Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 14:5
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
5. Thomas ] Nothing is to be inferred from the omission of ‘Didymus’ here (comp. Joh 11:16, Joh 20:24, Joh 21:2). For his character see on Joh 11:16. His question here has a melancholy tone combined with some dulness of apprehension. But there is honesty of purpose in it. He owns his ignorance and asks for explanation. This great home with many abodes, is it the royal city of the conquering Messiah, who is to restore the kingdom to Israel (see on Act 1:6); and will not that be Jerusalem? How then can He go away?
and how can we know ] The true reading is, How know we.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
We know not whither thou goest – Though Jesus had so often told them of his approaching death and resurrection, yet it seems they did not understand him, nor did they fully comprehend him until after his resurrection. See Luk 24:21. They entertained the common notions of a temporal kingdom; they supposed still that he was to be an earthly prince and leader, and they did not comprehend the reason why he should die. Thomas confessed his ignorance, and the Saviour again patiently explained his meaning. All this shows the difficulty of believing when the mind is full of prejudice and of contrary opinions. If Thomas had laid aside his previous opinions – had he been willing to receive the truth as Jesus plainly spoke it, there would have been no difficulty. Faith would have been an easy and natural exercise of the mind. And so with the sinner. If he were willing to receive the plain and unequivocal doctrines of the Bible, there would be no difficulty; but his mind is full of opposite opinions and plans, occupied with errors and vanities, and these are the reasons, and the only reasons, why he is not a Christian. Yet who would say that, after the plain instructions of Jesus, Thomas might not have understood him? And who will dare to say that any sinner may not lay aside his prejudices and improper views, and receive the plain and simple teaching of the Bible?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. Lord, we know not] Thomas, perhaps, thought that our Lord only spoke of his going some distance from the place where he then was.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Reason tells every one, that he who knoweth not the term whither a person is going, must needs be ignorant of the way. It is plain, that Thomas, and so (probably) divers others of the apostles, notwithstanding what our Saviour had so plainly told them, Joh 14:2, yet dreamed of some earthly motion our Saviour was making, which makes Thomas to speak thus: so dull are we, and hard to conceive of spiritual things. But will some say, Doth not Thomas here contradict his Master, who had told them, Joh 14:4, that they both knew whither he went, and the way also?
Answer. Some think that our Saviour meant no more than they ought to have known, both whither he went, and the way also; active verbs in Scripture phrase, often signifying no more than duty, or ability. But possibly others answer better, They had some knowledge, but it was more confused and general; not distinct, particular, or certain.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Thomas saith unto him, Lord,…. Who was one of his apostles, and here betrays his ignorance, as elsewhere his unbelief; and not only speaks for himself, but for the rest of the apostles, of whom he judged by himself; and who, it may be, might understand things better than himself, though their knowledge at present was but small:
we know not whither thou goest; though he had but just told them of his Father’s house, and of his going to prepare a place for them:
and how can we know the way? for if we do not know the place, it is not reasonable to think we should know the way to it. Thomas seemed to have no other notion than that Christ was talking of some particular place in Judea, whither he was going, and of the road to it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Whither ()– how (). It is Thomas, not Peter (13:36f.) who renews the doubt about the destination of Jesus including the path or way thither ( ). Thomas is the spokesman for the materialistic conception then and now.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
And how can we know [ ] . The best texts substitute oidamen, know we, for dunameqa, can we; reading, how know we the way. So Rev. Some also omit and before how.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Thomas saith unto him, Lord,” (legei auto Thomas kurie) “Thomas said directly to him, Lord,” with love for his Master, but a morbid tendency toward doubt and uncertainty, a seeming trait of his character, Joh 11:16.
2) “We know not whither thou goest; (ouk oidamen pou hupageis) “We do not really know where you go,” though He had repeatedly told them what awaited Him in His coming betrayal, suffering, and death. He and they did not know clearly or distinctly. It appears that they rather fancied His going to Bethlehem, Nazareth, or Capernaum to be anointed as king, a thing for which many clamored, Joh 6:15.
