a picture of how God will personally dwell with His people. That tent in the desert revealed the way into God’s presence, where His forgiveness and favor are found. Moses is right to ask God to reveal His ways and His glory. He was permitted to see a little of that glory, and hear His name proclaimed.
How Can We Know the Way?
Back in that upper room, the disciples needed to know that Jesus would abandon them. Jesus told them, “You know the way to where I am going” (vs. 4).
Thomas, wanting clarification, asked, “‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’”
Jesus’ answer to Thomas may seem indirect, even obtuse, unless we consider what Thomas wanted to know, and the Old Testament underpinnings to His words in Exodus:
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”—John 14:6
Jesus had already told them He is going back to His Father, by way of His suffering, dying, and rising (Matt. 20:17-19). They did not understand any of this, and wanted additional assurances. They were familiar with the ways of the Old Covenant, where Israel had access to God’s presence in the tabernacle. The Jews also understood that for any Israelite, the way to God was by obedience to His law. It was through the law that they could know God and have any hope of pleasing Him. Additionally, God’s presence only resided in the Most Holy Place, which was behind the vail. Only one Israelite could ever enter God’s presence within the veil without facing death.
When Jesus said that He was “the way and the truth and the life,” He was claiming to be much more than any high priest of the Old Covenant. He provides confident access to the Father to everyone who trusts in Him, everywhere, and all the time (Hebrews 4:16). That way to the Father is only through faith in Jesus, not through law-keeping. When Jesus calls Himself “the Way,” He is not pointing us to a path of obedient law-keeping. He is directing us to Himself as the living, ever-present way to the Father. He is all the truth we need to know about the Father. He alone is the very transcript of God’s character.
Philip, not knowing what he was saying, asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (vs.8). He was probably thinking of Moses asking God to show His glory, back in Exodus 33. It’s easy for us to forget, along with Philip, who we are speaking to. Jesus was there with Moses on the mountain, declaring His glory and grace. Those confused disciples had seen God with greater intimacy and glory than Moses had. They had seen the Father, and so can we.
For Troubled Hearts
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”—John 14:1
If you believe and trust in Jesus, you are also believing in God the Father. Your heart does not need to be troubled, worrying about Him abandoning you. If we sin,“we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1John 2:1).
“In my Father’s house are many rooms.”—John 14:2
Jesus said that in His Father’s house there are many rooms. The word He used is not properly translated “mansions,” as we all learned from the King James Version. There is no suggestion here that especially good Christians will be rewarded with bigger mansions. So much religion today teaches us to focus on our feelings, our law-keeping, or the strength of our faith. Most religion is all about us. Jesus is not directing us to look at our performance as a way to God. He is showing us that He has opened the way to God by faith in His obedience and blood. There is no other way to the Father.
The actual Greek word here is “monai,” meaning abodes or dwelling places (https://biblehub.com/lexicon/john/14-2.htm). There are many rooms in God’s house, where all those He loves will live, like His own family, in His direct presence. That is the point of this text.
How did Jesus prepare a place for us in His Father’s house? He went to the cross and paid for our sins, and rose on the third day. He has promised to dwell in us through His Holy Spirit (14:23):
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”—John 14:23
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