3) “And how can we know the way?” (pos oidamen ten hodon) “How do we (then) know the way?” perceive or comprehend the way. Thomas had missed both the goal” for which He had come into the world, as the “Lamb” of God, to take away the sin of the world, by being lifted up upon the cross, to save the lost, Joh 1:29; Joh 3:14-15: Luk 19:10; and the “way-to the Father, by or through Him, Joh 10:10-11.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
5. Thomas saith to him. Though, at first sight, the reply of Thomas appears to contradict what Christ had said, yet he did not intend to give the lie to his Master. But it may be asked, In what sense does he deny what Christ asserted? I reply, the knowledge possessed by the saints is sometimes confused, because they do not understand the manner or the reason of those things which are certain, and which have been explained to them. For example, the Prophets foretold the calling of the Gentiles with a true perception of faith, and yet Paul declares that it was a mystery hidden from them, (Eph 3:2.) In like manner, when the Apostles believed that Christ was departing to the Father, and yet did not know in what way he would obtain the kingdom, Thomas justly replies, that they do not know whither he is going. Hence he concludes that they know still less about the way; for before we enter into a road, we must know where we intend to go.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) Thomas saith unto him.Comp., for the character of Thomas, Joh. 11:16; Joh. 20:24; Joh. 21:2.
Lord, we know not whither thou goest. Our Lords words had laid stress upon the way. Thomas lays stress upon the whither. His mind seeks for measured certainty. In all that he has heard of the Fathers house of many mansions, of being with the Lord, there is much that he cannot understand. The Messiah, they thought, was to reign upon earth. Where was this vast royal home, with dwelling-places for all, to which Christ was going first, and to which they were to follow? They know not whither, and without that knowledge they cannot even think of the way.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Thomas whither way? Thomas, here, seems contradictory, but he is only doubtful. In fact, he is putting an experimental question. He somewhat exaggerates his own ignorance, to draw out from the Lord a more explicit explanation of his destination and departure. He knows not the whither, that is, the terminus; and how, then, can he know the way to it. He hopes that our Lord will give a full description, at least a verbal map, of the region to which he goes, and the route by which he attains it.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Thomas says to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ’
Thomas now speaks up for all. (We note here the equality between the Apostles). While Jesus was there, there had been no problem. But that other world often appeared far away and strange, and at no time more than at this moment in their lives. Yes, there is another world, but what is it like, and what is the way there? They do not yet have confidence and assurance in that other world. Their minds up to this point have been set on an earthly Kingdom, and they are taking time to adjust. Furthermore Thomas was not alone in this. All the disciples shared his concern. How were they to find their way to this place to which Jesus was going?
We too may feel sometimes that we do not know where He has gone. Heaven may seem a strange place. But as He has just explained, what is important is that we know He is there and awaits us, and that we know Him as the Way there.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
An interruption by Thomas:
v. 5. Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?
v. 6. Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.
v. 7. If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also; and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him. Thomas was but expressing the thoughts of the majority of the disciples; he acted, in a way, as their mouthpiece. So firmly and completely were their hearts and minds bound up with the matters of this world and with their hopes of a temporal reign of the Messiah that even now they did not understand the references of the Lord. It was necessary almost to pry their thoughts loose from this world. Thomas protested that they did not even know the object and goal of the Master’s going; and how could they possibly know the way! The question sounds so foolish that it is well to remember what one commentator remarks: The disciples knew, but they did not know that they knew. Sorrow had benumbed their spiritual faculties. With infinite patience, therefore, the Lord gives them a brief summary of all His teaching. Christ is the Way to God and to heaven; not merely a leader and guide; He bears, He carries them that are His, that trust in Him; He brings them safely to the home above. Christ is the Truth: His every Word may be trusted implicitly, for it teaches the knowledge of God, and directs the way; the way which He teaches is the only right way, for He is the absolute Truth. Christ is the Life: He is the Fountain and Giver of all true life, the life that animates all those that believe on Him, and that is to be enjoyed eternally at the end of the way. He that believes on Him has eternal life, is indissolubly united with God, so far as God’s will and intention are concerned. These things being true, it follows that no man can come to the Father, attain to the enjoyment of eternal bliss, but by and through Jesus. There is no other way, all those that are devised by men, the ways of good works and self-righteousness, being false paths, that lead to everlasting destruction. Jesus is the only Way to heaven. “This, I believe, is what the second word, ‘truth,’ means in all simplicity, that Christ is not only the Way in the beginning, but the true, certain way, and alone will finally remain the Way to which one must ever adhere, and not let the wrong path deceive that would entice us to seek something besides Christ that should help us to salvation. ” Jesus adds, by way of a gentle rebuke: If ye had known Me, ye should have known the Father. Their knowledge was not yet so deep and complete as it well might have been. The Father is in Jesus, and to know Him is to know the Father, chap. 10:30. The disciples had therefore seen the Father, who is revealed in the Son, with the eyes of faith, by which they had received Christ. “He that sees Christ with eyes ‘in faith’ by that same process of seeing also sees the Father; for he touches that Person in whom the Father (also bodily, as St. Paul says, Col 2:1-23: lives, and revivals all His heart and will. Thus we also see and know both Him and the Father, although not with eyes, nor through bodily seeing and knowing, but through that very faith.”
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Joh 14:5. Lord, we know not whither thou goest; “We know not where thy Father’s house stands, and consequently cannot know the way to it.” It is probable that Thomas might think that Christ intended to remove to some splendid palace on earth, to set up his court there for a while, before he received his people to the celestial glory: for it is certain that his thoughts, as well as those of the rest of the disciples, principally turned upon a temporal kingdom.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
Ver. 5. Lord, we know not whither thou goest, &c. ] No, Thomas? what, are ye also ignorant? They knew, but knew not that they knew: their knowledge was yet but confused and indistinct; they saw men, but as it were walking like trees, till their eyes were better anointed with the eye-salve of the Spirit. A man (saith Gataker) may have grace, and yet not know it (as the embryo hath life, and yet knoweth it not), yea, he may think he hath it not, as we seek for keys that are in our pockets; or think we have lost a jewel, that we locked up in our chest: yea, as the butcher looketh for the candle that sticketh in his hat, by the light of what he seeketh.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5. ] Thomas is slow of belief and apprehension. The answer to ; ch. Joh 13:37 , which Peter seems to have apprehended, was not sufficient for him: see ch. Joh 20:25 : , says Euthym [192] , , .
[192] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 14:5 . But this statement bewilders the despondent Thomas, who gloomily interjects: ; Thomas’ difficulty is that not knowing the goal they cannot know the way. In the reply of Jesus both the goal and the way are disclosed.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Thomas. See App-94and App-141.
unto = to. Lord. App-98. A.
not. Greek. ou. App-105.
can, &c. The texts read, “know we”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
5.] Thomas is slow of belief and apprehension. The answer to ; ch. Joh 13:37, which Peter seems to have apprehended, was not sufficient for him: see ch. Joh 20:25 : , says Euthym[192], , .
[192] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 14:5. , Thomas) One after the other asks questions, with reverential and sweet affection [suavity] towards Him: Joh 14:8 [Philip], Joh 14:22 [Judas, not Iscariot], and previously, ch. Joh 13:36 [Simon Peter].- , and how) Thomas, using acute reasoning, lays it down as a sure conclusion, that, inasmuch as they knew not the goal, they must much less know the way. [Jesus replies as to both (the goal and the way), but in inverse order. Jesus is the way: through Him (as the way) whither is it given us to attain? To the Father.-V. g.]
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 14:5
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way?-Thomas was of a doubting and despondent disposition and found many difficulties in the way, so he was slow to take in what Jesus said, and especially the spiritual truths he spoke. [Thomas was a plain, honest, and plain-spoken disciple. He lost all faith and hope when Jesus died. He did not believe the Lord had risen until he saw with his own eyes. Now he affirms, We know not whither thou goest. We expected you to stay with us and reign as our king in an earthly kingdom. We cannot understand your going away and dying nor whither thou goest. Then how can we know the way?]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Thomas: Joh 20:25-28
we know not: Joh 15:12, Mar 8:17, Mar 8:18, Mar 9:19, Luk 24:25, Heb 5:11, Heb 5:12
Reciprocal: Luk 9:45 – General Joh 13:36 – whither Joh 16:17 – said Joh 16:23 – ask Joh 20:24 – Thomas
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
5
In spite of all the teaching Jesus had given them, they seemed to be rather confused. Hence Thomas said they did not even know where he was going, much less know the way to it. His memory certainly was dull, for Jesus had just told him he was going to his Father’s house. As to the way in which they (and others) could follow him, Jesus had not spoken as definitely on that point, at least not so lately.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 14:5. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest away: how do we know the way? In Joh 14:4, Jesus had spoken of going away,not of going, as in Joh 14:3. The idea of separation is thus again brought prominently forward, and Thomas is overborne by the thought of it (comp. chap. Joh 11:16). His discouragement, which blinds his eyes, is uttered in the words before us.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. How Thomas, and probably divers others of the apostles, notwithstanding all that Christ had said to the contrary, did still dream of a temporal kingdom, and supposed him to speak of some earthly palace which he was going to, and therefore he tells our Saviour, he knew not whither he was going; but Christ meaning not a temporal, but a heavenly kingdom, tells them, that if they intends to follow him, and be with him in heaven, he himself was the only way thither; I am the way, and the truth, and the life; that is, I am the true and living way to the Father; And no man cometh to the Father but by me! that is, no man can have any access to God by prayer, or any other act of religious worship here on earth, or any access to God by prayer, or any other act of religious worship here on earth, or any access to God in heaven, but by me, as Mediator. As if Christ had said, “I am the Author of the way that leadeth unto life, that Teacher of the truth which directs to it, and the Giver of that life which is to be obtained by walking in it: I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Joh 14:5-6. Thomas saith Taking him in a gross sense; Lord, we know not whither thou goest As their thoughts turned very much on a temporal kingdom, they might imagine that their Master intended to remove to some splendid palace on earth, which he was to prepare for their reception, making it the seat of his court. Jesus saith, I am the way, the truth, and the life Christ was his own way to the Father, inasmuch as by his own blood he entered into the holy place, Heb 9:12; and he is our way, in that we enter by him. By his doctrine and example he teaches us our duty; by his merit and intercession he procures for us our happiness; and in these respects he is the way. In him God and man meet and are brought together, and by him a way of intercourse is appointed and kept up between heaven and earth; our prayers ascend to God, and his blessings descend to us by him. He is the truth, 1st, As truth is opposed to figure and emblem: he is the substance of all the Old Testament types and shadows, which are therefore said to be figures of the true things. He is the true manna, (Joh 6:32,) the true tabernacle, Heb 8:2. 2d, As truth is opposed to falsehood and error, the doctrine of Christ is infallibly true doctrine; the truth as it is in Jesus. 3d, As truth is opposed to fallacy and deceit; he is true and faithful to all that trust in him, and will assuredly make good all his declarations and promises, 2Co 1:20. He is the life, for we are made alive unto God here, and brought to eternal life hereafter, only in and through him, who is the resurrection and the life, Rom 6:11. For as God hath given to believers eternal life, this life is in his Son, and only he that hath the Son hath life, Joh 5:11-12. No man cometh unto the Father but by me Fallen man may, and must come to God as a judge, but cannot come to him as a Father, otherwise than by Christ as a Mediator, Redeemer, and Saviour; for through him alone, through his merits and Spirit, his doctrine and grace, can we be pardoned and renewed, justified, sanctified, and glorified.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 5, 6. Thomas says to him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how do we know the way? 6.Jesus says to him, I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.
Peter desired to follow Jesus immediately; this request having been rejected, Thomas wishes at least to understand clearly what is to take place, whither Jesus is going and by what way, and the more because the disciples are one day to follow Him. Thus far, the departure of Jesus leaves him nothing but obscurity. End and way, everything is lost for him in vacancy. Jesus, in His reply, lays hold especially upon the idea of the way while recalling to mind clearly the end in the second part of the verse. From the connection of these words with the question of Thomas it follows that the dominant idea of the three following terms is that of way, and that the other two must serve to explain it. From the second part of the verse it is also clear that the way which is in question is that which leads to the Father and His house, and not the way by which one can come to the truth and the life, as Reuss formerly supposed.
The figurative expression way is therefore explained without a figure by the two terms: truth and life. Truth is God revealed in His essence, that is to say, in His holiness and love (Joh 14:9). Life is God communicated to the soul and bringing to it a holy strength and perfect beatitude (Joh 14:23). And as it is in Jesus that this revelation and communication of God to the soul are effected, so it is through Jesus also that the soul comes to the Father and obtains through Him the entrance into the Father’s house. The three terms, way, truth and life, are not, therefore, co-ordinated (Luther, Calvin: beginning, middle, end); no more do they express a single notion: vera via vitae (Augustine). Jesus means to say: I am the means of coming to the Father (the way), in that I am the truth and the life.
Reuss justly observes with reference to the word I am, that this expression excludes every other means parallel to this. Gess: A man can at the most show to others the right way; he cannot be either the way or the truth or the life.
In the following clause, the words: to the Father, set forth a nearer end than the figurative expression of Joh 14:2. The question here is of communion with the Father here on earth, which is the condition of communion with Him in heaven (His house).
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
The question about the way 14:5-7
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Thomas voiced the disciples’ continuing confusion about Jesus’ destination. Apparently the "Father’s house" did not clearly identify heaven to them. Without a clear understanding of the final destination they could not be sure of the route there. Thomas’ question was a request for an unambiguous explanation of Jesus’ and their destination and how He and they would get there.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
IX. THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
“Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; how know we the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me. If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also: from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.”– Joh 14:5-7.
It surprises us to find that words which have become familiar and most intelligible to us should have been to the Apostles obscure and puzzling. Apparently they were not yet persuaded that their Master was shortly to die; and, accordingly, when He spoke of going to His Father’s house, it did not occur to them that He meant passing into the spiritual world. His assuring words, “Where I am, there ye shall be also,” therefore fell short. And when He sees their bewilderment written on their faces, He tentatively, half interrogatively, adds, “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.”[15] Unless they knew where He was going, there was less consolation even in the promise that He would come for them after He had gone and prepared a place for them. And when He thus challenges them candidly to say whether they understood where He was going, and where He would one day take them also, Thomas, always the mouthpiece for the despondency of the Twelve, at once replies, “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?”
This interruption by Thomas gives occasion to the great declaration, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” It is, then, to the Father that Christ is the Way. And He is the Way by being the Truth and the Life. We must first, then, consider in what sense He is the Truth and the Life.
I. I am the Truth. Were these words merely equivalent to “I speak the truth,” it would be much to know this of One who tells us things of so measureless a consequence to ourselves. The faith of the disciples was being strained by what He had just been saying to them. Here was a man in most respects like themselves: a man who got hungry and sleepy, a man who was to be arrested and executed by the rulers, assuring them that He was going to prepare for them everlasting habitations, and that He would return to take them to these habitations. He saw that they found it hard to believe this. Who does not find it hard to believe all our Lord tells us of our future? Think how much we trust simply to His word. If He is not true, then the whole of Christendom has framed its life on a false issue, and is met at death by blank disappointment. Christ has aroused in our minds by His promises and statements a group of ideas and expectations which nothing but His word could have persuaded us to entertain. Nothing is more remarkable about our Lord than the calmness and assurance with which He utters the most astounding statements. The ablest and most enlightened men have their hesitations, their periods of agonising doubt, their suspense of judgment, their laboured inquiries, their mental conflicts. With Jesus there is nothing of this. From first to last He sees with perfect clearness to the utmost bound of human thought, knows with absolute certainty whatever is essential for us to know. His is not the assurance of ignorance, nor is it the dogmatism of traditional teaching, nor the evasive assurance of a superficial and reckless mind. It is plainly the assurance of One who stands in the full noon of truth and speaks what He knows.
But in His endeavours to gain the confidence of men there is discernible no anger at their incredulity. Again and again He brings forward reasons why His word should be believed. He appeals to their knowledge of His candour: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” It was the truth He came into the world to bear witness to. Lies enough were current already. He came to be the Light of the world, to dispel the darkness and bring men into the very truth of things. But with all His impressiveness of asseveration there is no anger, scarcely even wonder that men did not believe, because He saw as plainly as we see that to venture our eternal hope on His word is not easy. And yet He answered promptly and with authority the questions which have employed the lifetime of many and baffled them in the end. He answered them as if they were the very alphabet of knowledge. These alarmed and perturbed disciples ask Him: “Is there a life beyond? is there another side of death?” “Yes,” He says, “through death I go to the Father.” “Is there,” they ask, “for us also a life beyond? shall such creatures as we find sufficient and suitable habitation and welcome when we pass from this warm, well-known world?” “In My Father’s house,” He says, “are many mansions.” Confronted with the problems that most deeply exercise the human spirit, He without faltering pronounces upon them. For every question which our most anxious and trying experiences dictate He has the ready and sufficient answer. “He is the Truth.”
But more than this is contained in His words. He says not merely “I speak the truth,” but “I am the Truth.” In His person and work we find all truth that it is essential to know. He is the true Man, the revelation of perfect manhood, in whom we see what human life truly is. In His own history He shows us our own capacities and our own destiny. An angel or an inanimate law might tell us the truth about human life, but Christ is the Truth. He is man like ourselves. If we are extinguished at death, so is He. If for us there is no future life, neither is there for Him. He is Himself human.
Further and especially, He is the truth about God: “If ye had known Me, ye had known My Father also.” Strenuous efforts are being made in our day to convince us that all our search after God is vain, because by the very nature of the case it is impossible to know God. We are assured that all our imaginations of God are but a reflection of ourselves magnified infinitely; and that what results from all our thinking is not God, but only a magnified man. We form in our thoughts an ideal of human excellence–perfect holiness and perfect love; and we add to this highest moral character we can conceive a supernatural power and wisdom, and this we call God. But this, we are assured, is but to mislead ourselves; for what we thus set before our minds as Divine is not God, but only a higher kind of man. But God is not a higher kind of man: He is a different kind of being–a Being to whom it is absurd to ascribe intelligence, or will, or personality, or anything human.
We have felt the force of what is thus urged; and feeling most deeply that for us the greatest of all questions is, What is God? we have been afraid lest, after all, we have been deluding ourselves with an image of our own creating very different from the reality. We have felt that there is a great truth lying at the heart of what is thus urged, a truth which the Bible makes as much of as philosophy does–the truth that we cannot find out God, cannot comprehend Him. We say certain things about Him, as that He is a Spirit; but which of us knows what a pure spirit is, which of us can conceive in our minds a distinct idea of what we so freely speak of as a spirit? Indeed, it is because it is impossible for us to have any sufficient idea of God as He is in Himself that He has become man and manifested Himself in flesh.
This revelation of God in man implies that there is an affinity and likeness between God and man–that man is made in God’s image. Were it not so, we should see in Christ, not God at all, but only man. If God is manifest in Christ, it is because there is that in God which can find suitable expression in a human life and person. In fact, this revelation takes for granted that in a sense it is quite true that God is a magnified Man–that He is a Being in whom there is much that resembles what is in man. And it stands to reason that this must be so. It is quite true that man can only conceive what is like himself; but that is only half the truth. It is also true that God can only create what is consistent with His own mind. In His creatures we see a reflection of Himself. And as we ascend from the lowest of them to the highest, we see what He considers the highest qualities. Finding in ourselves these highest qualities–qualities which enable us to understand all lower creatures and to use them–we gather that in God Himself there must be something akin to our mind and to our inner man.
Christ, then, is “the Truth,” because He is the Revealer of God. In Him we learn what God is and how to approach Him. But knowledge is not enough. It is conceivable that we should have learned much about God and yet have despaired of ever becoming like Him. It might gradually have become our conviction that we were for ever shut out from all good, although that is incompatible with a true knowledge of God; for if God is known at all, He must be known as Love, as self-communicating. But the possibility of having knowledge which we cannot use is precluded by the fact that He who is the Truth is also the Life. In Him who is the Revealer we at the same time find power to avail ourselves of the revelation. For:
II. “I am the Life.” The declaration need not be restricted to the immediate occasion, Christ imparts to men power to use the knowledge of the Father He gives them. He gives men desire, will, and power to live with God and in God. But is not all life implied in this? This is life as men are destined to know it.
In every man there is a thirst for life. Everything that clogs, impedes, or retards life we hate; sickness, imprisonment, death, whatever diminishes, enfeebles, limits, or destroys life, we abhor. Happiness means abundant life, great vitality finding vent for itself in healthy ways. Great scope or opportunity of living to good purpose is useless to the invalid who has little life in himself; and, on the other hand, abundant vitality is only a pain to the man who is shut up and can spend his energy only in pacing a cell eight feet by four. Our happiness depends upon these two conditions–perfect energy and infinite scope.
But can we assure ourselves of either? Is not the one certainty of life, as we know it, that it must end? Is it not certain that, no matter what energy the most vigorous of us enjoy, we shall all one day “lie in cold obstruction”? Naturally we fear that time, as if all life were then to end for us. We shrink from that apparent termination, as if beyond it there could be but a shadowy, spectral life in which nothing is substantial, nothing lively, nothing delightsome, nothing strong. That state which we shrink from our Lord chooses as a condition of perfect life, abundant and untrammelled. And what He has chosen for Himself He means to bestow upon us.
Why should we find it so hard to believe in that abundant life? There is a sufficient source of physical life which upholds the universe and is not burdened, which in continuance and exuberantly brings forth life in inconceivably various forms. The world around us indicates a source of life which seems always to grow and expand rather than to be exhausted. So there is a source of spiritual life, a force sufficient to uphold all men in righteousness and in eternal vitality of spirit, and which can give birth to ever new and varied forms of heroic, holy, godly living–a force which is ever pressing forward to find expression through all moral beings, and capable of making all human action as perfect, as beautiful, and infinitely more significant than the products of physical life which we see around us. If the flowers profusely scattered by the wayside are marvels of beauty, if the bodily frame of man and of the other animals is continually surprising us with some new revelation of exquisite arrangement of parts, if nature is so lavish and so perfect in physical life, may we not believe that there is as rich a fountain of moral and spiritual life? Nay, “the youths may faint and be weary, and the young men utterly fall,” physical life may fail and in the nature of things must fail, “but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall run and not be weary.”
It is Jesus Christ who brings us into connection with this source of life eternal–He bears it in His own person. In Him we receive a new spirit; in Him our motive to live for righteousness is continually renewed; we are conscious that in Him we touch what is undying and never fails to renew spiritual life in us. Whatever we need to give us true and everlasting life we have in Christ. Whatever we need to enable us to come to the Father, whatever we shall need between this present stage of experience and our final stage, we have in Him.
The more, then, we use Christ, the more life we have. The more we are with Him and the more we partake of His Spirit, the fuller does our own life become. It is not by imitating successful men we become influential for good, but by living with Christ. It is not by adopting the habits and methods of saints we become strong and useful, but by accepting Christ and His Spirit. Nothing can take the place of Christ. Nothing can take His words and say to us, “I am the Life.” If we wish life, if we see that we are doing little good and desire energy to overtake the good that needs to be done, it is to Him we must go. If we feel as if all our efforts were vain, and as if we could not bear up any longer against our circumstances or against our wicked nature we can receive fresh vigour and hopefulness only from Christ. We need not be surprised at our failures if we are not receiving from Christ the life that is in Him. And nothing can give us the life that is in Him but our own personal application to Him, our direct dealing with Himself. Ordinances and sacraments help to bring Him clearly before us, but they are not living and cannot give us life. It is only in so far as through and in them we reach Christ and receive Him that we partake of that highest of all forms of life–the life that is in Him, the living One, by whom all things were made, and who in the very face of death can say, “Because I live ye shall live also.”
III. Being the Revealer of the Father, and giving men power to approach God and live in Him, Jesus legitimately designates Himself “the Way.” Jesus never says “I am the Father”; He does not even say “I am God,” for that might have produced misunderstanding. He uniformly speaks as if there were One on whom He Himself leant, and to whom He prayed, and with whom, as with another person, He had fellowship. “I am the Way,” He says; and a way implies a goal beyond itself, some further object to which it leads and brings us. He is not the Being revealed, but the Revealer; not the terminal object of our worship, but the image of the invisible God, the Priest, the Sacrifice.
Christ announces Himself to Thomas as the Way, in order to remove from the mind of the disciple the uncertainty he felt about the future. He knew there were heights of glory and blessedness to which the Messiah would certainly attain, but which seemed dim and remote and even quite unattainable to sinful men. Jesus defines at once the goal and the way. All our vague yearnings after what will satisfy us He reduces to this simple expression: “the Father.” This, He implies, is the goal and destiny of man; to come to the Father, who embraces in His loving care all our wants, our incapacities, our sorrows; to reach and abide in a love that is strong, wise, educative, imperishable; to reach this love and be so transformed by it as to feel more at home with this perfectly holy God than with any besides. And to bring us to this goal is the function of Christ, the Way. It is His to bring together what is highest and what is lowest. It is His to unite those who are separated by the most real obstacles: to bring us, weak and unstable and full of evil imaginings, into abiding union with the Supreme, glad to be conformed to Him and to accomplish His purposes. In proclaiming Himself “the Way,” Christ pronounces Himself able to effect the most real union between parties and conditions as separate as heaven and earth, sin and holiness, the poor creature I know myself to be and the infinite and eternal God who is so high I cannot know Him.
Further, the way to which we commit ourselves when we seek to come to the Father through Christ is a Person. “I am the Way.” It is not a cold, dead road we have to make the most of for ourselves, pursuing it often in darkness, in weakness, in fear. It is a living way–a way that renews our strength as we walk in it, that enlivens instead of exhausting us, that gives direction and light as we go forward. Often we seem to find our way barred; we do not know how to get farther forward; we wonder if there is no book in which we can find direction; we long for some wise guide who could show us how to proceed. At such times Christ would have us hear Him saying, “I am the Way. If you abide in Me, if you continue in My love, you are in the way and must be carried forward to all good.” Often we seem to lose ourselves and cannot tell whether our faces and our steps are directed aright or not; we become doubtful whether we have been making any progress or have not rather been going back. Often we lose heart and begin to doubt whether it is possible for us men ever to reach any purer, higher life; we are going, we say, we know not whither; this life is full of blunders and failures. Many of the best and most earnest and gifted men have owned their ignorance of the purpose of life and of its end. No voice comes to us out of the unseen world to give us assurance that there is life there. How can lonely, ignorant, irresolute, weak, and helpless creatures such as we are ever attain to anything we can call blessedness? To all such gloom and doubting Christ, with the utmost confidence, says, “I am the Way. Wherever you are, at whatever point of experience, at whatever stage of sin, this way begins where you are, and you have but to take it and it leads to God, to that unknown Highest you yearn for even while you shrink from Him. From your person, as you are at this moment, there leads a way to the Father.”
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Or, “And whither I go ye know the way.”